A.r. says:

January 5, 2012 at 7:57 pm

I’ve long figured there is no one Gundam fandom, just separate fandoms that vary greatly in diversity and dynamic. Separate fandoms that, for the most part, avoid each other like the plague and amongst the UC fandom especially consider the other ones “disgraces” and what not. Granted there is some cross pollination, especially in recent years, but this attitude is still alive and well in UC especially.

I wonder if some of it can be traced to the Toonami days when the Wing fandom was alive and ruling the scene. It was the Hetalia fandom of its day, being both one of the biggest anime fandoms on the scene and one the the biggest gatherings and sources of fangirl insanity. I can see why the UC fans of the day wanted to distance themselves as much as possible from it and probably were resentful of still being associated with it by the word “Gundam”. Unfortunately they’ve still clung to these attitudes of elitism and wariness of anyone with differing opinions even though the Wing fandom is long gone save for a few desperate souls.

I’m in a strange position since I’m a female fan who got in through 08th MS Team at the age of 12. After ten years I’ve seen more elitism and backhanded shaming directed at me than I can shake a stick at. Even though I’ve always been into UC and especially in the beginning had a very vocal dislike of Wing, I still feel like the fandom gurus just kind of (barely) tolerated me but didn’t ever think of me as a “real” fan, at least not one who deserves to be on their level. True, I’ve said and done plenty of dumb shit, but so do most awkward teenagers. I don’t know if some silly, fangirly post I made when I was 14 can be held to the same accountability as something written by a 20-something year-old.

My silliness aside, it seems like a good chunk of the crap isn’t because I’m legitimately acting stupid, but because my tastes in characters have always been at odds with the fandom majority. Gundam fandom elitism doesn’t just come in the form of series elitism, but character choices as well IMHO. Well-liked characters are perfectly okay to heap with praise and even whitewash (see Char Aznable), but heaven forbid someone try to give say, Quess Paraya the time of day other than to bash her into the ground (I’ve gotten people telling me to kill myself for saying I liked her). My favorite of all is Ghinius Sakhalin, and it seems like if you try to argue him as anything other than a 1-dimensional monster, you’re a dumb fangirl over-analyzing things. Of course it’s okay to have 10-page threads over-analyzing mech specifics or a popular character like Ranba Ral or Anavel Gato, but Ghinius apparently isn’t allowed anywhere near the same consideration. No one important likes him, and clearly the fandom majority is what’s right and anyone who says differently is automatically full of shit and not worth listening to.

I don’t ask people agree with my views, I just wish I wasn’t treated like some silly fantard whose views have no basis in canon and are thus unworthy. But it seems like the only way I’ll get that respect from people is if I denounce my opinions and change my feelings about my favorite characters, force myself to like characters I don’t (Char Aznable and Shiro Amada come to mind), and parrot every opinion of the majority and be a good little hive mind. And even then, since I’m female, prefer characters to mechs, and like some slash and fanfiction I doubt I’d still be treated as a “real” UC fan (unless I denounce all those things as well). It seems like the only way to win is to give up every ounce of individuality I have, and I’d rather not do that.

Other fandoms seem to welcome differing views/analysis (parts of the Utena fandom come to mind) since it can make for some great, intelligent discussion. But if you try it in the UC fandom, you’re looked down upon and invalidated. As much as this fandom has become a part of my identity, I don’t know if it’s really worth it to do anything other than stay in my corner, post my writings/fanfiction/essays/rants/etc to my personal journals and be ignored by most of the other fans and generally feel lonely as hell. I mean I guess I can’t blame them for not liking characters like Ghinius or Quess since they’re very much acquired tastes, but it still gets lonely and frustrating knowing that if I try to take my views about them to major fan forums I risk getting met with people trying their hardest to belittle and invalidate me while still coming across as “intelligent” and “right”.

Holy giant rants Batman, the fuck I just type?

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Ack (@we_rob_ot_down) says:

December 25, 2011 at 2:03 am (Edit)

I actually preferred the Minmay of the TV series because I found her narrative to be more compelling. She acts without any consideration for others and lets herself be totally manipulated which yeah is pretty deplorable, but at the end of the TV series the melancholy and depression that hits Minmay when she starts to realize what she has done and where her life is headed is absolutely delicious. It just perfectly captures that most miserable feeling of losing everything you care about and not even being able to be angry because you know that it is your own fault.

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andrewgraruru says:

December 24, 2011 at 4:46 pm

[…] At this point I’ve praised this scene on two podcasts and on your blog, and I still think its deserving of that praise. I like the way, through conversations like this, Unicorn is building a much fuller picture of UC’s political climate, going right back to the space settlement program. Spacenoids grievances have been expounded upon through Full Frontal attempting to excuse his mens actions, and from Marida we get a more civilian spacenoid view on why they agitate against the earth Government. The Diner conversation sticks out to me because not only is it the rare occurrence of an earthnoid who says more than a sentence (and that sentence isn’t “Ahhh! a colony is dropping on me!”), but also because it gives us an optimistic viewpoint of space-colonisation. All of this affects the conflict we see in 0096

None of this feels like dry exposition or monotone babbling. Instead it gives the impression of a lived-in universe, and puts all of UC’s conflicts into perspective. And also in this scene we Audrey develop more in four minutes than Banagher has in four episodes; she accepts her position and is ready to go forward. I wish all the characters in this show were as well written as she is.

With two more episodes left (and maybe a movie?) and three more books to cover, I doubt they’ll have time for many more scenes like this. But I expect the conclusion of this series and the opening of Laplaces box will feel all the more effective as the culmination of these quiet moments and political instabilities.

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Andrew_Graruru says:

November 23, 2011 at 4:19 pm

It’s hard to really root for Zeon in Gundam, and whatever Harutoshi Fukui’s political leanings may be, I don’t think that’s what Unicorn attempts to do. Despite how humanistic the Zeon characters are in this show (especially compared to the cold, inefficient Feddies) and the damming account of Feddie occupation, Zeons atrocity during war-time still casts a massive shadow over the episode, both in the colony-drop and by showing the Shamblo decimate that random Australian suburb.

As you point out, this more human portrayal serves simply to give a richer, more fully realised lore. It is clear in Unicorn that spacenoids are, to an extent, disenfranchised. They lack the right to vote, they were occupied and pillaged by the Federation (which recalls Mineva’s comment about Spacenoids being used to violence against them). I’ve even heard that in the novels it is explicitly mentioned that the spacenoids are classed as abandoned refugees by the Government, which is why they lack certain fundamental rights. This doesn’t justify the gassing, the colony-drop ect, but it does make it more believable that so many spacenoids would be attracted to such an extremist organisation as Zeon. I hear a lot of complaints about this series being “Zeon fanwank” or whatever, but I actually think it does a good job of making the ideologies of UC as a whole much more fleshed out and believable.

And any time it gets a little too “Hail Nippon!” or “those evil FEDDIE Amurrikans!”, Banagher is there to give Zeonic ideology a good hard kick in the balls.

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Dearline says:

November 11, 2011 at 9:59 pm

I think they made Movie Sheryl flawed in her tool against the Vajra and spy dilemma, dealing with real consequences and some bittersweet karma outcome. This is how they should have gone with TV series Ranka. None of that magic-godly whitewashing bullshit. Sheryl, Alto, SMS, all of they should have stuck with Ranka, but I would like her more aware of her actions too.

Movie Sheryl is an actual spy from Macross Galaxy, a place she seems to love enough to pay for its rescue with her credits in the film. She’s aware of her disease (whether if they infect her with it or she was already infected, it’s not explicitly said. Since it seems to ruin their plans, perhaps its the latter) and she signed up in her role as Fairy until they find Ranka. We don’t really know how much she knew about the Galaxy take over (probably nothing of this), but she seemed seeking Ranka out of the memory of her grandmother’s research and beliefs.

And she also feels a strong love and loyalty for Grace, similar to how Ranka feels towards Ozma (Aya Endo empathized this love she feels like a child to a mother).

However, she also knew that the Vajra would attack Frontier sooner or later (Brera apologized because they attacked sooner than they thought). Was she trying to stop this or to use the Vajra to draw Ranka out? We don’t know (like Universal Bunny, Sheryl’s very controversial in the movie). Probably the former. She also feels this crippling loneliness. Maybe because he alone isn’t implanted and, while she might care for Grace and Brera, they are controlled. It must have been terrible for her watch them all this time.

Even though she’s dying and the only hope to save her is harvesting the life of her rival in song and love (remove an obstacle), she feels nothing but relief when she’s arrested. She accepts all the charges, the false and the truthful ones. She wants to pay for them. I really like this. Then her high point is to show that, even if she had a turmoil earlier and she has only spent three or four months in Frontier, she betrays the only people who could save her to keep Ranka safe. Then she is willing to die for Ranka’s sake.

I really like her character progression and I would have like to watch more her thought processes. She is more like the Mad Scientist’s Beautiful Daughter type. We know she means well in her feelings and thoughts (Ranka and Alto felt them), but she’s caught in bad circumstances.

In regards of the triangle, it was less, IMO, who Alto loved. It was very obvious to me Alto was drawn romantically to Sheryl through the movies. The scenes with them are charged and contrasting. But he couldn’t trust her, he trusted Ranka, his best friend, but he didn’t love her. In the end, he was able to trust Sheryl and unable to change his feelings for Ranka.

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Chan says:

November 1, 2011 at 2:25 am (Edit)

I really liked this movie for basically effectively pulling off the What if scenario that I’ve always seen brought up by Ranka fans in the forums, especially after the head script writer outright said that it was Sheryl who won in the tv series.(he had more power than Kawamori in the tv series–the novels also refer to her as the woman that Alto loves), and he only took it out because he felt that there were too much problems with Alto’s character to let him choose. This movie was basically answered for us, what if the roles were reversed, what if it was Sheryl who was the traitor, and Ranka was responsible, independent, more mature, more considerate, didn’t make her life revolve around a person she just met and barely knew, knew Alto longer, and spent more time with him; would Alto love Ranka then, would Sheryl make the same mistakes that Ranka did? This movie answered those questions with a resounding no.

Sheryl didn’t make the same choices as Ranka, she didn’t keep vital information to herself,

This is why this movie worked it was a role reversal what if scenarios and altered the characters accordingly so that they could make it work.

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Reid says:

October 31, 2011 at 1:52 am

Things I liked about Gundam Age episode 4:
Likes
1. Really should be LOVES LOVES LOVES, because it thrills me to no end to know that Woolf (Wulf?) is first and foremost a GP race driver and then a combat pilot. I’ve often wanted to see/read/hear about Mobile Suits’ uses outside of the usual combat-and-construction roles we so often (exclusively) get shown in most Gundam media. As a big-time motorsports enthusiast, I’d be keen to see somebody take this idea and run with it. Maybe a manga about junior mobile suit racing having to struggle during wartime (like how the real Grand Prix did during the years leading up to and following World War II).
2. The Genoace Custom is intensity in ten cities. I really like how, as Matt said, it seems to be a call-back to the original concept of Tomino’s Gundam: stark white. Besides, the model kits, being all white, will be easy to customize…bring on the Char colors!
3. Flit’s response to Woolf’s challenge. “THE GUNDAM IS NOT A TOY!” Kinda reminds me of a certain other famous Gundam pilot’s admonition of “THE NU GUNDAM IS NOT JUST FOR SHOW!”, while simultaneously (and ironically) hanging a lampshade on the fact that, well, actually, yes this Gundam is the most toy-like in many many a year.
4. I liked it how Woolf and Flit worked together to beat back the UE at the end of the episode. Though Flit looked like he was going to get the “win” by showing up with the DODS rifle, it was Woolf who recorded the “save” by using it to blow up the asteroid, covering our heroes’ escape back to the Diva. Then, in the mess, their back-and-forth banter difinitely makes me think that Woolf’s already gone from a too-cocky blowhard (stereotype) to a more nuanced representation of the more experienced pilot. Sure, he’ll rag on Flit for the rest of the series, but they’re buds now for sure. After all, Woolf did say, as he fled from the attacking Gafrans and had his Tallgee…GENOACE’s lower leg get shot off, “Maybe I overdid the cool-guy act.”

My favorite dude in this show is still Largan though. Red-heads deserve more respect (and airtime).

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SignOfZeta says:

October 22, 2011 at 7:34 pm (Edit)

For people that hate Macross 7 (I was certainly one of them when it came out) this show is the answer to the question they were afraid to ask. How do you make a sequel to Macross?

The show is about a military conflict that was, like all wars, stupid. They fix is by establishing communications with the enemy. Once they realize they are all the same species, its easy to resolve the conflict.

How do you make a sequel to this? New aliens that will senselessly attack the Earth only to also be defeated by singing? Did we all (that is the viewer, and the fictional characters) learn nothing from this story!?

I really don’t think Dynamite is a side story, or a meaningly diversion at all. I think its the ultimate conclusion of the original Macross ideal. The people wanted peace, and they got it. They didn’t get it by building the biggest hyper mega launcher, they got it through cultural understanding. Basara understands this is and is FULLY committed to, and comfortable with, his pacifism. Instead of Amuro or Camile whining about killing people bothers them, Basara simply refuses to do it, and he’s obviously way more comfortable with that. He may be a big doofus, but at least he’s not constantly angst-ing all over the damned place like so many other mecha pilots. (His polar opposite might be Hero Yui, who is perfectly comfortable mowing down thousands of people with zero regret).

Also, space whales are totally rad, the near-rape scene was %100 un-appreciated by me, and the giant Zentran diver suit was really cool.

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squaresphere says:

October 21, 2011 at 2:43 pm (Edit)

The whole concept of the “in the belly of the whale” as a jumping off point for character narratives is pretty interesting. Breaking it down, it’s basically the , “I know I’m gonna die, but god help me, if i make it through it, things will be different.” It could also be seen as the characters are now isolated and whatever “petty” outside story lines that were messing with them are now gone finally allowing their introspection to change their character and be shown as growth.

Just thinking about MF there were a couple scenes like this. The obvious one are the ones featuring escape pods/shelters. There are interesting in that unlike most “in the belly” there a lot of other people in the same area but for all intents and purposes our heroes/heroines are alone with their thoughts or the scene shares them with a select few. My favorite one is when Sheryl decides to finally sing her song for those in despair.

But the two others that jumped out at me that I hadn’t notice before actually feature Alto. The first one being when he goes all GAR and actually “enters the belly of the beast” to save Luca. This was when we see Alto’s first change as a professional solider albeit still a bit headstrong. He comes out of it with a bit more confidence in his newly chosen profession. Later, the next Belly scene is Michel’s death. All the little side stories fall to the way side when he and Michel talk about love while blasting the corridors of death. When he dies, everything drops away leaving only Klan and Alto screaming at the darkness. This right here is where we see Alto make up his mind to defend the colony no matter what and by extension want to put “roots” down.

But back to M7 and space whales, Angel Voice is a great song but my favorite version of it is the Basara+Minmay duet version along with the extend karaoke guitar solo that positively SINGS TO MY SOUL. And that’s how I saw Basara play it. He was singing to his soul making the mountains move with his voice. I suppose it could be said that the Space Whale is really just a “dark moment” narrative that either gives an opportunity for the despair to consume them or for them to spark a light in the soul that fights the darkness and lets them shine.

Lucky for us Marcoss is a mix of both. At the best of times, lets us see our heroes hit the lowest of lows but come shining back with the force of a thousand Itano circuses and Macross class speaker pods set to 11.

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1. Matt Wells says:

   October 17, 2011 at 3:46 pm (Edit)

   Back from Edinburgh, and I had fun. Before they screened the Pailsen Files, movie, Takahashi himself came up on stage to give us an introduction. Also with him was a Sunrise producer who’s name sadly escapes me, though he mentioned working with Takahashi on both the OVA release and movie cut of PF. Takahashi was very nice in person, a bit like that kindly old pensioner everyone has on their street. He made a point of mentioning that he often recieves invitations to foreign screenings, but due to small audiences he usually turns them down. He showed up for THIS one however because he loves golf, and he couldn’t resist the oppertunity to play the green on Saint Andrews!

   Interviewer and giant of the Anime translation business Jonathan Clements joked that he tried to get into the spirit of things by wearing his Scottish University tie. He was therefore a bit put out when it turned out every single item Takahashi wore was made of Scottish Tartan or wool… purchased in Tokyo. He then gave a brief potted summary of VOTOMS: real robots, story of a war weary soldier becoming human again etc. By the sound of the audience I was one of only five people who had even seen VOTOMS before this screening, the others were mostly Japanese students and Sottish weeaboos who came ’cause it was anime. Takahashi drily apologised that we might not like his film due to the complete absence of cute schoolgirls, at which the older proportion of the audience actually cheered. He finished off by showing us his backswing and yelling “FOUR!”. We were informed that we were the first to be shown the film in Europe, and the second outside of Japan (apparently Takahashi showed it in Singapore).

   The film itself was a basic compilation movie. No new animation as far as I could tell except for an AWESOME pre-credits sequence with Pailsen reviewing his Red Shoulder battalion before the Melkian military police come to arrest him. You can see it on Youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny0Z0timcAQ&feature=related They condensed most of the story from the 12 episode series into a scant two hours, hough they left behind a lot of basic character development and a few action sequences. All the stuff with the battle of wits between Pailsen and Wockam was retained, though as I’ve yet to see any of the prequel OVAs of the TV series, a lot of continuity references went over my head. There was some cool stuff with Wiseman in the last half hour that completely went over the heads of the casual audience, but they also confirmed a few details of Chirico’s backstory and showed that one of the main character’s was a prototype for the Perfect Soldier program. A few unexplained plot holes but it still gave the franchise some more depth.

   The movie was good but stick with the full series for the best experience. The subtitles we had were customed made for our screening, and thus were a little stiff in places. Stuff like “Oh No! Seems we I have accidentaly snapped neck his!” had the audeince on the floor laughing. After that there was a short break where the theater showed us the video trailers for the three most recent VOTOMS OVAs: Finder, Case: Irvine and Alone Again, the latter of which was the only one Takahashi had a hand in. An unexpected treat, though they didn’t mention anything about Phantom Arc. We had a very brief Q and A after that where he talked a bit about the background to VOTOMS. He said Sunrise put him in charge of the project after the enormous success of Dougram, giving the public the original, non-manga based robot shows they were clamouring for. He says their designs were very consciously different to Gundam and Dougram; scaled them back from 18 metres to 4, and emphasised their mobility and speed to make the action scenes more dynamic.

   Making them smaller made it easier to integrate battles into the foreground, and the enhanced manuverability made the action sequences much more varied. Not like Mobile Suit battles with robots standing in place and taking pot shots at each other. The rollerskate treads were part of this, not just there to reduce the cost of animating them walking as Clements asked, though that certainly helped. He repeated the old story about a female crew member of the animators being a slalom fan, using her idea of having scopedogs strafe across battlefields. Takahashi said his original idea for VOTOMS combat was the robots dashing only in straight lines on their skates for about 40 metres, then stopping. He mentioned the influence of other sci-fi works on VOTOMS, particuarly Blade Runnder on Uuodo and 2001′s HAL 9000 on Wiseman.

   Clements then said Takakhashi is widely known as the father of real robot anime (the bearded guy in a Zaku II shirt behind me muttered that it was actually Tomino who invented real robot anime, but I saw the point he meant. Takahashi was the first to cut out all Super Robot stuff in Dougram). Takahashi then described what real robots were for all the newbies in the audience who wouldn’t know a Mazinger from a Marasai. He also noted that Pailsen Files was his first attempt at mixing cel animation with CG robots, and he rather thought the results stood up well. He said the realtive cheapness and speed of using CG allowed them to show far greater numbers of robots in the battle scenes, like the Saving Private Ryan and The Longest Day influenced beach head landing at the start of the film. Using cel animation for these scenes would have been prohibitively expensive, hence why the franchise has used CG scopedogs ever since.

   When asked to comment on the large number of Korean in betweeners, he noted that nowadays budgets are so small that outsourcing to South Korea and the Phillipines is often the only way to get the work done. About 3000 people maketheir living in Japan as nimators by his estimate, compered to the 12000+ of the 1980′s. Clements asked him how much was the character of Pailsen based on General Douglas Macarthur, to which Takhashi chuckled “About 80% Macarthur!”. He added that his younger production staff saw him more as a German, what with the Nazi regelia and genetic engineering. Clements then began fielding questions at the producer who’s name I sadly can’t remember, who praised Takhashi’s working manner. Unlike a lot of authoritarian directors, Takahashi apparently welcomes input and ideas from even the lower ranking crew members. When asked if he saw the original series, he said he was three at the time the original aired on TV, so he went into Pailsen Files without waching it with the goal of making it accessible to first time viewers.

   With that our brief Q and A ended, with the promise that we would actually get to field our own questions in the free session on Sunday. I’ll post his responses to those in a minute. One final note: during the screening Takhashi and his translation team actually sat a few seats away from me, but I bitched out of saying anything to him. For his part all he did was cough a few times, and wince at the occasional bit of ropey animation. Seemed to be a lovely guy for all the brief time he was on stage.

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1. Matt Wells says:

   October 18, 2011 at 11:09 pm (Edit)

   Sorry for the delay, here’s the rest. The morning after the screening of Pailsen Files, there was an hour long Q and A with Takahashi on his entire career, with some questions open to the audience. Though a free event, it was ticket only attendance, so I almost missed out on it due to my stupidity with event booking. Getting up at 7′o clock payed off when I was granted a ticket 30 minutes before the interview commenced; I almost squealed out of joy. The audience was a bit less varied than the screening of the film; the occasional obvious Mecha nerd (like the fat guy in the Zaku II shirt), Japanese students, and hardcore anime fans who actually knew what the fuck Mushi Productions was, and why it was cool to hear about them.

   A fantastic experience, let down only by the fact that half of our once-in-a-lifetime interview was taken up by a screening of the first episode of Flag. FLAG. Nothing against Flag, its an excellent series. BUT. But we can watch it anytime we want, its one of the few Takahashi series that have been fully subbed and widely distributed in the English fan community. We could watch it anytime we liked, we could hardly have a convivial chat with the Defining Director of Real Robot Anime as the mood struck us. Bleh.

   Anyway, Flag went down far smoother than VOTOMS did, and gave the audience more inclined to artsy stuff a good introduction to Takahashi’s oevure, or at least better than a sequel to a 30 year old TV series. Right after that, they screened a few TV promos for Takahashi’s recent-ish 26 episode TV show, the nigh unpronounceable Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto bleh. A name so difficult, even Jonathan Clements just gave up trying to enunciate it. A round of polite applause followed this, and the formal interview began. We were warned that though the candid interview allowed any questions to be answered, legal restrictions meant that we couldn’t record or film it in any way. Note taking was fine though! Please bear in mind I’m going on my own recollections, notes, and what Takhashi’s lovely translator told us he said. Responses may not be wholly accurate, or sensibly phrased.

   Questions for 20 minutes were fired off by Clements, the resident anime industry insider and genral expert, fro his own compiled list. A streak of snark a mile wide in his interview style too!

   What was the sum total of his involvement in Flag? – Flag was a show he shopped around for ten years, trying to convince Sunrise top brass to fund. The question was asked due to the story credited to himself and “Team Flag”. Takahashi told us Team Flag was a placename for the myriad legions of people who supported him during this time. The narrative structure and emphasised style of photography was always intended from the begining. Not that he said this, but this confirmed that my own observation that both Gasaraki and Flag were works he’d been trying to make for years, and were only okayed to tie in with current trends. With Gasaraki it was post-Eva robot anime, with Flag it was the recent spate of Docudrama style “shakycam” pictures, like Cloverfield.

   What was his first ever exposure to TV animation? – As a post-war child, did the style of Kamibaishi performers ultimately influence his directorial style? (think a mixture betwen narrated manga, paper latern shows, and travelling circuses. Google it!) – From what he remembered, animation was always on Japanese television from the 50′s onwards, though they were dubbed American imports like Disney or Hannah Barbera Tom and Jerry cartoons. His first real exposure to Japanese animation came with a series of yearly animated specials by Toei circa 1958. He rembered watching Kamibaishi shows with the other village children, the distance of two metres between the performer and the audience lead him to ultimately strive for immediacy in his work, drawing his audience into the screen with the characters.

   When exactly did he decide to go into animation? – He said with a huge grin the exact date he decided: Autumn 1963. This got a tremendous response from the audience; as Mr. Clements helpfully reminded us, this was the broadcast date for the original black and white series of Tetsuwan Atom, known in the US as Astro Boy. If you know your history, then you know Tezuka’s cheap little commercial to his own manga revolutionised the Japanese model of TV animation, setting the ground for cost-cutting measures, tie-in promotion, rushed production schedules and underpaid animators that we know and love today! In the wake of Atom there was a huge boom in applicants to the feldgling industry, and Takahashi was but one of many hungry yougsters wanting in on that sweet animation money.

   After learning the basics of the biz, he applied to join Tezuka’s production company, Mushi Pro, in the Winter of 1964 (might have the date wrong). There were two parts to the application, a drawing test and a spoken interview. He passed the drawing test well enough, they just asked him to make dozens of identical copies of the same drawing. It was the interview he failed, at least to become an animator. When they asked him on whether he would mind drawing hundreds and hundreds of idetical drawings every week, he said of course he did! That was the impetus for him to become a director, because he said that way he wouldn’t have to draw so much!

   And what was it like working with the God of Manga himself, Osamu Tezuka? – Takahashi gave this one some brief thought, before responding, “You know… he was a wonderful guy… 99% of the time!” He described him as a truly lovely guy, always encouraging the staff to come up with creative, new ideas and concepts. Whenever they presented them, regular as clockwork, he would say: “What is this?! GO BACK AND START AGAIN TILL YOU GET IT RIGHT!”,which was met with more uproarious laughter by the audience. As far as creative input went, he was very accomadating and open to suggestions. In those days the industry was just like a sweatshop, always working non-stop to get that week’s episode done.

   They had no time to go home, so they were allowed to keep footrests underneath their desks. People fell asleep at their desks whenever time permitted. He recalls being nudged awake on occasion, and turning around to see Tezuka staring at him (he sat right next to Tezuka). Not that he meant Mr. Tezuka fancied him or anything he was quick to point out! (I think that’s what his anecdote was. He may have said that he saw Tezuka asleep at the desk, and he stared at him) He was a man who always gave it his all, constantly producing concepts and drawings non-stop. Possessed of a tremendous energy. He said he’s yet to encounter a man who knew Tezuka that didn’t like him in some way. Very personable fellow (and the pupil takes after the master in that regard).

   His first ever experience as a director? – He said it was on a Mushi show called… Wonder Seven I think? The earliest thing he worked on according to ANN was a called Ora Guzura Dado, but this came first. He MIGHT have meant the series W3, the one about three space cops who take on the forms of a bunny, horse and duck, but don’t quote me on that. He said Wonder Seven, so that’s what I’m sticking to. He explained about the two tiers of directors, episode directors and chief directors, on Wonder Seven he ended up directing ten of it’s 52 episodes. One Hundred and Twenty people worked on that programme in total, himself included. Production on a single episode from idea to broadcast was roughly three months, and the schedules for episodes were always overlapping. One day they might film the climax of episode 34, the other they would finish character designs for episode 12. His first show as a chief director was at Sunrise in 1973.

   So in between the well publicised collapse of Mushi Pro and his joining Sunrise, what did he do? – All sorts of odd jobs on anime here and there. Script writing, story concepts and episode direction for Tatsunoko and Toei, amongst others. He had a long spell in Europe where he was involved with Underground Japanese Theatre, if you can imagine such a thing. That came about from an old friend who worked at Mushi Pro, I think his name was Juro Kara (sorry if I’ve gotten this wrong too). He was a scenario writer on Wonder Seven who in time went on to become one of the top three giants in the field of cult, ground breaking Japanese Theatre. He was unique at Mushi for his absolute refusal to check or rewrite his scripts. Tezuka would keep politely requesting he spellcheck his scripts, and Juro would just glare at him and refuse point blank. It got so intense that Tezuka was scared of the man, so Takahashi was the one who ended up correcting his scripts!

   Takhashi was just an audience member at first, watching his friends’ work and getting caught up in the world. As he got to know the cast members and playwrights, Kara encouraged him to produce content for the field. His involvement in the troop was sparked by a certain story of Kara’s. His troupe was on tour in Europe in a raunchy cabaret company, along with his wife and several various good looking young chorus dancers. Part of the show involved them being slathered in gold paint, so when it ended the entire group would jump into a huge bath tub and begin scrubbing the paint off of each other. Upon hearing this Takahashi commented he was struck with a sudden urge to become a dancer and actor! He evetually pulled out of theatre to return to animation, but he mused on how different his life would have been had he decided to commit to acting. His expereince with Japanese theatre later served as inspiration for Gasaraki.

   How did he specfically end up at Sunrise – A lot of Sunrise’s high ranking personel had been his colleagues and senpais at Mushi Pro, and they offered him a job liking his work. Their first show was a respectable hit, Sazedon (again, I might be wrong), which was the adventures of a talking fish. The director on that was someone very famous in the industry (he named no names), but he eventually left Sunrise due to creative disagreements about his methods. Their second show, a science fiction piece called Zero Tester, had been in planning before their debut, and they gave the director’s chair to Takahashi. He sadly didn’t elaborate further on his first experience as a director.

   Given Sunrise’s very market savvy approach, what was the difference between working for them and Mushi Pro? – Takhashi admitted that Sunrise was a far better run comapny than Mushi. With Tezuka, he was concerned with creativity first, profits second. It was this approach that ended up bankrupting his company. Sunrise on the other hand, was very sensible about it’s fiscal policies. They made animation to make money, and creativity sometimes took a backseat to that. He defended the reputation of both companies, noting that Sunrise’s heavy use of tie-in merchandising was a policy invented by Mushi itself, they just geared their shows towards it more. He also commented that Tezuka, while wonderfully creative, could be intimidating in his sheer artistic purity, often to the detriment of his company. His own affinity with Robot anime came about when the market for Robot toys exploded with Mazinger Z, Sunrise exploited this trend for all it was worth. Hence their enduring legacy by playing to the market. He was very careful not to criticise the current Sunrise administration, given that one of their producers was sharing the interview with him, the same as Saturday.

   Given the pedigree of the young creators at Sunrise and Mushi, did these future giants of the industry go around trying to intimidate each other? Were he and Tomino rivals like the Western fandom imagines? (Not sure where Clements got this idea from. Tomino and Takahashi are oranges and apples, they’re hardly competing with the other to make a “realer” robot show) – Takhashi grinned broadly at this, saying those young guys are now old contemporaries who know each other very well. He gets on fairly cordially with Tomino actually, they play Golf together sometimes, but that’s as far as their “rivalry” goes. He said with great humility that Tomino is a Shining Star of animation, he sees himself like a little street lamp. Baaaawww! You would not believe how sweet this man was in person.

   Could he describe the exact influence of Japanese theatre on Gasaraki – Oh boy, this one went weird fast. Clements referenced how Takahashi’s experience informed much of Gasraki, which he also said was much better recieved in the UK than the USA! IDidNotKnowThat.jpg. Takhashi launched into a lengthy explaination that left out the influence on the ending itself, about how the entire plot has been one of misdirection and deception, just like actual Japanese theater (Which reminds me: I really need to watch Gasaraki). What he ACTUALLY told us was explaining that in robot anime, one of the biggest problems he finds that plagues a director is coming up with an explination for what powers these colossal robots. Early on they just made up terms and concepts, like Getter Rays, Photonic Energy and Choudenji Power, but as time went by series became more sophisticated, and these explainations seemed silly. Hence the need to come up with more… UNIQUE forms of energy to drive mecha.

   Takahashi said that even as a native Japanses person, he finds Noh theatre to be a truly BIZARRE art form. The traditional Noh saying of “30 years in three steps” fascinated him; the idea that slow, controlled motions represents the passage of an enorous period of time. In those three steps, the human heart beats roughly 200 times, enormous potential, power and emotion focussed into a few simple movements, and all of it concentrated and repeated ad infinitum in a tiny circle on stage. The idea of concentrating energy in this singularly unusal fashion was a major influence upon Gasaraki. With this mind blowing explaination the audience members sort of had a dazed look in their eyes, and I was one of them. No wonder it took him a decade to sell the show on Sunrise, huh? With that the floor was opened up to the audience for a glorious, if brief, 15 minutes. For the ease of reading, I’ll post them seperately.

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1. Matt Wells says:

   October 18, 2011 at 11:55 pm (Edit)

   Jesus, sorry about the wall of text up there. Here are the handful of questions submitted by the audience to Takahashi. There would have been twice as many if they skipped on showing us an entire episode of Gasaraki, but beggars can’t be choosers. First to get their hands up was yours truly, postulating the very question Ghost himself asked.

   1. If you had the oppertunity to direct a robot series without concessions like a budget, advertising and sponsor deals, what would it be about (format, length, subject etc.)? – Takahashi said in a rather apologetic tone that he actually doesn’t even LIKE robot anime that much! He only really became so famous for making mecha anime because it was a genre he felt comfortable in, and the support for tie-in merchandising allowed him to explore the kind of stories he actually wanted to tell. Animation budgets aren’t that big a deal as they used to be, so he reckoned that he could complete a show on a failrly modest budget. He’d personally like to tell a story indulging whatever subject he wanted, though he didn’t have any ideas currently. He said he’d like it best tot tell this story over the course of a year, so it would be a 52 episode series at least.

   2. (As posited by blogging contemporary and Tetsujin 28 fan, Andrew Graruru) Given the enduring popularity of VOTOMS in Japan and its myriad sequels, would he consider ever revisiting some of his older shows, making sequels to SPT Layzner or Fang of the Sun Dougram? – Takahashi personally prefers making brand new properties and series to revisiting old ones. In the case of VOTOMS and Galient, he made sequels due to both enormous fan demand for them, and for what he personally felt was room for expanding or improving upon the original story. If he thinks a sequel is necessary, he said he’ll do it.

   3. Does he think that recent tends indicate that hand drawn animation in Japan will be inevitably replaced by CG animation, given his own reliance upon it in VOTOMS and Flag? – Takahashi said that the Japanese animation industry still treats CG as a shortcut above all else, not the next big thing. He thinks old style animation is too heavily ingrained upon the industry for it to ever completely die out in favour of CG animation. Bit of an old timer’s answer, but what do you expect?

   4. What is the greatest difference between making a mecha show today compared to how it was in the 1980′s? – Back then it was all a matter of making the robots as unique as possible compared to theri contemporaries. The better you could make the robots, the better it would reflect on toy sales and serve to move your story forward. Today, he said robot anime has very few original concepts, characters or designs. 90% of everything is either a rehash, remake or sequel to something that already exists. He believes that if a director can come up with a truly fresh concept for his show, the Japanese public would immediately make it a hit, as they did with Gundam and VOTOMS.

   5. (Last Question) About his brief time as an episode director for the Mushi version of The Moomins… – His reply was along the lines of “I WAS HUNGRY AND I NEEDED THE MONEY!!!” No, seriously. When the laughs subsided, he said he would love to see a moomin style race of creatures in Japanese culture. Alternating between his house in Tokyo and his place in the countryside, he often imagines little moomin like beings running around the mountains (sounded very Miyazaki here!). He joked that an old man like himself is much more suited to tell a story about such magical folk rather than a younger director!

   With that our time was regretfully up. Takahashi and his associate politely expressed their thanks for their kind reception at the festival. Many rounds of applause for the Edinburgh Filmhouse for forking out the cash to bring him there, and for his excellent translator who was able to convey all his responses to us. I heartily apologise for being unable to remember her name. I’m glad Takahashi was able to get a few hours playing St. Andrews, if nothing else from the trip, and he thanked us all for the warm reception. One of those once in a lifetime oppertunities as an anime fan, I’m glad I even got to experience it. The only shame was that I didn’t bring anything for him to sign, and that we didn’t get to pick his brains any longer. Takahashi truly is one of the nicest guys in Japanese animation, and I’m glad I was able to confirm that in person. Here’s hoping Scotland Loves Anime is even bigger and better next year, and that they forward their prints to a Newcastle cinema like they will this month!

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