Yoshiyuki Tomino's Action Direction--The Balance of Simplicity and Complexity in "OVERMAN King Gainer" [Nostalgic Anime Retrospective No. 92

Director Yoshiyuki Tomino's latest work, the final two films of the theatrical version of " G no Reconguista ", " IV: The Love That Cries Out in Fierce Battle " and " V: Beyond the Line of Death", will be released in consecutive theaters. The work of this director Tomino 20 years ago was " OVERMAN King Gainer " (2002). Although it is a 26-episode TV series, I would like to focus on the first episode, "Gain and Gainer," to examine the direction of the robot action. The storyboard is, of course, by director Tomino himself (under the name of Minoru Axutani).

The first episode is based on a major situation called "Exodus," in which a huge city called Domeopolis, where people live, is entirely moved. The main character Gaynor is a timid boy who loves video games, but for some reason he is suspected of being involved in the Exodus and imprisoned by the Trans-Siberian Railway Guard (commonly known as the Siberian Railway). The small action begins to move when Gaynor meets Gain, a mysterious man who is an Exodus contractor.
What complicates the story is not only the simple scheme of Gaynor and Gaynor escaping from the Siberian Railway, but also the rivalry between the Siberian Railway, which wants to prevent the Exodus, and the Gauri Corps, the Dome Police vigilante group (unrelated to Gaynor). The only thing that makes sense in this chaotic situation is the traditional robot anime structure of "the hero robot fights against the enemy robot's attack and defeats it after a hard struggle.

The camera repeats PAN three times before Gaynor gets into King Gaynor

After escaping from the Sibe Iron prison, Gaynor sneaks into a nobleman's Western-style mansion under the guidance of Gain. Inside the mansion, housed as a work of art, is the titular robot (classified as an overman), King Gaynor. Remember that at the beginning of this scene, in addition to King Gaynor, a green robot (Overman) is also on display.

Gain's guidance leads him to approach King Gaynor, and Gaynor gets into King Gaynor as he is about to become. What is noteworthy here is the camera work.

(1) Gain is fiddling with the pedestal on which King Gaynor is sitting. When Gaynor, standing beside him, looks up and says, "I've never seen this before," the camera follows his gaze and PAN-UP to capture King Gaynor's shins, chest, and head in a haori.

(2) Gaynor jumps onto the pedestal and looks up at King Gaynor from between his legs. The camera pans up to follow his gaze and takes an azure shot of King Gaynor's head from directly in front of him. Gaynor fiddles with a switch on King Gaynor's flank, and the cockpit cover on his chest opens wide.

(3) In a composition similar to (1), this time PAN-DOWN to capture Gaynor standing in front of the exposed cockpit and Gainer trying to get close to King Gaynor.

（By repeating the PAN-UP twice in (1) and (2), the small size of the gainer is contrasted with the size of the king gainer. （In (3), the PAN-DOWN is repeated, but the composition still captures the King Gainer in a haphazard manner, strongly conveying the heavy presence of the main character robot.

Now, Gaynor gets into the cockpit and starts King Gaynor, but the Sibe Iron robot (Dogozzo) comes shooting at him from outside the pavilion. King Gainer's large hands protect him as they wrap around Gainer's flesh and blood, but a bullet grazes Gainer's coat and the sense of danger grows.
The gunfire collapses the cavernous wall, and Dogozzo enters the building. In this cut, Dogozzo bends over as if to pass through a hole, and then raises his upper body after entering the mansion. The camera PAN-UPs along with this movement. This creates an intimidating effect that crushes the screen.
Doggozzo invades the mansion further. In this cut, the green overman on display at the beginning of the scene is brushed off with a hand. The camera pans up again to capture Dogodzo's head with the dazzling searchlight on.
The next cut is a close-up of Gaynor's reaction as he sits in the cockpit of the King Gaynor, his figure illuminated by incidental light (light from off-screen). Physically, Dogozzo's searchlight reaches inside King Gaynor's cockpit, but the effect of the cut is to express Gaynor's great surprise and sense of impending danger by the sharp incident light. The fact that the green Overman is easily knocked off conveys to the viewer a sense of anxiety that the same Overman, King Gaynor, will also be knocked off.
So far, this is the "principle" of the production, so to speak: by repeating the PAN-UP, the presence of the leading robot and the threat of the enemy robot are clearly shown, and a simple confrontation scheme between friend and foe is constructed. ......, but from here on out, it's not so simple.

The "photon mat set" and "I see."...... This misaligned exchange is very Tomino-esque!

We know from previous scenes that Dogozzo is equipped with a machine gun. On the other hand, King Gainer not only has no weapons, but also seems to have difficulty in escaping from the mansion since he is still holding Gain in his arms. As it turns out, King Gainer uses his special function of "flying" to escape the predicament. Let's pick up the exchange that leads to this.
Gain, "(while still holding on to King Gaynor) put on flying."
King Gainer, with his hand, breaks through the wall.
Gain "Is your hand all right?"
Gainer "Yes. What are you going to do with flying?"
Enemy: "Let's flush him out. Overman."
Gainer: "He's pinned left and right ....... It's a photon mat set."
Gainer: "That's right. On."
Gain "Just fly with it."

King Gainer dodges Dogozzo's attack and uses the ring of light generated from his head to punch a hole in the ceiling and escape out of the building. That ring of light is probably the function of the photon-mat set. But it is not a simple "fly" or "yes" exchange.
There is no response from Gainer to Gainer's "Put the flying on". Yet Gainer asks, "Are your hands all right?" or some other thoughtful, situational question that has nothing to do with "flying". After the exchange about hands, Gaynor asks, "What are you going to do about flying?" and the topic returns to "flying" again. However, Gainer did not answer, "What do you do with flying?" He only says, "I'm sandwiched between two sides," and "It's a photon mat set," a proper noun that is unfamiliar to me. Gaynor's "I see," too, is subtly connected to the question, "What do you do when you fly?" is also subtly unconnected with the question, "What do you do when you fly? It is neither "I see," nor "I guess so," but "I see."...... Somehow, the arrangement is abbreviated. The conversation is a little off the mark.

But it is precisely because the conversation is not smoothly exchanged that the differences between Gaynor and Gaynor's position, the difference in knowledge and experience between the two, and the confusion of being thrown into the middle of a battle come to the fore.
The reason why we can watch the first episode without getting bored until the end is because of the simple scheme of King Gaynor fighting back against Dogozzo and defeating him. The intrusion of a conversation that is out of harmony with this scheme makes the simple robot action unpredictable and interesting. Although it may be a little difficult to understand, I feel that the greatest joy of watching Tomino's animations is the conversation that struggles to fit into the simple scheme of the ....... I wonder what readers will think of the latest "G-RECO"?

(Text by Keisuke Hirota)