What do you see after directing giant robots for half a century?　Interview with Director Yoshiyuki Tomino [Watching the Animation Industry Vol. 60

General director Yoshiyuki Tomino's latest film, "G's Reconguista I" "Go! Core Fighter" is coming to theaters this month, November 29, 2019.
Director Tomino is a writer known for his "Mobile Suit Gundam" (1979), but he is also known not only for the Gundam series, but also for his 80s works such as "Densetsu Kyojin Ideon" ("Ideon") (1980), 90s works such as "Blenpowered" (1998), and 00s "OVERMAN King Gainer" (2002), and "Gundam G Reconguista" (2014, TV version), he is a rare director who has consistently dealt with the motif of giant robots for more than 40 years.
For this interview, we focused on the design and direction of giant robots and how they are utilized in the film.

If the principle of "origins, development, and conclusion" is not followed, the audience will leave the show.

─ Robot animation has a pattern of "enemy attack, launch a sortie, struggle but win, return home," and this pattern can be used to tell a conceptual story such as "Ideon, the Legendary God of the Colossus". Did you abandon this powerful weapon, the "robot pattern," or do you still apply it today?

Tomino: Basically, I think we are still applying it. Because the fundamental structure of a play is based on the beginning and the end, and in order to show a story in animation, we have no choice but to follow the style of theater and film. The history of film is only about 120 to 130 years, but its principles cannot be changed that much. The structure of the origin and conclusion is essential to make each episode of a TV series work, even for a film like "Ideon". Even if multiple episodes are compressed and summarized, as in the film version of "Ideon," a major flow is necessary. This is because if the origin and ending are removed, the audience will not watch the film. I guess that means that you keep this principle in mind while creating a story with a theme or message that is appropriate for the time.

─ Around the time of "King Gainer," the pattern of the enemy attacking and the allies fighting back has faded away, and it barely remains at all, doesn't it?

Tomino: Yes. There is another theatrical and cinematic principle, and that is that the outline of the enemy must be clear. In the case of "King Gainer," the enemy was vague, so the story did not have a core that was easy to see. I regret that. As long as there is a clear and clear beginning and end as the structure of the work, the enemy must be clearly visible. It is the same in love stories as well as battle stories. If the outline of the opposite sex is not clear, the story cannot be seen, right?　That's all there is to it.

─ ─ I would also like to ask you about the design. In "Ideon," Director Tomino drew rough sketches of the enemy mecha. This was so that anyone could instantly tell which was friend or foe, right?

Tomino: Yes, that is correct.

───Similarly, in "G Reconguista" ("G-reco"), you said that the one-legged mecha called "Girach" and the large frog-like mecha called "Jirod" were efficient because we could tell which mecha was which the moment they appeared on the screen.

Tomino I think that is true. However, when we tried to use such a unique mecha in "G-RECO," I was astonished. I could no longer freely use such cartoonish mecha. I realized that my footwork and sensitivity as a director had become dull. I no longer felt that such a mecha with an absurd shape was effective in making the play work.

─ Did the director give you specific orders for the mecha design, saying, "This is what I want you to do"?

Tomino: I did not actively order them. In the case of "G-RECO," it could be said that we shifted the focus to pictures of children in motion (rather than mecha battles), or it could be said that we ran away from this. It should have been a "mecha ensemble drama" in the style of "Ideon," and it should have been easy to understand just by looking at it, but in my case, I became too film oriented. That is not a virtue.


─ So the pattern where the enemy attacks and the allies fight back is still valid today?

Tomino Of course it is valid. ...... film is an entertainment medium that is perhaps even more crude than theater. So why do we think about it in such a cumbersome way when it could be presented in a more straightforward and easy-to-understand manner? I think my senses have deteriorated over the years, but I have developed a desire to become a full-fledged creator. A person at my level would be that greedy. A genius would probably create as he/she pleases, but I can't. It sounds self-deprecating, but it's not. This may sound self-deprecating, but it is not self-deprecation.