Mobile Suit Gundam NT Producer Naohiro Ogata & Director Toshikazu Yoshizawa Interview
From Jaw-Dropping Stories About Yoshiyuki Tomino to a Surprise Discussion of Hathaway’s Flash

Mobile Suit Gundam NT (Narrative), currently a major hit in theaters (hereafter Gundam NT), is the first completely original theatrical feature in the Universal Century line in a full twenty-seven years. The film depicts the world one year after Mobile Suit Gundam UC (hereafter Gundam UC), itself a massive success. This time, we had the opportunity to speak with two of the key figures at the heart of Gundam NT: producer Naohiro Ogata and director Toshikazu Yoshizawa. And on November 21, it was also announced that Yoshiyuki Tomino’s novel Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway’s Flash, set in the Universal Century twelve years after Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack, would be adapted for the screen, generating enormous buzz. We were able to ask, if only briefly, about Hathaway’s Flash as well. We hope you’ll read on.

NOT GUNDAM UC2: DELIBERATELY CHOOSING A NEW TITLE

ーーFirst, could you walk us through how this project first came together?

Ogata: Gundam UC was a work that found support in many different forms, from its beginnings as an OVA, to its television broadcast, to the life-size statue in Odaiba. Then, when we started thinking about what should come next for the Universal Century, the idea came up that “while the Odaiba statue is still standing, shouldn’t we do another Universal Century story that’s close to Gundam UC?” A proper sequel would still require more time and a great deal of work, so the thinking was, “let’s start by exploring the Universal Century world one year after Gundam UC.” That’s how the project was born.

ーーWas it decided from the outset that this would follow the line of Gundam UC?

Ogata: It’s not as though we specifically ordered that Gundam UC characters be brought back. If it’s set one year later, then of course those characters are still alive, so it simply became natural that they would appear. The project did begin with Gundam UC, and it is a story based on the spin-off novel Mobile Suit Gundam UC: Phoenix Hunt, but from there we introduced a new Gundam, a new protagonist, and drastically restructured it. The reason we called it Gundam NT rather than Gundam UC2 is that this isn’t merely a sequel to Gundam UC, or a side story branching off from it. It is, first and foremost, an entirely new work set in the Universal Century.

ーーWas the broader UC NexT 0100 concept, depicting the Universal Century after Gundam UC, something that came after this project was already underway?

Ogata: Yes. UC NexT 0100 was conceived after Gundam NT was already in development. As a concept, UC NexT 0100 grew out of the idea of how to fill in the blank space between Gundam UC and Mobile Suit Gundam F91, and I feel Gundam NT could very well serve as its point of origin. Gundam UC also had that kind of aspect to it, but this work as well functions almost like a summation of the Universal Century’s trajectory through Fukui’s own interpretation.

ーーCould you tell us what the key points were in the casting for this film?

Yoshizawa: We really thought about the balance among the three of them. At the very beginning, when I heard Tomoyo Muranaka’s voice sample for Michele and Aimi Matsuura’s for Rita, I had this immediate flash of, “That’s it.” I recommended the two of them to Ogata right away, and Fukui gave his seal of approval as well. After that, once Michele and Rita had taken shape like that, it just felt obvious that Jona should be Junya Enoki.

Ogata: This time, Rita holds every key to the story, so Matsuura, who plays Rita, was the very first to be cast. From there, it was a matter of building the balance around her, and that’s how the pairing of Muranaka and Enoki fell into place.

ーーThe Narrative Gundam, which could be called this film’s lead machine, is described as a psycho-frame test unit developed prior to the Nu Gundam. In terms of performance, is it positioned as inferior to the Phenex?

Ogata: I think of the Narrative Gundam and the Phenex as machines on entirely different technological lineages. The Narrative Gundam, this time around, is a machine that would have existed somewhere between Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ and Char’s Counterattack, something pulled out from the margins of that era and customized. It is also a psycho-frame test unit that predates the Nu Gundam. The Phenex, on the other hand, was created within the Unicorn Project as “Unicorn Gundam Unit 3.” They were both built by Anaheim Electronics, yes, but they come from completely different lines, so to speak. That makes a straight comparison, deciding which one is superior, very difficult.

ーーWhat was the reasoning behind choosing theatrical release as the format, as opposed to OVA or TV like Gundam UC and Thunderbolt?

Ogata: First of all, back when we were thinking about making Gundam UC, the OVA business model was already beginning to fracture. Package sales alone weren’t generating the returns needed to sustain that kind of production. The solution we landed on was screening in theaters first, then letting audiences buy the release right there if they wanted it. But that format has since been used across a wide range of projects, and honestly, we felt like we’d run our course with it. This time around, choosing theatrical release also carried a symbolic weight, it felt right as a way to signal a restart for the Universal Century. We’re targeting at least one screening venue in each of Japan’s 47 prefectures, and while not simultaneously, we’re also planning international screenings.

ーーI think both Gundam UC and Thunderbolt were already virtually indistinguishable from theatrical anime in terms of quality. With this work having been produced from the start as a theatrical feature, was there any difference in how it was produced?

Ogata: As you say, both Gundam UC and Thunderbolt were, in terms of how they were made, already on exactly the same level, in both quality and volume, as theatrical animation. If anything, they were doing work even more demanding than a typical theatrical feature, so we didn’t change the production method. Just because this was a theatrical release didn’t mean we could raise the quality to twice what it had been on Gundam UC or Thunderbolt. Both of those productions were already being made under conditions that were pushing close to the limit. So the reason for making this a theatrical feature wasn’t about aiming for a different level of quality. It was purely about how audiences experience the work, choosing the medium of the theater itself. More and more people want to enjoy animation on a cinema screen, with theatrical sound. If the theatrical market in recent years had been in decline, and audiences simply weren’t coming in, then I think we would have made a different choice.

TOMINO SAW THE COLONY DROP STORYBOARDS, AND ERUPTED?!

ーーWhat led to Yoshizawa being chosen to direct this film?

Ogata: Yoshizawa had already worked on Studio 1 productions like Gundam Reconguista in G and Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt, and I think the timing was right around when he was in the middle of Thunderbolt. One reason I reached out to him was that, this time, I wanted to entrust the director’s chair to someone from a relatively younger generation. The other, and this was a major factor, was that he’s someone who has made works in very close proximity to Tomino, so he’s had plenty of exposure to what you might call Tomino’s baptism by fire.  Furuhashi, who directed Gundam UC, has a different sensibility. With Yoshizawa, I felt we had someone whose style leaned closer to Tomino’s, and that’s why I asked him.

ーーWhat was the reasoning behind wanting a younger generation to make it?

Ogata: Part of it is the very practical reality that some of our veteran creators are now dealing with age-related eyesight issues, presbyopia making it harder to work at that level (laughs), but beyond that, even if two people love the same thing, every generation carries different experiences and different tastes. I’m forty-four now, and if I follow my own preferences too closely, I’d naturally gravitate toward creators a generation older than me, people in their fifties or beyond. And works like that will keep being made. In fact, Gundam UC itself was aimed at roughly my own generation. But once it aired on television, the audience spread downward quite a bit in age. If we’re thinking seriously about Gundam’s future as a long-running piece of content, then it has to become something younger generations can also watch and connect with. That means the production side needs to grow younger too, at least to some extent. This is actually a method Tomino has used often. Especially in the past, he frequently worked with younger creators and drew energy from that. The Gundam series should be the same, I think, the more young creators who come in, the better. A lot of the Gundam UC staff are involved in this project too, but at the core you have the next generation down, the people who had been supporting that team from underneath. So I hope people will enjoy the difference in flavor that comes from that.

ーーFrom your perspective as producer, how would you describe the difference in color between Furuhashi on Gundam UC and Yoshizawa on Gundam NT?

Ogata: I’m a producer, so I can’t really speak in technical terms, but with Furuhashi, what drew me in was the camera work. With Yoshizawa, it’s more the rhythm of the film, the tempo. I think Yoshizawa is very conscious of Tomino’s methods, and somehow that sits very naturally within Gundam.

Yoshizawa: When I first heard about it, my mind just went completely blank. It was my first time directing, and suddenly it was a theatrical feature.

ーーSo what made you decide to take the job?

Yoshizawa: Well, to begin with, there wasn’t really any reason to turn it down. (laughs) I also talk with Tomino from time to time about how I should build my career going forward, and one thing he said to me was, “Are you really in a position where you can afford to choose your jobs?” (laughs) So once it came my way, I decided I’d take it on headfirst.

ーーDid you consult Tomino when you were deciding whether to accept the role?

Yoshizawa: He had some sharp things to say, but in the end, I felt like he gave me his blessing. Even on other productions, I often show my storyboards to Tomino and ask his advice. He’ll say things like, “If you angle the camera this way it’ll be more dynamic,” or “Let the movement flow from right to left and you’ll get better momentum.” Really specific, hands-on guidance. When I showed him the storyboards for Gundam NT, there were suddenly several days where he stopped coming into the studio. I thought, this is bad, he’s definitely furious (laughs). This is going to veer into territory that sounds like a criticism of the project itself, so—

Ogata: Go on. It’s fine.

Yoshizawa: When I heard back from him later, apparently, he had seen my storyboards for the colony drop sequence and was absolutely livid. His words were something like: “You haven’t done a single new thing with the colony drop beyond what I already did. Why aren’t you pushing further? Why aren’t you trying something completely different?”

ーーThat is… very much something Tomino would say.

Yoshizawa: Tomino often speaks highly of Yasuhiro Imagawa, the director who created a completely new vision of Gundam in Mobile Fighter G Gundam, and just the other day, he was praising New Mobile Report Gundam Wing too. He said something to the effect of, “‘I’ll kill you’”, that line Heero Yuy says to Relena, “is a new form of expressing sexuality” (laughs). At any rate, I think he’s someone who genuinely delights in seeing people use “Gundam” to do something unprecedented, something he himself never did. In fact, he doesn’t really talk about this publicly, but he often praises other Gundam works too, saying, “This is doing something new.” And hearing that made me feel that, even if Gundam NT came with all sorts of constraints, we still had to attempt something new with it.

ーーWhat, specifically, did you try to do that was new?

Yoshizawa: With colony drops, in most cases up to now, the scene tends to end with the colony falling. This time, though, the story is about people whose lives were tossed around by the wars of adults. So we don’t show mobile suits or warships, we point the camera only at those on the receiving end of the disaster. This is just my own interpretation, of course, but I wanted to place the emphasis on what kind of devastation the fall actually caused. We also shifted the way Gundam itself is presented. Usually, as the timeline advances, Gundams become more powerful and gain more equipment. But this time, the A-Packs, the high-mobility add-on gear the Narrative Gundam first appears with, is the flashiest form it has. As the story goes on, it actually becomes more stripped down, more subdued. I was very conscious of that as a way to attempt something new.

ーーThis film is primarily made with hand-drawn animation. What do you see as the unique appeal of hand-drawn work?

Yoshizawa: It’s the instability, the slight wobble. Sometimes things break in a good way, or lines don’t connect quite cleanly, and that creates a strange kind of charm. Our animation director on this film, Eiji Komatsu, is someone who can draw exactly that sort of hand-drawn vitality. For example, with the Anksha, the successor to the transformable mobile suit Asshimar, which appeared in Gundam UC and returns here, he’ll skillfully omit parts of the transformation process and make it snap into its new form in a single instant, just to convey force and momentum. That kind of deformation, stylization, really, is something hand-drawn animation can express to great advantage.

ーーAnd at the same time, you also use 3DCG, so there are advantages unique to that as well?

Yoshizawa: Of course. Besides being faithful to the setting, one major strength is the sheer amount of information you can pack into a shot. There’s a scene in this film where the Phenex threads its way through a massive field of stored helium-3 tanks. In a sequence like that, there are simply too many things that need to be depicted. Doing it all by hand would be extremely difficult. So 3DCG covers the areas hand-drawn animation struggles with. It’s not a question of one being superior to the other, they each have their own strengths.

WHY ADAPT HATHAWAY’S FLASH?

ーーBy the way, how did each of you first encounter Gundam?

Yoshizawa: I’d been watching Sunrise robot anime ever since I was in the lower grades of elementary school, and in terms of the Gundam series, the first one I saw in real time was Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam back in 1985–86. But that final episode was an incredibly intense experience, so intense it became a kind of trauma for me, and after that I almost stopped watching anime altogether. What brought me back was the anime boom in the mid-1990s, when I was in high school. That was when I started taking an interest in film and visual expression. From that interest in cinema and imagery, I found my way back to Tomino’s works, things like Space Runaway Ideon and Char’s Counterattack. And after that I came under Tomino’s influence very strongly. Out of the whole series, Char’s Counterattack is still my favorite.

Ogata: I’m from the generation that was right in the thick of the Gunpla boom. I watched reruns of the original Gundam when I was a kid, and my very first memory of Gundam is this: I stopped by on my way home from school to buy a Gunpla kit, and the only one left was Zock, so I bought Zock and went home. (laughs) By the time I was in fifth or sixth grade, Zeta Gundam was airing in real time. But unfortunately it was on during the hours when I had cram school for junior high entrance exams, so I couldn’t watch it. Then I skipped Zeta entirely and went straight to Char’s Counterattack in my second year of junior high, and I didn’t understand a thing. After that, I drifted away from anime for a while.

ーーThat makes sense. Going from the original Gundam straight to Char’s Counterattack would be hard to follow.

Ogata: What brought me back was when I was in college. I had a part-time job at a convenience store, and that store was about to shut down. During the final week, no new products were coming in anymore, so there was almost nothing to do. A coworker had Zeta Gundam with him, so we started watching it together, and it was incredible. That’s when I became aware of Sunrise as a company. And since I happened to be in the middle of job hunting at the time, I figured I’d try applying. That eventually led me to where I am now.

ーーIt’s remarkable that, although one of you left Gundam and the other returned to it, Zeta Gundam became a turning point in both your lives. Quite an extraordinary coincidence. Though I suppose that says something about just how shocking a work it was.

Yoshizawa: That’s true. Maybe both of us were struck by whatever fierce wavelength that series was putting out. (laughs)

ーーPersonally, I get the impression that each Sunrise studio has a very strong individual identity. What would you say defines Studio 1?

Ogata: At the end of the day, I think it’s simply that Tomino is there. When Tomino is in the studio, it’s not just the direction that keeps getting hit by his beam, it’s the production side too. And if you keep standing in that light long enough, something is bound to rub off on you. (laughs) There’s a kind of Tomino-ism permeating the place.

ーーDo you have any especially memorable episodes involving Tomino?

Ogata: Far too many. It’s hard to choose just one. (laughs) He’s extremely demanding when it comes to work, so of course there are plenty of times when he gets angry. But personally, I do sometimes think it might be better if he didn’t slam the desk quite so much… (laughs) There was even a period when tendonitis had made it hard for him to draw storyboards, and he was still banging on the desk over and over. I remember worrying that it really couldn’t be good for him physically.

ーーSo he still comes into the studio quite often?

Ogata: Right now, we’re in a stretch that sits roughly between production and pre-production, so he’s actually quite gentle. But once one of his own projects enters the thick of production, his intensity shoots up all at once. (laughs)

ーーWithin Sunrise, Studios 1 and 3 seem to be the ones most often associated with the Gundam franchise. Do the two studios ever inspire each other?

(Studio 1’s representative works include Mobile Suit Gundam, Gundam UC, Thunderbolt, Gundam NT, among others. Studio 3’s include Mobile Suit V Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam 00, Gundam Build Divers, Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, and others.)

Ogata: Absolutely. That said, it’s not exactly a rivalry. On Gundam NT, for instance, quite a few people from Studio 3 helped us out. And when Studio 1 is producing the Gundam Build series, we send people over as well. So there’s a lot of mutual support. At the same time, I do think there are differences in color between the two. Studio 1 tends to lean slightly more realistic, while Studio 3 is especially strong at a flashier, more theatrically heightened style. So while we recognize each other’s distinct strengths, we also push and inspire each other.

ーーGundam UC and Gundam NT feature some fairly deep-cut mobile suits. How do those mechanical selections get made?

Ogata: They’re decided in advance through discussions between Hajime Katoki and Noruhiko Genma, with Bandai Spirits involved as well.

ーーSpeaking personally, when I first watched the anime version of Gundam UC, it struck me as a work aimed very squarely at existing Gundam fans, quite unapologetically so. Were you able to foresee it becoming such a hit, one that would pull in so many new fans as well?

Ogata: Naturally, on the production side we always make every work intending for it to be a hit. But to be honest, the scale of the response was beyond what we expected. What was valuable about that success was the experience of realizing that a massive hit doesn’t happen through your own efforts alone. It only occurs when all sorts of conditions, beyond your control, happen to align.

ーーIt was also striking how many female fans it drew in.

Ogata: That too. When we held the event screenings for episode 1, about ninety percent of the audience was male, it had the usual Gundam atmosphere. But from there, more and more female fans began coming, and then the television broadcast widened the audience even further.

ーーI’d love to ask a little about the newly announced Hathaway’s Flash as well. Why did you decide to adapt it?

Ogata: It ties back to what I said earlier, but for me, it all comes down to the feeling I had when I first saw Char’s Counterattack: There has to be more after this. This can’t possibly be the end. I read on because I was convinced the story of Amuro and Char couldn’t simply end there, and what stayed with me so strongly was that they didn’t appear at all. Another major factor is that, among the novels Tomino wrote, Hathaway’s Flash still hadn’t received a proper screen adaptation.

ーーPersonally, I had the impression that it would be difficult to adapt because it doesn’t have that many battle scenes and places much more emphasis elsewhere. I found myself wondering what direction the adaptation would take.

Ogata: That’s true. Hathaway’s Flash is a work that places its emphasis on human drama. As for the details of how that will be approached… perhaps we can talk about that another time, when the opportunity arises. (laughs)

ーーLastly, could each of you give a message to fans who are looking forward to the film’s release?

Yoshizawa: The Phenex, which holds the key to this story, doesn’t fly using boosters, it flies through the power of the psycho-frame. So this is an unusual kind of Gundam, one that brings the occult side completely to the forefront. I’d be happy if people could watch it freely, without being hemmed in by preconceived notions.

Ogata: This is a work with a somewhat different texture from what came before, and it goes deeper into the inner lives of its characters. At the same time, it also functions as a summation of the current running from the colony drop all the way up through Gundam UC, so for viewers who know the material well, there are all sorts of moments that should bring a knowing smile. On the other hand, even if someone has never seen Gundam UC or any Universal Century Gundam at all, this film should still give them a sense of “So this is what the Universal Century is about.” In some ways, not having any preconceptions may make it easier to sink into the work. So I hope people will come to it with a completely open mind and enjoy it that way.

ーーThank you very much.

Source: animate Times (published 2018-12-09)