A three and a half-hour interview that translated into some 30,000 characters on paper and I’m wondering if this clears up or muddles thoughts on the Crossbone entries. Here are the notes!

Crossbone Interview Notes:

• Shinichiro Inoue came to Hasegawa before the first issue of Shonen Ace
• In hand: Tomino’s draft.
• Hasegawa said “he’ll change a lot.” Inoue said “that’s fine”
• Seems they were looking for someone to change the story to begin with.
• Hasegawa says if the story had been about an aristocrat defeating the Federation, he would have refused.
• Says that if he were to draw an original Gundam story, it wouldn’t have been something like Crossbone Gundam.

• Says Tomino came at him hard with the story so he had to hit back. Says that the title left him no choice but to include a skull and crossbones. He asked if it was okay.
• Says Tomino thought about it for about five seconds before saying it might work.
• Katoki’s original design came back with an X-shaped thruster, so it may have been Tomino’s idea, but he doesn’t know.
• Says he didn’t hesitate to make story changes, just gave it a shot and if it didn’t work, dialed it back.

• He first jotted out what he wanted the story to be like, and sent them the name.
• Decided on the basic plot at the beginning, but didn’t know how long the series would be.
• Tomino likely didn’t know either. If it was popular, it’d continue. If not, they’d probably lose a volume.
• Early discussions talked about six books.

• He only met Katoki once. The rest was done over the phone.
• By the time Steel 7 came up, they conversed over email. The rest was done back and forth with Sunrise.

• Says it was impossible to have all the suit designs sketched out up front.
• Started with prototype Crossbone Gundam along with the enemy Batara, the Mother Vanguard and the last boss the Divinidad.
• Katoki created these four.

• When he first saw the Z’Gok appear in the original series, he was surprised by it. He used this format to recreate the shock of other suits appearing.
• Apparently, the scene in volume 6 about running along a mountain road is a story about Tomino’s experiences overseas.

• “I tend to think in terms of First Gundam, but in the First, the Newtype is a kind of compensation for the main character. They are given a reason to be a little better than others, but they don’t have the power to change the course of the war. I try to keep this in mind as much as possible. This was an extremely new aspect of First Gundam. It was about people evolving and acquiring supernatural powers, but up until then, in science fiction, if you acquired supernatural powers, it would have been like “Gennma Taisen.” It was new to me that the story did not use supernatural powers to wipe out the enemy, and that they only evolved in a very steady manner. I think that’s why I tried to keep that in mind.”

• Gundam Ace editorial staff suggested Skull Heart.
• He originally turned down the Zeta Gundam sidestory at first, a comic version of the movies. Hasegawa felt that fans of his would expect something different, so this led to the 1/2 story.
• He always had the desire to do a mecha version of Seven Samurai.
• Hasegawa was asked by Katoki for a weapon for the Crossbone due to the Fix Figuration figure being produced, so he drew up a rough version of the Peacock Smasher.
• Afterwards, when working on Steel 7, Katoki asked if they could make it wear a full armor. Hasegawa said that doesn’t give the impression of it being very different from other Gundams, so he suggested a mecha cape.
• Differentiation is very important.

• When making his models, he tries to consider how the total bulk of the parts fit together and doesn’t think about the joints.
• His designs are a hard sell from a Gunpla perspective because he was only thinking about how they’d look on paper, basically.
• The point is to create a design that appeals to the reader. That’s a different direction of thinking than thinking about how to make a three-dimensional object look good without ruining it.
• When Steel 7 was started, he asked that ie be titled “the conclusion.” If he didn’t he realized that people might think that if he used a long-running manga series as a theme, it’d last forever.
• He knew there was the desire to read more, but also the conflicting sense that everything would get pretty stale if it continues on and one.
• He started Steel 7 with the determination to bring everything to a conclusion once and for all.
• The popularity of Crossbone in Extreme Versus led to more of the series. He says the readers were also worried.
• They were worried about Tobia and the others, considering they were so close to the V Gundam timeframe, one of the darkest in Gundam history.
• Font is a result of otaku being painted more favorably in society as individuals who are passionate about what they like.

• He wasn’t sure what to expect when first creating the Phantom.
• He went through about 100 ideas before handing it over to Katoki halfway through, so he was relieved when he helped.
• If they had planned out the suit from the beginning, they likely would have ended up with a Z-type transformation that uses a shield.
• Fukushima incident influenced the nuke scene in Ghost.
• Zero Gravity influenced the scene where the Phantom picks up the communications of people around him.
• His assistant kept asking him not to kill off Jack.
• Even as he was working on Ghost, he heard there would be even more Crossbone.

• He was surprised Sunrise greenlit the project since it was 16 years after Ghost.
• Hasegawa says that they were okay with it since it had never been done. When an anime comes out, it will be the correct path and correct history and this work will be another branch on the tree. (He’s referring to a work in this timeframe, not a Crossbone anime).
• He was warned not to introduce any technology beyond V Gundam. So, if he suddenly came up with a warp engine, it’d destroy the worldview.

• The Kshatriya exploding in the colony and the colony shutting down sort of hit him. He thought that in these times, colonies wouldn’t be able to survive if they shut down after just one explosion in them.
• The walking war museum in episode 4 of Unicorn influenced the desire to have old suits reappearing.
• Says that up until V Gundam, new MS were stronger than old, but if they disappeared for a time or if the tech wasn’t maintained, it’d be interesting to have a situation where any old suit could be the strongest.
• That was the initial starting point for Dust.
• Romance of the Three Kingdoms is an influence for the story.
• Prep time wasn’t as long as Ghost was, so he couldn’t plan ahead.
• Since the worldview shifted dramatically, he started with an idea and try it out, seeing where it would go and what he could come up with.
• Around Vol.3 he came up with the idea of landing a colony (how the story ends). He consulted the editorial department first.
• If the Executioner King was the final boss, and we wanted to bring down the colonies, that route was available.
• If not, we could end the story with the Executioner King.
• They decided to cut the entire series structure for the colony landing.
• Neo 1 Banchi colony was created for this purpose.
• The colony landing surprised many, including Shinichi Miyazaki who was helping with the mecha design and whatnot.

機動戦士クロスボーン・ガンダム メカニック設定集

CROSSBONE GUNDAM MECHANICAL SETTING COLLECTION

PUBLICATION INFORMATION

Publisher: Kadokawa
Published: 2021.03.26
Price: 990
Size: —

Includes newly drawn works! All the mechanics from Crossbone are included! This book includes mechanical expositions by Yuuichi Hasegawa, never seen before design roughs, and even the “Crossbone” version of the Tomino memo! It also includes a long interview with the author and a setting collection commemorating the completion of the series.