March 24th, 2022 
deackychu Continuing on with my quest to bring accurate information regarding all things Gundam, here is the second of a two-part interview summary/translation regarding the Cucuruz Doan’s Island movie from the latest issue of Great Mechanics G!
It can be said that Mobile Suit Gundam Cucuruz Doan’s Island suddenly appeared in the flow of new Gundam series set in the Universal Century, starting from Mobile Suit Gundam UC and continuing to Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway’s Flash. Cucuruz Doan’s Island is a remake of episode fifteen of the Mobile Suit Gundam television series, which is a legendary work in many ways. So, why “Doan” now? The film’s director, Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, was asked.
Interviewer: Hiroyuki Kawai
INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR
YOSHIKAZU YASUHIKO
Gundam was produced when the Vietnam War had just ended, so topics such as deserters were something realistic. Episodes like “Time, Be Still” and “The Battlefield is a Wasteland” (aka Winds of War) depicted ordinary people during the war, one of Gundam’s war story elements. Yas has often said that the story of Doan wasn’t necessarily a bad one. It’s a story that makes you think a lot. He says that Sunrise didn’t tell him to make the film. Instead, he’s the one that told them he wanted to make it. He says he also came across Junju Ohno’s version, but since the story was entirely different, he wanted to do a remake of the original (TV series) story. He talked to both the former and current president of Sunrise, and they both gave him their blessings. Yas goes on to discuss some of the sticking points of the movie.
You have a deserter who is getting out of combat and protecting the weak, but he doesn’t give up his weapon because he’s protecting those that are weak. This is where the situation ultimately goes awry. They think that because they have weapons, they’ll be pursued. On the one hand, this is true, but on the other, it’s not quite that simple. A thesis that cannot be answered, if you would.
Yas goes on to say that he proposed making an animated film mainly because the manga had already wrapped up. He says that he often says that THE ORIGIN isn’t a remake, yet Doan clearly is. He says that if people find it strange that it’s a remake, they can do nothing about that. He’s hoping that people who don’t know anything about it will be interested in it. The teaser image emphasizes the Gundam over Doan and the Zaku, making it easy for those who don’t know much about it to understand what it’s about.
Once again, the mecha design is being handled by Katoki, and it has been the case since the OVA version, CG is being used. The interviewer says that he feels older fans might have expected to see a hand-drawn Doan Zaku by Yas. Yas says that the first thing the production director told him at the start of the Origin is that they’d be using CG, the main reason that hand-drawing was more expensive. Laughing, Yas says that when you’re his age, you have this impression that CG is more expensive, but times and environments have changed, so the reverse is now true.
While he’s confident that he can check the hand-drawn work, give feedback, make redraws and whatnot when it comes to CG, he has no clue how to tackle it, so he hasn’t done much with that aspect. He just asks that you see the finished product and hope it turns out for the better. Yas also says that a lot of the staff was very particular about the look of the Zaku, emphasizing how there are fans that are quite fond of the old depiction of it. Chief Animation Director Atsushi Tamura even went so far to say that it HAS to throw rocks.
At the time of the TV broadcast, Doan’s Island was probably in the Goto Islands, but the setting was changed in the movie version. Yas says that, “Since it’s not labeled THE ORIGIN, there is no need to associate it with it, but as the setting was diverted/re-used/recycled, I thought about where to include it in THE ORIGIN. In THE ORIGIN, the decisive battle is at Jaburo, and the final retreat is at Odessa after losing the battle and losing power there, which is reversed from the TV series. So, Doan’s island is located between Jaburo and Odessa, so if you look at a map, you can already narrow down where it is.” He then jokes that if there are people who want to go to the island after seeing the film, then it’s a success!
He’s asked that in terms of location of the island, is there any connection to the ORIGIN in terms of a worldview that is neither too close to nor too distant, he says that you “try to” connect it to the ORIGIN, you “could” but he doesn’t dare say that as he wants people to enjoy the film (those who like Gundam but are unfamiliar with the Origin).
There are various groups of children living on Doan’s Island, something like 20 of them, with the oldest being 15 and the rest being between kindergarten and elementary school age. Yas says that Japanese films don’t portray child actors all that well, so that was something he paid a lot of attention to. He wanted to depict their life on the island in a way that was as realistic as possible. He believes the scriptwriters were careful in their portrayal as well.
PUBLICATION INFORMATION
Publisher: Futabasha
Released: 2022.03.17
Price: 1650 yen
Size: —
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