I’ve been doing a little bit of research into some of the production backstory to Gundam 0080 lately and found some interesting nuggets of information in several staff interviews I thought I’d share here:

Interview with Fumihiko Takayama (Director)

• He doesn’t (or didn’t at the time) own a telephone. Sunrise producer Uchida had to go knock on his door to pitch 0080 to him

• Original idea was something like The Guns of Navarone

• Fumihiko barely saw any Gundam. “My awareness of the series was close to zero”

• Tomino apparently saw the first episode and told him that kids would know school is out if there’s urban warfare, so it’s strange that they rejoiced at the unexpected news. He acknowledged this.

• Takayama’s daring ideas for 0080 followed a sort of European cinematic thinking.

• The helplessness at the end of the series may have been influenced by Italo Calvino’s The Cloven Viscount and Sergio Corbucci’s The Great Silence

• Bernie’s video letter takes inspiration and some lines from Giovanni Pirelli’s A Falling-Down World (man, the Japanese title was way different!)

• Mikimoto was given references to actors for their designs. They include interesting depictions such as:

  • Steiner is Spencer Tracy

  • Garcia is Willem Defoe

  • Misha is Ernest Borgnine

  • Andy is Andy Robinson

  • Professor (Richard) Lumumba is Morgan Freeman

• Izubuchi had control over mecha designs. The only thing he asked him to do was to make Alex as ugly as possible when wearing the reactive armor.

• Morgan Freeman wasn’t that well known in Japan at the time

• The series was a sales success and highly acclaimed, the only downside was the lack of battles (which it was criticized for)

• Ironically, for someone that didn’t really like robots, he would go on to direct other robot shows (Patlabor WXIII and Orguss 02)

Interview with Kenji Uchida (Sunrise Producer)

• The plan was to have Tomino produce 0080, but since he did three consecutive works, it would’ve been far too exhausting.

• Not just for him, but the entire staff (Z into ZZ illustrated this!)

• Izubuchi was the first choice for mecha design. Uchida wanted to create an animated version of WW2 or the Vietnam War for core fans who would pay money to buy it as an OVA

• This is also why Izubuch played the role of more than one designer.

• Direction went with a newcomer for a reason: veteran director would have better sales advantage, but he wanted to take Gundam in a new direction

• Mamoru Oshii was also approached to direct

• Fumihiko Takayama was suggested despite not being well known. Cue jokes about how to get ahold of him since he didn’t have a phone!

• Uchida actively approached those he considered “talented,” both inside and outside of the animation industry.

• They looked for people who could work on entertainment war action films and science fiction wars

• Yoshiki Tanaka was the first person they asked, but they didn’t want to dive too far into the military aspect.

• That was before LOGH was animated as an OVA

• Izubuchi and Kondoh apparently had major military ideas in their image boards

• Novelist Shoji Yuki was asked to join to help with drafting

• Hiroyuki Yamaga was tapped, but because GAINAX was a rival company, they weren’t sure if he could write a screenplay.