The creator of Gundam gives us a look at the big picture issues of the saga. Interview by Mark Simmons, Toshifumi Yoshida, and Julie Davis, with an introduction by Mark Simmons.

In launching the original Mobile Suit Gundam series more than 20 years ago, its creator Yoshiyuki Tomino set out to tackle a number of weighty topics. Faced with pollution and overpopulation, could humanity save itself and in mother planet by expanding into space? How would people interact with the machines they created for this purpose! Could this new phase of human existence lead us, ultimately, to evolve beyond the petty hatreds and misunderstandings that have always blighted human history? To the fans of the original series, these are Gundam‘s defining issues.

But just as Tomino’s work encompasses far more than just the Gundam franchise for which he’s best known–as you’ll see from Tomo Machiyama’s essay on page 40–his thinking on the themes of the Gundam saga has continued to evolve over the decades. Nine years after the original series, the theatrical feature Char’s Counterattack reunited hero Amuro Ray and his archrival Char Aznable for an apocalyptic showdown, which starkly demonstrated the inability of technology and the ideology of “Newtype” evolution to solve humanity’s problems. And for the saga’s twentieth anniversary, Tomino unveiled the radically reinvented Turn A Gundam, dispensing altogether with trappings like space colonies and super-evolved Newtypes and shifting the focus back to the problems and potential of regular humanity.

At this year’s Big Apple Anime Best and Anime Expo New York, we sat down with Gundam‘s mercurial creator to discuss the series’s overarching themes, and trace how Tomino’s thinking has developed during the saga’s 23-year history. How should people relate to the machines we’ve created? Will humanity ever overcome its history of misunderstandings and distrust? Would we really be better off living inside giant tin cans? Here’s what he has to say…

ANIMERICA: Let’s go back to the days of “First Gundam.” I wanted to ask what was your concept in trying to do the original Mobile Suit Gundam. Was it intended to be different from the “super robot” shows you’d done before?

TOMINO: Robot shows back then, 23 years ago, were pretty much all super robot type shows and needed sponsorship from toy manufacturers. So I got the plan to go through by lying to the toy manufacturers. The whole concept was that a robot that’s 20 meters tall can’t not be a super robot. So in those days, taking it the other way, they could not have a TV show with a robot less than 20 meters tall.

ANIMERICA: So what were your influences in creating First Gundam? What were you trying to accomplish?

TOMINO: The bottom line is, I wanted to have a more realistic robot series–unlike a super robot–where everything is more reality-based, based on a humanoid robot. Right from the beginning, the roots of the mobile suit came from the worker robots that were building the space colonies back then, and they would become more technologically advanced, to the point of becoming a weapon, and that was the whole lineage of the robots I had in mind since the beginning.

So the whole idea, my idea, of trying to have a robot series in space without it becoming a stupid story was based on wanting to make a story and surrounding it with reality–more realistic possibilities was the underlying concept. But please don’t misunderstand me as saying that I ever consider this to be real or possible. It’s just sort of a lie that’s trying to be depicted as reality.

ANIMERICA (TOSHI): I missed a little bit of the translation before: All the concepts underlying what he wanted to look into were symbolized in the mobile suit. Those were the key phrases that he said that I missed.

ANIMERICA (MARK): I guess now we’re seeing real robots–like the Honda P2 and P3, robot pets–do you think that something like the mobile suit could actually exist in the future?

TOMINO: The examples you use, the P3 robots and such, they’re technologically advanced, but they seem to be more of a pet or a toy or something for amusement, not something that’s being used for actual productivity, and as such I have some doubts about the way that’s going, but I believe it’s possible for it be implemented in a more productive manner.

ANIMERICA: So, you said that the mobile suit symbolizes a lot of the themes in Gundam. I wondered if you could elaborate on that?

TOMINO: You’re asking a very broad question. What do you want to hear from me? [LAUGHS]

ANIMERICA: I guess that was just a fishing expedition. [LAUGHS]

TOMINO: You editors and your dirty tricks. [LAUGHS] One of the thoughts I had designing all this was that when man would eventually get out to space, and when he actually had to create a machine to do work in outer space, in such an extreme environment, man would choose to make a humanoid-shaped machine to work out there. One of the things is that when you’re alone in space, having to work in such an environment, seeing other workers in similar humanoid shapes would be a sort of a

ANIMERICA: Comfort?

TOMINO: …comfort, be a level of comfort. Essentially, humans are very sympathetic, and being able to see a humanoid shape out in that environment with you and being able to look at the faces of the machines, would be much more a comfort than seeing a ball with arms on it.*

And one of the real-world things we talked about- real robots-that is being developed in Japan and is almost ready for actual use, is a robot that takes care of the elderly. A lot of the creators say, Wouldn’t it be enough to just have a robot that had arms to take care of the elderly? But for the elderly, wouldn’t it be kinder for it to have a more humanoid look, rather than just a machine? That’s what I feel. So in contrast, going back to the P3s and the others, those are robots that are entertainment for healthy people. And for such a thing to be mass-produced, I don’t think that’s the direction that things should be moving in, or that I would be moving in.

ANIMERICA: It’s not a healthy impulse?

TOMINO: They should be more into boys and girls. [LAUGHS)

ANIMERICA: That sounds like Brain Powered!

TOMINO: But that in itself is another thing.

ANIMERICA: Another important element, it seems, in Gundam, is the space colonies, man moving into space. Do you feel that the’s future for humanity?

TOMINO: I don’t think so. I don’t even want to think about it. In designing all the stories for Gundam over the years, and thinking about people having to live in space colonies, and sort of simulating what life on a colony would be like, one thing that I came to realize was that man should not live in such a confined space. Living on a planet such as this, I can’t help but feel that man is like an animal, living under the infinite blue sky and being able to see the stars at night, and feeling the experience, just foaling with the body what it is to exist under the stars and space, and just having a sense of being under such an expanse, and for such an animal–man the animal–to be confined to a tube six kilometers in diameter, for the basic being that would preclude everything they need or want. So, the result of 23 years of making Gundam stories is that man is like a receptor, being able to absorb infinite possibilities from space and whatnot, and being so limited… having run into those problems, knowing that man can’t exist like that, makes it harder to create a newer Gundam story, create further worlds.

ANIMERICA: Speaking of that… how is that reflected in Turn A Gundam?

TOMINO: All those feelings were included when I created Turn A Gundam, so one of the underlying themes was that man has to return to Earth. Even though I did have the moon in there, the moon’s still bigger than the space colonies.

ANIMERICA: [LAUGHS]

TOMINO: So what I learned from doing Turn A Gundam, in all my underlying themes, is that the potential for man is very great. All the abilities that he could have and should have, and must have….

The next Gundam series I’m working on, they’re telling me I’m probably going to have to have space colonies in it. But knowing everything I’ve learned from 23 years, plus the things I’ve gained from doing Turn A Gundam, I’m having a little difficulty creating the story for the next Gundam series, Gundam Seed, the one that’s starting in October.

ANIMERICA: So you’re involved in the production of Gundam Seed?

TOMINO: I’m not directly involved in it, but I’m going over everything. All the new Gundam shows up till now, I’ve had nothing to do with. Sunrise has lied to me. They’ve done this without my consent. But this time, I’m involved, so the young people doing Gundam this time can have my input.

As I’ve said, everybody has so much potential, so much ability, so much potential to create things–I just wish that everybody would just sort of understand that, accept that, and create things. And furthermore, it’s my thinking that when people start whining about budgets and sales for the show within the next season, things start getting uninteresting.

ANIMERICA: Speaking of human potential, another element that doesn’t appear in Turn A Gundam is Newtypes.

TOMINO: The reason there aren’t any Newtypes is that over the years, the whole idea of trying to figure out what “Newtype” was became kind of pointless. They’d gotten to the point where, thinking about it logically, the whole concept of Newtypes couldn’t possibly exist. It could be because men, as we are now, are already Newtypes. So I realized, being that as it is, that Newtypes were turning into uninteresting people. I came to the realization that a child just born is truly a Newtype. But two, three days–week, a month–later, the child exposed to this society or environment is being suppressed, its ability made smaller and smaller, so I came to believe that a child up to three days old is a Newape. So the result of 20 years of thinking about Newtypes is: from a few days after the day you’re born to the moment you start acquiring knowledge, the infinite possibilities you had as a Newtype dissipate. I just felt that, if we could all become Newtypes again, I think the world would be a better place.

ANIMERICA: Your newest Gundam work, specifically, that’s been introduced in the US is Char’s Counterattack. Obviously, Newtypes have a meaning for Char–what does Char interpret this as?

TOMINO: What Char was going after was his concept of the next step or being something greater than himself, a Nietzschean term I can’t help but translate as “superman.” I don’t know what German word he used, but in Japanese it’s translated as chojin…

ANIMERICA (MARK): Nietzsche’s German term was übermensch (which you used in King Gainer as, literally, “overman”).

TOMINO: So even if you’re in the position to become this absolute being, a single man can’t attain it even if he does, it’s meaningless. Unless a greater community–a hundred people, a thousand people–attains it with you. So because Char, to help him pursue his ideals, and try to become something greater and something good–in the same way that we are unable to do the same thing. Char’s ideals kind of led him to his eventual defeat. So in depicting the ending of the movie, showing that ending the way I did, almost like the birth of a new baby… in creating the story, you can’t help but have a sense of defeat.

So now, ten years after doing Char’s Counterattack while I was trying to prepare for working on Turn A Gundam, reviewing the situation, thinking about it, trying to work my way past it, I came upon the whole new Newtype theory, which allowed me to create the story for Turn A. So, like the whole title, “Turn A Gundam.”

The Turn A world was sort of planned to do through the medium called animation where people can understand it better, expand on the world of Turn A and take the stories further, and heve a better understanding.

This might be kind of going off topic a little bit, but the whole 9/11 thing that happened last year… I think that was maybe inevitable. Terrorist acts have happened because of the differences in people, which goes back to the whole Newtype theory when kids are born they are Newtypes, and yet the environment that they grow up in forms their world and ideals, and problems like that happen as their world gets smaller and smaller… things like that may be unavoidable. But, you know, it seems like a topic to depict or explore in the Turn A world.

I don’t mean to be an agitator or anything like that, but I want to explain my views.

ANIMERICA (TOSHI): Mark asked earlier about Overman King Gainer–is the “overman” in that series intentionally a reference to the übermensch? Just curious.

TOMINO: No relation whatsoever. [LAUGHS] It has nothing to do with it. If anything, I wanted to make a stupid story. I just wanted something that sounds kind of stupid in English. I mean, “overman”? “King Gainer? C’mon. I just wanted to do a dumb or stupid story, so that’s what I’m doing. You know, ten years now it’s been stuff like Turn A Gundam…it gets tiring. I like doing silly things sometimes…like Xabungle. That was all silly, and I kind of enjoy doing stuff like that. Even though it’s depicted in a serious way, it’s a comedy, I’m sorry. [LAUGHS] Things like Cowboy Bebop just don’t run well with me.

ANIMERICA (MARK): My editor is dying to know: In Char’s Counterattack, what are the meaning of Char’s last words to Amuro? (LAUGHS)

TOMINO: LAUGHS) Women can’t understand that line. (To Toshi) How’d it go again?

ANIMERICA (TOSHI): Char: “Lalah could have been my mother!” Amuro: “Huh?!”

TOMINO: It’s a very nuanced thing, the power of a boy child sort of nuzzling up to his mother, wanting to be doted upon. The boy child’s feeling of wanting to be enveloped by the mothering instinct. Without condition. Unconditional love.

ANIMERICA (JULLIE): That actually fits into a couple of theories I had about that…

ANIMERICA (TOSHI): Go ahead.

ANIMERICA (JULIE): I was wondering if you weren’t saying something about it being easier for women to tap into Newtype abilities than men. Or about women being more automatically Newtype because they have a greater connection to nature?

TOMINO: I think so. When a man attains everything, becomes absolute victor in a situation, there comes a moment where he doesn’t have the sensation of having attained everything or actually having won. So when it comes to a relationship between a man and a woman…

ANIMERICA (TOSHI): [LAUGHS] Wait. English is constructed backwards from Japanese so I can’t make this work. [DISCUSSES TO CLARIFY]

TOMINO (resumes): No matter how a man might dominate a woman, he may attain the upper hand, but even so there’s a moment where he wants to be loved by the person he’s won over, to be cared for, even treated like a child by the person he’s “defeated” or “won over.”

It’s not an exact match, but I have an example of something that pertains to that situation. Something that came to light recently was the question of whether Adolf Hitler died from a bomb or committed suicide. There are facts coming out that he actually married his lover Eva [Braun] the previous day. Another story is about Josef Stalin–the most treasured possession he had until the day he died was a picture of children playing that he cut out of a newspaper.

Looked at from the standpoint of being a male, this is part of the emotional makeup that’s very fragile, that we all have. I didn’t know those two examples when I wrote those lines for Char, but deep down, any dictator would want a moment of weakness or a moment of peace. Those are the kind of things I had racing through my mind when I wrote that line. Although I can’t explain your question that well, those are the things I had going through my head when I wrote that line. And in no way does Char favor the attentions of little girls! [LAUGHS]

ANIMERICA (MARK): This has been very illuminating. I’ll think about the deeper meaning of the stories!