“The beauty of the GM is that it’s a gateway to a whole universe of Gundams”
Interview with Shigeru Horiguchi, Desk at Sunrise’s Gundam Division

As OVAs and games expand the horizons for the mass-produced GM, we sat down with Shigeru Horiguchi, the go-to Gundam guy at Sunrise, to understand how the creative team views the GM, the Gundam, and whether we might see the GM take a leading role in the near future.

ONE YEAR WAR OVAs: THE SECRET MOBILE SUIT GM SERIES?!

――So, what’s Sunrise’s current take on the Gundam as a mobile suit? We’ve been thinking that the GM exists because of the Gundam.

Horiguchi: Well, at Sunrise, we’re working with limited screen time, so we focus more on delivering emotional impact rather than diving into nitty-gritty details. We leave much of that to Bandai and other media. For us, the original Gundam was essentially a prototype. The MSV series that Bandai later developed, which we’ve incorporated into shows like Zeta and ZZ Gundam, suggests there were likely more of them. This has led us to slightly adjust our conception of Gundams, implying there might have been a few. We even showed another Gundam in 0080. So now we see Gundam as a product line with a specific purpose, while the GM line is separate but shares the same basic design concept and chassis.

――In 0083 and 08th MS Team, it feels like you’ve taken stories that might have been about Zeon grunts and flipped them to the Federation side, contrasting with the White Base crew. Was this a conscious decision to appeal to an older audience?

Horiguchi: As filmmakers, we want to preserve the sanctity of the original Gundam series. We’re hesitant to alter that storyline. Instead, we explore the world it established, creating new protagonists and Federation units. It’s a natural approach for us. We avoid retconning elements like adding more GMs to White Base, which would feel disrespectful to the original for die-hard fans. That’s how we ended up with what’s sometimes jokingly referred to as the “Mobile Suit GM” series.

――(laughs) Is that really what they’re called?

Horiguchi: Yeah, I use that term myself, though I probably shouldn’t. I haven’t been involved in all the OVAs – I was working on GaoGaiGar before this – but when I worked on 0080, it was our first Gundam OVA. The team, including Yutaka Izubuchi and director Takayama, approached it like, “If we could see these mobile suits in high-def, this is what they’d really look like.” We decided that having only one type of GM would be uninteresting, so we developed variants like the GM Command. Later productions like 0083 incorporated some Zeon tech and served as a bridge to Zeta Gundam, pushing the technology forward a bit but not beyond Zeta levels. For the 08th MS Team, we felt we needed a Gundam to make the series viable, so we created the Ground Type Gundam, essentially a land-based GM specialized for ground combat.

――I’ve heard the Ground Type Gundam is basically a GM on the inside.

Horiguchi: As the Gundam franchise has evolved, we’ve had to retroactively create settings that didn’t exist originally. The Federation started with just Gundams and GMs, but we’ve expanded that to include intermediary models and specialized versions. It’s possible the Ground Type Gundam in 08th was indeed based on GM internals.

――As viewers get older, into their late 30s, they might find it harder to identify with the “I’m a Newtype!” mentality. Do you think this shift towards realism is why we’re seeing cooler depictions of GMs, like in Gundam the Ride? After all, Ride has changed our perspective on GMs.

Horiguchi: The significance of the GM’s existence has two aspects. First, it’s a matter of animation technique. When we need to show numerous mobile suits, even though we now draw more detailed key frames, Gundams remain challenging to draw and color. GMs are much more efficient from a production standpoint. In other words, it’s beneficial for the production team (laughs). Second, we want to avoid cheapening the Gundam. In the original series, the Gundam was essentially a super robot, a hero machine exclusive to Amuro. In contrast, we saw multiple Guncannons in the movies, conveying their greater numbers. Director Tomino treated the Gundam as something almost sacred, so both game companies and we at Sunrise have this unspoken understanding – or rather, a concern that overusing Gundams would alienate the audience. That said, if you count them all up, we probably have about 200 Gundams now.

――Why not use Zakus more?

Horiguchi: Zaku designs are tricky to modify. Unlike the Gouf, Dom, or Gelgoog, which evolved in different directions and became iconic in their own right, the Zaku’s design progression basically ends with Char’s Zaku. Sure, we’ve had MSV variants, but they’re all based on the original designs by Okawara or Katoki. You can’t really trace a direct line from a Zaku to something like the Sazabi. The Zaku design is as iconic as the Gundam itself. The advantage of GMs is that they lead to a multitude of Gundams – all 200 of them. We could even conceptualize a Wing GM or a Wing GM Zero.

“JUST BECAUSE YOU PAID TO COME TO FUJI-Q HIGHLAND DOESN’T MEAN YOU GET TO PILOT A GUNDAM! (laughs)”

――So, how did Gundam: The Ride end up featuring a GM instead of a Gundam?

Horiguchi: Well, in the initial planning stages, we naturally thought, ‘People want to pilot a Gundam, right?’ However, on the completely opposite end, we had to consider how far we could push the realism of the experience. And let’s be real – there’s no way in hell you’d actually get to pilot a Gundam. It’s a special machine, and while everyone dreams of piloting one, that’d completely shatter any sense of realism. Plus, how do you explain 60 people crammed into one Gundam? It just doesn’t add up. There was also the issue of perspective. If we put people in Zeon mobile suits shouting ‘Down with the Federation!’ only to end with ‘Zeon lost!’, how do you explain that bummer ending to the kids? So, we went with the Federation angle. That way, you get to fight alongside the Gundam, which makes perfect sense. Look, a Gundam is like a Formula 1 car – it only shines when piloted by a superman like Amuro, the Ayrton Senna of mobile suits. Just because you shelled out cash for Fuji-Q Highland doesn’t mean you get to hop in a Gundam! (laughs) The GM solved all these problems in one go. With mobile suits flanking you, even those crazy high-G maneuvers make sense. In a GM, you might survive. In a Gundam? You’d be toast!

――The attention to detail was impressive.

Horiguchi: We wanted to showcase various characters and create a sense of shared experience for all 60 riders – that ‘we all made it out alive’ feeling. Normally, these short attractions lose their magic quickly, but having two pilots talking to you makes it feel more real. If they were actual people instead of anime characters, you’d genuinely feel grateful for being saved. Amuro helped us out, and Sayla… well, if you look closely, her evasive maneuver is actually what got us hit and crashed! (laughs) Once we nailed those key elements, it was just a matter of fine-tuning the details. We invested a lot of time and manpower into research. I’m sure there are hardcore fans out there thinking, ‘Wait a minute, the Gundam and GM weren’t even in that sector!’ To which I’d love to say, ‘Oh, were you there?’ But you know what? We have to respect that level of dedication.

ARE GUNDAM’S SPECS NOT OFFICIALLY SET IN STONE?!

――When looking at various sources, there seem to be inconsistencies in the settings. Is there a clear line between what’s considered “official” and what’s not?

Horiguchi: Well, for us, it always comes back to the film, you know? We acknowledge parts of MSV, and we’ve got stuff we developed with Bandai showing up in Zeta Gundam and Gundam ZZ, so that’s pretty solid. With OVAs, if we declare something as official, we’ve got to respect that to some degree. But with the original Gundam, for better or worse, we’ve got discrepancies between the TV series and the movies. Like, what happened to the Guntank? Why isn’t it flying in space? Including all that, I’d say there’s a lot of wiggle room – a big ol’ grey zone in the Gundam universe.

――As someone who approves these various retroactive settings in the “grey zone,” how do you feel about it being filled in from the outside?

Horiguchi:

There’s this intangible thing called ‘Gundam,’ right? At its core, it’s the film. The film exists as a physical object, but the visuals – that’s all imagery, no physical form. When that gets translated into something tangible like a model kit, you’ve got to fill in the blanks. Images can be vague, but a 3D object can’t have those inconsistencies. We don’t check every little detail – it’d be impossible. For things that don’t mess with the core visual image, like thruster output specs, our stance is basically, ‘Sure, go for it.’ The visual image of Gundam belongs to Sunrise, but it’s also shared with the fans, Bandai, and all of us. There’s an unspoken gentlemen’s agreement – no one goes too far because they know the fans will call them out. On the flip side, I’ll admit there’s so much information out there that fans get confused about what’s official. To be honest, Gundam wasn’t initially popular when it aired. It’s been going strong for 20 years because fans made it their own. So, while Sunrise might own 70% of the ‘official’ Gundam, 30% belongs to the outside world. That’s been true from the start, and for Sunrise to deny that would be denying reality. Heck, even we sometimes say, ‘It’s true because I read it in this book!’ (laughs) For The Ride, I told the director Kondo and the CG team that we’re kind of creating a Toyotomi Hideyoshi story. There’s no actual footage of Hideyoshi, right? But there’s a history, and writers take that and create stories like ‘What if Hideyoshi came to the modern era?’ There’s this vague image of Hideyoshi based on historical facts and archaeological findings. Gundam has reached that level.

――(laughs) So Gundam is like Toyotomi Hideyoshi!

Horiguchi: Or Oda Nobunaga, if you prefer! (laughs) But here’s the thing – we can’t take the stance of ‘We’re Sunrise, so we can do whatever we want’ with ‘The Ride.’ We want the production team to be prepared. Everyone’s seen the big Gundam storylines and images in real time, but nobody knows everything. So, when we bring in experts to fact-check, and they point out inconsistencies that Kondo-san and I thought were fine, we fix them. If three pros say it’s off, that means a good chunk of our audience will notice, too. We want to eliminate those issues as much as possible. Sure, we could probably make a quick buck with something like ‘GMdam’ or a secretly developed ‘Super GM,’ and part of me would love to create that. But just like we can’t suddenly make Toyotomi Hideyoshi a master of dual-wielding swords, we’ve got to stay true to the core of Gundam.

“THAT BEATDOWN GUARANTEED THE GM’S COMFORTABLE POSITION”

――Coming back to the GM, it seems like it’s become a character that can be interpreted in various ways within that spectrum.

Horiguchi:I think both creators and viewers have this desire to see and own a Gundam because they love it. At the same time, this is my job, so I’m not obsessively attached to creating new Gundams… well, maybe a little. But that’s a pretty high bar to clear. People have so much love for the original Gundam and Zeta Gundam works that we can’t just go messing around with that willy-nilly. We needed something on the Federation side that we could play around with – enter the GM. Its imperfect design is actually part of its charm. And you know what really cemented the GM’s impact? That absolute thrashing it got from Char’s Z’gok. If we’d shown three nameless GMs slicing through a bunch of Zakus, leaving Amuro stunned, it might’ve been a different story. Usually, mass-produced models outperform prototypes, right? That beatdown guaranteed the GM’s comfortable position. There’s something exciting about the potential for an underdog to rise up.

――If a new Gundam series were to be made now, what direction do you think it would take?

Horiguchi:Animation serves as a springboard for imagination, for better or worse. If we’re aiming to depict a worldview rather than focus on super pilots, we might feature the GM. But for a TV anime, which is like the main event, we’d probably introduce some form of Gundam with GMs in supporting roles. In the projects I’m working on, we’re careful not to betray that ‘Toyotomi Hideyoshi-like’ perception of past Gundams, but I’m not calling all the shots here. We’re also considering proposals for a different kind of ‘Gundam’ – ones that might not be strictly war stories, though they’d probably still fall under that broader category. We might see series that don’t directly depict battlefields.

――In that case, could the GM take center stage?

Horiguchi: Sure, as the great mass-produced machine, you could say.

――Would it be bad to call it the great cannon fodder mecha?

Horiguchi: Nah, cannon fodder works! The “Mobile Suit GM” series will likely continue, and there’s even talk about me going around calling Gundam The Ride “GM The Ride” before anyone else does. Here’s a little inside scoop – we’ve got something prepared that’ll really make you go, ‘Now this is Gundam The Ride.’ Can’t say much more yet. Oh, but the visuals won’t change just so you know. As for when… well, that’s up in the air. I’m hoping we can create another attraction like this, separate from The Ride. If we can find the place, time, and money, I’ve got something even more exciting than The Ride already planned out in my head. Really hope we can make it happen.