Love vs. Sorrow
By Director Yoshiyuki Tomino

I’m not entirely sure when these feelings first took hold, but I know the idea has been rooted in my thinking for at least a decade:

I have a deep aversion to the way the word “love” is used.

This may be little more than a personal prejudice.

And yet, the more “love” is flaunted in commercial contexts, love, and only love, the more I find myself forced to regard it as a word that deserves contempt.

When we were deciding on the subtitle for Gundam II, I chose “Soldiers of Sorrow” as a kind of ironic commentary on that state of affairs.

This choice reflects my own sensibilities.

Naturally, the title “Soldiers of Sorrow” is my own coinage, intended to encompass all the warriors, friend and foe alike, who fall in battle within the film.

I am not claiming it to be flawless. Nonetheless, my colleagues and I hope that you might understand, even just a little, the reasoning behind choosing this title.

Around the same time, I saw the tagline of another film, and I was left speechless.

It went something like: “Abandon love, and you will face nothing but defeat, be it in war, be it in life.”

Suppose we accept that to discard love leads directly to defeat, without ever exploring what becomes of love once it has been cast aside, without demonstrating the decisive power that love might hold over human affairs. Are we not neglecting a fundamental question? For instance, was it not because a certain nation had forsaken love long ago that it eventually met with defeat?

If there is a simplistic notion that men throw away love because of war, that war itself compels them to do so, then that notion exists even before the idea of defeatism. Moreover, it blinds us to the very roots of the sickness that plagues our current era.

In modern usage, the tonal scale of “love” is deeply saccharine. The logic and structure of the modern world are swallowed whole, making it all the sweeter.

This kind of thinking distracts us from looking squarely at how people truly connect to each other. With a vague invocation of love, we allow all things to reach some sort of superficial conclusion.

I am not condemning commercialism per se. Yet, when trying to relay stories that properly belong on the ledger of our collective past, I wish we could do so with a measure of correctness.

Of course, distorting history is nothing unique to our time; it has occurred in all ages, across the world, often at the hands of those in power.

So I acknowledge that it cannot be helped.

Such acts are, after all, human behavior.

But when we exist on the same human level, can we at least refrain from sugarcoating reality to the point of misrecognition?

Could we, at the very least, resolve not to deceive one another among ordinary citizens?

I am neither Christian nor Buddhist, so I do not know the exact nature of the love taught by Christianity, nor the compassion preached by the Buddha.

What I do believe, however, purely my own conviction, is this:

Does not love prove its worth only when tested by the harsh friction of reality?

If so, then love should not be something purely sweet. Not in its truest form.

I cannot help but suspect that there are those who have fashioned love into something lovely and sweet, invested it with a kind of iconic power on a pedestal, haven’t they dressed it up to be that way?

In the world of stories, this may be unique to Japan, it’s fine if one believes that love can save one or two worlds.

The desire of those who want to believe love has such power and sublimity is valid.

But if we accept that as pure fantasy, and it is fantasy, then is it not the responsibility of adults to also make it clear that the real world is not so easily remedied by love?

Words can sometimes be tantamount to violence.

They are also apt to produce self-deception.

Manipulating language may look like an intellectual act, but history shows not a single example of intellectuals demonstrating real power.

Meanwhile, our era of bloated commercialism in Japan uses “love” as a mere tool, calling it “image strategy.”

Shouldn’t we consider shattering these false images created by empty words?

All the more so when we communicate with young people.

In the West, I am given to understand, a paucity of vocabulary led to the development of logic that constructs the meanings of individual words.

At least, the religious worldview and the habit of logical thinking that Westerners possess support the existence of “love” as a valid concept.

The form of “love” we currently perceive with our “trendy sensibilities” differs in texture.

In other words, there is a considerable qualitative distance between the love John Lennon cried out could save the world, and the sense of solidarity implied by the slogan “all humanity are brothers and sisters.”

This relates even to the meaning of that literal Japanese phrase “humanity’s love.” By now, very few people likely sense that it’s a mere direct translation.

Originally, the Japanese language lacked the vocabulary to structure abstract reasoning. Although we had countless words for emotional expression…

Terms like “humanity” and “love” were direct translations used to enable philosophical discourse.

Yet over time, these words became familiar, and they acquired new functions, even serving as expressions of emotion.

This may be an inevitable trend of the times.

But even so, I wish we would stop exploiting the pleasing sound of such words to extinguish the very sprouts of reality-based understanding.

To further exacerbate social strife beyond what we have today cannot be good.

On the other hand, once we recognize that our current age has entered an unprecedented era in human history, we must ask: Is there any way to save this world? And when we realize that not even love can save us, we are left speechless.

This is a tormenting frustration.

“An unprecedented era?” some may scoff, “What nonsense.”

But this only means that an accurate epistemology, one that understands our modern society, at least those advanced nations now being swallowed up by something for which we have no historical precedent, has yet to become mainstream.

Intellectual trends rise and fall.

Still, I believe this to be true. I sense it.

I think we have entered a time where we can no longer afford to ignore such issues.

Therefore, please spare me the optimistic mindset that we can simply get along, love each other, and die happy.

If we do that, we may all perish.

At the very least, let’s try to ensure that some of us survive.

What should we do to make that happen?

This is the theme.

In our real world, we have far too little time to wait for some Newtype awakening.

And so, it cannot be love; it must be sorrow.

With bitter regret, I say sorrow.

But if we maintain an accurate, unflinching perception of reality, that is, if we hold onto toughness, then I believe we can ensure the survival of at least a few.

Hence, not love, but sorrow.

It may be sorrow now, but we still long to soar; this is the Newtype narrative.

And no matter what, we must never give in to despair. I wish to hold that iron resolve within myself.

Let us not remain merely soldiers of sorrow… and move beyond.