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Forum - View topicInterview: Gundam Wing Executive Producer Hideyuki Tomioka
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xchampion
 Posts: 370 Location: Idaho Falls, Idaho |
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It was a great read, but too bad it was only 3 questions. Does that even count as an interview?
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Rogueywon
Posts: 252 |
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The answer to that last question feels a bit like the Japanese version of "yeah, I hated everything that came after my stuff, but I'm too polite to say so".
Pity, really, as SEED and Iron Blooded Orphans, in particular, are far better than Wing and most of the UC stuff in my book. I like Gundam, but I do think it's time that it moved on from the UC setting. The timeline's too convoluted and too often, in UC shows (Unicorn in particular), characters end up more as thinly-veiled ciphers for political/philosophical viewpoints than actual characters. I'd like to see them spend more time on either continuing existing alternate timelines (After Colony, Cosmic Era, Anno Domini and so on) or making new ones, rather than trying to find new windows to squeeze new UC shows into. |
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Zeino
Posts: 1098 |
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It seems more like "Eh, they are okay and people worked hard on them so I won't put their efforts down. They will just never match affection I have for the shows that I was part of." Which is fair enough sentiment. Interesting to know that Wing's staff more or less had complete creative freedom over the series beyond the make 5 Gundams that can sell lots of models request. Wonder how that compares to the production of other Gundam series. I know that G Gundam was petty heavily mandated by the executives, which makes it a bit of a miracle that came out as great a series as it did. But that's Imagawa for you. |
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Titus-A
 Posts: 53 |
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Let's just all agree that Gundam Wing is the best. Yes, there are other great Gundams like Zeta, 08th MS, SEED and X (and Crossbone if we add manga to the mix). But Wing is the best of the best. End of.
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TexZero
Posts: 584 |
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I have to disagree. Wing is far from the best. It's not even the most accessible starting point for people looking to get into Gundam. If it is one thing it's responsible for strictly the commercial success of future titles in that it expanded sells of Gunpla to places outside Japan which in itself is was a huge gamble that paid off in the mid 90's. |
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Zeino
Posts: 1098 |
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Gundam fans can agree on nothing, that is the only real thing that can be agreed on. |
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crosswithyou
 Posts: 2892 Location: California |
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Well they certainly succeeded there!
Agreed.
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Codeanime93
Posts: 599 |
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I thought Wing was still pretty good now, even though the plotline of the show is rather confusing, even more confusing probably for me when I was a kid.
I would say that I've only been disappointed in the recent Gundam show Iron Blooded Orphans and that's because the second season was piss poor to the extreme that even Wing can't attest to. Wing's animation certainly has aged a lot and the dubbed voice acting from Ocean hasn't aged well either for me. But I find it a far better total experience than IBO ever could give. Though I like the producer at least is polite in not putting down any of the shows after his by name. Though to be honest Gundam has pretty much been disappointing me on the TV front lately in between frustrating failures like IBO and kiddie style fan shows like Build Fighters/Divers/Whatever, even Age which I hesitate to watch because it looks so made for kids, coupled with the wreck of G-Reco, the only Gundam shows lately that have held anything for me arrive in OVAs that harken back to the UC century. So yeah I've kind of formed the opinion the franchise has hit a rough spot after 00 with kiddie style shows and disappointing fare like IBO being released on TV and only OVA stuff working right now though they rely heavily on UC nostalgia. |
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MarshalBanana
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LightningCount
 Posts: 230 |
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I appreciate this interview being done. It's just a shame that there was only time for three questions and that the responses were pretty similar to those given during Otakon.
In the list of Tomino productions, F-91 wasn't mentioned prior to Victory, which was an interesting omission. I think generally he was saying that the series since he left don't have an impact on him because he didn't work on them. Oddly, I seem to recall an interview during the initial release of the remastered Gundam Wing DVDs in Japan a number of years back where someone on Wing's staff gave credit to SEED, and said something about a new Gundam making a notable impact every 10 years, but I don't recall the details. I posted at length about how I feel about Gundam Wing during its dedicated ANNcast. In short, it's still the most "complete" Gundam to me, even if its individual elements sometimes aren't as strong as other entries. G-Gundam was a really fun adventure with a surprisingly healthy helping of mystery and interpersonal emotion. If it has a downside, it's that it can be overly goofy and one could argue the story drags a bit at times. Gundam X, in terms of its art direction and bombastic high jinks, is the closest spiritual successor to Gundam Wing, in my opinion. It's hurt most by the fact it was cut down 10 episodes, since it builds its story so methodically. The period between G-Gundam and Turn-A Gundam gives off a really special vibe. I greatly appreciate Tomioka's tenure with the franchise, building on what G started. Some of the most memorable characters, machines, and scenarios come out of these series, I feel. Plus, it really helped that It was a time where Sunrise had a really strong visual identity with things like 08th MS Team, Cowboy Bebop, Gasaraki, Outlaw Star, and The Big-O. Admittedly, I haven't seen much of Turn-A yet, but everything I have seen and heard gives the impression of a well-conceived and intriguing entry. The Gundams since Tomioka have been a very mixed bag for me... Gundam SEED is better than some people give it credit for, but it gets bogged down in repetition of its own scenarios and the feeling that it needs to re-imagine a good chunk of Gundam 0079, when it has a lot of its own themes and concepts worth exploring. Also, the animation feels less confident overall than previous Gundam series. Gundam SEED Destiny is also better than advertised. It has some of the most interesting philosophical discussions outside of Gundam Wing and explores the Cosmic Era universe more so than its previous entry. The animation is improved from SEED as well. However, it has trouble managing its cast and story about three-fourths through and has an infamously rushed and lackluster ending. I wouldn't have said this in years past, but despite their flaws, if you look at the overall arc, I'd say that the Cosmic Era of SEED and SEED Destiny is really closest thing there has been to a full-fledged Alternate Universe Gundam series that captures the Gundam legacy and reworks it for a new generation. Gundam 00 had more impactful animation than Gundam SEED or Gundam SEED Destiny, and it had a really interesting setup with admirable ambitions. However, it's too uneven in its pacing over its two seasons, with the second season in particular feeling really awkward and one-dimensional in its delivery after the first few episodes. I feel that 00 Season 2 is actually less satisfying than Destiny was. The movie closes out things pretty well, even if unconventionally, but this Alternate Universe could have been much better if it had been given room to breathe. As a whole, I'm not sure it delivers as much as Cosmic Era, despite having a number of improvements over that previous Alternate Universe. Both Gundam 00 and Gundam SEED hurt themselves by trying to be overly multimedia, and thus having important plot points happen off-camera in other mediums like manga. Haven't seen AGE or Reconguista in G, but the former seems like it was overly focused on establishing a big multimedia footprint and the latter I thought started out as a non-Gundam Tomino story that was shoehorned into the Gundam universe by Sunrise. I really can't speak to these, but I don't have a lot of confidence in them. Gundam Unicorn was a nice prestige project, but it kind of feels a little hollow. It has some great visuals and a decent story setup, but as a whole it just didn't hold together for me. It's at its strongest overall during the first three OVAs, and the fourth and fifth have some cool scenarios, but by the sixth it feels like it's running on fumes. All the Build Fighters stuff has mostly gone over my head. I watched a little bit here and there. I think it's got some interesting visual ideas, but it kind of undercuts the things that make Gundam stand out in the mecha genre, so I have little interest in them. But I think they've probably reached the sweet spot of what AGE was trying to do in capturing a new, younger audience for multimedia interests. I haven't seen enough of Thunderbolt to make a judgment, but my initial impression from one episode was that it was too much like a bunch of video game cut-scenes stitched together. Having seen five of the six Gundam: The Origin episodes, I would say it's similar to Gundam Unicorn. It's an interesting prestige project that rounds out pieces of Gundam lore, but after the third episode it feels too disjointed to stand strongly on its own two feet. Also, it can feel overly cartoonish at times. I saw one episode of Twilight Axis, which just looked too truncated to even follow with any real sense of impact. Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans is a curious thing. It's to be commended for trying something really different on the whole, but the overall result was pretty understated and bland. I do not feel that the second season was considerably worse than the first season. If anything, I think it sort of solidified the series' identity thematically spoiler[as a tragic family-based mafia drama in space]. That said, it's a really slowly paced character drama with very few interesting or dynamic characters within said drama, and some rather ridiculous choices therein. Also, it's the first Gundam story about Mars, but it doesn't really do much with that idea. Much of the conflict is small-scale and the presence of Gundams and mobile suits feels more like an afterthought. Overall, I think its characters and themes were better developed than Gundam 00 (which says something about Gundam 00's shortcomings), but the utilization of its visual language with mecha was much less effective and its story was far less ambitious. In many ways, it's forgettable to me, or at least didn't move the needle. It just didn't feel very fleshed out as a new Gundam universe. So as it stands, we've got two of three new post-OYW UC projects in the works and a potential Gundam 00 follow-up. I'm only vaguely interested in any of these. I'd probably be more interested in a new entry in Cosmic Era that shored up that universe's shortcomings, even if only a movie, or in a UC side-story like Blue Destiny that has a more likeable set of characters and gives a little bit different take on the OYW setting. If not that, then a Gundam Wing prequel would be nice. Gundam is in a really awkward spot right now, in my opinion. During the Tomioka period (and just before with G), it feels like there was more of an overall vision to the works--a sort of organic feel to the characters and lived-in feel to the world--even if in reality that wasn't the truth. It might say something that the character drama of G-Gundam has more impact to it overall than the character drama of Iron-Blooded Orphans, when the latter made that it's main focus. On the other hand, Tomioka is supposedly involved with The Origin, so I'm not sure what to say there. Recently, in my opinion, overlooked mecha shows like Argevollen have kind of been better Alternate Universe-esque Gundam series than actual Alternate Universe Gundam series. Last edited by LightningCount on Sat May 12, 2018 6:44 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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SheRrIs
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It was much better than the first season, that's for sure. Overall, IBO S2 delivered all I wanted from the show and I could never complain about it. |
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Titus-A
Posts: 53 |
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There will always be Wing naysayers coming and trying to put it down. Same goes for all the other Gundam shows, especially SEED and AGE. But at the end of the day, they're all good shows that cater to different pallets. But the flaws of them all their naysayers always bring forth is simply.... they're not that other Gundam series they like, especially the UC fans who bend over to anything in that timeline from Origin which adds or clarifies nothing I didn't already know to snore-fests like Unicorn or Thunderbolt's obnoxious use of jazz music that tend to be enjoyed by wannabe anime connoisseurs who believe they are refined for liking this classy style of music.... so pretentious.
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zaphdash
 Posts: 620 Location: Brooklyn |
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The fact that Wing's staff had almost total creative freedom only makes its faults even less forgivable. If Tomioka came out and said "this is what we were able to pull out of all of these different, difficult and conflicting demands from the sponsors," that would be one thing. Instead he says "we were able to do pretty much whatever we wanted, as long as there were five new model kits to sell from it," and what they came up with was a convoluted rehash of the major story beats of the UC chronology, filled in with various additional plot developments that often make little or no sense (I know I've harped on this before, but how did Treize, a man with no known technical background, build -- from scratch -- a tied-for-most-powerful-on-the-show Gundam, while under house arrest? Nobody in the government thought it was weird that he was having mobile suit components shipped to his mansion? There was some other plausible use he might have for several tons of Gundanium alloy?). Tomioka's explanation reads like they were told, "you can do anything you want, as long as there are five Gundams," but the actual show reveals that the conversation was probably more along the lines of, "make us an extended toy commercial," and so they did. Which, I mean, is fine -- I'm under no illusions about how anime gets made, I understand that this is ultimately all just a vehicle to sell merchandise. The problem with Wing, for me, is that even though their mandate was so broad and open-ended, all they ultimately came up with was to redo the UC, but more nonsensically.
But as I've observed recently in other threads, I'm starting to think maybe Gundam in general is just not meant for me anyway. It was once my favorite franchise, but little of it actually holds my attention anymore (increasingly this goes for anime in general, though there are some exceptions). I barely got through IBO. I didn't finish Reconguista. I found Unicorn mostly entertaining but very stupid. I haven't revisited the older shows in some time, but I'm not optimistic about how I'd receive them now. So hell, if you love Wing then more power to you. Maybe I have just left the target demographic for these kinds of shows (although I would have made the same complaints about Wing even when I was otherwise very into Gundam -- but whatever, go forth and enjoy the shows you enjoy). |
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Codeanime93
Posts: 599 |
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I understand that, though I'm pretty sure kids in Japan are still just watching IBO, 00, SEED anyway regardless of how mature it is. I just find stuff like Fighters aggravating, it's even more pandering than the OVAs stuck in the UC Century to me. I just kind of liked it more when the show didn't try to make shows like that personally. Again just my opinion on that matter. Last edited by Codeanime93 on Sat May 12, 2018 8:20 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Codeanime93
Posts: 599 |
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That's fine I know some will disagree with my opinion on that part. I honestly am reversed as I found season 1 the only good part of IBO. I get the show wants to be different but I don't exactly like how it went about it. Last edited by Codeanime93 on Sat May 12, 2018 8:23 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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