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Gundam creator criticizes 'Your Name' director's works for not being sexually explicit
- Thread starter Kalmakov
- Start date
It is more frustrating with Shinkai because he is a prominent, skilled director and seems to want to make mature, relationship oriented movies. However, he can't seem to get past the sad teenager's view of a relationship, where it is solely about two people longing to be together, and getting together is the only conflict to overcome.
Criticizing isekai seems like kind of a waste of time, since it is mostly just trashy teenage power fantasy stuff to begin with.
Turn A Gundam and G Reco are probably the only ones you're going to find with that criteria.
And I guess Marbet from V Gundam ends out.. well... not dead despite that bloodbath of a series.
After reading that entire article all I will say is if something like this is going to be brought up I need more than sound bites. As it stands, not a good look.
Classic Tomino. It's not even his most colorful interview.
Nobody has an happy ending with him. Besides, remember Brain Powerd.
Ultimately I felt it was less of a detriment in Your Name (because of the two protagonist's romance taking a bit of a backseat for 70% of the movie in favor for all the out-of-body experiences and supernatural stuff) and more a problem with Garden of Words. I get what Shinkai wanted to do with that movie but the entire climax felt like it's wanting to have its cake and eat it, and it felt more egregious because the movie basically exists to build up to that point. "There's obviously no way these two can get together because that shit's creepy but I'm going to present this entire scene as if that's what's happening".
Funny enough, Turn A and G Reco are the 2 Tomino-Gundams I haven't wanted.
I don't know if I'd call Marbet a "Good" character but then again, I've blocked most of V Gundam from my memory.
That's not entirely true. Even if they've had tough roads, some of his male characters (and even protagonists) get a happy ending. Gundam Z and ZZ cover that.
I rewatched all of UC with some friends two years ago and I was jumping from series to series on the female characters being like "oh, Emma was kind of cool! but... oh.." And it just kept fucking happening..
I do agree, I dunno if I could call Marbet "good" either. "Competent" maybe, but even she had some real, real bad moments in the series (like her romance to Oliver).
The biggest tragedy is that one of the strongest female UC-era characters of recent memory that appears in Unicorn....ah fuck it. I'm still mad at that. I'm not even going to bring her up.
At least Sayla survived, though I don't know what happens to her in the end.
She was somewhat written out of the animated productions because they couldn't get her voice actress (and I guess didn't want to recast her).
That or Tomino didn't have a creative enough way to kill her and just chose to ignore her.
ZZ Spoilers:
The Z saga ends in ZZ.
edit: Well, you could say it ends in Gundam Unicorn but...
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Seems like he meant that it would be more realistic for teens that age to be horny, but he chose the weirdest possible way to say it
saw it twice, dubbed and subbed. it's good.
the amount of 'anime bullshit' you have to excuse to enjoy/advocate for it amounts to two brief scenes of boob grabbing.
besides that it's a nice story about savoring the connections you make and the terror of losing your memory.
Ideon was basically Tomino just having carte blanche to murder people and especially children over and over again because BLEAKNESS.
LOL
he's not wrong...i guess...wait what?
he's not wrong...i guess...wait what?
There's a famous quote from an interview Tomino did about Char's counterattack that explains more about his point of view.
Although the original twitter source is I think, lost to time.
Ideon is a merry robot action anime about protecting the peace of the world and your neighborhood. :)
Anno would later borrow its ending for Evangelion.
It's confusing whiplash to discover Tomino is... like this after the first thing I heard about him was how he defended Romi Park from angry Japanese nationalists for being the daughter of Korean immigrants. But I guess someone can be a creep but also anti-racist.
Like I get what he's saying but it's a REALLY gross way of saying it that's not at all necessary to the point I'd say it undermines his point completely.
Edit: Just read his other comments from the past EW WHAT THE HELL.
Like I get what he's saying but it's a REALLY gross way of saying it that's not at all necessary to the point I'd say it undermines his point completely.
Edit: Just read his other comments from the past EW WHAT THE HELL.
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I love thisThere's a famous quote from an interview Tomino did about Char's counterattack that explains more about his point of view.
Although the original twitter source is I think, lost to time.
I cant breath
Now this is just being foolish. If you have a problem with Tomino then there are plenty of Gundam shows that he wasn't involved in. But sure, blanket them all.
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I think this interview is where the Nanai quote comes from? Not sure because I don't think I saw the quote in the translation that's also linked there.
If its supposed to be, it is the exact opposite in tone and message of that other image.
In general, I'd be hesitant to believe any interview posted without a source (referring to the other interview posted here), particular if it's just a screenshot without any origin. Even more so with 'translated' interviews.
I'm not female so can't really speak on the subject matter with too much authority, but older Gundam shows do have issues with its usage of female characters, and it seems like Victory Gundam was supposed to be a course correction on that based on this interview and from actually watching it (given the focus on matriarchy and a largely female cast). I would say it does fail to a point, particularly towards the end, but it's not bad compared to the typical anime (which is a fairly low standard admittedly.)
As for the actual topic, from the context and this note from the translator of the article, it seems like his point is more about intimacy than being more explicit. Though irrelevant of his intentions, it's a pretty bad way to get his point across.
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At a very minimum Tomino is a gender essentialist who traffics in benevolent sexism. On some level he wants female characters to be written with depth and agency but it's also impossible to tear him away from the "Men are like THIS, but women are like THAT" routine.
The thing I posted might not be it, but it seems the picture that's been quoted a bunch may have come from a twitter account that no longer has those tweets and is a protected account. So I found the picture on reddit without a source.
Yeah, I was more referring to the other image that's been posted, as the article you linked does actually reference the magazine the article is in along with actual screenshots of the entirety of the original article it seems. A bit difficult to say with the other interview since the tweets are gone.
I'm watching ZZ right now just for Kamille, but I'm halfway into it and it's starting to get better.
All I can really say is that I kind of agree with him because I think way too often romance in anime is depicted in the most diet way possible where all the characters do is hold hands and blush themselves into a puddle when they try to do anything else. It feels fake as hell.
I just wish there were more tasteful depictions of sex and sexuality in anime and manga and less over the top in your face fan service that doesn't mean anything and doesn't go anywhere. Tokyo Ghoul is one of the recent examples I can think of that did this really well.
I just wish there were more tasteful depictions of sex and sexuality in anime and manga and less over the top in your face fan service that doesn't mean anything and doesn't go anywhere. Tokyo Ghoul is one of the recent examples I can think of that did this really well.
I dunno who is calling him woke anywhere, let alone here
Fuck, everyone here is laughing at him for the shit he says
Since the left-right divide came up, I thought I'd bring up how the original Gundam is rooted in the Pacific theatre of World War and contains criticism of Imperial Japan despite the surface level European imagery.
(I don't mean this as a statement that he's not misogynistic, this stuff doesn't make any statement about that. I don't think that not being right wing and not being a misogynist go hand and hand.)
The political situation in the UC universe has a variety of colonies ruled by a distant foreign power, with a significant source of tension being the hostility of those from the colonies to foreign control. This reflects the Asian situation prior to World War 2, where countries like India and China were heavily affected by the colonialist interests of European powers like Europe.
For example, thousands of Indians joined Imperial Japan in World War 2. It wasn't that they were necessarily pro-fascist, but they thought of the English that colonized them as enemy number one, so they allied with anyone that opposed them. Of course, that means allying with the Axis. You see this in Gundam as well, where Spacenoids tend not to like the Federation regardless of their actual alliance - Kai Shiden dismissively says that everyone (i.e. Amuro) who grows up on Earth is part of the elite, but he never shows any interest in defecting to Zeon specifically.
Zeon's stated goal is to liberate space from Federation oppression, but in reality, they're conquering it and intend to have their own oppression in place. It's evident in their willingness to gas colonies filled with Spacenoids in order to perform colony drops. Imperial Japan did the exact same thing; they claimed that they were promoting pan-Asianism against the threat of European colonialism, but their treatment of other Asians such as the Chinese is barbaric and dehumanizing.
The military situation also parallels the Pacific theater. Both Zeon and Japan are essentially islands on the edge of the map and are innately resource-poor for that fact, while being up against an enemy who is far superior in that respect. They also both gain a quick advantage by being the first to employ a particular gamechanger on a large scale. In Zeon's case, it's the Zaku, a mobile suit which isn't particular impressive but provided a great advantage against an enemy that did not have such a maneuverable weapon. In Imperial Japan's case it was the Mitsubishi Zero (nicknamed Zeke by the Allies), which was similarly a pretty bad plane but maneuverable due to its lacking armour. Mobile Suits are the equivalent of naval planes.
The Federation has to strap Mobile Suits to the hulls of their battleships at the start of the war because they don't have enough dedicated carriers. In the real world, many early naval carriers actually were repurposed from battleships due to that exact issue, although probably not that drastically.
Imperial Japan's leadership did not value their personnel and often left their skilled soldiers to die, largely because they hadn't fought themselves and they thought things like tactical retreats were simply cowardice. They essentially figured that human resources were infinite while weapons weren't. They were no different with pilots. By comparison, the Allies would pull aces back in from the front lines to train newer pilots. As a result, Imperial Japan ended up with a shortage of skilled pilots by the end of war. We see the same thing in the original Gundam, where M'Quve chooses not to support Ramba Ral due to unrelated political concerns and the Gelgoogs in A Bao Qu are being piloted by students with no combat experience.
I want to say that Zeon's leadership compares to Imperial Japan's in that they're both ruled by warmongers in the military, but I might be stretching out my knowledge here. I've heard debate on whether or not Emperor Hirohito was himself responsible or he was simply a puppet as most Japanese emperors have been, which might be reflected in Degwin's figurehead status. Although Degwin earned his position through assassination so maybe you shouldn't feel too sympathetic to him either way.
This is a small thing compared to the above, but Solomon is probably named after the Solomon Islands, a major compaign won by the Allies against Japan. Kai Shiden is named after a Japanese World War 2 plane.
(I don't mean this as a statement that he's not misogynistic, this stuff doesn't make any statement about that. I don't think that not being right wing and not being a misogynist go hand and hand.)
The political situation in the UC universe has a variety of colonies ruled by a distant foreign power, with a significant source of tension being the hostility of those from the colonies to foreign control. This reflects the Asian situation prior to World War 2, where countries like India and China were heavily affected by the colonialist interests of European powers like Europe.
For example, thousands of Indians joined Imperial Japan in World War 2. It wasn't that they were necessarily pro-fascist, but they thought of the English that colonized them as enemy number one, so they allied with anyone that opposed them. Of course, that means allying with the Axis. You see this in Gundam as well, where Spacenoids tend not to like the Federation regardless of their actual alliance - Kai Shiden dismissively says that everyone (i.e. Amuro) who grows up on Earth is part of the elite, but he never shows any interest in defecting to Zeon specifically.
Zeon's stated goal is to liberate space from Federation oppression, but in reality, they're conquering it and intend to have their own oppression in place. It's evident in their willingness to gas colonies filled with Spacenoids in order to perform colony drops. Imperial Japan did the exact same thing; they claimed that they were promoting pan-Asianism against the threat of European colonialism, but their treatment of other Asians such as the Chinese is barbaric and dehumanizing.
The military situation also parallels the Pacific theater. Both Zeon and Japan are essentially islands on the edge of the map and are innately resource-poor for that fact, while being up against an enemy who is far superior in that respect. They also both gain a quick advantage by being the first to employ a particular gamechanger on a large scale. In Zeon's case, it's the Zaku, a mobile suit which isn't particular impressive but provided a great advantage against an enemy that did not have such a maneuverable weapon. In Imperial Japan's case it was the Mitsubishi Zero (nicknamed Zeke by the Allies), which was similarly a pretty bad plane but maneuverable due to its lacking armour. Mobile Suits are the equivalent of naval planes.
The Federation has to strap Mobile Suits to the hulls of their battleships at the start of the war because they don't have enough dedicated carriers. In the real world, many early naval carriers actually were repurposed from battleships due to that exact issue, although probably not that drastically.
Imperial Japan's leadership did not value their personnel and often left their skilled soldiers to die, largely because they hadn't fought themselves and they thought things like tactical retreats were simply cowardice. They essentially figured that human resources were infinite while weapons weren't. They were no different with pilots. By comparison, the Allies would pull aces back in from the front lines to train newer pilots. As a result, Imperial Japan ended up with a shortage of skilled pilots by the end of war. We see the same thing in the original Gundam, where M'Quve chooses not to support Ramba Ral due to unrelated political concerns and the Gelgoogs in A Bao Qu are being piloted by students with no combat experience.
I want to say that Zeon's leadership compares to Imperial Japan's in that they're both ruled by warmongers in the military, but I might be stretching out my knowledge here. I've heard debate on whether or not Emperor Hirohito was himself responsible or he was simply a puppet as most Japanese emperors have been, which might be reflected in Degwin's figurehead status. Although Degwin earned his position through assassination so maybe you shouldn't feel too sympathetic to him either way.
This is a small thing compared to the above, but Solomon is probably named after the Solomon Islands, a major compaign won by the Allies against Japan. Kai Shiden is named after a Japanese World War 2 plane.
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Degwin is no figurehead. He just has two children trying to kill him and then kill each other for total control.
He wasn't always one, but his control of Zeon's military is already usurped by Gihren when the series starts. He does try to stop the war so he's presumably got some power he can throw about if he really wants to but we know how that went.
