Yoshiyuki Tomino, creator of the Mobile Suit Gundam series, recently spoke to Kyodo News in an interview commemorating 80 years since the end of World War II. While offering his personal insights on war, Tomino also reflected on how he created the premise of 1979’s first Gundam. The series’ first installment revolves around the One Year War – a culmination of tensions between Spacenoids – humans who were forced to immigrate to space colonies, and Earthnoids – humans who got to remain on Earth. Given his own vivid memories of incendiary bombs being dropped near his hometown during WWII, creating a cause for conflict between humans felt jarring for Tomino.
“While working in anime production, I’ve created several science-fiction war stories. I often made aliens the ‘enemy,’ but when I decided to make humans themselves the enemy in Mobile Suit Gundam, I realized that to introduce heavy fighter machines in the story, the only plausible scenario was a war between nations with developed military weapons industries. That meant I had to invent a “cause” for war, and I was appalled by the realization.”
Tomino explains that if the enemy were aliens – like in his previous work Space Runaway Ideon – a straightforward invasion scenario would explain the conflict. “But with humans, a single dictator can’t start a war so easily. In Gundam, I set the story up so that people who had emigrated to space colonies launched a war of independence, driven by the humiliation of being treated as outcasts by Earth.”
The premise, Tomino explains, was modeled after the American Civil War, which is also why he consciously incorporated the theme of race into the story. “The result was a story about boys piloting humanoid weapons called Gundam to fight against the people who had migrated to Space.”
Tomino also expressed concern about the low level of awareness the general public and creators have about war, which has resulted in media portrayal of war being reduced to action flicks. “Even I, who was just three years old during the war, am now 83, and fewer and fewer people remain who actually remember it. Many war movies have been made in the meantime, but unless filmmakers themselves have at least some experience of war, they cannot truly grasp what it is. As a result, all they can do is depict battle scenes as if they were games, and you end up with action films instead.” The problem lies not only in a lack of experience – Tomino also considers the media responsible for not properly conveying “the voices of real soldiers and politicians who ordered suicide attacks, so that people could learn the true nature of war.”
On a related note, Tomino is currently planning a new unannounced project, which will not feature any “enemy” in the typical sense. This decision seems to be his answer to how Gundam has, in his opinion, come to be “consumed” more through plastic model kits and less through critical thinking in recent years. 12
