Kazuya Tsurumaki, director of the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise’s latest anime series Gundam GQuuuuuuX, recently talked to Yahoo Japan about how he views the future of robot-themed franchises like Gundam and Evangelion. A member of Studio Khara, Tsurumaki served as assistant director on the iconic Neon Genesis Evangelion TV series and later became the director of the Rebuild of Evangelion tetralogy, acting as Hideaki Anno’s right-hand man. He is also known as the creator of the surreal sci-fi anime FLCL from 2000.
Like many of his peers, Tsurumaki has been captivated by the idea of adolescent characters piloting huge machines ever since the start of Japan’s robot anime boom in the 70s. “When I was a kid, motorcycles and cars were the objects of admiration. I think that the idea of piloting a robot came as an extension of that admiration, as a way to not only leap right into adulthood, but also wield a tool that allows you to surpass adults.”
On the other hand, Tsurumaki thinks that this fantasy is not necessarily shared by today’s younger generations. “In today’s manga and anime, protagonists wield magic or psychic powers – abilities that let them surpass adults in a more intuitive way.” Additionally, Tsurumaki suggests that the rise of video games, where you can control characters just by using a controller, has come to satisfy this desire for empowerment among newer generations of kids, replacing the role robot anime played for his generation.
“I don’t think those kids understand what it means to pilot a robot. For now, the generations that grew up admiring bikes and cars are still active, but in another ten years, even the Gundam series might not survive. I had already felt this while working on Evangelion, but there is a need to update the meaning of robots.”
Somewhat ironically, Tsurumaki’s own Gundam GQuuuuuuX has done a remarkable job at both invigorating old Gundam fans and attracting newcomers to the franchise, according to Bandai Namco. The director made a risky call to play around with the events of the original Mobile Suit Gundam from 1979, and although his work has garnered some degree of mixed reactions (more so in the West), he has contributed to 2025 becoming a record-breaking year for the Gundam IP. Perhaps Tsurumaki’s acute awareness of what different layers of the audience seek to empathize with played a part in GQuuuuuuX success.
I think he’s right to point out the overall decline of mecha anime, but it’s not because kids have stopped admiring giant robots—it’s more about the typical narrative direction Gundam takes. The series has always leaned heavily into politics with a relatively serious tone, while the most popular anime today are wish-fulfillment fantasies and romantic comedies—genres Gundam is very much not. That said, if the writers created a compelling, character-driven story that borrowed some of the emotional appeal of those genres—similar to what Code Geass achieved—I believe Gundam could find major success again.
Oh come on…just because younger audiences watch hot trash like solo leveling doesn’t mean we have to stop making mecha anime, I’m even sure that the original Gundam will have a resurgence when the newer generations get a fixation on the “aesthetic” and “vibes” of our generation and the ones before, and start watching retro anime and get interested in Gundam. (Not that the ENTIRE generation will, but I’m sure there will be some!
If the genre keeps creating series like Gundam GQuuuuuuX, then of course it’s bound to fail. It’s nothing like the true Gundam genre or anything great like God Gundam or 00.
I think its the quality of gundam that is dooming itself… gundam franchise keep spitting out rubbish or sub standard generic as well content, nowonder viewers gets bored.
For the older gundams i was like “omg i cant wait to see nxt episode”… now its like “story n art preety meh, maybe i’ll just wait till the series finishes”.
Here is an idea, Micheal bay directs a Gundam film 😂
This is emblematic of the mindset set Tomino was concerned about in that statement from a few months ago.
The mecha is supposed to be a terrible weapon of war, not a cool car with arms. Treating it like a toy undermines that.
Love the gundam series. But the last 2 was good to watch but they are not good as the old series. For me I like gundam blooded orphans, 08th ms team because it had more realistic look too it. And also enjoyed gundam seed and 00 and hathaway. I would love to see more series like blooded orphans and 08th team. Blooded orphans got me into watching gundam series in the first place.
Its because the story writing of the gundam series is getting worse. Old gundam series likes GundamSeed, and Mobile Suit Iron Blood is good because of how much its gundam design and its story writing had an impact to the audiences. Another old mecha anime that is also interesting is the anime Knigh & Magic. This mecha anime is so fresh, although its not a gundam series. But still leave quit an impressive impression to the fan of mecha anime.
Okay really now… How about stop targeting teen and all the audiences that probably don’t know what Gundam was about? Instead, make it darker and/or political with drama as seasoning. There is a reason why war the the pocket and 08th ms team age so well. It’s not just the animation… Even young audiences are starting to get fed up with the high fantasy and stuff
You mean like what SEED did? Which made it one of the most popular Gundam series, I do get your point, but honestly Gundam has been around for so many years they have tried everything, They went the full political route, they have sparkle it with romance, they went full shonen once, there was that other time they tried to make it a video game, it had some varying degrees of success though in my opinion they get more success when they combine a serious plot with the occasional hijinks of a romantic Comedy, Wing and the 08th to some extent, SEED, IBO, WoM and this last one, the only thing they haven’t done is add full on magic or the Isekai plot where the MC is overpowered and probably disregard the whole, “kids piloting war machines and killing is really fucked up” theme though I don’t think it will make for good series those kind of plots are forgotten whenever the next anime Quar hits and at the end of the day is all about gunpla can’t sell those people if don’t remember from what anime they are.
If GQX and Witch from Mercury is what the people in charge allow Gundam to become, I can see why he would think it won’t make it for another decade. It’s been mid series after mid series after Unicorn, with at least some decent movies and it hasn’t been all great before either.
Slice of life with atrocious characters and a complete disregard for character development and especially for politics and war, the fundamentals of Gundam, or freaky looking kids who look like buffoons pretending to be serious, is not what I signed up for.