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Production Reference
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The Roman Albums published by Tokuma Shoten are a series of reference books devoted to various anime titles. The original Mobile Suit Gundam is represented by a total of four volumes, with the TV series covered by Roman Album Extra 35 and the three theatrical motion pictures by volumes 42, 44, and 50. Roman Album Extra 44: Mobile Suit Gundam the Motion Picture II, published in September 1981, includes an extensive production diary by Gundam II assistant producer Masuo Ueda. The following text is copyright © 1981 Tokuma Shoten. |
Compared to the seven-month production period of the previous film, the schedule this time was a severe one of only four months. There was another group of "soldiers of sorrow" who don't appear on the theater screen. Here, assistant producer Mr. Ueda describes the details of their demanding hard work.
Assistant producer Masuo Ueda (Nippon Sunrise)
March 10 (Tuesday): Even before the opening of the Gundam theatrical film, there was already a line forming in front of the Shinjuku Shochiku theater. Amid this hectic situation, I heard something terrifying from Producer Iwasaki. "I want you to take charge of Gundam Part II's production site as an assistant producer."
It wasn't quite "people were horrified by their own actions," but I couldn't conceal my inner distress. Thinking back, in the Roman Album for the previous Gundam theatrical feature, Production Supervisor Adachi wrote a seven-month production diary... This time, I only had four months, or effectively three! That was less than half the time. "But picking someone like me for a work with this kind of schedule..." "Well, I (Iwasaki) will be helping you as much as possible."
The situation was tense. I was the only remaining member of the production staff who'd been unable to "escape" the Battle of A Baoa Qu with Bright and the others, and who hadn't left Sunrise after the ceasefire treaty. As long as Gundam was continuing, it seemed to be a fate that I couldn't escape.
I clasped hands with Mr. Iwasaki, and we solemnly vowed "Let's create something great!" That's a lovely image, but in fact, when I thought of the schedule ahead, dark clouds gathered in my heart. With bitter smiles, the two of us parted ways.
I immediately began assembling the staff. First came the production side, so I'll introduce them now.
Mr. Takayuki Yoshii: An assistant producer like me, who covered for me in many respects. He was older than me and had more career experience, having served in a position like that of chief production manager on the Trider G7 crew, so that was reassuring. At first glance, he has a pleasant face like Masashi Sada, but when he said "The only thing I know about Gundam is Amuro," the truth is I was a little worried.
Mr. Minoru Nishikawa: A rookie production assistant who graduated from the animation production management department of Tokyo Designer Academy. He knew all the technical terms and worked hard, but it bothered me when he kept saying "I don't know."
Mr. Tsutomu Watanabe: A rookie like Mr. Nishikawa, though he started a little later, in April. For better or for worse, he was promoted after he happened to contribute to the Iogi studio's big cleanup. (1) A mecha lover who preferred Ideon to Gundam, he was popular (?) at the Iogi studio.
Ms. Tomoko Matayoshi: She continued on from Part I. I wasn't really sure what she did, but she was working in production support on setting-related tasks. She'd describe herself as "a diamond in a dungheap" surrounded by scruffy men, but when she got drunk, she'd sometimes end up clinging to phone poles. (2) Her uniquely cheerful personality made her a favorite of Director Tomino, and rumor at Sunrise was that she was his second mistress. (His first mistress was supposedly Miss Kyoko Ito, a production secretary on the Ideon crew.)
Rather than chasing down animators or arranging for finishers, their very first job was learning all the character names from Gundam videos and the "Complete Works" books. Thus these soldiers of sadness were turned out onto the battlefield.
Director Tomino had already started composing the structure. Using the original TV series storyboards as a starting point, he was inserting new and retake cuts to create the overall storyboards. Last time he'd based his work on the post-recording script, but the animator Mr. Yasuhiko complained that he couldn't grasp the overall flow. The director himself, on reflection, also felt that it hadn't been well constructed in visual terms, so he'd adopted this new method.
March 14: We asked Mr. Osamu Sekita to be the director in charge. (3) This is an important position in making a work, for example when it comes to detailed checking of key animation or pre-shooting. (4) Mr. Fujiwara, who did the previous movie, was unable to adjust his schedule, so we decided to bring in Mr. Sekita who had also directed episodes of the TV series.
March 20: A rough schedule was decided. The animation would begin in April, and the post-recording and dubbing would be at the end of May, but the animation schedule was simply too short. No matter how much I stared at the schedule sheet, the number of days refused to increase, and day after day, Mr. Yoshii and I would sigh whenever we looked at it.
We couldn't begin the actual work until the director's storyboards were done. "I know, I know, but it'll be fine if the storyboards are done by the end of March, right?" "Yes, Director. Mr. Yasuhiko is ready and waiting for them, too." "You say it so easily, but the storyboards for a two-hour feature can't be finished in just a week or two." "We believe you can do it, Mr. Tomino!" "Well, that's true." We'd have these kinds of conversations every day.
Meanwhile, we began organizing the staff. Mr. Yoshii would handle the animation, while I took care of the finishing and backgrounds with Mr. Iwasaki's help. We asked Studio Deen, which had worked with us on the TV series and the Part I movie, to do the finishing. This is an extremely important role in the production of a work. They'd be hard hit by any delays in the animation, but there was no margin in the schedule. And since the finishes were the final stage of the artwork, we couldn't let the quality drop. I thought we'd be safe with Deen, which had both agility and high quality. We coordinated the schedule with the company president, Mr. Hasegawa, so they'd be perfectly prepared.
We requested that Mecaman, led by the art director Mr. Mitsuki Nakamura, do the background art. Mr. Nakamura himself wanted to see Gundam through to the end, so he gladly accepted.
The problem was the drawing. (5) Last time, since there was room in the schedule, we asked Mr. Yasuhiko to do all the first key animation, which was then cleaned up by the second key animators. But if we stuck with that method, there just wouldn't be enough time. Even Mr. Yasuhiko has his limits. Since the schedule only gave us a month or so for the drawing, we had to find some first key animators to help him. But since it was so sudden, it was difficult to work out the scheduling.
We wanted to start splicing together rushes as soon as the storyboards were done, so we'd ordered prints of episodes 16 through 31, the core of this movie's story, from the processing lab, and placed the editor Mr. Tsurubuchi on standby. Once again, we'd probably be giving Mr. Tsurubuchi all kinds of trouble. He was always saying that we should shoot all the new parts in 35mm.
March 28 (Saturday): March was almost over, but the storyboards were stuck in the middle. After Operation Odessa, the director had been struggling terribly. We wanted to start drawing on April 1, and though we knew it was ridiculous, we asked him to give us storyboards for the first third. Once we'd received the storyboards, we immediately rushed them to Mr. Tsurubuchi and asked him to splice together the prints.
April 1: We previewed a tentative rush film for the first third. The small audience consisted of planning office chief Yamaura, producer Iwasaki, Mr. Tomino, Mr. Yasuhiko, Mr. Sekita, and four production staffers. The director gave explanations as we went along.
It ended just as Amuro was placed in solitary confinement. After the preview, the director described how the subsequent story would unfold. "Matilda's death is linked to the battle at Odessa, and then the White Base heads to Jaburo. There we learn about Newtypes, the kids have their adventure with the bombs, and Char appears as well..." Suddenly he got up and tried to hide behind his chair, crying out "And so the Kai and Miharu storyline is cut!"
Though we'd kind of suspected this, we all gasped in surprise. The Kai and Miharu story was really popular among the staff. Anyway, since the goal for Part II was to dig deeper into the drama, it seemed like this storyline should be quite important. "I guess it would take up about 40 minutes," Mr. Yasuhiko said. "That's right," replied Mr. Tomino. "After all, it spans three episodes of the TV series." "We can get it down to 20 minutes somehow," said Mr. Yamaura. "But can we do it skillfully?"
"Well, if we cut it," I said, "the fans will be sending us razor blades." "Probably so," the director replied, half-pouting. "If we leave it in and it messes up the structure, that's my fault. If we omit it, they'll come after me with razor blades. It's all on me." Anyway, we agreed then and there to include it if possible.
After the rush preview, the director took me aside and complained, "You're all ganging up and bullying me. This is your doing, Ueda!" "No, I really didn't..." "How am I supposed to fit it into this structure?" "That's up to you, Mr. Tomino." "Oh, so it's somebody else's problem!" He went back to his desk indignantly.
April 3: Though the storyboards weren't finished, we held the first animation meeting with the floor director and Mr. Yasuhiko. They were going to start with the completely new cuts. Then, once the storyboards were done, we'd identify all the new cuts and cuts with retake corrections, and send them over to animation. At this point, however, we had no idea how many there were going to be. Every time we found an "N" mark on a new sequence in the storyboards, it felt like our lifespans were shortened by another day. Anyway, we were supposed to be getting the full storyboards on April 4 (Saturday).
Gradually, we were deciding on the staff. The audio director would be Mr. Yasuo Urakami, who was also the president of Audio Planning U. Mr. Urakami had worked with Mr. Tomino on the Ideon TV series, so they were in sync. We chose Mr. Michiaki Doi for the special effects, while Mr. Katsuharu Misawa and Asahi Pro would do the photography.
For the time being we had Mr. Yoshinobu Aohachi and Mr. Takashi Hyodo on first key animation, and Mr. Itano, Ms. Maejima, and Mr. Nakamura on second key animation. (6) The in-betweeners were Ms. Hattori, Ms. Barada, Ms. Murata, Mr. Yoshihashi, and Group Toa. (7) We were gradually assembling our soldiers of sorrow, some of them new to Gundam and some of them people who had worked on the TV series.
The first incident happened at the beginning of April. The director had been feeling ill since the start of the month, and he finally succumbed on April 4, the due date for the storyboards. Mr. Yoshii and I rushed to the Tomino household in Niiza. "I don't have a fever," he asid, "but I feel tired. I'll finish the storyboards today one way or other. Come back this evening..."
In the meantime, he gave us the storyboards he'd finished, and we took them to the editor. Mr. Yoshii and I went back to see him that evening, along with Mr. Nishikawa and Ms. Matayoshi. Instead of the completed storyboards, we were invited to stay for dinner. It felt like an evasion, but we decided to go back and keep working. (Incidentally, whenever the director was up all night working at the studio, his wife Aako would show up the next day dressed in splendid high fashion to bring him a bento lunch. This time, she just said "He's slacking off.")
April 6: The storyboards were done, and we immediately sent them to the editor. We then met with Mr. Okawara about the new Core Booster mecha. At 3:00 on April 7, we previewed a rush film of the remaining portion. Before this, we held an animation meeting with Mr. Yasuhiko, Mr. Sekita, and Mr. Aohachi. After the preview, we met with Mr. Tomino and Mr. Yasuhiko to discuss the creation of the remaining new material. In the middle of this busy schedule, a second incident took place, as Mr. Tomino and Mr. Yasuhiko began arguing about the content of the work.
Though they respect each other, and they're both indispensable to Gundam, that doesn't mean they're always in harmony where the creative process is concerned. Both of them are putting everything they have into this work, and in expressing their passion, they sometimes come into conflict. Anyway, they talked it all out and resolved it. But when Mr. Tomino said "I'm quitting Gundam!" and left the studio, I, Mr. Iwasaki, and the rest of the production staff turned pale.
Anyway, the structure was now more or less complete. On April 10, we held our first meeting with the second key animators, and the battle began in earnest. Twice a week, we'd meet with Mr. Sekita, Mr. Yasuhiko, and the second key animators. We'd discuss the animation based on Mr. Yasuhiko's layouts, and once they'd shown their finished key animation to the floor director, it would immediately be passed on the in-betweeners.
There weren't that many cuts, but the number of frames was steadily increasing. Mr. Yoshii and I would look at the numbers and arrange for the in-betweening, while Mr. Nishikawa and Mr. Watanabe were now rounding up the key animation. We had Ms. Matayoshi order setting and characters for the meetings.
By mid-April, Mr. Hyodo, Mr. Ito, and Mr. Yoshinaga had all come on board as first key animators. (8) We were trying to get back on schedule, but it wasn't going very well.
Meanwhile Mr. Nobe, who was in charge of publicity, began asking us about scheduling interviews, appearances, and poster production. (9) We discussed this with Mr. Tomino and Mr. Yasuhiko in between the animation meetings.
Although the structure was more or less finished, it was a huge feature with 2,800 cuts and an overall length of about three hours. The director began working once more on the storyboards, which had been temporarily finished, to cut them down to just over two hours. As we watched the rushes, we ordered the missing cuts one after another.
April 15: With the animation drawing still in progress, we held a background art meeting. As a desperation measure, we asked if they could at least start painting from the cuts that had already been completed.
At 4:00 that day, we screened a full rush for all the staff. Blank spaces were inserted for the new sections, and the director gave detailed explanations of what was happening there. It was about two hours and 30 minutes long. Unlike with Part I, it was spliced together from prints so it included sound, which made it relatively easy to watch. But it was still quite long. We decided it should ultimately be less than two hours and 15 minutes.
April 17: I met at Tokyo Laboratory with the editor Mr. Tsurubuchi, the photography director Mr. Misawa, and the lab's Mr. Inoue and Mr. Igarashi to discuss the finishing of the film, the technical aspects, and the schedule. We were going to take the TV series negatives and blow them up to 35mm for theatrical use, so we watched the rushes and discussed fine details such as screen graininess, camera shake, and the editor's splicing range. I left all the technical details to Mr. Misawa and Mr. Tsurubuchi.
April 18: We held a finishing meeting with Mr. Itsuo Michie, who was doing the color coordination at Deen. His passion for Gundam was remarkable even among the rest of the staff. Just like the last time, I could only bow down in sincere gratitude.
The rush prints were sent to the editor, who had to check the cuts we were using one by one. It was very tedious work.
April 22: We met with the director and Mr. Urakami, the audio director. It was a pretty basic meeting, and we decided we'd get into the details later on when we'd included the composers Mr. Watanabe and Mr. Matsuyama. We left their scheduling to Mr. Sashida, the desk chief at Sunrise Music Publishing. (By the way, Mr. Sashida is the most handsome guy at Sunrise, who drew intense stares from Osugi and Pico outside the Shochiku offices. (10) There are rumors that he and I aren't on good terms, but that's a misunderstanding, so please don't believe it.)
April was almost over, but the key animation due that month seemed nowhere near done. The first key animators Mr. Aohachi, Mr. Hyodo, and Mr. Ito were running particularly late. Though they'd all been working with us since the time of the TV series, because of the intervening years and the density of the content, things weren't going as quickly as expected.
The urgent phone calls gradually took on a pleading tone, and I was getting steadily unhappier. The production assistants Mr. Watanabe and Mr. Nishikawa were lamenting, too, as they went off to Tokorozawa to collect the work. What's more, the floor director had more retakes than we expected, and I suddenly recalled the way Mr. Yasuhiko had once described Mr. Sekita. "He's a sadistic director who likes ordering retakes just for fun."
That was an exaggeration, but the floor director was being very fussy because it was for a theatrical feature. I didn't want to dampen that enthusiasm, but we'd make him cry if we had to. At that point I was torn between the conflicting desires to make it as good as possible, and to get even a single cut handed off a little sooner. This was the most exhausting stage.
In the middle of this, there was a brief moment of fun when we were discussing the subtitle for this movie. This had been an unresolved question, and now we finally had to make a decision. We gathered the whole studio and racked our brains. We started with "Don't Look Back, Amuro," and went on to "Wandering Amuro," "The Pacific Dyed in Blood," and "Newtype Field." Finally we ended up with parody titles like "Gundam, Just Because," "Give Us a Slow Gundam," and "Gundam's Comeback," and the studio echoed with laughter.
The end result was Gundam II: Soldiers of Sorrow.
The month culminated with the burglary incidents of April 19 (Sunday) and April 24 (Friday). This seemed to be the doing of an overzealous fan, but they took cels and backgrounds from Part I which happened to be lying around the studio, as well as anime-related magazines, "Complete Works" books, and even cash! How much trouble did this one thoughtless fan cause for the good ones?
After that, the staff not only had to worry about their exhausting schedule, but about these unnecessary things as well. We were united in our resolve that next time they they wouldn't get away so easily. One of the production assistants had the same family name as the one written on a flashlight the thief appeared to have left behind. They were thereafter treated as a suspect, and curled up in a corner of the studio where they started making straw voodoo dolls.
In the second half of April, the in-between checker Ms. Tomoko Kobayashi and the in-betweener Ms. Mayumi Ishigaki joined us in the studio, and we headed into a tumultuous May.
Things finally reached a climax around the holidays. (11) Mr. Watanabe and Mr. Nishikawa were collecting the key animation and in-betweens, but looking at the cut checklists, we were pretty confused. Mr. Yoshii was calling everyone on the phone to distribute the in-betweening work.
In the middle of all this, they asked us about the trailer. It was quite late. They wanted to include the trailer with Somehow, Crystal, which would be released on May 23 (Saturday). But it was a very busy time, and I was completely preoccupied. We met with the director on May 1. "I'd like to include some new cuts in the trailer." "But the schedule..." "Well, what if we draw a few individual still frames of Amuro, put them over an image background, and fade them in and out?" "That would certainly be easier on the animators."
The next day, the storyboards came with a surprise! He'd inserted five new cuts. One of these cuts required almost 200 frames of animation. "M-Mr. Tomino..."
It wasn't like we'd even said he could add new cuts. How naive of us. Anyway, we took the storyboards to the editor and audio director, and managed to fit it into the schedule. We'd do the editing on May 13, post-recording on May 17, dubbing on May 18, and preview it on May 20. That meant we had to put the new cuts and credit titles together, and get them to the lab, by May 9. We immediately began making all the arrangements.
At the same time, however, we still had to keep working on the feature itself. By May 7 (Thursday), Mr. Yasuhiko and the other first key animators were finally done, and they could take a breath. But there were still almost 5,000 in-betweens left to do before the May 16 animation deadline. We borrowed staff from the Ideon and Daioja crews and kept hacking away at the in-betweening.
Then, just like last time, there was a clamorous demand for sample boards from the background artists and color coordination charts from the finishers. Since we no longer had any of the boards, we provided videos as reference, and looked for the color specifications included with the TV series in-betweens. This was the painful part of making a patchwork movie, but we had to match the preceding and following cuts.
We steadily hacked away at the in-betweens. It was sad that, unlike the previous movie, we couldn't watch them cut by cut. It was fun watching the cuts and thinking "Ah, this Bright was drawn by Ms. Hattori, this Fraw by Ms. Barada, and this Sayla definitely by Ms. Kobayashi..."
This time, though, we didn't have that luxury. Looking at Mr. Sekita's list of retake cuts, we put up futile resistance, asking "What was wrong with this cut?"
May 9: We discussed the schedule with Mr. Misawa, Mr. Saito, and the rest of the photography team. We tentatively planned to start pre-shooting around May 11, begin in earnest on May 18, and finish by May 27 at the latest.
The completed backgrounds were coming in, but we were shocked when we looked at the contents. They weren't very good. We rushed off to see Mr. Nakamura. "I was too conscious of the preceding and following cuts," he told us. "I really wanted to do more painting, but..." We asked him to pay less attention to the other cuts and just do as he pleased, and the backgrounds done after that were wonderful. Please be sure to see them in the theater.
The finishing, however, was running late, so we couldn't start shooting. On May 13, we were finally able to start matching cels to backgrounds and begin the pre-shooting.
From then on, the studio descended into hell. Mr. Nishikawa's and Mr. Watanabe's days were consumed with collecting in-betweens, ordering finishes, picking up backgrounds, and preparing for pre-shooting. Mr. Yoshii stuck with the two rookies, giving instructions and doing final checks on the cuts.
Mr. Sekita was so busy checking the remaining key animation and doing pre-shooting that he barely had time to go home, and after the burglary incident, he'd been spending every night at the studio so he could double as a night watchman. (Rather than keeping watch, he was actually just drinking and sleeping. But his famously loud snoring would surely scare off any thieves.)
Mr. Tomino, with rush film wrapped around his neck and in his mouth, was desperately trying to reduce the running time as much as possible before the final editing. At the same time, he was also checking the dialogue for the post-recording script.
Mr. Doi, who did the special effects, had no time to build his beloved models as he worked with his brush on the cels. The animator Ms. Ishigaki sat at her desk weeping over large-sized Miharu in-betweens, saying "It'll never end." Ms. Hattori just kept moving her pencil, and the in-between checker Ms. Kobayashi continued checking late into the night, with a pile of completed animation in front of her so high that it hid her round body. Ms. Matayoshi made minor corrections to the finished cels, even as Mr. Watanabe teased her that "You're trying so hard, but you're failing!"
May 15: We were invaded by audio staff and voice actors, and we all raised our spirits at Tamagawa Sushi in Shinjuku.
May 16: The backgrounds were all done, and the in-betweening was finally finished. Before we realized it, we'd done about 10,000 frames. Mr. Yoshii and I were both impressed that we'd managed all this on a one-month schedule. But in that moment, a new problem emerged. It seemed like the finishing wouldn't be done by the May 23 deadline. We had no choice but to call for help from Shaft, Kuma Pro, and Sunrise Studio. But it still wasn't done, and we had to shoot the animation in time for the editing.
Meanwhile, on that same day, Mr. Daisuke (formerly Tadao) Inoue was recording the movie's theme song "Ai Senshi" at King Records. The quality of the result put Mr. Tomino in a very good mood.
May 17: Gathering Mr. Toru Furuya, Mr. Hirose who played the pivotal role of Ramba Ral, Ms. Yumi Nakatani who played Hamon, Mr. Toshio Furukawa who played Kai, and so forth, we conducted the post-recording for the trailer in an atmosphere of harmony.
May 20: We held a preview screening of the trailer at Tokyo Laboratory. It matched the "Ai Senshi" music perfectly, and we were all very pleased with the result. The determination of the staff was renewed.
May 23: The finishes were provisionally done, and we sent them to photography along with the backgrounds. As the shooting was completed, the editor spliced it together.
May 27: The shooting wrapped up, including 40 animated cuts, and we finally had a rush preview film.
May 28: The final rushes now included all the newly created cuts. We assembled all the staff, including the key animators, in-betweeners, finishes, background artists, and photography staff, and we watched the rushes with our own thoughts in mind.
We'd reached a momentary stopping point, but the work was far from over. After the rush preview, new retake cuts were ordered, and Mr. Yasuhiko immediately began drawing. Then we had to finish the editing by June 1, and deliver the rushes to the audio staff for sound work.
June 2: We'd now handed the rushes over to the audio staff.
June 6: Mr. Tomino went in person to APU Studio, which would be doing the recording, to swap out the retakes and animated portions of the rushes in preparation for post-recording.
June 7 and 8: The post-recording took place over these two days. The voice actors were nervous and stiff at the outset, but they gradually got into it. The familiar regulars like Mr. Furuya, Ms. Shiraishi, and Ms. Inoue explained things to the newcomer actors in a way that would do Director Tomino proud, leaving Mr. Tomino and Mr. Urakami with wry smiles.
The post-recording began with the Jaburo storyline, and ended with the death of Matilda. But the narrator Mr. Ichiro Nagai, who was vital to the work, was off his game due to a toothache. They decided they'd re-record his part prior to the dubbing.
At the moment, we're checking and swapping in the final retakes in preparation for the dubbing which starts on June 18, and working on minor details like the titles. After getting through the nightmare of April and May, the entire staff worked hard to somehow make a work even better than the previous one despite the short schedule. Thanks to them, we'll have a preview film at the end of June, and then it'll be on theater screens on July 11.
In addition to the people mentioned here, many other people participated in the creation of this work. I'm very sorry that I was unable to do them all justice with my clumsy prose. In any case, as well as my appreciation for the staff who worked on it, I'd like to express my deepest gratitude for the support of all the generous fans who gave us this opportunity.
The production of Gundam's third and final chapter, Encounters in Space, has already begun. We look forward to your continuing support.
(This production diary is current as of June 15)
(1) The original "Iogi studio," officially Sunrise Studio 4, was responsible for producing the 1979-1980 series Cyborg 009.
(2) The Japanese idiom 「掃き溜めに鶴」 is literally "a crane in a garbage dump."
(3) In Ueda's journal, he uses the term 演出 (enshutsu), which is usually translated as "episode director" or "unit director." The official Gundam II and Gundam III credits describe Sekita with the English loanword "floor director" (フロアーディレクター) which I'll use from here on.
(4) The Japanese term 撮出し (satsudashi), which I've translated as "pre-shooting," is a stage in the anime production process in which the director checks the materials required for each cut before sending them out to photography.
(5) The Japanese term here, sakuga (作画), is often just translated as "animation." Technically it refers only to the drawing phase of animation-—layouts, key art, and in-betweening—and excludes the finishing stage in which the drawings are transferred to cels and painted.
(6) Ichiro Itano, Kazuko Maejima, and Kiyoshi Nakamura also did second key animation on the previous Gundam film. Perhaps that's why Ueda doesn't give their full names here.
(7) The term dōga (動画), translated here as "in-betweeners," literally means "animation" and actually encompasses both in-betweening and cleanup of the key frames. The full names of these animators are Ayumi Hattori, Yoshiko Barada, Momoko Murata, and Takashi Yoshihashi.
(8) These animators would be the aforementioned Takashi Hyodo, Makoto Ito, and Naoyuki Yoshinaga.
(9) This would be Tadahiko Nobe, the publicity producer responsible for planning the "Anime New Century Declaration" event that launched the first Gundam movie.
(10) This Sunrise Music Publishing desk chief would be Eiji Sashida. Osugi and Pico, meanwhile, were Japanese celebrities known for their fashion and film criticism. They were identical twin brothers, and openly gay.
(11) Japan's "Golden Week" holidays run from April 29 to May 5.
Mobile Suit Gundam is copyright © Sotsu • Sunrise. Everything else on this site, and all original text and pictures, are copyright Mark Simmons.
