Mobile Suit Gundam has earned its longevity since debuting in the 1970s, weaving war-torn stories that feature the mech suits in an ever-changing world. While the initial timeline that introduced anime fans to the likes of Amuro and Char is still revisited in new projects, the Gundam franchise isn’t scared when it comes to trying new things. Recent examples include Gundam: The Witch From Mercury, which gave the franchise its first female protagonist to help appeal to a younger audience. Now, a higher-up responsible for Gundam’s future has detailed the long plans that Bandai Namco has for the most popular mech franchise in the world.
Here’s what the General Manager of Gundam’s Business Division, Naohiro Ogata, had to say about what makes the franchise so popular decades after its introduction, “The (Gundam) series created by Director Tomino Yoshiyuki, who created the first Mobile Suit Gundam, as well as Yasuhiko Yoshikazu and Okawara Kunio, has a very strong narrative power, and although we have been allowed to create various series, (the first series) is a framework that can be used in any era. Recently, there has been a lot of movement in Japanese animation to target overseas markets, and the trend is to move towards a global market. At a time like this, even though it was made 45 years ago, for example, races are not depicted, and characters with diverse roots appear, so in that sense, I feel that it was very important that they created a story that is suitable for going global now.”
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A Gundam Project Every Year
Not only is Bandai Namco planning to release a steady stream of new Gundam projects on an annual basis, but they plan on doing so at least until the franchise’s fiftieth anniversary. Ogata had this to say on the upcoming major mech releases, “There are many small works, and people from overseas say they don’t know where to start, but I think this is also a unique aspect of Gundam. There are few series in which so many new works are constantly coming out. Especially from next year, large works are scheduled to come out every year leading up to the 50th anniversary, so I hope you will look forward to them.” While these projects might each have their own significance, we can guess that the fiftieth-anniversary project will be something special.
The Requiem is Here
Gundam: Requiem For Vengeance is the latest anime series under the Gundam franchise, arriving on Netflix to tell a very different tale in the mech series. The mini-series uses CG animation to take us back to the original timeline that started it all, albeit from a very different perspective. Instead of Amuro being front and center here, he is seen as something akin to a slasher villain as the protagonists of the series fight for the opposing side of the conflict, the Principality of Zeon.
Further on in the interview, Ogata confirms that it was Netflix’s idea on creating the new approach to animation in Requiem For Vengeance, “Netflix suggested that we try making a Gundam animation using the game engine “Unreal Engine 5”. Nowadays, the way animation is made has evolved a lot from the past, technologically speaking. As with our latest work, “Mobile Suit Gundam SEED FREEDOM,” we have been working on how to use 3DCG, and how to back up the quality and human resources while retaining the uniquely Japanese goodness of hand-drawn animation. We are also interested in technological development, and that’s why we decided to do “Requiem For Vengeance.”
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