Season 10, Episode 1: Podcast to the Victory (Patreon)
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Time to declare Victory! Tomino's back and we have so much to talk about, from dubious translation choices and baffling directorial decisions to unbelievably good character animation and a snail that proves we are watching Real Cinema.
Plus as a special patron-exclusive bonus, this episode includes several minutes of Extended Outtakes, and (content warning) we even let Nina get away with saying one little cuss at the end.
Show Notes: Victory Gundam's Pre-Production History
- Mark Simmons has written an extensive and detailed history of Victory's production, incorporating behind the scenes materials like setting art along with interview excerpts on his website.
- He's also made translations of many relevant interviews available on his website, including the following:
- A 2023 issue of Great Mechanics G celebrated the 30th anniversary of Victory Gundam with a series of interviews focused mainly on mecha design and gunpla production. Junior mecha designer Ishigaki Junya recalls his experiences, and two Bandai employees reflect on the sense of rivalry with SD Gundam.
- A booklet included with the 2015 Victory Gundam blu-ray release featured interviews with Tomino himself, prominent members of the animation staff, and mecha designers Okawara Kunio and Ishigaki. Ishigaki mentions trying to appeal to the SD generation and Tomino reflects on why he thinks Victory failed to resonate with audiences.
- The 2004 Victory Gundam DVD Memorial Box included extensive interviews with Tomino, all three main mecha designers, character designer Ousaka Hiroshi, and others.
- In 2002, Kodansha published an overview of Gundam produced in the 1990s which included an interview with Tomino about his struggles on Victory Gundam. The rest of the interviews focus on other later Gundam projects.
- In 1994, Kadokawa published two volumes of their Newtype 100% collection specifically about the production of Victory Gundam. These are full of staff interviews, including one with Koizumi Yoshiaki, a producer who represented broadcaster TV Asahi on the project and offers an unusual outside-insider perspective on the production. Tomino also mentions the influence that the contemporary Yugoslav Wars had on his planning for the series.
- In 1993, during Victory's broadcast run, Keibunsha published an Anime Mini Album that featured interviews with Tomino talking about the story and his goals for Victory Gundam, alongside interviews with the three mecha designers and the character designer.
- ZeonicScanlations has translated part of a Victory Gundam Project Proposal memorandum authored by Tomino in Spring 1992, which lays out his plan for the story as well as descriptions of many of the characters.
- He has also partially translated a 30th anniversary retrospective interview in which Tomino looks back on Victory and compares its storyline to current events, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
- Box office information for Gundam F91 was found on various sites (vodzoo.com, kawaiiya.jp, randal.blog91.fc2.com), while information about the top performing movies of 1991 is from the Motion Picture Association of Japan.
- Information about Victory Gundam's official English release.
- Takamatsu Shinji discussed Bandai's 1994 acquisition of Sunrise in this twitter thread.
- Anime News Network published an article about Takamatsu's comments.
- Ueda Masuo has discussed his time as producer of Victory at various times on twitter, including:
- https://twitter.com/mastin55/status/1494315303509307392
- https://twitter.com/mastin55/status/1493068227974660098
- https://twitter.com/mastin55/status/1493630913007480833 (this one include a fun picture of Victory staff posing in front of a large statue of the Victory Gundam)
- In case twitter catches on fire, falls over, and sinks into the swamp, an English-language report on some of Masuo's tweets can be found here.
- The 1999 book The Complete Works of Tomino Yoshiyuki (a title now woefully out of date!) contained this interview with Yasuhiko Yoshikazu reflecting on the pre-Gundam phase of Tomino's career when he drew storyboards for projects like World Masterpiece Theater and Future Boy Conan - and he discusses at some length his impressions of Tomino's approach to storyboarding and why animators hated it.
Mobile Suit Breakdown is written, recorded, and produced within Lenapehoking, the ancestral and unceded homeland of the Lenape, or Delaware, people. Before European settlers forced them to move west, the Lenape lived in New York City, New Jersey, and portions of New York State, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Connecticut. Lenapehoking is still the homeland of the Lenape diaspora, which includes communities living in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Ontario.
You can learn more about Lenapehoking, the Lenape people, and ongoing efforts to honor the relationship between the land and indigenous peoples by visiting the websites of the Delaware Tribe and the Manhattan-based Lenape Center. Listeners in the Americas and Oceania can learn more about the indigenous people of your area at https://native-land.ca/. We would like to thank The Lenape Center for guiding us in creating this living land acknowledgment.
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The intro music is WASP by Misha Dioxin, and the outro is Long Way Home by Spinning Ratio, both licensed under Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 licenses. All music used in the podcast has been edited to fit the text.
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