A legend in the world of anime and the mastermind behind the franchise that marked the childhood of millions of people around the world, Gundam of the creative mind, Yoshiyuki Tomino, with more than 40 years of great success behind him, has seen the first steps of Japanese animation, as well as what for him is the New Golden Age in which it is, but that could end instantly if they do not avoid realizing their mistakes, as well as following in the footsteps of the “competition”.
With more than 40 years making anime, Yoshiyuki Tomino, creator of Gundam, stresses the mistakes that must be avoided to keep anime growing
The voice of experience spoke and Yoshiyuki Tomino expressed in an interview with the Japanese newspaper Toyo Keizai his opinion on 3 controversial issues currently in the world of animation, starting the interview by saying that animation is now living a new golden age, but that if they do not sit down to analyze in depth what their mistakes are, that golden age will end instantly.
The creator of Gundam expressed his point of view regarding the animation used by Disney in their latest movies, the implementation of AI-generated content in anime and even gave strong criticism towards the legacy of his own anime. On the first topic and as most people know, the latest Disney movies, although popular, are not more than that, the last of these being Wish: The Power of Wishes, a movie that came to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the mouse studio and which did not do as well as Disney expected.
To this point, Yoshiyuki Tomino simply attributed the decline of Disney animation to its move away from hand-drawn animation: “After the shift from hand-drawn to digital animation, Disney’s works were all discouraging, and that kind of reproduction is likely to continue.” While he did not specify what exactly he dislikes about Disney’s current releases, his criticism is more than clear that it goes toward the animation process and not their stories.
In March of this year, the American production company, Corridor Digital, released a short film called “Rock, Paper, Scissors” generated entirely by Artificial Intelligence, opening a great debate on the internet about whether AI-generated animation is gradually replacing human-generated animation, to this Yoshiyuki Tomino responded with complete certainty as follows:
“Despite the best efforts of corporations, human animators would not be replaced by AI, even if animation is digitized and AI is introduced in the future, machine creation will not be able to surpass the human level so easily. Humans like things that are realistic, and we will be able to identify things that are not realistic.”
Although, “Rock, Paper, Scissors” was taken more as a humorous video and not as something that the animation industry has to take seriously, we cannot deny that AI is advancing, at a snail’s pace, but it is doing so and although this would already be a topic of debate, as a personal opinion AI will not replace human-generated animation, but who knows, maybe in a few years, we will be working side by side with it.
Concluding the interview, the creator of Gundam was asked his opinion about the path that his legacy has followed, that although the series has grown enormously in popularity, it could also at some point deviate from the initial concept of Gundam that its creator had in mind, to this he opined the following:
“To tell the truth, I feel that the fundamental message I put into the “Gundam” series, such as social theory and the theory of war, has not been conveyed as well as I would like because it is obstructed by the form of the giant robot called “Gundam.” Kids like dinosaurs and giant robots. The popularity of “Gundam” is an extension of this preference. Reluctantly, it has been supported in part by a narrow-minded mecha fetish. If we look at the works themselves, they are not as popular as “Chibi Maruko-chan” and “One Piece.”
While the original purpose behind the creation of Gundam was to sell toys, it is understandable that Yoshiyuki Tomino was frustrated that “that” legacy would be better remembered than his treatise against war and conflict, although that said, Bandai Namco Entertainment has also said that they wish to turn the Gundam IP into a social brand, promoting more prosocial messages as intended, Yoshiyuki Tomino.
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