For almost forty years of its existence, “Mobile Armor Gandam” has generated about thirty anime series and films, dozens of manang and short stories, as well as countless toys of the most different format. It’s stupid to talk about the cultural influence of Gandam – this series had a revolutionary influence on the development of fur and the entire anime to such an extent that it can be rightfully considered a fundamental in the formation of a whole layer of culture, both in Japan and beyond its borders. This series of articles will tell you in detail about the history of the Gandam phenomenon, its evolution and development, take -off and falls, covering almost all of the material associated with the series.
One of the first prototypes of mechanical robots in the "War of Worlds" Herbert Wells
To understand the significance of Gandam for his genre, you must first realize what fur is? The term "fur" is a Japanese reduction in the term "mechanical". This concept in Japan is applied to all mechanical objects, but historically the name was assigned to conditionally “piloted robots”, t.e. huge machines (humanoid and not very) which the pilot controls (usually from the cab). All the Franca genre was formed in the same Japan in the early 70s (although especially cunning will be able to get to the bottom that the ideas of manned mechanisms go to the “war of the worlds” of Wells, if not further) under the influence of the work of GO “Mazinger Z”, which set most of the established genre paths of the so-called “super robots”.
The main character piloted a huge robot and fought with hordes of enemies, pulling out almost all the battles exclusively thanks to his mechanical ally, which significantly exceeded everything else (hence the name Super Robot). Anime adaptation Mang about super robots, in addition, also had the habit of greatly “alleviate” the source material (although by modern standards there was enough cruel), and add more to toys, since in the early 70s the anime only got to their feet, and the main target audience of 90% of all nippled screens still remained small children. Thus, the anime finally formed the genre of super robots in the form of a rather specific, but insanely fun and popular entertainment for the whole generation of young spectators.
Go nagay and one of his most famous creations – Super Robot, Masinger Z
However, of course, not all authors arranged a formal framework and restrictions. It is here that an unremarkable director and screenwriter with a wide face named Yosiyuki Tomino enters the stage. He began his career Tomino in the early 60s in the company of his father Anime Osamu Tazuki, Mushi Production, working on plots to the legendary astroble. In the early 70s, he stood at the origins of the Sunrise studio, which subsequently became almost synonymous with the word “fur” in Japan, since the overwhelming part of all anime about huge robots went out (and continues to leave) precisely from their wing. It is in Sanraise that Tomino begins work on his first large fur projects. In his work, it was immediately possible to trace one obvious line – the desire to create a comprehensive story with ambiguous characters. In Tomino’s works, it is quite easy to trace the creator’s love for Stanley Kubrick and other legendary directors, therefore, he himself tried to push the framework of what was believed to “anime”. His first works in the mid-70s (like such series as Zambot 3 and Daitarn 3) at least at first glance followed the usual paths of the anime about super robots, but in fact there were extremely different series of the story of the story of the story, as well as a lot of bold and informal ideas and messages that took these series far from typical children’s morning cartoons. However, the most daring and outstanding projects Tomino were still ahead.
Yosiyuki Tomino is one of the most significant and influential people in the anime industry
Pretty soon, the creative group of Sanraise with Tomino, at the head, begins work on a new project, which should be the company’s response to the success of the Space Battleship Yamato anime-cosmooper, which began a real space boom in the country. The concept was called Freedom Fighter Gunboy or just a hanboy (in honor of the main weapon of the robot, t.e. firearms). Then the name was replaced by Gundom, after which Tomino proposed a canonical version of Gundam.
The poster of the original series
The series took place in the near future of mankind (the 79th year of the new Universal Century calendar, adopted after the entry of mankind into space), where a significant part of the people left the Earth, settling in space colonies, who were in the orbit of the Earth. These "residents of the Cosmos" are called "Spacynoids". Despite the self -sufficiency of the space colonies, they were politically and economically obeyed by the government of the Earth, the Earth Federation, which did not satisfy all the inhabitants of Cosmos. One of the colonies, Sayd-3, announced her independence in the 58th year of UC and proclaimed herself an independent duchy of Zion. The new cosmic power was based on a completely new type of weapons – mobile armor (humanoid man -made robots working on innovative technologies). The Federation did not have such weapons, relying on ordinary spaceships.
"Zab" has become one of the company mobile armor of Zion
Almost 20 years of tense relations with the Earth Federation resulted in a bloody war of the 79th year of UC, which lasted exactly one year. The series showed this conflict, called "Annual War" (One-Year War).
Interesting: From the very beginning, the new calendar caused disputes between those who wanted to calculate exactly in what year the era’s events of the original Gandama occur. At the stage of pre-production, Tomino wrote that UC begins in the 1988th year, which has chronologically putting Gandama events in 2066. However, due to the overgrown dimensions of the franchise, since then there are a lot of sources (including Tomino himself), made editing and “changed” the date of the beginning of the new calendar, starting UC at 21, then at 22, or even in the middle of the 23th century. It should also be remembered that the first year of the new calendar was the zero year, and not the first. It got to the point that, according to some calculations, the events of our era and UC may not have even walked one after another (that is, there was also an era “in the middle”). Starting from the late 90s, the authors of all work in the UC Time are trying to avoid the mention of the exact years of our era.
In general, it is now customary to put the first year of the UC in the area of 2045 n.e., and the events of the original Gandama in 2124 n.e., respectively.
Earth and space colonies map in 0079 UC
Gandam met us in the https://kaiser-slots.co.uk/ middle of the 79th year in the green meadows Sid-7, where the Federation exhausted by the war secretly developed a super-secret project-its first mobile armor, capable of confronting the MD-WARS of Zion. They were the same Gandam (bore the official name "RX-78-2 Gandam"). Due to the sudden attack of the forces of Zion, Amuro Rei, the "simple Japanese schoolboy", turned out to be the only surviving, capable of piloting Gandama. He, as well as the crew of the White Base ship (who survived the civilian attack, consisting mainly of children, adolescents and women) under the leadership of the young and inexperienced Captain Bright Noah, erupting through Zion’s forces tried to deliver the experimental Ganda to the Earth forces in order to break the course of the war and stop Zion.
Interesting: The events of the annual war were not just the very first major UC conflict, but, perhaps, the most destructive. In the first month of the war, weapons of mass destruction were used completely uncontrollably. The forces of Zion used chemical and nuclear weapons in the Sidy Federation controlled by the Syides Federation and even initiated the first “colony reset” in the history (which also became one of the business cards of the series). The discharge of the colony is an attempt to consciously use the space colonies as asteroids and push them with the ground. The very first discharge of the colony was completely destroyed by the sequin to the surroundings. The force of the explosion was about 60,000 megatons, leaving only a 500-kilometer crater in place of the explosion. It is believed that in just a year of the war, both the Federation and Zion, have lost about half of their population.
In September 0079 (the beginning of the events of the series), Zion controlled approximately 2/3 of the entire surface of the planet.
In the course of the series, we saw with our own eyes how the children with teenagers grew up, overcame the difficulties of war and gradually turned into real hardened soldiers. In parallel, we also watched the plot of the chief pursuer of the White base – captain of the forces of Zion, Chara Aznabel, who was attacking the colony of the main characters. History gradually revealed Chara from completely unexpected sides, not only gaining it and the crew of the White base into the hardships of war, but also exploring the concept of Newtaiples with them – the theory of natural evolution in space people who can “stop holding on to the Earth” and consciously accept the cosmos with their real house.
Char Aznabel is an antagonist who has become one of the most popular characters in the franchise
The final of history put an end to the bloody conflict, but from the real Happynda, in the best traditions of Tomino, was extremely far away.
Gandam, as already mentioned, was positioned by the cosmoore. And although the series still retained many recognizable features of the classic show about super robots, a number of visual and plot innovations made it completely unlike his predecessors.
The already mentioned “mobile armor”, humanoid robots, which, however, were not as huge as past robots and directly inspired by combat exoskeletons from the novel Star Troops, Robert Heinlin, were the distinguishing feature of the series. Mobile armor was carefully explained from a scientific point of view (within the framework of the Universe) with a number of unique “systems and chips” that influenced their effectiveness and functionality. A similar approach, and so the emphasis on the militarized positioning of robots and gave rise to a new genre of fur-realistic robots, where the fur was primarily positioned by weapons (Tomino himself compared the relationship between the pilot and the robot, as the relationship between the racer of Formula 1 and its machine, which he only uses to achieve his goal). And Gandam is rightfully called the Creator and the first (but far from the last) representative of this genre.
Interesting: The division of fur into super and realistic robots continues now. Despite the fact that the Gandahs in many respects carried the features of both, his followers honed the concept of the genre to perfection. Having survived the peak in the 70s and early 80s, Super robots from the mid-80s slowly but faithfully l landing out their positions to their sugary brothers. Today, almost all the output-anime fur (including Code GEASS, KAKUMEIKI VALVRAVE, ALDNOAH.Zero and of course the new Gandama) are precisely realistic fur, while anime about super robots practically does not occur.
In addition to mobile armor (mainly Gandama and became no less legendary MD-pagot Zion called “Zab”, there was other robots in the series-both an exotic super-weapon like incredibly strong mobile armor, as well as simple workers, piloted robots, various support robots, etc.D. Everything worked on the same principles and technologies as combat robots, helping to create an atmosphere and study the universe. A significant part of all the designs was created by Tomino and earlier Kunio Okavara – the first in the industry recognized "mechanical designer". Okavar subsequently engaged in design to 90% of the main Gandams and continues to do the same today. His hand belongs to almost all the most legendary images of robots in the franchise (and not only).
The scientific and “realistic” approach was traced not only in the robots of the series, but also in its technology. Cosmic colonies, sides, were based on the O’NNINL CILINGER – the real theory of the space settlement proposed by the physicist Gerard O’Nele, and the colonies in the orbit of the Earth were mathematically accurately at the points of Lagrange to maintain their location between the land and the moon.
The cylinder is O’Ninlla
The scientific and “realistic” approach was traced not only in the robots of the series, but also in its technology. Cosmic colonies, sides, were based on the O’NNINL CILINGER – the real theory of the space settlement proposed by the physicist Gerard O’Nele, and the colonies in the orbit of the Earth were mathematically accurately at the points of Lagrange to maintain their location between the land and the moon.
Interesting: In addition to Gandama, the example of the O’NNINL cylinder can be observed, for example, in the feature film "Interstellar" Christopher Nollan.
Another distinctive element of Gandam was his narrative. Gandam was the first series from Tomino (and almost the first anime in general), where ordinary people were opponents of the heroes. The author originally planned to make an adult anime about the war, intending to show the mixed feelings of the Japanese nation on the screen after the end of the Second World War. According to some critics, Tomino tried to convey national guilt, simultaneously recognizing the heroic exploits of many young Japanese. Served the series and commentary on many more modern conflicts, like events in Pakistan. In his own words, Tomino invested in Gandama "All his disappointments".
Interesting: The war in one way or another can be traced in almost all Tomino works (like almost all authors of his postponed generation). The author carries a strict anti -war message through his work, and the extracted cruelty of the world of many of his works speaks primarily about where humanity can lead war, personal ambitions and refusal to understand and accept each other. Shows Tomino, by the way, very clearly and convincing. Which prompted the fans to give him the nickname “Kill‘ Em All ”(literally:“ Kill them all ”). However, his most cruel works, at the time of Gandam’s exit, were still ahead.
Gandam was not deprived of humor, bright and good moments, but never let the audience forget in which world the show is taking place. The series revealed the war from various sides, showed the heroes and villains from the “both” sides, did not hesitate to force their heroes to suffer, and the world was extremely conditionally (for his time) was divided into “good and bad” and in general, he somehow brought to thought, made him think about thinking about thinking. However, far from all Tomino and Sanraise were able to find a common language. The company insisted on wider marketing and a more extensive advertisement for toys (the main target audience of the series remained like still children). As a result, a number of changes were made to the concept of the series, such as changing the color of Gandam from gray to bright white with colored stripes. The white base also initially had to be "black". Such changes were contrary to Tomino Vidden, who tried to bring Gandama closer to realism and argued with his colleagues that such clumsy designs would never appear in the real world.
Concept art of the original Gandama
Without accepting such changes, Tomino decided to take the initiative into his own hands before the end of the exit, and began to write his original concept in the original form on paper. The result was three short stories (later united in some sources in one book) – Mobile Suit Gundam: AWAKENING, ESCALATION, and Confrontation. In them, Tomino got rid of all the toy -centric elements of the series, made the narrative even more gloomy and tough (for example, unlike anime, the main character, Amuro in the short story, was quite brutally died at the end. However, over time, seeing the popularity of Amuro and the series as a whole, Tomino openly spared about his ending). By the way, in parallel with the novel from Tomino and the anime itself, there was also a full-fledged manga adaptation of the series from Yu Okazuki under the simple name Mobile Sout Gundam. It lasted as much as three years until the 1982th year.
Even despite the studio attempts to make the series more accessible to children, not all viewers liked such an innovative approach to their children’s cartoons about large robots. Throughout its broadcast, Gandam suffered from low ratings. As a result, the series had to be cut from the planned 52 episodes to 43.
Interesting: Initially, the series was planned to cut up to 39 episodes, but the team of the creators bargained for themselves one extra month to at least somehow finish the story. Although this seems to be something insignificant, at that time, far from all the series Tomino was even so lucky.
So the glorious story of Gandama would end, which would take a place in the list of ambitious, but ultimately forgotten Tomino’s creations, if not for toys.
One of the reasons for the early closure of the series was the Sponsor Clover company responsible for the toys in the brand. However, shortly after the end of the series, the right to release, it would seem, to anyone the necessary Merchendisa were bought by the company Bandai, who decided to approach Gandam from the other side.
The decision of the banday was simple, but effective. Unlike “strong” clover toys, Bandai offered customers plastic sets. For a small price, the potential owner of Ganpla (this is what they began to call plastic sets from the banday) at the disposal of the set of male parts, which, with the help of glue, could turn both into a canonical robot from the series and something completely. Complemented all a few colors of colors that go in the test itself and encouraged fans to make their “custom” versions of the usual mobile armor.
Variations of modern lines ganpla
Interesting: Ganpla is largely a secret lobbyist of very popular "custom", (t.e. personalized) mobile armor in many Gandama. However, the real father of Castoma is Char Aznel himself and his habit of coloring his mobile armor in red. The first and proprietary robot of Chara in the original Gandama was the standard MS-06S Zaku II Commander Type, which did not differ from other ordinary women except red. However, thanks to the talented pilot, it moved more considerable faster than the rest, which caused jokes among the phantas on the topic that, having painted any robot in red, you will increase its speed three times.
Amuro, spell of their mobile armor (RX-78-2 Gandam and Red OSC II)
An ordinary Japanese buyer did not see such toys then. Ganpla gave the heyday of creative creativity and created a huge layer of fans of Gandama, which grows and flourishes and to this day. Ganpla technologies have been improved for several decades – glue is no longer needed, since the mass of models is interchangeable, and the details and study of the sets themselves have reached truly impressive results (the work of numerous collectors also looks no less impressive). Ultimately, Ganpla found her way back in the anime, giving rise to several series in the franchise. But about that later.
So far, in the early 80s, Ganpla massively attracted people’s attention to Gandama. Repeated broadcasts were extremely successful, therefore it was decided to make the films trilogy from the series and see what will come of it. Tomino was returned immediately to process the series in a new format. Although the films for the most part consisted of the frames of the series, there were some changes. The author took the chance and removed from the starting material almost everything that he considered unnecessary – some of the elements close to super robots (like some openly strange weapons of Gandama), part of humor, fillers. In a word, I did the same as with my short story, but a smaller scale. The films trilogy released in 1981-82 (Mobile Sout Gundam I, Mobile Suit Gundam II: Soldiers of Sorrow And Mobile Suit Gundam III: Encounters in Space) was an unprecedented success and turned out to be commercially successful. Many critics said that “Gandam begins a new era where anime becomes art”, and the films themselves are still considered a convenient start for everyone who wants to join the series and the only good compilation in the franchise.
Artbox of the third compilation film
Interesting: The cultural influence of Gandama on the anime and Japanese culture sometimes turned out to be completely unexpected. So during the show of films, many adult fans directly in the hall took pictures of the naked figure of Sila Mass (the female character of the series) when she took a shower. What is considered one of the first open manifestations of the "interest" of fans to painted characters. Some historians of culture Otaku consider this moment a starting point that stimulated an interest in animated pornography and inspired a number of authors of the corresponding direction. So Gandam may well be a grandfather of both modern Otaku and the modern concept of animated pornography in general. At the same time, it is noteworthy that Tomino did not even think about anything, holding his policy to show everything extremely realistically. Tomino himself cannot stand Otaku and does not hide his negative attitude towards them, which clearly illustrates what sometimes unpredictable effect the author’s work can be provided on others. Including for himself.
One way or another, the success of the films trilogy, coupled with the popularity of Ganno, firmly put the franchise on his feet. Fans demanded more and in the bowels of Tomino Studio with the working group already worked in full to the full continuation of the 79th year of the 79th year. No one, however, did not know how many surprises would bring a new series – both the audience and the creators ..