Gundam Creator Yoshiyuki Tomino Bemoans Disney, AI And Wow Cool Robot Syndrome

Mobile Suit Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino spoke about the state of animation, where he criticized Disney, AI as well as the legacy of his own anime.

In an interview with Tokyokeizai, Tomino said attributed the decline of Disney animation to their moving away from hand-drawn animation.

“After the switch from hand-drawn animation to digital, Disney’s works were all discouraging, and that kind of reproduction is likely to continue”, he says.

While he didn’t specify what exactly about modern Disney movies he didn’t like, the general tone of his interview was about the process of animation itself rather than content.

He even expressed optimism that despite corporations best efforts, human animators would not be replaced by AI:

“Even if animation becomes digitalized 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 they will be able to identify things that are not realistic”, he said.

He also reflected on the legacy of Gundam- though the series has grown massively in popularity, he worried that the popularity of Gundam as a giant robot IP “To tell you the truth, I feel that the fundamental message I put into the “Gundam” series, such as social theory and war theory, has not been conveyed as well as I would like, because it is obstructed by the shape of the giant robot called “Gundam”, he says.

“Children like dinosaurs and giant robots. The popularity of “Gundam” is an extension of this preference. Unwillingly, it has been supported in part by a narrow-minded mecha fetish. If you look at the works by themselves, they are not as popular as “Chibi Maruko-chan” and “One Piece” “.

Given the fact that Gundam’s original purpose was selling toys, it’s understandable that the creator would be frustrated that that legacy would be better remembered than his treatise against war and conflict.

That being said, Bandai Namco Entertainment has also said they wish to pivot the Gundam IP to a Social Brand, promoting more pro-social messages as Tomino intended.

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