Production Reference:|
|
Translator's Note: Roman Album 16: Com-Battler V, a volume of Tokuma Shoten's Roman Album series devoted to the 1976 TV series Super Electromagnetic Robo Com-Battler V, was originally published in December 1978. In addition to the usual story coverage and setting artwork, it includes a package of staff and creator interviews conducted in November of that year, as the production of Fighting General Daimos was wrapping up. |
At first, I thought it would be simple.
The sponsor wanted to make a giant robot show. The idea was that we'd have five machines combine into a giant robot, changing their original shapes as little as possible. Fortunately, there was a madman or genius (and I mean that as a compliment) on the sponsor side named Mr. Murakami, who'd already completed the toy concept.
Next, since there were five machines, we came up with five characters. Each of them would have a different personality, but that alone wouldn't be interesting. We wanted to create some visual characterization as well. I discussed this with Mr. Nagahama and Mr. Tsuji, and that's how Garuda was born.
We came up with detailed personal histories for the five heroes, and the villains Garuda and Oleanna. Even if this didn't directly come up in the drama, we thought the drama would be intensified if we had that kind of background.
We decided to keep Garuda's tragic fate a secret. If people knew how it was going to end, it would be boring. With this weighty drama in mind, we began giving him more and more scenes in the film, and in Mr. Nagahama's fashion, he kept on pushing to go even further. Inevitably, Garuda started to feel like the protagonist, but I think that was fine.
Com-Battler V was the first anime work created by the main Toei company, so we were under a lot of pressure. What's more, it was handicapped by a time slot of 6:00 PM on Saturday evenings (in Tokyo), so I was worried about the ratings.
We held conference after conference after meeting. I'd never worked with such an enthusiastic staff before. But their enthusiasm was reflected in the work itself, and the viewers could feel it too. That's what I believe. In that respect, Mr. Nagahama, Mr. Tsuji, Mr. Taguchi, Mr. Gobu, and all the production staff were truly on fire.
Everyone was trying to do something new. Not just with the story, but with the direction, animation, and background art as well, everyone was exercising their creativity. As a producer, I only needed to go along with that passion. All I had to do was ask them all to express something through their work. In my 20-year career in anime, I'd never been blessed with such excellent staff and great teamwork before Com-Battler V. That alone makes me very happy.
I feel blessed as a producer that, after that, I've gone on to work with the same staff on Voltes V and Fighting General Daimos. We're also looking at working on a new project after Fighting General Daimos ends, and we're holding meetings about it. We have to keep moving forward. So we we'll probably have a lot more discussions, over and over again. Let's make them enjoyable conversations...
In my career as a director, it feels like I've never had so much trouble at the start of a program. We received the original plan only three months before it went on the air, so at a point in time when we should already have begun animating, we were only just starting out by fundamentally revising the plan.
I'd like you to recall that was a year in which nine mecha anime came out. But how many of these works still remain in your memories? I believe the reasons these works were abandoned by the viewers and ended in failure were often a result of them not being thoroughly worked out in the planning stage.
The toymakers feel that if they have lots of awesome mecha, that alone will make it an awesome program. So they focus on putting in as many fancy mecha as possible. If the people making the program don't have their own independent opinions, and just go along with that, there's going to be trouble ahead. When every single mecha is amazing, and they're each given equal importance as they try to claim the spotlight, it's only natural for the program to end up losing focus. Not to mention that, unless it's a science program, a program whose appeal in concentrated entirely in the mecha simply isn't going to be entertaining.
When I started thinking about it, I realized that having five mecha appear and then combine, giving you a total of six main mecha, was actually a dangerous thing for the program. First, you have to make it clear why all the individual mecha exist by giving each of them its own role and characteristics. You also have to connect that to the personalities and characteristics of their crew, and establish the necessity of combining and a rationale for separating.
What's more, in the original plan, the focus of the drama was on whether or not they'd be able to combine. We were worried that would make the story development too simple, so we discarded that and decided to prioritize depicting the appeal of the individual characters, deriving the drama from that as we built up to the climactic battles.
In the brief span of two or three weeks, we decided on the program's fundamental concepts, remade the robot into an appealing character, established setting for all the weapons and each character—in other words, we came up with a plan for basically the entire program. In hindsight, it was a horrifying amount of work. It felt like the surge of strength that people display in an emergency, but you could also say that the latent strength of the staff who worked alongside me gave birth to the later Voltes and Daimos. Even having to revise the first episode script seven or eight times is now a nostalgic memory.
With any program, no episode is harder than the first one, but I remember the first episode of Com-Battler in particular as the most vividly completed first episode of all my works. To anyone who hasn't seen it, I hope you'll be sure to watch it at least once. And when it comes to Garuda's drama, the fact that Mr. Tsuji's setting was in place from the very beginning is a real achievement on his part.
Though Producer Iijima was of course an old acquaintance, we actually hadn't seen each other for a while. That's because he'd been transferred from Toei Doga to the main company, so he no longer had anything to do with writers like me who specialized in anime (though if they invite me over, I'll come running anywhere, rubbing my hands.)
Then one day, Mr. Iijima said "I'm doing an anime, so please join me."
I was confused. "You've gone back back to Doga?"
"No, now we're doing anime at the main company too."
"If you're doing that, then where's the staff?"
"The staff is... just me."
"Huh?"
I was dumbfounded, but I heard him out, and he explained that the staff would be entirely outsourced.
"I wonder if you'll be able to find outstanding staffers..." Setting aside my own situation, I was worried about the directors and animators.
"Reideen the Brave is really good. I'd love to get that staff."
So Mr. Iijima said, but we didn't know whether Sunrise's top talents would be willing to work on something they'd be so perfect for.
As for myself, I was wracking my brains over how to introduce a combining robot with a five-person crew. There were so many elements we absolutely had to get across to the viewer in the first episode. We had to establish the personalities of the five main characters, explanations for the five mecha, how cool it was when they combined, the necessity for the robot's development, the enemy setting, et cetera. It would be a major challenge simply getting the viewer to remember the names of the characters, the robot, and the mecha.
I wrote and revised, revised and wrote, and meanwhile the staff was still undecided. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, Mr. Oyobe of the advertising agency Toei Advertising (whose role was to mediate between the sponsor and the production side) created a fuss by producing his own storyboards (for reasons that remain unclear). (1)
For better or for worse, Reideen had ended, so we were reassured when the people from Sunrise officially joined us. And it was a relief when we decided on Mr. Tadao Nagahama, who'd excelled with Star of the Giants and Reideen, as chief director.
...But then, since we had a new staff, the setting and script had to be reworked, and we were sweating all over again. Garuda was still close to the original plan, and that went through without a hitch. The grand entrance scenes for the five teammates and the giant robot, however, went through several drafts as we were going back and forth. But all the effort was worth it, as the Com-Battler line continued on to Voltes and Daimos, and now we can finally breathe a sigh of relief.
My thanks to all the staff for their hard work!
(1) The Japanese phrase 「コンテをつくりだすというさわぎ」 could just mean "created a fuss about producing storyboards" but that seems less likely.
I'd like to explain the points I had in mind when designing the characters in the form of an itemized list.
Com-Battler V
I made the accessories and mecha more rounded, and tried to make the mark on its forehead more prominent. I also brought out the sleekness in the body. As for the color scheme, that was decided through discussion with the entire staff.
Garuda
He was established as a beautiful boy.
Hyoma
Reideen's hero, Akira Hibiki, was a well-balanced character, but we made Hyoma more unbalanced and childish. He was also a year or two younger, and I gave him a more ordinary overall physique.
Chizuru
She's a cute girl. I was aiming for a design with a less mundane feeling than Hyoma, so I drew her in a slightly artificial style.
Miia
I created the original design, and then Mr. Akihiro Kanayama reinterpreted it for me. She had no particular setting, but she was supposed to be a bad girl, so I gave her eyes a complex look to create a witch-like impression. Mr. Kanayama revised her so she could be played as either good or evil, turning her into a fascinating character.
The mecha setting for Mr. Yasuhiko's character designs was created at Nue. Since there wasn't much time before we went on the air, Kazutaka Miyatake, who was responsible for this, took up residence at Sunrise and created model sheets for things like the main mecha, base interiors, and attack patterns one after another. Mr. Nagahama's orders were detailed and precise, so he could work quite efficiently.
Every episode, we were creating roughly four sets of guest characters, guns, and vehicles. When doing the setting for the mecha designs, in addition to satisfying the requirements we were given, we also had to make it make sense. For example, when a heavyweight robot equipped with powerful weapons is flying from Earth into space, the setting for the fuel, engines, and so forth has to be carefully designed so that the viewer can easily understand and accept it.
With recent anime, there's more mecha knowledge among the audience, so there's now a demand for this kind of specialized setting on the creative side as well.
(1) Kimiyoshi Takekawa is the real name of the science-fiction writer and Studio Nue co-founder better known as "Haruka Takachiho."
Mobile Suit Gundam is copyright © Sotsu • Sunrise. Everything else on this site, and all original text and pictures, are copyright Mark Simmons.
