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Translator's Note: Invincible Super Man Zambot 3 / Invincible Iron Man Daitarn 3 Chronicle, published by Brain Navi in November 2003, is a book devoted to the early Nippon Sunrise works Super Machine Zambot 3 and The Unchallengeable Daitarn 3. It features a variety of exclusive creator and staff interviews, as well as detailed production histories, and I've translated a selection of these here. |
Director Tomino was deeply and powerfully involved in Zambot as its chief director and an original story creator. Here, he tells us about the situation at the time of broadcast, including the voice cast and the feelings of the director himself.
They offered me the role of chief director on Zambot purely as a job. The timing was terrible for me in a personal sense, but I accepted with my future career in mind. The plan itself was pretty much finished. The characters and mecha were all done, and since Sunrise wanted to make it a "family show" with robots, the blood relationships of the protagonist and his family were also fully established. None of the plan's essentials were my idea.
I think I was pretty clear, though, in taking the line that it should be a story about the "Jin family." (1) At the point when I joined, the fate of the protagonist's family hadn't been decided. I recall asking Mr. Fuyunori Gobu (a pen name for Mr. Yoshitake Suzuki) for a structure that could be turned into a TV series format. When it came to clarifying the "family show" aspect, and how we were going to involve the Gaizok, he basically adopted my ideas, or rather I forced them on him... well, perhaps it was both.
All of this, however, was still purely at a planning stage, so it didn't dramatically change the work itself. That may not be satisfying to habitual readers of anime books. (smiles)
I decided that on Zambot 3, my first time as chief director of a robot show, my theme would be "breaking the patterns of traditional giant robot shows." If a ridiculous weapon like a giant robot were fighting within Japan, that alone would produce a series of unbelievable major disasters. I wanted to depict these disasters, and I thought they should be depicted. This was something that had never been done in any previous giant robot show, so in other words, it was "pattern-breaking."
And you shouldn't have such convenient wars and disasters where allies and regular cast members never die. So I thought I had to create stories where people died, to break that pattern as well. I didn't actually want to depict the "raw emotions" surrounding that too strongly, though.
At the time, there had already been a dozen or so giant robot series, and they'd all been pretty popular. Viewers had gotten used to them, but I couldn't imagine it was good for a creator to unthinkingly give in to that kind of environment. By settling on this main theme of "pattern-breaking," I could create fresh dialogue and fresh reactions. Well, it wasn't truly fresh. But at least I could come up with dialogue different from what I'd seen before.
In creating this kind of narrative, the dialogue lines also became longer. That meant we could reduce the frame counts of the action scenes. This was very convenient in production terms, which was a priority in my situation.
It was often part of the director's job to depict these kinds of raw reactions. If they feel fresh, they'll be more powerful from a directorial perspective, and that helps you make the work unique. In my case, they've never given me good staff for the animation group. This was particularly bad on Zambot, so I thought we needed a powerful story to make up for the animation. At the same time, if we we had fresh expressions, I figured the series could survive despite the poor artwork, so I made it based on that policy.
To put it very coldly, there aren't any deeply memorable episodes in Zambot. In terms of the overall impression, the most striking thing is that it's a story where most of the family end up dead. That was a theme throughout the entire series, so if I had to choose, the most strongly memorable episodes would be ones related to that theme.
And there weren't any characters I placed emphasis on, or found it especially easy to work with. In my case, I don't particularly distinguish among characters unless I can really empathize with them. Partly that's because of my own conviction as a professional that, as much as possible, I should avoid favoring specific characters. I still follow that as a director. I try to give their scenes the necessary dramatization regardless of whether they're a main character or just Bad Guy A. Otherwise I'd only be able to depict the ones I liked, and the work would become narrower.
Ms. Nobuyo Oyama, who played Kappei, was already a veteran. People with that much technique can handle anything you throw at them, and it doesn't matter whether or not you direct them. In that sense, I relied on her to a tremendous extent. The voice actors were all veterans, but that's just the way it worked out. Back then, there weren't a lot of jobs for veterans, and voice acting was still looked down on and discriminated against. It was a very difficult time for them. There was limited scope for theater or performance in those days, and unless they were in great demand there wasn't much work, so even veterans were easy to get.
Another memorable one was Ms. Toyoko Takechi, who played Umee. When theatrical people like her realize that their role occupies an interesting place in the drama, they'll have fun performing it regardless of whether it's theater or anime. As a result, Ms. Takechi never matched the lip-sync. (laughs) What we did at the time was, after the recording was finished, we'd re-edit the film to match the lip-sync to Ms. Takechi's delivery. It was really difficult, but I couldn't change her dialogue. She gave a lot of performances that made me feel "If that's what she said, then I have no choice." It was really entertaining for me as a director, so we made the lip-sync match no matter what. I was also deliberately sloppy with the timing when I was editing the film. "Oh, it ended up being one second over, but that's okay." (laughs)
People can only act in their own style, so all you can do is meet them halfway. I think that's just what acting is like. I still believe that, in terms of both dialogue and performance, it feels utterly false to say everything within a predetermined time. In fact, aren't people who are better at dubbing worse at acting? If they're only good at matching, doesn't the performance suffer? In recent years, though, that's started to change. I'm starting to see actors who've watched things like that since they were children, and can perform while matching the timing.
I have my own idealized image of the family. There are grandparents, parents, and in some cases maybe even great-grandchildren. Four or so generations of people are firmly gathered in one place. But there are also people who deviate from this, and can't have a family of their own. I didn't want to depict only this because that's the way the world is. (2)
I also have doubts about the idea or sense of family, especially the so-called "nuclear family." (3) During Zambot, I was clearly conscious as a director of the feeling that we shouldn't just have nuclear families. That's why I left so much space for the grandparents to appear.
This wasn't from a sense of "We should cherish our elders," but rather "We're here because our grandparents existed, so we have no choice but to acknowledge them." To the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, the grandparents' existence can sometimes function as a minus. But in the end, whether they reject or accept that, the next generation is going to create a new world and a new family. That's how the cycle goes. So when I was making Zambot, I thought it was a definite societal mistake to foreground the nuclear family.
It's now been thirty years since Zambot, and unfortunately I still don't have any grandchildren, but my opinions about this haven't changed. At my age, I can imagine there's a clear difference between the grandparent who dies surrounded by their grandchildren, and the one who dies without seeing their grandchildren's and great-grandchildren's faces. I think the idea of a nuclear family just feels too cruel.
SF-style movies and anime are mostly pretty boring, aren't they? I can tolerate the first Star Wars, but before that, basically all SF movies were quite dull, whether they were anime or live-action. I can't think of any interesting SF on film. Although I like things like King Kong, even that's boring as a drama. Why, I wondered, can they only tell such simple stories?
What I came to realize is that people who like SF and special effects don't know enough about theatrics and ordinary drama. So I tried to create something that could be watched as a normal drama, with a story would be typical for a movie. I simply made things that incorporated film techniques into anime, without any sense that I was making an SF show or a robot show... But it's a little disappointing that I didn't put any SF-style original ideas into Gundam.
In anime, you can only express drama through cinematic functions. But why do people think that when a robot shows up, it instantly becomes "robot anime" and you're not creating drama anymore? That's my question. There are also people like that, who don't get drama, among the sponsors. To them, robot anime is only about things like robots in action, docking, and new robots appearing. That's why Gundam was canceled.
Does it still need to be a robot anime even if you're going to make it like a narrative film? There's a synergistic effect where, simply because it's robot anime, it'll look "realistic" even if you attach a cliched narrative. So, by choosing the job of robot anime, I really think I was able to create stories that exceeded my own skills and abilities.
Do you need a twenty-meter robot in a narrative film? Absolutely not. But if I made one without it, it would be boring, and the story would be a mess. Nobody would watch it. Perhaps robot shows are a constraint for me to discipline myself.
When I'm trying to make an interesting visual work, I'm aware that if I thoughtlessly include only things I personally like, then I'll only be able to create stories that reflect my own tastes and make people say "Now I know what you're into, Tomino." Because I want my own works to be seen by a lot of people, I can't make things like that. Really, I'm annoyed when movies are made by people who are satisfied just making what they like. They use hundreds of people and spend huge sums of money. I don't have that kind of idiotic courage.
Actually, three days before they approached me about Zambot 3, I'd accepted the job of chief director on an anime based on a preexisting original work. But when I was asked to direct Zambot, I turned the other one down. In the end, I thought I'd benefit from a situation where I could write an original story and develop my own skills. When there's a preexisting work, you're always more constrained. But when I called and said "I'm sorry, I'd like to step down," naturally they didn't give me any more work for a while. (laughs)
PROFILE
Yoshiyuki Tomino. Born in 1941 in Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture. A genius who has driven a major part of Japan's TV anime industry, starting with Gundam. He's also written many books as a novelist. "A Zambot novel? I wanted to write a novelization, and I wrote thirty or forty pages as practice. I'll take that to my grave." (laughs)
(1) Though the name of the family was already decided before Tomino joined the project, the Japanese spelling 神ファミリー was his own suggestion.
(2) I'm not sure how to parse this vague comment. The Japanese text here reads 「それが世の中だろうから、これだけを描くことはしたくなかった」.
(3) "Nuclear family" (核家族, loanword) means the same thing in both Japanese and English—a two-generation family consisting only of parents and their children.
"Zambot 3" was the first independently created work of Nippon Sunrise (now Sunrise). Because of this, the journey to its broadcast presented a series of extraordinary challenges...
Text = Yoshito Sakai
The TV anime series Super Machine Zambot 3, the first work Nippon Sunrise (now Sunrise) created on its own, was also a breakthrough work for Yoshiyuki Tomino, who is now a leading director in the field of Japanese animation.
Co-produced with Nagoya TV and the Sotsu Agency, it aired on Nagoya TV from October 8, 1977, to March 25 of the following year, running a total of 23 episodes. It content amounted to a direct reexamination of the "giant robot show," a genre of TV anime that flourished in the mid-1970s following 1972's Mazinger Z (Toei Doga).
In this feature, we'll examine the process by which Super Machine Zambot 3 was planned, beginning with earliest stages. In doing so, we'll also address the substance of the work itself.
The anime production company Sunrise Studio (the predecessor to Nippon Sunrise) was originally founded in 1973 by production staff who had left the old Mushi Production. Sunrise Studio was part of Soeisha, a children's film production subsidiary of the film distributor Tohokushinsha, and it did the actual film production for anime programs developed by Tohokushinsha and Toei's TV division.
Eventually, at the end of 1976, Sunrise Studio was reorganized into Nippon Sunrise. Becoming independent from Soeisha, it began planning is own original works. The two earliest of these plans were "Bomber X" and "SF Thrilling Robot Action Zambot 3 (working title)." Chronologically speaking, the plan for "Bomber X" (later developed into The Unchallengeable Daitarn 3) was apparently conceived before Zambot.
In 1976, Kiyomi Numoto, a founder of Sunrise Studio who had later transferred to the toy company Takara, recognized the creative and commercial value of the programs that Sunrise was producing (such as Toei's Super Electromagnetic Robo Com-Battler V). It was Numoto who introduced Sunrise to the toymaker Clover, an affiliate of the major toy company Tsukuda Original, which had been dealing mainly in soft vinyl toys. Clover, which wanted to expand its range of character goods, and Nippon Sunrise, which had just established a new structure, agreed on a strategy of "Create a fresh robot anime, and make it successful."
Soon, through the efforts of the Tōyō advertising agency (the predecessor of the current Sotsu Agency), Nagoya TV, an affiliate of the TV Asahi network, was chosen as the planning and producing station for Zambot. The broadcast was to begin in the autumn of 1977.
In an even earlier draft of "Zambot 3," the original concept envisioned by Eiji Yamaura, the head of the Nippon Sunrise planning office, was that the main robot would be a five-part combiner. However, this idea was shelved, and it became a three-part combination. This was mainly due to funding and technical constraints on the Clover side, and Sunrise's desire to save labor on setting and animation. The name "Zambot 3," incidentally, had the double meaning of "a three-part combining robot" and "Sunrise's robot."
As the planning of the new program continued, the broad concept of "family action" was added to the general idea of "a giant robot show where multiple mecha combine" that Yamaura had settled on as the original plan. The goal was to present a fresh drama where, rather than strangers who gathered together based on a sense of justice or duty, the robot would be operated and supported by people bound by blood relationships. At this point, it was also established that it would run a total of two cours.
Yamaura commissioned scriptwriter Yoshitake Suzuki to write a proposal based on this concept. This proposal became the previously mentioned "SF Thrilling Robot Action Zambot 3 (working title)."
The content of the "Zambot 3" proposal was generally similar to the completed work. The heroes were collectively known as the Jin family, with the protagonist Tempei Jin (age 12) supported by a cheering squad of three sisters named Yuri, Michi, and Aki, as well as his kid brother Sampei. (1) Though there were subtle differences, many elements that were carried over to the actual work were already established at this stage, such as "the protagonist's family are descended from space aliens," "three mecha scattered across Japan," "a transforming combat robot with lots of variations controlled by the boy protagonist," and "the true enemy is actually a giant computer."
On the other hand, some important dramatic elements of Super Machine Zambot 3, such as "the protagonists are persecuted by the general public" and "a structure where good and evil are reversed," weren't yet incorporated at this stage. These ideas came from Yoshiyuki Tomino, who was appointed as director of this work in June 1977.
Tomino had previously been chosen to direct Tohokushinsha's Reideen the Brave (1975), on which Sunrise Studio provided production support, but he'd been forced to step down in the middle of the series. For him, Zambot was a chance to make his comeback as a director. Thus, in the months before the broadcast began, Tomino set to work with all his might.
Meanwhile, first drafts of the characters and mechanics had already been created by the designer Ryoji Hirayama (now Ryoji Fujiwara). He had put together a draft proposal for the latter, with the motif of a Japanese-style helmet and armor. The creator group Studio Nue, however, also joined the project around the same time as Fujiwara, and several of its members were mobilized to refine the mecha design. It's been said that model sheets and so forth for the main robot were also drawn by Kunio Okawara, who was then a member of the design company Mechaman.∗
∗ It was said that Kunio Okawara drew the Zambot 3's internal mecha for magazine publication, but Okawara himself has since stated that he wasn't involved with Zambot. Kazutaka Miyatake of Studio Nue has also claimed that it was Okawara who drew the very first basic design of the Zambot 3, which was then passed on to Nue, after which Yasuhiko refined its form and Hirayama finally traced it (in the June 1980 issue of "Out").
All of this is testimony to Nippon Sunrise's eagerness to perfect the main robot for the first original plan it had ever managed to get on the air. The crescent moon on the Zambot's forehead, which served as its symbol, was added at the very end at Tomino's suggestion. It was cleaned up for animation use by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, who joined the program a little later.
The themes that Tomino himself added to the draft "Zambot 3" plan were ones that had rarely been directly depicted in traditional giant robot anime, and could be called the dark side of hero programs. These were realistic situations such as "the protagonist inevitably ends up doing damage to their surroundings as they repulse the enemy" and, as a result, "people see the protagonists who should be protecting them as enemies."
Eventually, these themes (especially the latter) lead to the final theme of "The foolish Earthlings hate each other, without trying to understand the pain of their fellow people. Is there any reason they should exist in this universe?" One could say that, with the addition of these themes, the "Zambot 3" plan leapt ahead to become the work called Super Machine Zambot 3.
Tomino also adjusted the story's terminology, changing the spelling of "Jin family" from the 「ジン一族」 of the original plan to 「神ファミリー」, retaining Yamaura's concept but giving it even greater impact. In this, we can see Tomino's determination to seriously depict a drama about "family."
Because the ideas he proposed were so fundamental to the worldview of this work, Tomino's name was added to the "original story" credits alongside Yoshitake Suzuki.
And so Zambot 3 was launched, but gathering production staff such as producers and animators proved to be a challenge. Sunrise's main staff, who had been assigned to the production of Com-Battler V and Super Electromagnetic Machine Voltes V for Toei's TV division, were being held in reserve for Fighting General Daimos, the followup to Voltes which was to begin in 1978. Thus, there were few people who could be spared for Zambot.
The Sunrise producer in charge was originally supposed to be Tohru Komori, the production manager on Star of La Seine (1975), for which Sunrise Studio had provided production support. For various reasons, however, Sunrise had to start over from scratch. Ultimately the role was assigned to young Yoshikazu Tochihira, previously of Tatsunoko Production, whose experience included being chief production manager on Tatsunoko's giant robot anime Gowapper-5 Gordam (1976). Encamped at Sunrise's Studio 1, Tochihira and chief production manager Yutaka Kanda worked hard to secure a staff and set up the program in the short time that remained. (2)
Meanwhile, in June, Yoshiyuki Tomino met with the animator Yoshikazu Yasuhiko and asked him to join the production. But Yasuhiko had his hands full with animation direction on the 1976 daily-life SF comedy Robokko Beeton (Tohokushinsha), for which Sunrise was providing production support. Hoping to get some rest, he declined the job of animation director on the new work, and did only revised drafts of the character designs and cleanup on the mechanical setting. (Although he ended up doing animation direction on the opening and ending.)
The animation work was done mostly by up-and-coming animation studios such as Green Box (an anime studio made up mainly of staff from Tatsunoko Pro) and Studio Z (a successor to the capable Studio NO.1, which had proven itself on Toei Doga's works). Studio Z in particular provided young talents such as the animator Yoshinori Kanada, who was then becoming recognized throughout the industry for his exceptional ability, as well his fellow animators Kazuo Tomizawa, Osamu Nabeshima, and Masakatsu Iijima, and the episode director Shinya Sadamitsu. The images they created onscreen with their unique sensibilities and bold techniques became one of Zambot's charms.
Incidentally, Zambot didn't have assigned animation directors. The animation supervision for each episode was apparently handled by Yoshiyuki Tomino and the main animator for the episode in question. For the final episode, Nobuyoshi Sasakado was seconded from Sunrise's Studio 2, where Voltes was produced, to do the main animation. Episode 20, which was actually the last one produced, was handled by Nakumura Pro, the main animation studio on the followup program Daitarn 3. These final episodes were tightened up with all their usual skill.
Another of Director Tomino's objectives was to enrich the sound, and he pursued this in coordination with the sound director Noriyoshi Matsuura. In Tomino's own words, they selected a cast who were "fundamental" and had "distinct characters," starting with Nobuyo Oyama who played Kappei Jin and including Katsuji Mori (Uchuta Kamie), Ichiro Nagai (Heizaemon Kamikita), Akira Shimada (Butcher), Toyoko Takechi (Umee Jin), and Toshio Furukawa (Shingo Kozuki).
Meanwhile, Tomino entrusted the background music to Takeo Watanabe, a leading figure in the world of live-action TV drama whose only previous TV anime work had been on the "Masterpiece" series and sports-oriented shows. At first, Watanabe was reluctant because robot shows were too far outside his field, but he gave in to Tomino's enthusiasm and provided the background music for this work in collaboration with his junior colleague Yushi Matsuyama. Once again, in Tomino's words, the "sometimes disappointing level" of the animation was rescued by the sound aspects.
As for the scripts, original story creator Yoshitake Suzuki served as main writer. Under his pen name Fuyunori Gobu, he wrote episodes 1, 5, 22, and 23, which were key points in the program. Additional scripts were contributed by Yoshihisa Araki, Soji Yoshikawa, Shoichi Taguchi, and Hiroyuki Hoshiyama. Depending on the episode, these were sometimes revised in the storyboarding stage, but they each poured their talents into making Zambot an innovative work.
In addition to Tomino, a total of 12 people were involved in the directorial area, including Hiroshi Jinzenji, who storyboarded episode 3, and Susumu Gyoda, who directed that episode. (3) Gyoda, who went on to direct a total of five episodes between episode 3 and episode 17, could be considered part of the regular directorial staff, along with Shinya Sadamitsu, who storyboarded and directed the five episodes that were animated by Studio Z, and Kazuyuki Hirokawa, who worked on a total of four episodes from episode 12 to the final episode (sometimes handling both storyboards and direction). (4) There were many people, however, who only worked on a single episode. This serves as a record of how hard the production side was struggling to find personnel.
Tomino himself drew the storyboards for nine episodes, from the first to the final episode, under his pen name Minoru Yokitani. He also directed three episodes, at least according to the credits, but it's believed that he was involved in the direction of many others on the production site.
Translator's Note: The remainder of the article, amounting to roughly 1/3 of the total text, goes on to discuss the progress of the animated story and the reaction among fans and critics. Technically this isn't production information, so I'll pause my translation here.
(1) The term "Jin family" is written here with phonetic kana as ジン一族, rather than the kanji 神族 used in the final show.
(2) This appears to be an error. Zambot was produced at Sunrise's Studio 3, while Studio 1 was working on Robokko Beeton up until Zambot's broadcast debut. It's possible, though, that Tochihira and Kanda used Studio 1 as a base of operations while they were recruiting their production staff.
(3) The original text says that Gyoda storyboarded the episode and Jinzenji directed it, rather than vice versa, but this appears to be a mistake and the following sentence contradicts it.
(4) I believe Sadamitsu and Studio Z only worked on four episodes, and the episode list published in this book agrees, but I've left this part as per the original text.
Mobile Suit Gundam is copyright © Sotsu • Sunrise. Everything else on this site, and all original text and pictures, are copyright Mark Simmons.
