Animation
CG animation was used to depict the Space Colony Side 1's Londenion and Side 5's Sweetwater, due to the structures' intricate detail and rotation. CG designer Hideki Nakano spent three months on the one-and-a-half minute scene to make sure that the immense size of the colony would be properly conveyed in theaters.
Original Mobile Suit Gundam character designer Yoshikazu Yasuhiko decided not to participate in the project, and the job was instead given to Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ designer Hiroyuki Kitazume. During the design process, he didn't have enough time to talk with Director Tomino, so it was decided that Director Tomino would select rough sketches of characters drawn by Kitazume. Tomino didn't give any specific instructions about the design, but said, "I want you to avoid becoming a manga in order to draw a human drama." Kitazume tried to create a design that could show human facial expressions, but even during the design, Director Tomino said that the length of the neck of the character as a whole should be designed with Western actors in mind, not Japanese, "The jaw line is below the shoulders."
Mechanical Design's design work includes Yutaka Izubuchi, Yoshinori Sayama, Masahisa Suzuki, and Kazunobu Nakazawa. The design of the mobile suit was competed in a competition similar to Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam and Gundam ZZ. In this work, gimmicks such as transformation and combination were not added to the MS, and the size itself was increased The flow of heavy armament that continued until the previous work has stopped, and simple humanoid aircraft are the center. Masahisa Suzuki and others submitted numerous rough designs for the main characters. ν Gundam, Re-GZ, Jegan, and other Earth Federation Forces mobile suits. Yutaka Izubuchi designed the Neo Zeon mobile suits. Director Tomino had two requests regarding the main character's ν Gundam: "I want to put a cape on the Gundam" and "I don't want the Gundam itself to transform or combine."
Initially, it was decided that Mamoru Nagano would be appointed as the main mechanical designer for this work. Director Tomino said, "It's not a TV series, so I'll entrust all the designs to you." He was in charge of almost all designs in the play, such as enemy and ally MS and ships, cockpits, MS control systems, and Psycommu helmets. It was considered under the condition that the mecha that appeared in the previous work (First Gundam, Z, ZZ) would not be used at all, but the design line proposed in response to Director Tomino's request. The Gundam was also progressing with a design line that overturned the so-called Gundam common sense was not liked by the client, and he himself clashed with the staff around him, so he had to drop out halfway through the previous work Gundam ZZ. For that reason, all the designs were redone at the stage of trial drawing to see if it would be reflected in the actual drawing, and although the concept was the same, Nagano's design itself did not appear in the work at all. In later years, Nagano said that he had quit the Gundam series three times in a row, including this one, saying, "There are so many things I don't want to remember."
The design of the mobile suit was quickly put into a competition format, and producer Shigeru Watanabe of Bandai Visual and Kenji Uchida of Sunrise (animation production brand Sunrise) called out to me. In addition to the aforementioned designers, Hidetoshi Omori, Hideaki Anno, Makoto Kobayashi and many other people participated. The designers drew many roughs without any particular restrictions, and as a result, it was decided that Yutaka Izubuchi would lead the design Most mechanics other than the MS were outsourced to Gainax. Gainax took over as a company, and the actual design was handled by Hideaki Anno for Neo Zeon and Shoichi Masuo for the Federation Forces., Cleanup was done by Seimi Tanaka. In addition, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto also participated in the design of the normal suit Anno also participated in the νGundam design competition, and submitted a Gundam that was almost identical to the cleanup manuscript of Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, the animation director of the first Gundam. proposed to reduce the amount of lines in MS. The work was almost completed around June 1987, and Hideaki Anno later interviewed and initially proceeded with the design to return to the taste of the first Gundam, but director Tomino decided to return to "Zeta Gundam" and "Gundam ZZ". He felt that the image of the design was evolving through the process, and revealed that he had a hard time resolving the gap himself. There were a number of requests, such as "to clearly show where the building is," and "to design with people living in mind at all times." Describes his impression of participating as a designer.
Yutaka Izubuchi, who joined in the middle of the production, had little time to work on this work, and although he could not do much adventure related to design, since the time of Aura Battler Dunbine, he has been a substitute hitter when he was in trouble. After prefaced that there was also a habit of being appointed, "We were able to provide material that felt different from the TV series," "We suppressed the expression method of the TV series and expressed it with an orthodox taste," and "The movements of the mobile suits were recreated in the days of the first Gundam. Aiming for a simple and beautiful design that can be endured.". In addition, when we adopted the elements of special effects heroes in some designs, Director Tomino liked it, and it was reflected in the normal suits of Char Aznable and Quess Paraya.
Yoshinori Sayama, who was only scheduled to participate in the mobile suit design cleanup, ended up being in charge of some mecha designs as well, but there was a rough sketch drawn by Yutaka Izubuchi, so that was the base. I was able to respond to the order for the supplementary mechanism. And after revealing that "the biggest harvest was being able to work with Mr. Izubuchi," he said that he learned the tricks of the design work and was a great reference. On the other hand, unlike the TV series, there are no restrictions, and at first I was confused by the design for the theater where there was NG in the Gundam-like design, and I had to design it by assimilating the world view of Gundam myself. On the other hand, Director Tomino demanded a versatile design that matches the place of use and demands. However, it was also a work that made me think about "what is the way to draw in terms of setting?" and made me realize that it is necessary to think about settings from the standpoint of animators who work on site.
Regarding the brightness of the stage, director Tomino said, "The story is dark, so make it brighter." The setting used in Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ, "The computer is making outer space look brighter," is also used in this work, and only the outer space projected from the cockpit is brightly projected. As for the space colony, avoiding future-oriented designs, it was designed as an artificial city with an atmosphere that would not cause frustration even if people lived a normal life. Specifically, Sweet Water is based on the old streets of New York that Ikeda visited for location scouting. Regarding this colony, Director Tomino also gave several instructions to make the mirror part white, but Ikeda insisted that "it looks like a mirror because it reflects the sun's light." Since Director Tomino accepted this, the colony's mirror in this work was set to reflect like a mirror. Also, at that time, it was customary for the art team to design the interior of the mecha, and Ikeda drew up the interior design of the Federation and Neo Zeon battleships. Regarding the battle bridge, Director Tomino told Ikeda that the actual battleship bridge is divided into navigation and combat, and it was set in this work.
Ikeda was asked by Director Tomino to create a profound feeling for this work, but he was concerned that setting the outer space displayed on the monitor bright would create a light impression, so he worked hard to create a contradictory setting of "bright and profound". Made up. Regarding the layout balance due to the difference in the frame size peculiar to the theatrical version (this work is Vista size), since the frame of the TV version has a lot of space, adjustments were made so that it would not be noisy.
