Gundam Writers

[Nikkolas]

So obviously Tomino is THE guy for Gundam but his writing ability is probably questioned as much as it is praised in my experience. The only other Gundam writer I see brought up with any frequency is whoever did SEED. And it might even be the director I've heard more about..Fakuda or something like that? Point is that SEED/Destiny and Tomino are the writers I hear discussed the most on boards since I became a Gundam fan a couple months ago.

What of other Gundam writers? Did any of them work on multiple series as well? Are there any others you would say can rival Tomino or completely surpass him?

Also in a similar vain - if you could assess each writer and their strengths and weaknesses, that be pretty awesome. Like, was there any area Tomino excelled or failed at compared to other Gundam writers?

[Deacon Blues]

Here's the thing, Tomino is not THE guy for Gundam. You're forgetting the collective pseudonym of "Hajime Yatate" which is the writing staff that lends to the entire story that is Gundam. The series are never a project of just one person... much like any television series you see out there. Novelizations and/or manga on the other hand are the brainchilds of whomever puts the pen to paper and starts scribbling.

[Destiny_Gundam]

How much actual writing did Tomino do on shows anyways? I'm looking at his ANN page and he doesn't have that many scripting credits.

[AmuroNT1]

Here's the thing, Tomino is not THE guy for Gundam. You're forgetting the collective pseudonym of "Hajime Yatate" which is the writing staff that lends to the entire story that is Gundam. The series are never a project of just one person... much like any television series you see out there. Novelizations and/or manga on the other hand are the brainchilds of whomever puts the pen to paper and starts scribbling.

On top of that, in the specific example of First Gundam, Anime News Network lists four scriptwriters OTHER than Tomino...and the only episode they credit him with writing is "Time, Be Still", which is pretty widely unpopular. And of course this is discounting the contributions of the storyboarders and other "fill-in" writers.

[HellCat]

As far as I'm aware, Kuroda tends to single handedly do the screenplays for his series but wasn't the sole idea man. During 00, Mizushima mentioned he'd hold drinkng parties for the key staff and that most of their best ideas came when they were drunk.

(Some are now saying 'That explains alot...')

[Wingnut]

Including first and foremost, Sumeragi's near obsession with booze. Even without her personal history driving here there a bit.
Maybe the staff of Gundam shows should get drunk together more often. I wonder if any of them ended up like Felini at those parties?

[Chris]

So obviously Tomino is THE guy for Gundam but his writing ability is probably questioned as much as it is praised in my experience.

The people who heavily criticize Tomino's writing don't even know what they're talking about. They falsely imply that he's heavily involved with the writing of every show he's worked on, and as others have pointed out, that's far from the case. It doesn't take much research to see that there are plenty of credited writers for ever Tomino Gundam series, but lazy people would just rather blame him because that's easier.

[AmuroNT1]

That's one of the big problems with modern fandom - the assumption that there's a single "keystone" individual who's responsible for every aspect of a story, for good or for ill. We've all been a part of a fandom where somebody, usually the original creator, has been blamed for everything wrong with the franchise, whether it's George Lucas and Star Wars, J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter, Shoji Kawamori and Macross...hell, the new Ninja Turtles movie has people tearing their hair out because Michael Bay is involved, completely ignoring that he's just the producer and has nothing to do with the script or direction.

[toysdream]

I think it's a combo of two things - people don't read the credits, and they don't know what the individual staffers actually do. In the specific case of anime, there's often a head writer who supervises the other scriptwriters, while the director tends to be more involved in the visual side of things. Tomino, for example, was said to have storyboarded more than 1000 anime episodes (and that was 15 years ago, so the number's probably higher now), and you can see he's still at it with Reconguista of G.

The only time Tomino seems to get directly involved with scriptwriting is when they do movie compilations. You'll see his name added to the script credits for the First Gundam and Zeta Gundam movies, and he wrote the script for Char's Counterattack and co-wrote F91.

-- Mark

[Xenosynth]

Sadly, it's not even just fandom. People like having figureheads to praise and/or blame for anything even if it really caused by many factors and many people, and they do it for movies, games, politics, and everything else. Sometimes entire companies can become this figurehead even when that company has many studios/groups within it that all work on their own, so yeah, it's really kinda silly. Even though I am usually pretty optimistic, I think it's too hard for people to want to blame a bunch of people, and instead, having one figure to focus both their love and vitriol on is just that much easier.

[LightningCount]

Yeah, while one or two people usually get the credit, it's often a collective of writers in Gundam and anime in general. Also, I've heard what happens, especially in modern series, is that fan and marketing reaction changes plots--this happened at least in SEED through 00 Season 2, I think. Often, though, there is someone who has an outline with a number of details for early arcs, and then they play off that. Scheduling or collective writing after that initial plot can also change plots, which has been documented in Sunrise's Gasaraki, which was originally supposed to have more to do with the moon.

I believe some people say that Gundam X was actually scripted by one guy throughout, which would make sense given how methodical (in a good way) it can be; but even that was altered beyond the writer's control when they cut his 49 episodes down to 39, and he had to adjust the scripts to end the show early while still getting the ending he presumably wanted from all of the previous, gradual build-up.

Kuroda says in the English-translated 00 novel I have that he was in charge of series planning and scripts for 00, but also mentions an approval process.

I naively find myself saying often that Tomino's weakness is in making a majority of his characters feel really human and relatable...however, he did co-write F91, and for all that movie's truncated shortcomings, I feel it has some of the most human and relatable characters in a non-side-story Universal Century tale. He certainly did some of the writing there, because in an interview with one of the producers on the North American special edition DVD, they talk about how Tomino's writing style uses some obscure forms of the Japanese language, and is therefore hard to interpret when one is reading it off the paper.

In the end, you have to hope for the best in these collective writing/directing jobs. Sometimes you get strengths, sometimes you get weaknesses.

Off-hand, I don't know who the writer was, or if it was a group, but Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket probably has the tightest/most powerful writing in Gundam; but then, it's only 6 episodes about a single incident, so that makes it a little easier to plan out and execute. Other than that, 08th MS Team, Wing, X, and G probably have the most effective writing overall from my experience/opinion, even if not flawless. It's been a while since I've seen it, but 0079 might have the most classical, hero's journey-type writing. Other series have stretches of really good writing (SEED, 00, etc), and I'm going off memory/gut reaction right now, but those noted before are the one's that maybe stick out the most in my mind overall if you put me on the spot.

[Nikkolas]

I figured Tomino had a lot to do with the writing because I heard the CCA movie ended up as terrible as it did because of executive meddling. Tomino had a bunch of story ideas and everything but they wouldn't allow it and so he stuck it in his novel.

Is Beltorchika's Children translated anywhere? I really didn't like CCA...

[zetatype]

I figured Tomino had a lot to do with the writing because I heard the CCA movie ended up as terrible as it did because of executive meddling. Tomino had a bunch of story ideas and everything but they wouldn't allow it and so he stuck it in his novel.

Is Beltorchika's Children translated anywhere? I really didn't like CCA...

The only major rejected story idea i recall was Beltorchika still being in a relationship with Amuro and being pregnant with his child. However, the execs didn't like the idea of Amuro being a family man so the idea was canned.

Another change was

Spoiler

Hathaway accidentally killing Quess

but that doesn't really have much impact until we get to "Hathaway's Flash"

I remember reading a blog post years ago by someone who had read the novel and gave a general description of what happened in each chapter. IMO, the novel was a bit of an improvement compared to the movie, but if you hated the movie I doubt the novel will win you over.

And unfortunately I do not know of any english translations of the novel

[Kratos]

I don't know about the shows he's worked on, but man, the MSG novels are NOT well-written books. Part of that might be translation, but there's plenty there (such as huge info dumps revealing entire character backstories the second they're introduced) that can't be excused by that. It's to the point where about the only thing they're good for is UC background. Kinda makes me wonder if his later novels are all they're cracked up to be.

One thing I've always been curious about regarding Tomino is the whole "kill-em-all" thing, which has always come across as a bit...exaggerated, I guess? Ideon and Victory certainly have that in spades, but his other mecha stuff doesn't seem to be vicious enough to earn him a reputation as a director that consistently slaughters his casts.

[latenlazy]

I don't know about the shows he's worked on, but man, the MSG novels are NOT well-written books. Part of that might be translation, but there's plenty there (such as huge info dumps revealing entire character backstories the second they're introduced) that can't be excused by that. It's to the point where about the only thing they're good for is UC background. Kinda makes me wonder if his later novels are all they're cracked up to be.

One thing I've always been curious about regarding Tomino is the whole "kill-em-all" thing, which has always come across as a bit...exaggerated, I guess? Ideon and Victory certainly have that in spades, but his other mecha stuff doesn't seem to be vicious enough to earn him a reputation as a director that consistently slaughters his casts.

Maybe cultural context excuses it

I think at least a part of Tomino's "kill'em all" reputation was built in the context of the shows of his time. He was far more willing to kill important characters than his peers, if I recall correctly.

[AmuroNT1]

Kratos: He's had a couple of others, most prominently

Spoiler

Dunbine, in which practically the entire cast dies.

Also, let's not act like Tomino's "artistic vision" of CCA got screwed by executives. Even if he wanted them to use Beltorchika's Children, he still wrote Hi-Streamer, the novel that was turned into CCA (and by all accounts was a fairly straightforward adaptation of the latter half).

[Kratos]

Maybe cultural context excuses it

Possibly, but those bits - it's Char that I'm thinking of specifically - were structured much more effectively in the actual show, which nobody in Japan seems to take issue with. It kinda makes the novels feel like they're half made up of scenario notes, rather than an attempt to weave an actual narrative.

I think at least a part of Tomino's "kill'em all" reputation was built in the context of the shows of his time. He was far more willing to kill important characters than his peers, if I recall correctly.

Yeah that makes sense. Either way, he certainly seems to have mellowed out in recent decades.

Kratos: He's had a couple of others, most prominently

Spoiler

Dunbine, in which practically the entire cast dies.

Ah, okay. I guess it just throws me when people still talk about his shows like they expect everybody to die, which is a trend he seems to have largely grown beyond.

[latenlazy]

Maybe cultural context excuses it

Possibly, but those bits - it's Char that I'm thinking of specifically - were structured much more effectively in the actual show, which nobody in Japan seems to take issue with. It kinda makes the novels feel like they're half made up of scenario notes, rather than an attempt to weave an actual narrative.

I've played editor to a friend's Japanese translations before, and I've read some Chinese novels. I suspect it's a narrative approach that works very well in the Asian context.

[Quiddity]

Tomino does show up as a writer in some of the early Gundam series under the pseudonym "Minoru Onoya". At least I have heard that Onoya is him (and Tomino has had other pseudonyms like "Rin Logi"). I'm sure Mark can correct me if I'm wrong. Onoya shows up in the credits for a large number of the Zeta Gundam episodes as a co-writer (the first 16 and then about a half dozen more). I don't think he has any individual credits though. That name shows up in the credits for a few of the later episodes for Gundam ZZ as well and a couple of episodes of Victory Gundam.

Off-hand, I don't know who the writer was, or if it was a group, but Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket probably has the tightest/most powerful writing in Gundam; but then, it's only 6 episodes about a single incident, so that makes it a little easier to plan out and execute.

It was a single writer, Hiroyuki Yamaga.

One thing I've always been curious about regarding Tomino is the whole "kill-em-all" thing, which has always come across as a bit...exaggerated, I guess? Ideon and Victory certainly have that in spades, but his other mecha stuff doesn't seem to be vicious enough to earn him a reputation as a director that consistently slaughters his casts.

Having viewed all of Tomino's material 1979 and after, I don't view it as exaggarated. I think he completely lives up to the reputation (I've put more specifics below in spoiler tags). I think one thing that people do forget or fail to acknowledge is that there's a lot of more light hearted or comedic elements to his work. People forget that for every Ideon or Victory Gundam there's a Xabungle, L-Gaim, King Gainer, etc... that is more light hearted in tone. And even an Ideon has comedic elements to it, like the trio of kids that was also in MS Gundam.

As for his Kill Em All stuff...

Spoiler

Dunbine kills off every single character outside of Chum, and includes one of his most heinous death scenes ever where a girl is shot in the head by her own mother.

Char's Counterattack kills off quite a bunch including the 2 main characters (unless you believe theories that they survived). Zeta Gundam killed off a huge portion of the cast.

Zambot 3 (from which he earned the "Kill Em All" nickname) features most of the heroes dying at the end including 2 of the 3 main characters. And it also features the infamous "human bombs".

And other shows of his (in particular his Gundam work) do have a fair amount of deaths in them, even if not at the levels of his most well known "Kill Em All" shows.

[Nikkolas]

Characters were dropping like flies at the end of Zeta.

So much rage from me. Good rage though.