SEED staff interviews (Japanese)

[Erisie]

I'm going to need you guys' help. You all know there's a lot of misinformation about Gundam SEED running amok in certain corners of the Internet. The most repeated one is, by far, the claim that Chiaki Morosawa had brain cancer during Destiny's production. In actuality, she was diagnosed with uterine fibroids and had a hysterectomy performed.

In that regard, I believe the best treatment is to do some research from first-hand sources. I found an archive of interviews with members of Gundam SEED's staff. Apparently, there's even one with Yoshiyuki Tomino:

Part 1 (Mitsuo Fukuda)
Part 2 (other staff members and producers, among them Seiji Takeda, a big-shot MBS producer)
Part 3 (Shigeru Morita)

Highlights of a radio interview with Mitsuo Fukuda by Hisanori Yoshida and Rie Tanaka. October 24, 2005 (?)

Interview with Chiaki Morosawa. Animage, November 2005
Interview with Chiaki Morosawa. The Big Issue Japan, July 2009

I've been trying to translate with Google and other online tools, to at least get a general idea of what they're talking about.

EDIT: more interviews added

[Heaven Piercing Man]

Interesting. Knowing more real stuff about SEED compensates for the terrible experiences in crappy message boards where you get threatened with bans if you don't parrot the elitist mods' AU bashing...

[Kratos]

Although, rumours also persist that Fukuda was rather...let's say improvisational in interviews, often giving contradicting accounts and information from one to another. I have no idea how true that is, but it's worth taking into account.

Either way, some other perspectives on it might be neat. I'm interested to see what these have to say.

[Erisie]

umours also persist that Fukuda was rather...let's say improvisational in interviews, often giving contradicting accounts and information from one to another. I have no idea how true that is, but it's worth taking into account.

There's at least a degree of truth to this, Kratos, according to this often-quoted interview:

- Based on people who attended this, some were saying Fukuda didn't seem to fully understand the meaning of the questions (which might explain some of the answers being weird) and kept saying "off the record".

I'm sure that the thing about the druggies being "pardoned death row criminals" was something he made up in that moment. And some people (even here) still take it as a fact, despite Destiny showing that they were child soldiers bred in that concentration camp in Lodonia.


Anyway, let's see if someone can translate (or at least copy-edit from Google's auto translator) the interviews and essays.

[HellCat]

I actually wondered if you can't merge the two. Meaning that the SEED trio were death row inmates pardoned to see how well the Extended programme worked on adults and the bad results meant Blue Cosmos continued to opt for training/enhancement as young as possible.

But I fully support the idea of this thread. I'd love to see the actual facts on what Fukuda and Morosawa have said, rather than the witch hunt discussion of them has become.

[Erisie]

Meaning that the SEED trio were death row inmates pardoned to see how well the Extended programme worked on adults

That theory, while interesting, doesn't hold much water because SEED's "Biological CPUs" were only 17 years old. Not only they were only a year older than Destiny's Extended, but also too young for them to have been death row inmates anywhere on the planet but the most draconian states.

and the bad results meant Blue Cosmos continued to opt for training/enhancement as young as possible

This is contradicted by both Destiny and Stargazer. The Alliance was taking kids for their child soldier programme years before the war. The files that Talia is checking on episode 25 of Destiny go back to CE 64, 7 years before the first war.

Speaking of this, don't you find it odd that none of the Astray sidestories mentions any other of these Lodonia child soldiers? We've seen clones, Combat Coordinators and Carbon Humans, so why not any more Extended?

But I fully support the idea of this thread. I'd love to see the actual facts on what Fukuda and Morosawa have said, rather than the witch hunt discussion of them has become.

From what little I've been able to understand from automated translations, these interviews don't paint a favorable picture of Fukuda either. It's clear that he's not a director that fights tooth and nail for creative decisions, like other people in the industry.

Also, there isn't any interview with Chiaki Morosawa in any of the pages. I'll see if I can get ahold of one, somewhere.

[HellCat]

Speaking personally, my opinion of the guy has been coloured by that one interview where he snarked about old series and seemed mostly interested in his pay packet.

[Erisie]

Added some more material to the OP, including a couple of interviews with Morosaw.

My goal with this was to unravel the debate about SEED rather than Destiny. Nevertheless, I did find a radio interview with Rie Tanaka (Lacus' VA) and Hisanori Yoshida (radio personality, and VA of Yob Fon Alaphus, leader of the ASH team in Destiny that was sent to assassinate Lacus) that has a very revealing quote about Destiny, and probably Fukuda himself:

▼最多？の質問
「なんで、途中から主人公がキラに交代したんですか？」
監督 「俺知らないなぁ。」

Translated:

One of the most asked questions
"Why did you change the main character to Kira in the middle?"
Director: "I have no idea."

[Gundam420]

I knew it.

[Amion]

Added some more material to the OP, including a couple of interviews with Morosaw.

My goal with this was to unravel the debate about SEED rather than Destiny. Nevertheless, I did find a radio interview with Rie Tanaka (Lacus' VA) and Hisanori Yoshida (radio personality, and VA of Yob Fon Alaphus, leader of the ASH team in Destiny that was sent to assassinate Lacus) that has a very revealing quote about Destiny, and probably Fukuda himself:

▼最多？の質問
「なんで、途中から主人公がキラに交代したんですか？」
監督 「俺知らないなぁ。」

Translated:

One of the most asked questions
"Why did you change the main character to Kira in the middle?"
Director: "I have no idea."

Oh God my Sides (Insert that one gif of the colonies falling with your own imagination). If this isn't true, it still wins as a funny quote.