Appearance by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko! The “Mobile Suit Gundam THE ORIGIN” Series Revival Screening Report

A revival screening was held at Shinjuku Piccadilly in Tokyo, Midland Square Cinemas in Nagoya, and MOVIX Kyoto in Kyoto. This is ahead of the start of the Mobile Suit Gundam THE ORIGIN: Rise of the Red Cometscreenings that will begin on May 5^th(Sat) at 35 theaters nationwide.

Episode 1 “Blue-Eyed Casval” to episode 5 “Clash at Loum” were all shown in one sitting at the screening. An all-night screening took place at Shinjuku Piccadilly in Tokyo on April 7^th(Sat) with Director Yoshikazu Yasuhiko and Producer Osamu Taniguchi taking the stage for a staff talk show.

It was exactly 39 years prior on April 7^ththat Mobile Suit Gundamfirst began airing. This resulted in the subject to turn to their memories of the day itself. On that day, Director Yoshikazu Yasuhiko had been in the middle of a meeting on Space Battleship Yamatowhen he had halted the meeting to watch the broadcast of the first episode.

Producer Taniguchi was then asked about the highlights of this series. He stated, “I entered the production of this series in 2014 and so many things have happened during that time. It feels like this series has become a part of my life. It has (so many) highlights that it’s impossible to talk about all of them.”

Director Yasuhiko stated, “What I am able to do with THE ORIGIN is to properly allow the characters to perform. Through episodes 1 to 5, the characters are properly putting on a performance.” Producer Taniguchi then revealed his inner thoughts towards production, “I thought how I could receive recognition by Mr. Yasuhiko. As a producer, I was conscious of gathering animators that were able to animate such drama and performance. I’m happy when no corrections are made by Mr. Yasuhiko.” and spoke of being conscious of the fact that he was working with Mr. Yasuhiko in this production.

Next, Director Yasuhiko commented on his work with both the animation and manga, “The animation is made so that the audience is made to feel, ‘I want to see what happens next in this story.’” He also revealed his thoughts about the conclusion of this anime project, “The last five, six hours (episodes 1 to 5) took nearly five years (to produce). There is three times as much drama and information in the One Year War arc, isn’t there? It may have been a good decision to be able to end the story here.”

The talk show finally came to an end with comments from both guests.

Osamu Taniguchi (Mobile Suit Gundam THE ORIGIN Producer)

There may be only one month left until the showing of Rise of the Red Comet, but I hope that everyone is looking forward to it. This time, too, has been hectic in various ways and we did manage to complete the episode. Definitely please watch this episode as the amount of content in it is tremendous. I hope that THE ORIGINbecomes the start of Gundam’s 40^thanniversary next year. Thank you very much for today.

General Director Yoshikazu Yasuhiko

I look forward to everyone’s response to episode 6 “Rise of the Red Comet”. Please watch for the fruits of our labor as we worked to the point there are white hairs now mixed in with Producer Taniguchi’s full head of black hair.

Mobile Suit Gundam THE ORIGIN: Rise of the Red Cometwill begin screening at 35 theaters nationwide on May 5^th(Sat). A special thanks message for the screening and detailed character model sheets have also been uploaded on the official anime website, so be sure to check both out.