"Gundam Recommend” -Gundam experts talk-

Once I realized that Gundam is an anime with a deep message, my urge to watch more Gundam works grew even stronger. "War in the Pocket" takes place during the One Year War, and the story of the One Year War is told in the original "Mobile Suit Gundam," right? Since the setting can’t be contained in one series, I knew I needed a deeper understanding, so I began watching the whole series. It was like, "Oh, there’s 'Mobile Suit Gundam THE 08th MS TEAM' too!" "Wow, there are lots of others!"

Before learning about Gundam, I hadn’t watched many shows that had war as a theme, but it taught me that I can’t turn a blind eye to such things.
It’s not just war. I think a lot of fictional stories tend to idealize painful situations, like when people fail to understand each other. I realized that Gundam was able to portray life, death, and the tragedy of war in a truly realistic way and I was very surprised.
I felt that if that’s what the animation wanted to express, then I had better pay attention.

Right around the time I got addicted to "Bonds of the Battlefield," they did a collaboration with "Gundam Build Fighters."
For a limited time, they would display Gunpla packages on the MS selection screen, and seeing that, I thought Gunpla looked fun.
There happened to be a store that sold Gunpla in my neighborhood, and since I’d become a fan, I thought I should give them a try. I knew I would enjoy it.
After all, being able to put together your favorite mobile suit is just the kind of "dream" Bandai is known for delivering!
As they say in "Gundam Build Fighters," "Gunpla is freedom!" You have the freedom to customize your machine, and you can add your favorite colors too. I realized I could make my mobile suit cute if I wanted to! I got really excited while I was building.

The manager who introduced me to "Bonds of the Battlefield" also knew a lot about Gunpla, so I learned naturally from an expert while I was building. The first thing I tried was frosting. I retained the coloring of the materials, but I also filed them down and sprayed frosting…
As an idol, my signature color is blue, so I wanted to paint my favorite MS that color.
Painting tools were available for purchase too, so I never had any thought of not doing it.
And that’s how I built this guy, my first custom-painted Zaku II FZ.

(When she made it through the qualifiers and knew she could participate in the tournament) I thought to myself, "It’s happening!" (Laughs)
There’s a character named "Kirara" in "Gundam Build Fighters" series. At that time, I was really attracted to the idea of a "Gunpla Idol," and I wanted to be one myself!
However, I was used to playing team battles in "Bonds of the Battlefield" and the tournament rules called for one-on-one battles. I had no experience, so I was convinced I wouldn’t be good enough and practiced a lot before the day of the tournament.

That was an experience all my own… Even looking back on it now, I feel proud.
When you’re piloting, you can see the hands of your mobile suit, and they really looked like those of the Beargguy I built. I was amazed at the detail.
I was pretty creative about the armaments I wanted the machine to have, but even those were recreated in exact detail. Since Beargguy is "the prince of the candy country," he shoots cotton candy from his mouth as a weapon. The determined facial expressions they gave him in those moments were really cute, so I have the CG team to thank for that.

I’m very grateful.

I saw it by chance around the time I was watching "War in the Pocket" and other series related to the One Year War.

"MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM UC Re:0096" had a different style than the other Universal Century anime I had watched, but there were a lot of keywords that I had heard before, as well as mobile suits whose lineage can be traced back to the earlier Universal Century series. As a fan of the Universal Century, I knew it was something I would get hooked on, and I was also attracted to the MS designs, so I was determined to watch more.

That was right before Episode 7 of the OVA was released, so I caught up on episodes 1 through 6, and then, for the first time, I was able to watch the release in real time at a movie theater. It felt like destiny that I encountered the series. Since then, I often recommend "GUNDAM UC" to Gundam beginners. Each episode has a sweeping storyline, and it leaves you no room to get bored. The love stories and historical episodes stand on their own too, so even as unfamiliar as I was then, I was able to get sucked into the setting right away.

This is more of a personal thing, but at that time, I was really worried about the future of my career as an idol. I had just retired from the group that I had been a member of. I was losing faith in my ability to make it on my own and developing trust issues.

Watching "GUNDAM UC" at that time, there are several scenes where Banagher and the other characters show how ties with others and people’s feelings can change the course of war or the world itself. It helped me realize that there were still so many people I wanted to interact with in the world.
Had I not watched "GUNDAM UC," I might have remained distrustful of other people.

In "GUNDAM UC," I’m a big fan of Marida Cruz.
She starts out as someone who says things like, "When you enter a battlefield, you become a battle unit called a pilot," but as she interacts with Banagher, you start to see her humanity too. I really liked watching that process unfold. It wasn’t just her. The relationships between all sorts of different characters in "GUNDAM UC" are portrayed with a lot of detail. As a viewer, that warmth was a big comfort for me too.