Yoshiyuki Tomino has been around for a long time. Having written and directed many anime series and movies, he is probably best known as one of the main forces behind the original
Mobile Suit Gundam. He shared a few interesting things in a recent Forbes interview, among them were his thoughts on Marvel's superhero films and how they compared to his work with
Mobile Suit Gundam. We've included a few bits below, but make sure and check out the full interview
here. Suffice it to say, he doesn't sound like a fan.
“If you’re not involved in a wide variety of work, your focus gets narrower. If you are not studying various types of works and if you don't learn different types of dramatization then you will only make limited work. What I mean by this is that I don't want to be a producer that is only capable of making something like the films made based on Marvel Comics properties, which from my point of view is very silly. Of course, I acknowledge the existence of Marvel label as a business.”
“So from around 1977 onward I started to do mecha related series and from then on I was integrally involved in checking all the stories and production. I felt that because of all the studying I'd done up to that point I could do a much different job, without making it like some kind of Marvel film series.”
“Within the restrictions placed upon these productions I tried to move them away from them being inherently childish and to make it closer to a film in terms of its approach and depth.”
“These things as well as everything I learned from Mr. Miyazaki in terms of characterisation and how to build characters, not to mention the various other theatrical and dramatic elements that I learned from Mr. Takahata. If I hadn't met these two individuals and learned all these elements from them, then it's very likely that Mobile Suit Gundam would not have turned out in the same way. I'm admitting this for the first time but without them and me aiming to make the series more cinematic, such as thinking very keenly on how to set up each scene; it would have ended up being worse than the Marvel films.”
“It may sound like I am insulting the Marvel films, but I haven’t produced an outstanding work for 20 years, so I really do not have the right to say anything about them. Not to mention that as an entertainment, there are things that tend to fit their time period. So something like Marvel film series has its own place. For example in Hollywood, there were two Godzilla films made but recently we had a new Godzilla film made in Japan. As it had a different director, Hideaki Anno in this case, it had its own realism and was maybe just a different approach. So I suppose there should be places for various types of entertainment but I only think that if it is coming from somewhere like Tokyo it shouldn't be placed in somewhere like Hollywood.”
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