It's amusing to me the attitude Hatsu seems to have to stuff like Gundam as crass, unserious, commercial stuff based on this article (at least, from what I'm inferring). Whatever else one might say about Tomino's Gundam stuff, I'd never say it's uninterested in saying stuff about politics. It's not that Gundam is NEVER crass, unserious, commercial, too driven by model kits, etc. But that doesn't seem to prevent it from also being treated as "serious sci-fi", at least from my perception of things.
Yeah I won't put words in his mouth, certainly many people appreciated Gundam's political themes at the time and he might be amoung them - I hope my essay is not seen as too critical of Hatsu and crew. But I think its fair to say that he is of a type that might see the commercialism of a product like Gundam as fatal to whatever political messages it might have. In this moment in time things like Gundam would seem maybe temporary, and pushing "higher brow" stuff as quite possible. History wouldn't be kind to that idea but hindsight is 20/20!
It's amusing to me the attitude Hatsu seems to have to stuff like Gundam as crass, unserious, commercial stuff based on this article (at least, from what I'm inferring). Whatever else one might say about Tomino's Gundam stuff, I'd never say it's uninterested in saying stuff about politics. It's not that Gundam is NEVER crass, unserious, commercial, too driven by model kits, etc. But that doesn't seem to prevent it from also being treated as "serious sci-fi", at least from my perception of things.
Yeah I won't put words in his mouth, certainly many people appreciated Gundam's political themes at the time and he might be amoung them - I hope my essay is not seen as too critical of Hatsu and crew. But I think its fair to say that he is of a type that might see the commercialism of a product like Gundam as fatal to whatever political messages it might have. In this moment in time things like Gundam would seem maybe temporary, and pushing "higher brow" stuff as quite possible. History wouldn't be kind to that idea but hindsight is 20/20!
Fantastic read!
Thank you! Glad there are some getting through it ^_^