Producers Intend Gundam 00 For Male Fans

by dtshyk
Apr 30, 2009 6:29 AM | 63 Comments

Animage Original magazine volume 3 had an interview with Mizushima Seiji and Kuroda Yosuke. They told their reflections on the directions of "Mobile Suit Gundam 00".

Mizushima: I guess the story was oriented to the adult audiences too much.
Kuroda: So we want the producer of the next Gundam series to bring Gundam back to the hands of children. I'm confident that we got Gundam back to the male fans by Gundam 00, but unsure about the kid fans.

Source: Scan of Animage Original

According to other news sources, Bandai recognized that the female fans were the main target of Gundam 00 and the reports of the Gundam 00 events indicated that 70% of the fans were women.
This tendency was originated from Mobile Suit Gundam Seed series, which grabbed teenage girls.

Sources:
Gpara
Famitsu
Yomiuri
Bandai

Other interesting remarks:

Kuroda: It's the most difficult for us the producers of the real robot anime to decide how much we pursue the "reality". ... If we do it to the end, we have to deny the necessity of the robots in human form. ... But some Gundam fans care about such realism.
Mizushima: That's why we presented "GN Drive" to account for the reason.

Kuroda: I followed the way of the series organization of the first Gundam and intentionally restricted the background information of the Meisters. ... But I realized that the interest of the audiences had shifted from the drama to the characters.
Mizushima: I regretted that we should have implied the detailed backgrounds of the characters from the beginning of the series.

20 of 63 Comments Recent Comments

Jigero said:

SageShinigami said:

Jigero said:
UC has always been adult oriented where as AU is defiantly catered to the rabid shonen fanboy. UC is more about politics, techno babble and racism. while AU is Flashy pretty gundams, Retarded power levels and plot armor, ambiguous male leads and just general DUHHHHHH GUNDAM MAKE STUFF GO BOOM!

So THAT'S what they call it in the AU. Plot armor. Back in my day when it was UC stuff, it was called a NewType.

Also...its a mecha series. When are they NOT about "giant robot make stuff go BOOM!"?

Also, LOL Gundam Wing = political. 00 S2 must've been Geass R2 level stupid, 'cause when I bailed it could best be described as, "Wing, without being stupid".

heh funny because 90% of the New types in UC gundams are either dead, MIA or a cripple and tell me how many AU series basically killed off it's entire cast?

and Gundam Wing Politics where about grade school level.

None

Aug 6, 2010 12:41 PM by Hoppy

SageShinigami said:

Aug 6, 2010 12:20 PM by Jigero

I like Gundam 00 as it is, it's got a good fanbase for both men and women, Gundam doesn't need any more kid friendly versions, it needs to be for the Seinen and/or Josei fanbase which most fans fall into since the average Gundam fan in Japan is well over 30 and here in the US is around their late teens to late 20's.

Aug 6, 2010 8:58 AM by Hoppy

I would have to say, coming from someone who hasn't seen a Gundam since the original Gundam Wing and being a female that the seasons were very different.

I wouldn't be surprised if the first season appealed more of males and the second season appealed more to females. My thoughts, the second season up to the point I am watching, has more cheesy drama with relationships. It also makes the Gundam's look very vulnerable.

Personally I choose Gundam 00 because I couldn't stand Tieria's character design with the pink cardigan. I ended up loving to series. Personally I could accept Tieria as a male until the crossdressing episode.

Aug 5, 2010 9:23 PM by Suzune-chan

Maybe it was Marina and all that pink hair and pink mecha that drove away the male fans xD

Mar 6, 2010 1:39 PM by Himmelmez

you guys have no clue what gundam is?

I trust you forever. as manly as it gets. we need g gundam now!

Feb 27, 2010 6:11 PM by Frito

With all those fanservice, so I thought g00 is for women. tieria and his gay gundam (ndaleeh), the hermaphrodite innovators, gundam obsessed bushido graham...

At least characters were MALE this time, instead of SEEDFAIL where you could question anyone's sex any moment...(gay miniskirts *shiver*)

wooo~ Dreamland T_T I really should watch SEED! Though I hated kira at first sight. I will give SEED a chance and endure seeing him. Athrun is really very pretty, I am now really very tempted.

Sorry gundam 00, but "pretty men shooting each other" isn't enough to entertain me for more than 3 or 4 episodes. By episode 5 or so I

yay~ I love watching pretty men. damn If I were to watch obviously I prefer good looking people. I was sooo happy while I was watching. The producers sure knows what yaoi fangirls love. and I love TRAPS. Good job sunrise! ♥

oh tieria... you gey meister. You made g00 an entertaining eyefeast. TuT

Feb 17, 2010 7:14 PM by kataru

Absolutely_Steve said:

Really? I didn't realize adult audiences wanted a story filled with pseudo-real world politics and a throwaway cast of characters whose only draw is their supposed "sex appeal" that quickly devolves from having at least a semi-decent amount of moral ambiguity to yet another good vs. evil show with some piss poor excuses for antagonists and tackles almost none of the issues about war it brings up in a fashion even bordering satisfactory.

Seriously, I expected a lot better from the guy who directed Dai Guard...

agreed. I didn't even watch season 2, but season one was just...not that great IMO. And I am a girl.

Sorry gundam 00, but "pretty men shooting each other" isn't enough to entertain me for more than 3 or 4 episodes. By episode 5 or so I need an interesting plot to go along with it, and gundam 00 just didn't deliver that, sadly. It was like "look! an angst-ridden princess! some students! some bridge bunnies! a beach day! a pretty rich lady! a mysterious old man! have we covered every trend yet?? yes?? oh, right, moral ambiguity, can't forget that...well we'll just give one of them a split personality! that should satisfy them!"

agh....

Jan 16, 2010 1:37 PM by sevenay

PLEASE GIVE US A NEW G GUNDAM

unless it doesn't include "THIS HAND OF MINE IS BURNING RED"

Jan 16, 2010 12:20 PM by Zaroff

Saks said:

dtshyk said:

Mizushima: I guess the story was oriented to the adult audiences too much.
Kuroda: So we want the producer of the next Gundam series to bring Gundam back to the hands of children. I'm confident that we got Gundam back to the male fans by Gundam 00, but unsure about the kid fans.

New G Gundam....? xD

I fucking hope so.

Jan 4, 2010 1:06 PM by cheeko_gal

Jan 3, 2010 11:29 PM by SageShinigami

While 00 (Season 1 anyway just started Season 2) is definitely more on the political side of things like Gundam Wing before it I wouldn't call it mature. Something like Ergo Proxy or Bebop is more adult oriented. This show is aimed at a audience that have at least a decent interest in intro politics and philosophy it's not as grim and adult as the producers are making it sound.

For starters the character designs reek of typical otaku crap. And there was some plot elements that just wouldn't work in a script meant to cater to a crowd expecting something a bit more realisitc.

Jan 2, 2010 7:26 PM by thatguy

Loveless creator having the character design = alot of female fans.

Nov 7, 2009 9:20 PM by Maora

UC has always been adult oriented where as AU is defiantly catered to the rabid shonen fanboy. UC is more about politics, techno babble and racism. while AU is Flashy pretty gundams, Retarded power levels and plot armor, ambiguous male leads and just general DUHHHHHH GUNDAM MAKE STUFF GO BOOM!

Nov 7, 2009 8:34 PM by Jigero

Alexstratz said:

Fai said:
A Clean, unlimited energy source with anti-gravitational and psychic abilities is far more "adult" concept than "Its LOLNUCLEAR thus its powaful and unlimited" of LOLSEED, not to mention that it answers the "why that huge humanoid bulk of metal can own so much" question better. :)

Actually it seems to me to be exactly the kind of thing that would come out of the imagination of some sci-fi nerd kid of our time, fed with too much "protect the Earth" ads.

ye i'm 19 still in the group marked as a teen and get the whole idea very well and i want to see more much more animes like this one but ... there are too many animes with childish stuff etc.. which are made more like to waste ur free time .. this is serious anime here and there are very few animes like these~ which i can call masterpieces that made me really really excited .. so i just cant imagine how could they get the idea to turn such a great story into some ordinary anime..
and i'm sure that statistics are wrong :D the main characters are all cool males so there are alot of fangirls i know it in japan it may have been like that % during the air time but afterwards and in global the pic is different :)
such animes deserve to be rewatched once or even more times so i'm going to do it soon~~~~

iTom said:

Friendlysoul said:
I liked the Gundam 00 better, the kids can go watch something else!
I wanted some thought in my anime, not just battles.

Fuck yeah.

<<agrees with that ^^

Nov 7, 2009 5:58 PM by Lintenz_

llxwarbirdxll said:
Gundam was never a real robot show. They shouldn't try to make it one, either. But yeah, I guess the GN Drive thing is a better excuse than Zeta Gundam's LOL SOULS OF DEAD PEOPLE AS ENERGY.

LOL. Honest question. Is this revisionist history at work? Gundam created the Real Robot genre. Technically the UC series made by Tomino should be the guideline for anyone doing Real Robot, which is actually a genre that has more to do with how the robot itself is used and the tropes used to tell the story than it does with just exactly how realistic the mecha is.

There actually haven't been all that many Super Robot series to be released this decade. Godannar, Aquarion, possibly Gravion...

At best, there's a scale for Real Robot where 1 is the most realistic and 10's not really realistic at all and Gundam's somewhere around an 8. (10 would be Geass.)

Jun 1, 2009 2:07 PM by SageShinigami

Japan, viewers was adult men.
M1, adult men 20-34 years old.
M2, adult men 35-49 years old.
F2, adult women 35-49 years old.

00 was a total fail with the kids

*4.4%　機動戦士ガンダムOO　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　10/12(日)17:00～

世帯　KID　TEN　*M1　*M2　*M3　*F1　*F2　*F3
----------------------------------------------------
*4.4　*1.0　*1.9　*6.7　*3.0　*1.2　*1.5　*2.5　*1.1　　機動戦士ガンダムOO (08/10/12 関東)

KID:男女4～12歳､TEN:男女13～19歳
*M1:男性20～34歳､*M2:男性35～49歳､*M3:男性50歳以上
*F1:女性20～34歳､*F2:女性35～49歳､*F3:女性50歳以上

May 27, 2009 7:57 AM by maibleach

I'm surprised that Gundam 00 attracted mostly female audience.
They're probably their to hear Setsuna's voice and Meisters :]

Or that Marina made the men go watch other animations >_>

Gundam for Kids/teens, sounds pretty much like so. Seems like Macross went into that direction too?

*Goes back to watch Macross Frontier and Macross Zero....*
(Oh Wait... SEED? Whats that? Kira Yamato? Whos that again?)

May 2, 2009 2:00 PM by TEH_GEASS

Actually it seems to me to be exactly the kind of thing that would come out of the imagination of some sci-fi nerd kid of our time, fed with too much "protect the Earth" ads.

May 2, 2009 12:33 PM by Alexstratz

you'd think that a series about giant robots trying to destroy each other and fighting would be targeted towards a male audience, but i guess not was the case with 00, weird

May 2, 2009 1:05 AM by kage-bunshin

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