After several years without a new series of ‘Gundam’this month ‘Gundam: The Witch from Mercury’ has started, which presents us with a completely different story that we can start from scratch.
Although it retains many common points with the other series in the franchise, it also It has hit a swerve in terms of tone and setting by getting us into a high school anime with highlights. ‘Gundam’ has had to adapt to the new times and to a new audience, because in Sunrise they realized that today’s teenagers had zero interest in their series.
Intensive reboot and tone change
According to the anime producer Takuya Okamotowho has worked on several big hits in recent years, including ‘Vinland Saga’ and ‘Jujutsu Kaisen’, the opinion that the young people had of ‘Gundam’ was very worrying. During a student visit to the Sunrise studios, he heard all kinds of opinions, but almost all along the lines that “Gundam is not for us”“Gundam is for old people”, or even “If it has ‘Gundam’ in the title, I don’t even see it”.
Thus he ended up realizing that it had been a few years since ‘Mobile Suit Gundam Seed’ was released, and that the teenagers who saw it at the time were already adults, so perhaps the anime was becoming outdated for the modern target. .
In an interview with Akiba-Souken, Okamoto revealed that ‘Gundam: The Witch from Mercury’ was always intended to be an entry point into the franchise for a new generation of viewers.. And in fact, having a female lead was one of the first things that were decided, although they treated her like any other lead.
So according to Okamoto, they decided to start with a much lighter tone so that the teenage audience could identify with the characters and situations, and then gradually entering the main political conflict.
“There have been ‘Gundams’ where there were schools, but I think a lot of these jobs were very serious from the beginning, starting with child soldiers,” Okamoto said, reflecting on something that also put off today’s audiences.
Though ‘Gundam: The Witch from Mercury’ is primarily profiled for its intended audience, Okamoto also thinks that there is plenty of drama, and that it also has enough elements that adults can enjoy it.