The Foot of the Mountain - Gundam Wing’s Sisyphean Production (Patreon)

Unlike some of his mythic peers, whose names are lost to history, Sisyphus has become a fixture of popular culture. Few individuals have the privilege of becoming an adjective; and in that respect, Sisyphus is unique. Like Hercules and Narcissus, who also have been immortalized into language, something about the King of Corinth’s plight, condemned to a ceaseless life of drudgery, continues to resonate.

Despite this relevance, little has been written about Sisyphus in contemporary sources. He occupies a single footnote in Edith Hamilton’s foundational Mythology, the “canonical” text taught in many secondary schools. However, that’s not necessarily a slight. The myth of Sisyphus is relatively straightforward. But appearances can be deceiving.

The story begins in typical fashion: Zeus, forever in thrall to his desires, takes the form of an eagle and absconds with Aegina, the daughter of the river-god Asopus. Desirous of privacy, he soars over the city state of Corinth on his way to an unnamed island. Sisyphus, the Corinthian King, has the misfortune to witness the act. Asopus, not oblivious to Zeus’s character flaws, begins asking around. Sealing his fate, Sisyphus confirms the worried father’s suspicions.

Zeus, never one to let a good deed go unpunished, unleashes his wrath upon Sisyphus. The allfather of the Greek pantheon sentences Sisyphus to a miserable existence. Relocated to Hades, bound in chains, Sisyphus is forced to roll a boulder uphill, only for it to fall back down every time he reaches the peak. Zeus requires that his prisoner repeat the process for eternity, forever laboring under oppressive conditions.

In the many centuries since, Sisyphus has become shorthand for the futility of grueling work without end. Unsurprisingly, critics and fans of Japanese animation have invoked the myth when referring to the notoriously poor working conditions of the industry. And perhaps no series better represents these Sisyphean struggles than Mobile Suit Gundam Wing (1995-96), a production born from toil.

Origin Story

Yoshiyuki Tomino was done with Gundam. After overseeing the franchise for nearly 15 years, the man responsible for Japan’s most popular mecha series wanted out. Burdened with the demands of corporate sponsors who cared little for creative vision, and burnt out from an endless cycle of crunch, the 52-year-old Tomino had reached a dead end. He no longer wanted to push that boulder.

He told his bosses as much while production on Victory Gundam (1993-94) was winding down. Eager to begin forecasting for the studio’s next financial year, Sunrise executives met with Tomino to hear what he had planned next, only to be caught flat-footed when the veteran director announced that he had no intention of continuing with the series.

However, despite his frustrations, Tomino wanted to make sure that Gundam was in capable hands. Therefore, he recommended that Yasuhiro Imagawa, the protégé whom he had groomed on Zeta Gundam (1985-86), be put in charge of the next show. Tomino believed that Imagawa, 20 years his junior, would bring vigor and vitality to a stagnant franchise. And he was right.

Mobile Fighter G Gundam, which premiered on April 22, 1994, was a bareknuckle mashup of kung-fu action and shōnen melodrama, with an added dash of pro wrestling theatricality. Unlike the Universal Century shows, which adhere to a more grounded sense of realism, G Gundam introduces viewers to a much more fantastical world. Imagawa’s heroes aren’t limited by the physical dimensions of war or the compromises of political half-measures. Instead, they harness the passion of their convictions and the power of friendship to vanquish evil.

This eclectic approach, as anticipated, attracted a fresh audience. But while the ratings were higher than Victory, they were still a far cry from the peaks of the previous decade. Furthermore, Imagawa had no intention of developing a sequel. He saw G Gundam as a self-contained and complete work and felt that he had left his mark. Which meant that Sunrise was yet again in need of a visionary.

Furthermore, the studio was facing more scrutiny than ever before. Gundam had been Sunrise’s flagship series since the early ‘80s, after the runaway success of the model kits, produced by Bandai. Despite the importance of this partnership and the popularity of the toy lines, Sunrise had remained independent, both creatively and commercially. This changed in 1994 when Bandai acquired Sunrise, a merger that Tomino strongly opposed. Now, without its celebrated creator to steer the franchise, fans, critics, and even investors, were becoming worried about the future of Gundam.

In many respects, Tomino’s departure was the catalyst for Gundam Wing. In the wake of his departure, both Sunrise and Bandai needed a tentpole series to rejuvenate the brand. Hence the decision to develop a new timeline in the spirit of First Gundam (1979-80), adopting its archetypes and motifs—adolescent pilots, a masked and mysterious villain, tensions between Earth and Space—so they could be employed in unexpected ways.

A new era was born.  Welcome to After Colony 195…

Reimagining a Classic

Time was running out. It was July 1994 and G Gundam had been on the air for three months. Sunrise and TV Asahi, always looking ahead, wanted the next show to premiere immediately after G’s finale, scheduled for the following March. Without a moment to lose, Sunrise executives approached Hideyuki Tomioka, a proven talent within the studio, to begin development on the next Gundam project. Tomioka agreed, but he knew that production was going to be rushed and the timetable tight. He had less than a year.

Understandably, he was anxious. Even though he had been with Sunrise for over a decade, Tomioka was still new to producing. Previously, he had worked in a more clerical fashion as a production assistant. It was not a glamorous job; mainly he was tasked with “collecting things from creators.” But Tomioka’s work ethic and genial disposition (he was known to be “always smiling”) earned him the respect of his bosses, who gave him the reins of the studio’s most popular and profitable series.

Tomioka’s first task was to assemble a team. Before he could draw up a budget or iron out a schedule, he had to find a director and writer. Fortunately, he didn’t have to look far. When he got the news about Gundam he was producing Adeu’s Legend (1994-95), a 13-episode Ryu Knight OVA. Masashi Ikeda and Katsuyuki Sumisawa were the two creative leads on the project. Tomioka liked both of them, so naturally he popped the question: “Would you like to work on the next Gundam show?”

Ikeda was excited. Even though he already had a project lined up, he couldn’t pass up an opportunity to work on a show with such an important legacy. Surprisingly, despite his ties to Sunrise (he got his start in the industry working as a storyboard artist on Votoms [1983-84] and Panzer World Galient [1984-85]), he had little experience with Gundam. So, he had some catching up to do. Tomioka, taking advantage of Sunrise’s archives, lent Ikeda First and Zeta Gundam, in addition to a few of the non-Tomino-helmed entries, in order to introduce him to the franchise.

Sumisawa, on the other hand, was far less enthusiastic. When approached by Tomioka to assume the role of lead writer, he hesitated, noting just how tired and burnt out the G Gundam staff appeared in the office. He recalls, “They were all kind of somber and tired all the time. I was like, Gundam series are not meant to be made by humans.” However, as a freelance writer, he was no stranger to stressful working conditions (he was once asked to adapt 8 panels of the Dragon Ball Z manga into a 22-minute episode of television). So reluctantly, he accepted.

Now that the principal creatives were secured, pre-production moved rapidly, even by cash-strapped anime standards. Ikeda enthusiastically began working on scripts, keen on both respecting and subverting the tropes established by Tomino. Meanwhile, Sumisawa and his team of writers fleshed out the broad strokes of the cast, the mecha, and the first forty episodes in roughly a week. Tomioka reflects, “I don’t know if that would even be possible today.”

Despite this initial excitement, the team was not unshackled. After G had set the precedent for multiple Gundams, Sunrise required that its followup feature five of the titular mechs. Furthermore, the sponsors, concerned with market potential, “requested” that one of the units had to transform and fly (Wing), one had to shoot things from its chest (Heavyarms), and one had to have an extending arm (Shenlong). Like Tomino before them, Ikeda and Sumisawa were not free from corporate pressure and executive interference.

However, they were given more freedom over the story, provided they met the studio’s demands. At this early stage the project was codenamed “Operation Meteor,” a reference to the strike against the tyrannical rule of the Earth Sphere Alliance by a group of dissidents that occurs in the first episode. Eventually, this morphed into the more formal New Mobile Report Gundam Wing. Of course, “Gundam Wing'' refers to the protagonist’s—Heero Yuy’s—mecha, while “New” differentiates the show from its UC predecessors.

Sumisawa looks back fondly on these early days. Tomioka, Sumisawa, and Ikeda (all of whom would reunite years later on Inuyasha), were a tight-knit trio. They would often go drinking and bask in the afterglow of a hard day's work. But unfortunately, like the uneasy peace that reigns at the beginning of Gundam Wing, these halcyon days would not last.

Sunrise’s “Roughest Production”

As the months wore on and the April premier inched closer, work on Gundam Wing became more frantic. Expectations were high and time was in short supply. Sumisawa remarks, “I feel like we came up with a better product because we were under such pressure so we really had to crank out our best thing right away.” Due to these constraints, the team was not afforded the opportunity of extensive brainstorming or editing, at least, not to the degree a 49-episode show required.

Admittedly, these pressures are—unfortunately—not uncommon in the anime industry, where creatives are expected to churn out content at a breakneck pace. Even still, Wing was atypical. Television episodes usually undergo five weeks of writing and revision before a final draft is sent off for storyboarding. Sumisawa and his writers didn’t have this luxury. “With Wing,” Tomioka admits, “I’d [often] need the first draft in three days.” The second was expected the next day.

This absence of oversight can be felt throughout its broadcast. As even fans will admit, Gundam Wing often lacks consistency and coherence. It can be difficult to keep track of the many coups and fracturing alliances that form the bedrock of the plot. Furthermore, the show is full of tonal swings, liminal spaces, and unexplained coincidences, qualities that did not go unacknowledged by the higher ups at Sunrise. When the team held a special screening of the first episode for sponsors and other corporate notables, they were met with confused faces. These reactions would prove significant.

Ikeda’s trademark exuberance was on display from the beginning. The first half of Gundam Wing revels in its own blend of melodrama, despite the occasional whiplash it produces (see: Heero telling Relena he’ll “kill her” when she invites him to her birthday party). There’s an almost parodic quality to the show, as if the characters are winking at the audience (even though they’re not). And this made executives uneasy.

To compound these tensions, Ikeda had difficulty working within boundaries. To his credit, he’s a methodical writer and storyboarder—he sets a high standard. Which means he often misses deadlines and revises on a whim, much to the dismay of Tomioka, who had to keep things on schedule. This reached a boiling point when Ikeda, diverging from the approved script, decided to have Heero self-destruct the Wing Gundam at the end of episode 10. Ikeda believed that the dramatic turnabout was “interesting.” Not everyone agreed.

The sponsors, who view mecha shows more as glorified toy commercials, were blindsided by this twist. They expected the Wing Gundam, the standout model kit, to feature in the story for episodes to come. In response, the CEO of Sunrise, equally irate, removed Ikeda from the project roughly midway through the production. For the third time in less than two years, Sunrise was yet again in need of a visionary.

Ikeda hasn’t spoken on the record about his departure, but by all accounts, he was just as embittered as his bosses. According to his colleagues, he was exhausted. Having suffered through long days, long nights, unrealistic deadlines, executive interference—and for what? All his hard work proved for naught. But there was a silver lining: an avid fisherman, he now had time to catch up on his hobbies. He no longer had to push that boulder.

Scramble to the End

In the aftermath of Ikeda’s firing, Gundam Wing was rudderless. The show lacked both direction and a director. In response, Tomioka ordered Sumisawa to hurriedly write two recap episodes as stopgaps to give the team time to right the ship.Originally, these episodes were planned as flashbacks to flesh out the backstories of the five pilots, but that had to be scrapped.

Even with this brief reprieve, though, work didn’t get easier. Tomioka remembers this period as “hell.” He even attempted to get himself pulled off the project by requesting that the Sunrise CEO fire him. However, his boss brushed off his concerns, allegedly replying, “It’s a piece of cake to fire a director, but there’s no precedent for firing a producer, so you have to stick it out.”

Likewise, Sumisawa was approaching a breaking point. In a candid moment included in the Episode Zero manga, Sumisawa admitted that this stage of production was “the worst.” Frustrated, Sumisawa no doubt saw the futility of his struggles. In the vacuum left by Ikeda, the responsibility to reset, realign, and resolve Gundam Wing’s numerous plot points fell on his shoulders—a nearly impossible task.

So, he quit. He no longer wanted to push the boulder.

As production on Gundam Wing spiraled out of control, Shinji Takamatsu was brought on as “deputy director” to help get things back on track. Takamatsu was a Gundam veteran, having worked on Zeta, ZZ, War in the Pocket, Char’s Counterattack, and even SD Gundam. Presumably, Tomioka and the Sunrise executives hoped that his expertise would be a stabilizing force. And they were right.

Takamatsu was instrumental in steering the series to its conclusion. Under his tenure, the fragmented storylines became more streamlined and comprehensible. However, as fans have pointed out, the back half of Gundam Wing loses the dynamism that had made it so unique. In the transition it becomes a more traditional Gundam show, full of franchise staples: epic confrontations in space, philosophical tangents about the nature of war and peace, and the ultimate triumph of friendship.

The last episode, appropriately titled the “Final Victor,” aired on March 26, 1996. The team, which again included Katsuyuki Sumisawa who returned as “regular” writer late in production, had brought Gundam Wing to a close. Somehow, they had pushed the boulder up the mountain. Which meant only one thing: it had to fall back down.

Most of the staff on Gundam Wing, those who had sacrificed proverbial blood and tears, were siphoned off to work on After War Gundam X (1996), under the direction of Shinji Takamatsu, or Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz (1997), under the direction of Yasunao Aoki, another Wing veteran. Unfortunately, they were afforded little—or in the case of Takamatsu, who was juggling production on X while wrapping up Wing, no—time to rest or recharge. The boulder had to be pushed.

While the legacy of After Colony timeline continues to inspire a diversity of fanwork and conversation, its production tells a different story. The writers, directors, producers, storyboarders, animators, and assistants who tried to reinvented Gundam did so under brutal conditions. Like Sisyphus, they were trapped in a cycle of compulsion and compromise. In the absence of a collective push for equity in the workforce (which should always be the aim), perhaps the only way to break the cycle is not to participate.

Maybe Tomino made the right call.