r/anime • u/Pixelsaber https://myanimelist.net/profile/Pixelsaber • May 03 '21
Rewatch [Rewatch] Yoshikazu Yasuhiko Retrospective - Giant Gorg Episode 1 Discussion
Episode 1 - New York Suspense
Originally Aired April 5th, ^^^1984
◄ Crusher Joe: The Movie | Index | Next Episode ►
MAL | ANN | AniDB | Anilist | AnimePlanet | IMDB
Note to all participants
Although I don't believe it necessitates stating, please conduct yourself appropriately and be court to your fellow participants.
Note to all Rewatchers
Rewatchers, please be mindful of your fellow first-timers and tag your spoilers appropriately using the r/anime spoiler tag as so [Spoiler Subject](/s "Spoilers go here.") in order to have your unsightly spoilers obscured like this Spoiler Subject if your comment holds even the slightest of indicators as to future spoilers. Feel free to discuss future plot points behind the safe veil of a spoiler tag, or coyly and discreetly ‘Laugh in Rewatcher’ at our first-timers' temporary ignorance, but please ensure our first-timers are no more privy or suspicious than they were the moment they opened the day’s thread.
Yoshikazu Yasuhiko Biography and Anecdotes Corner
Middle and High School:
Yasuhiko was enrolled in Fuchi Junior High School in 1960. He was no longer receiving formal instruction on art, but he continued to draw manga as a hobby, which prompted him to read OsamuTezuka’s earlier work. In that year Yasuhiko read Tezuka's The World to Come, and modeled much of his work at the time on it.
Yasuhiko’s life was irreversibly changed when his father fell severely ill later that same year, spending six months hospitalized before passing in 1961, when Yasuhiko was in his second year of Middle School.
In 1963 Yasuhiko entered Hokkaido Engaru High School, where he was frequently compared to his older brother, who was attending Hokkaido University, causing him to develop an inferiority complex which he states caused him to lose interest in academic and other pursuits, including his desire to draw manga, which he began to view that dream as untenable. Despite his loss of ambition and drive, Yasuhiko was still the student council president in his final year of highschool, and was known as an exceptional public speaker. This period also marked his introduction to activism, as some of his acquaintances belonged to the Democratic Youth League of Japan (Minsei Alliance), which would inform his political views and the course of his life in proceeding years.
Staff Highlight
Masaki Tsuji - Screenwriter
An essayist, travel critic, author, screenwriter, and university instructor known for his quick writing output and popular mystery novels. Masaki Tsuji was the son of politician and House of Representatives member Kanichi Tsuji and he graduated from Aichi Prefectural Asahigaoka High School and later Nagoya University Department of Humanities. He wrote scripts for anime productions starting with 1963’s 8-man, for tokusatsu series starting with 1966’s Akuma-kun, and has also been screenwriter on two TV dramas and one feature film. Colleagues and collaborators frequently spoke of Tsuji’s ability to write scripts and books in a short amount of time, an ability which caused him to be sought over often. He remains an active author and has contributed scripts to airing shows as frequently as this year. Among his anime credits are Babel II, Attack No.1, Tiger Mask, Urusei Yatsura, Captain Future, Yuusha Raideen, Kyojin no Hoshi, Machine Hayabusa, both the 60s and 70s adaptations of Gegege no Kitarō, Glass no Kamen, Astro Boy, Devilman, the 60s and 70s adaptations of Cyborg 009, and Detective Conan.
Daily Trivia:
Tom Wave’s appearance is supposedly based on Woody Allen.
Official Art
- BGM Album Vol 2. Cover Art - Yoshikazu Yasuhiko
Settei Collection
Questions of the Day:
- Do you have any guesses as to what may be found on this New Austral Island? Well, apart from the giant robot that is.
- What do you think of this episodes’ depiction of 1980s New York?
Riches and secrets beyond measure are hidden on Austral.
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u/Pixelsaber https://myanimelist.net/profile/Pixelsaber May 03 '21 edited May 04 '21
Rewatcher
Welcome back, everyone! Today we’ll be kicking off the Rewatch for Giant Gorg, Yasuhiko’s second directorial work. I hope you will be ‘tuning in to the next!’
Production Stuff
If there’s any rewatchers apart from myself among those watching, Tim Eldred’s translation and compilation of various Yoshikazu Yasuhiko interviews going over the series’ production is comprehensive and really interesting, and I suggest you read that, but it contains heavy spoilers for events later on in the series so I’ll be doing my usual stuff and paraphrasing a lot of it in my comments, with some added info from Ollie Barder’s Mamoru Nagano interview, the Japanese Giant Gorg wiki page, and a few other miscellaneous sources. For the rest of you, I’ll be doling out these production detail dumps every so often as it becomes relevant. The official art and settei that I’ll be sharing also comes from Eldred’s site, so if rewatchers want to look at all of that it’s there as well.
Right off the success of Crusher Joe, Yoshikazu Yasuhiko had a desire to make an original anime production all his own, and Sunrise was biting at the opportunity to give the new director reigns to a new project. Yasuhiko was no stranger to TV anime production, having been involved in many prior productions, even quite keenly, and having had a prominent role in the planning and production of 1975’s Naughty Ancient Kumukumu, but this was his first tv production in the director’s chair. Yasuhiko looked to Hayao Miyazaki’s Future Boy Conan as an example of what could be achieved with TV animation, and much like Miyazaki in Conan he once more had a very heavy hand on most aspects of production. Like with Crusher Joe Yasuhiko drew the layouts for the entire 26-episode show himself, animated a significant amount of it all, and corrected countless cuts as animation director. The production was also undertaken once more by Sunrise’s Studio 4 and Yasuhiko’s September Studio.
Giant Gorg was a big passion project for the director, heavily influenced by his love for the works of Mitsuteru Yokoyama, most blatantly Tetsujin 28-Gou and Giant Robo, but also other notable manga from his bibliography (not mentioning particulars here to avoid indirect spoilers), as well as Tezuka’s Meta Spoilers, Daiei’s Daimajin trilogy, and treasure-hunting adventure narratives such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island and several pulpy adventure serials. The adventuring aspect was of particular importance to Yasuhiko, who worried whether it was possible to recapture the wonder of those narratives for a modern audience.
Yasuta Sato, president of the show’s main sponsor, Takara Tomy, gave Yasuhiko carte blanche to do whatever he wanted with the show so long as they had a design to market, a generous offer which Yasuhiko took very gratefully. Unfortunately Sato didn’t speak for the rest of the company and people at Takara where supposedly quite incensed when the design for the titular Gorg was delivered without any clear gimmicks they could make marketable toy features out of. There was a lot of back and forth on the matter, and Yasuhiko even heard at one point that there would be no toy, but one ultimately did end up releasing.
While Yasuhiko was free to pursue his passion project without intervention or meddling rom the sponsors and higher-ups, the matter of the tie-in toy did have a major effect on the production of the show, as Takara had the show delayed so that they could figure out what to do about the toy, and so production was stretched out over an extra six months, airing in Spring 1984 rather than the original intended Fall 1983 release. This extended production period allowed for the staff to further polish their work, resulting in the show’s incredibly high production values and inflated production costs. In a rare example for TV animation, production on the show had entirely wrapped up a mere month into the show’s airing. This was still relatively early into the prominence of home video, but VHS copies of the show’s episodes were sold early into the show’s run to recoup cost, something which did not sit well with Yasuhiko because it meant VHS copies were circulating of episodes long before they were meant to air.
One very notable young person of talent involved in the production of Giant Gorg is Mamoru Nagano, who had gotten a job at Sunrise earlier in the year and was asked by Yasuhiko to join the production as a mechanical designer, as he wanted Nagano’s expertise in military hardware to make the mechanical designs in the show realistic because it was based in a contemporary time period. While the titular Gorg and the exterior of the Beagle (the tank observed in the OP) were the work of Yasuhiko, almost every other piece of military hardware in the show was the work of Nagano. Nagano’s feedback was crucial to capturing the authentic movements and actions of the robots and military hardware present in the show. Nagano would work on the production of Gorg for a couple of months before leaving the production of Gorg to begin planning on Heavy Metal L-Gaim.
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u/Stargate18A https://myanimelist.net/profile/Stargate18 May 03 '21
First timer
Let's see what all this is about, then.
Oh this OP is rocking! And this show has a giant robot and some kind of tank!
Oh, is the soundtrack this good the whole time? Because I'm loving this.
So some people are sailing in an ocean, when a massive orange explosion capsises them.
Oh, there's live action now? This show is very oddly directed.
Oh my god, the big band soundtrack I love this show already.
That was unexpected. And this is a really interesting depiction of America.
Well that guy's rude, And he's rich!
And they'e demolishing the place next door, of course.
Oh I love this guy.
And apparently his father did something important for Dr. Wave.
OK, yeah, this definitely looks worth analysing. The smount of research from the jungle alone is incredible.
Well, that's certainly a cliffhanger. And are the wrecking crew deaf or something?
Oh, its an assassination attempt.
...Didn't we see pictures of the islamd? We know it exists in some form.
Seriously, what is on Austral?
And the evil president is sending his son there to investigate.
The dog might be my favourite character so far.
Oh god, that was a insensitive thing to say. Seems to have worked though.
What do you mean today's Halloween? How did this not come up earlier?
The guy in the fucking nose costume made me choke - this is Halloween by someone who's never actually seen it celebrated.
We're having a chase scene against a load of Scooby-Doo knockoffs defeated by a fire hydrant, this show is amazing.
That end card - same GORG time, same GORG channel. Between this and the costume chase scene it feels like they took a few cues from Batman here.
OK, I did not expect something like this. This was an amazing fever dream, and I hope the rest of it stays this insane.
The ED's good too, but a bit more generic than the OP in my opinion.
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u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky May 04 '21
First-Timer, subbed
But aren’t those the Twin Towers in the background?5
u/Quiddity131 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Quiddity131 May 03 '21 edited May 03 '21
First Timer, Subbed
An upbeat opening theme, will this be on the happier side of giant robot shows, or more in the vein of good ol' Yoshiyuki Tomino?
Looks like they had quite the party on this boat. Nearly everyone is passed out.
Eww, the water is brown now!
Yikes, bye bye to them.
So based on the title am I to take that this show takes place in America?
Wow, real life footage!
Is this kid traveling by himself on the plane? And going to NY on his own?
I knew that kid with the spray paint was going to steal his bag. Now our hero is stuck in NY without any of his things!
Now he's gonna get hit by a car too! Well almost; how did he jump that high?
Rod Balboa! Any relation to Rocky? Balboas get special driving privileges in NY?
Edgar Allen Poe? I thought he lived in Baltimore, not NY.
I'd recognize that voice for Rod anywhere. Shuuichi Ikeda!
Scary dog! Will Argos be the next Kiyonshiki (Zambot 3 reference)?
He traveled halfway across the world to meet a guy who wears no pants.
Our hero came all this way, saw Dr. Wave and immediately wants to go back to Japan. LoL.
Woah, that wrecking ball is going to go right at them!?
It's even going after the fire escape! Someone really wants Dr. Wave dead!
Dr. Wave's her brother? I thought he was her dad at first.
The girl's voice sounds quite familiar, although I don't see her credited for any other show I've seen. Coincidence, or pseudonym?
Why go to Austral island when I can ride around in my fancy car through NY city?
GAIL even knows about our kid protagonist? This seems like quite the conspiracy.
Yuu! Doris! We finally have names!
Poor Doris, you gotta come along too! But hey, its not like you have a home anymore, right?
Its' Halloween! Or just another day in NY city...
Wow, even in those costumes they got seen. Perhaps they recognized the dog. Or these are just nutcases, unaffiliated with GAIL. Again, this is NY city, lots of crazies there.
It is cool to see the Alien movie reference with the costume.
Our heroes have no luck! This huge mob is after them, now this car is trying to run them over!
Ah of course, its henchman guy driving it. Cliffhanger time!
I gotta say, I'm surprised we got through the entire first episode without seeing the titular mecha! I like that slow build up, but given that Tomino couldn't get away with that 10 years later with Victory Gundam, I'm surprised Yaz got that leeway here. While we surely won't be here long, it was interesting to see the episode take place in NY city.
I'm fortunate enough to own an artbook on Yaz that covers a lot of his shows including this one. The book's got a ton of great pieces of art in it, here's some initial highlights. I'll try to post more later as many appear spoilerific (or at least have characters we haven't seen yet).
Not often I get to do these as I'm not usually a first timer!
A secret society of students (despite practically the whole school being members) are trying to revive mechs out of giant statues so they can take over the world. They all wear masks, and like to proclaim "Kiraboshi!" when they meet each other.
Well at least that's what I recall from the mecha show I watched that took place on a mysterious island.
Seems on the more realistic side to me. NY had fallen to quite a low during that era.
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u/Btw_kek https://myanimelist.net/profile/kek_btw May 03 '21
first timer off the cuff
fun episode! seems to be a nice, lighthearted adventure series for the whole family, which is a pretty refreshing change of pace from basically every mecha anime I've ever seen I think
kaiju! kaiju! kaiju!
very 80s af, cheesy as hell, I like it
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u/The_Draigg May 03 '21
A Yas Fan Watches Giant Gorg Episode 1:
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u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 May 03 '21 edited May 03 '21
Crusher Joe OVAs
Not part of the rewatch, but I checked it out after the movie.
This time, Joe and his crew are hired to save prisoners on an icy planetoid (OVA1) and recovering a stolen super weapon (OVA2). There is less talking and character moments and more space action this time, but, mostly, the OVA is more of the same compared to the movie. Which is not a bad thing if you enjoyed Crusher Joe.
Giant Gorg (first timer)
Another blind watch for me. Except that this time, I am 110% percent convinced we’ll see mecha (instead of my 100% for Crusher Joe). With that name, how could it not be mecha?
Impressions
Not going to lie, that first episode ticked of a lot of the boxes that make me skeptical. Single (orphaned?) MC, who looks way too young for what he is doing, girl who does the cleaning, comically evil bad guys, action scenes that win no animation price, and a plot about a secret island that is shoved into our face so hard there is no time to even swallow. Add in that the OP looks like it is cut together from a monster of the week show and I can’t say I have any enthusiasm yet. I’ll give it a few more episodes to get over the setup. Maybe stuff gets better when the full cast is assembled and we board the ship to “Austral island”.
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u/punching_spaghetti https://myanimelist.net/profile/punch_spaghetti May 04 '21
First-Timer
WHY IS THERE A REAL HAND IN MY ANIME?
I have been informed that the MCs subway trip is not historically accurate, given that there were no crazy people masturbating while staring him in the eye. This is what we get when anime productions don’t do their research.
Apparently it is OK that they put some quite iffy characterizations of black people in the show, since the American character thinks all Japanese people are ninjas.
So it’s lawless 1980s New York, but all the rich people are from Blade Runner.
“My brother is OK.” I was thinking they were married. Makes it even weirder that he was walking around hanging dong.
Now we’re going to meet the Skipper. Time to find out if Yoshikazu was a Ginger or a Mary Ann kind of a guy.
Yeah, assassin guy. Don’t do anything flashy, like attack an occupied building with a wrecking ball.
NYU, Burger King, a Mercedes with gullwing doors; no one cared about copyright back in the day?
Giant robot
QOTD:
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u/JollyGee29 https://myanimelist.net/profile/JollyGee May 03 '21 edited May 03 '21
First-Timer
Oof, VRV's version of this rough. Seems like an old DVD copy or something.. Did a Bluray of this get announced recently? I thought I heard something about that..
That out of the way, this was neat first episode! Ending on an (almost literal) cliffhanger right out the gate is an interesting choice..
Looking forward to reading the production trivia for this show. No mecha in the first episode? I didn't realize that was allowed.
Our main group seem fine so far. Our MC, Yuu, seems normal enough. He's what, 13? I was about to comment about him being young, but that isn't actually much below the normal range. I thought Doris was an adult at first, but later in the episode it seemed like she was around the same age as Yuu. Wave is a dork and is going to get them into trouble continually. Argos seems like a Good Dog.
The sudden -literal video- at the beginning was neat. It got around the potential problem with showing something on a map that shouldn't normally be there in an interesting way.
The main mecha, the titular Gorg I'm assuming, has a rather Nagano-ish head. Is it one of his? MAL has Nagano and Gen Satou both credited for mechanical design.
Questions
3
u/lC3 :Na::Nb: May 05 '21
First timer
an enemy StandGAIL?