Mobile Suit Gundam Creator Yuyuki Tomino says Miyazaki “has always been my enemy,” but he won’t let anyone say he’s not an artist.
Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki has easily cemented himself as a director by amassing a fairly extensive portfolio of films over the years. In contrast, Gundam creator Yuyuki Tomino stuck primarily to the mecha genre, clearly giving birth to one of the most important anime series. However, in a recent interview with FullFrontal, he pointed out that despite his prolific output, he is not a director himself, saying that he “doesn’t have the qualities to be one.”
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Tomino said the mecha genre was not what he “originally aspired to” but that given his abilities “there was no other way to go. That’s why director Hayao Miyazaki has always been an enemy of mine: I’ve never been in the same era as someone I Being able to go beyond has become my motivation.
This is obviously a somewhat amusing statement, but it doesn’t mean that Tomino doesn’t have enough respect for what his “enemy” does. When FullFrontal suggested that Hayao Miyazaki is not an artist, but more like a craftsman, Tomino bluntly said, “You are wrong.” He continued: “If he was a craftsman, he would not make a work like “The Boy and the Heron.” If you say he is a craftsman, then you know nothing. He is a director. You see, he makes If you do things half-heartedly, it’s impossible.
To be clear, this doesn’t mean Tomino likes any of Miyazaki’s other works either, as he said “That was just The Boy and the Heron. I don’t like Miyazaki’s other works that much anyway.”
The Boy and the Heron won Studio Ghibli its second Oscar earlier this year, and while it certainly deserved it, it didn’t really need it.
