Atomic Robot News: Yoshiyuki Tomino Celebrates 30 Years Of Gundam With 'Ring Of Gundam'

Yoshiyuki Tomino Celebrates 30 Years Of Gundam With 'Ring Of Gundam'

Written By: Ken Hulsey
Source: TVkon / Anime News Network

I first off, want to apologize for taking almost two weeks to get this clip online. Sometimes life comes at ya pretty fast, and a person can get behind on things. As you probably already know, I do that a lot.

Well, I want to finally showcase a very special bit of Japanese anime here on Monster Island News today. As many of you probably already know, this year marks the 30th anniversary of the giant robot series, "Gundam".

To honour this prestigious event, the creator of "Gundam", Yoshiyuki Tomino, teamed up with the Robot anime studio to produce "Ring of Gundam", a five minute mix of traditional animation and computer animation.

According to sources in Japan, Yoshiuki played a trick on fans of the series at the Gundam Big Expo in Tokyo, telling them that they were seeing a sneak preview of the short, when in fact, they were seeing the entire finished product.

No one was the wiser, until the short film was released earlier this month.

Here is the plot:

The story of "Ring of Gundam" takes place in a new era long after the events of the first Mobile Suit Gundam series' One-Year War. In this world setting, a giant 600-kilometer-wide ring now floats in lunar orbit. An Earth Federation Forces member named Eiji discovers an object called "Beauty Memory" buried in a high-altitude, massive rockbed on Earth. Actor Daijirō Kawaoka plays Eiji, while Yuka Hirata (Cross Game, Hajime no Ippo: New Challenger) plays the heroine Yuria. The keywords of the story are "Amuro's memories." (Amuro Ray is the main protagonist of the first Gundam story.)

"Ring of Gundam" was written and directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino, with mech designs by Kunio Okawara and music by Yoko Kanno .

Lucky for you, I have the entire clip here for you to savor. Only bad thing is, it is entirely in Japanese.