GQuuuuuuX Designer and Animation Director Hidenori Matsubara on Recreating Iconic Gundam Characters

Last month we had the pleasure of sitting down with animator, character designer, and animation director Hidenori Matsubara. Mr. Matsubara most recently played a key role on Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX, the re-imagining of the classic mecha series from Evangelion’s Studio Khara and director Kazuya Tsurumaki (FLCL, Rebuild of Evangelion).

The last time we spoke to Mr. Matsubara was at Otakon 2014 when David delved into his animation process in detail. This time, Evan and Patrick were in attendance, and we focused our questions on GQuuuuuuX.

The series is a novel merging of old and new both in terms of its storytelling and its visuals, with both a “modern day” story set in the fictional year UC 0085 and a “past” story set during the iconic One-Year War in UC 0079 (the conflict at the center of the original 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam series, a.k.a. First Gundam). Most notably for Matsubara’s part, while the “modern” sequences use a colorful, squishy visual style led by Pokémon designer Take, the “past” sequences are a remarkably faithful recreation of the work of First Gundam designer Yoshikazu Yasuhiko. As a designer and animator working on both portions of the series, Matsubara has a unique perspective on how staff at Khara brought the two together into a single show.

Thank you to Mr. Matsubara and Otakon staff for arranging the interview. Enjoy!

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Ani-Gamers: Could you expand a little bit on your specific involvement in GQuuuuuuX? Were you working on The Beginning as well as the time skip, or did you focus on one part of the show? Could you mention any of the specific scenes that you worked on?

Hidenori Matsubara: For the “past” part I was specifically the character animation director and I was a key animator on the present day scenes. Some specific scenes I worked on include: when Machu and Shuji first met, and we’re going to skip all the way to the last episode to where Machu and Shuji say goodbye. So those specific scenes were done by me. I also did one shot from the opening animation. 

Ani-Gamers: As a character animator, what was your process when thinking through how to incorporate these classic ’70s-style characters into this modern setting? Especially characters like Char and Kycilia Zabi, having them exist and act around more modern and expressive characters like Machu and Shuji?

Matsubara: From my age you could guess that I saw First Gundam when it originally aired. I was 14 years old and I loved it. Loved it, loved it, loved it. I cannot change the characters. So I drew it as closely as I could to how they seemed back in the day. So, although there were some current day arrangements that were made, I tried to best emulate the ’70s style.

With the modern part, since they were focusing on Take’s character designs, I think how they decided to do it was very fun too. I mean, have you seen Char there? He looks very refreshing, doesn’t he?

So, the interesting thing is that Take’s designs had already been decided on for that part of the show. For my part, I wanted to emulate Yoshikazu Yasuhiko’s style the best I can. (EDITOR’S NOTE: Yasuhiko designed the characters in the original 1979 series.) After all the dust had settled and everything was done. I kind of wondered, was I really correct in trying to emulate Mr. Yasuhiko’s designs? But, if people liked it then I think so.

Ani-Gamers: What do you mean by that?

Matsubara: With regards to The Beginning, the director Kazuya Tsurumaki and Khara CEO Hideaki Anno praised me for my work on it. You might know that those two are famous for making you do lots of retakes, but they never praise you. They never made me do retakes on GQuuuuuuX. They were happy with it. When I was finishing everything I was expecting them to go “fix this, fix this, fix this.” But that wasn’t the case. 

Ani-Gamers: Since you’re a fan of Gundam, were there any particular scenes or characters that you were keeping in mind as you were working on The Beginning? Or scenes that you were excited to have the opportunity to recreate?

Matsubara: I would say all of them. Since I love Gundam, all of the scenes are lovable. But this was also kind of a sad job for me, because the more that I do, the more that I notice that I can’t be Mr. Yasuhiko.

So I have mixed feelings because back when I originally watched Gundam I was 14 years old. I’m 59 right now, and I can’t measure up to Mr. Yasuhiko yet. So I have mixed feelings because I can’t measure up but at the same time Mr. Yasuhiko is so good!

Ani-Gamers: Did you feel like you appreciated his work more after having the job of recreating it?

Matsubara: I can’t really put it into words but “godly” is the best way I could put it.

On top of that, I was very happy about characters like Denim and Dren, who in the original series fell to the wayside very quickly. But then, in GQuuuuuuX, they’re alive and fighting. So that’s something that I was very happy about. I know it’s a war and everything, but I thought it was pretty cool.

Ah, I forgot to mention this earlier when discussing the scenes that I worked on, but in the last episode, when past Char and Lala show up. That part was mine too.

That Char is kind of different from the Char in The Beginning, too. So, I tried to draw him differently from the other two. I used the third Gundam movie (EDITOR’S NOTE: Encounters in Space) as a reference and I tried to make him very distinct from the other Chars.

Being able to draw Lalah was very special for me.

Ani-Gamers: Thank you for speaking with us today.