Interview: Super Robot Wars Producer Takanobu Terada on Classic Robots and Power Rangers

Evan Minto (Editor-in-Chief): This summer we’re working through our interview backlog, bringing you interviews with artists that we’ve had sitting around unpublished for a little while. First up is this conversation from Otakon 2023 between our resident robot superfan Patrick Sutton and Takanobu Terada, producer of the long-running Super Robot Wars (SRW) video game franchise from Bandai Namco Entertainment, formerly Banpresto.

Super Robot Wars is most famous for bringing together robots and their pilots from anime, manga, and video games in ambitious crossover games, and tying them together with new SRW-exclusive storylines. On top of that, the games have introduced original mecha and characters, most notably in the “Original Generation” line of games. Pat digs into this and much more in this interview, covering Terada’s early career, the complexity of IP approvals, and the process of selecting characters and mecha for SRW games. Enjoy!

---

Ani-Gamers (Patrick Sutton): First, I do want to talk about Super Robot Wars, obviously. But before I jump into that, I wanted to talk a little bit about the early part of your career.

I know you worked for Banpresto for a long time and worked on a lot of early licensed games with them. But credits for that time period are a little thin. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that period of your career and maybe some works you worked on.

I know, for example, you worked on Power Rangers games for Banpresto. If you could talk a little bit about that time period.

Takanobu Terada: I did work on the first Power Rangers movie game for Game Gear.

So I remember back then when we were developing that game, we were able to see the movie before it was released. However, we didn’t know that Ninja Megazord was a CG robot. We told them, give us a design, give us a design, but then nothing came from the U.S. because, of course…there wasn’t a design.  

So when we saw the movie, we were like, Oh! I still have the laser disc from the first Power Rangers movie.

I bought the laser disc of the movie from overseas and still have it. Because Laserdisc was all I had at the time. Other than Super Robot Wars, the Power Rangers game was my favorite.

I personally found Power Rangers to be very fun to work on because I got to work on that with American staff too.

Ani-Gamers: Up next, I’ll talk a little bit about Super Robot Wars. One of the things I’ve always loved about Super Robot Wars is how the team making the games uses them to finish or add epilogues to stories in anime or manga that didn’t have those endings.

For example, the end of Nadesico was one of my favorites, concluding that story and giving them a happier ending. I was wondering, what’s the process like when you try to make those kinds of stories where you add to the end or expand on the ending? Is that something that there tends to be a lot of push and pull with original creators? Do you get a lot of flexibility? What’s that like?

Takanobu Terada: When we first make a scenario or a plot of a proposed ending or proposed epilogue we submit it and if it gets back to us with any edits or any feedback, we do as it says. If there are no corrections, we just make it as it is.

The Nadesico ending was one case of that where we came up with a scenario plot and sent it to the original rights holders and they gave us the okay, so we went with it.

Ani-Gamers: Another one I want to ask about specifically from Super Robot Wars 30 is Amuro and Char post-Char’s Counterattack and the character development for Char in that story as someone who now has to face what he tried to do and almost attempt to make amends for it. What was the process like for coming up with that? Did that have much pushback? Because I think that was pretty unique for those characters.

Takanobu Terada: Originally in Super Robot Wars 30, there actually were no plans to have Char show up. But then we were actually told, “Can you put Amuro and Char in?” So, we asked ourselves, what do we do now? Thus, we came up with the idea of starting off with Char’s Counterattack and developing the story afterwards.

What we decided to do is that since Char couldn’t just come back as Char post Char’s Counterattack, we said, how about he come back as Quattro and say that he’s trying to make amends by coming back as Quattro and we submitted it and it was approved.

Ani-Gamers: There wasn’t a lot of pushback to bringing back Quattro?  

Takanobu Terada: No, they didn’t really object to it.

Ani-Gamers: I loved that storyline.

Takanobu Terada: (Laughs) Thank you.

Ani-Gamers: Next I wanted to talk a little bit about series selection in Super Robot Wars. As you and the team are working on these games, how do you balance the desire to bring back classic super robots from the ’70s and ’80s, with the push for more modern and more recognizable shows?

Takanobu Terada: There’s a bit of a difference depending on the game. In the older games I would have lots of influence on what would be chosen and sometimes I would be the one making all the decisions. However for the more recent games more of the younger staff are making those decisions so they might choose newer series.

I personally like to choose stuff from the ’70s, so what you have is, for example, in Super World Wars 30, you have the newer crew choosing stuff but in Super World Wars D.D. (a Super Robot Wars mobile game), my influence is much greater in choosing robots for that.

So, I personally like to have more older stuff in there. It’s just that there’s talk of how well a specific property is known and marketability and everything, and that’s something that is done away from where I am.

J-Decker was a specific example where I gathered feedback from South East Asia and pushed heavily saying that it was well liked there. So, I really pushed for it. GaoGaiGar, Might Gaine, Next Brave, Brave Police.

Ani-Gamers: My favorites.

(Both laugh)

Ani-Gamers: And to that end, as you’re working with these licensors and other rights holders to put these things in, I assume there’s a greater push towards whatever the most recent version is. How do you balance that with the desire to keep things classic? An example being Mazinger.

Classic Mazinger Z, Shin Mazinger, Shin Mazinger Zero, Mazinger Infinity, and rebalancing those things for whichever version of Koji has to be in the game this year.

Takanobu Terada: So, Mazinger Z has been around since the first Super Robot Wars and Dynamic Pro is very willing to work with us. There are lots of the old guard still at Dynamic Pro and I’ve been working with them for a long time, so I have a lot of opportunities to talk with them.

Terada: “I want strong Mazinger”

Dynamic Pro: “Hmm Hmm…Mazinkaiser”

Terada: “Yeah! Thank you very much”

So in talking with the Dynamic people I bring up how I want a Mazinger to fit, this, this, and this. And they say “How about this” and bring up Mazinkaiser or “How about this” Mazin Emperor G or Shin Getter Dragon, and that’s pretty much the dialogue that goes on.

So, in Super Robot Wars 30, there were cases where, say for example, Votoms had a specific version for Super Robot Wars 30, there was Ultimate Dancougar, and Code Geass was an even more unique case where they said, you know what, we have this design, do you want to use it? They had something that hadn’t shown up previously, so we were saying, yeah, of course.

Ani-Gamers: Very cool! Last question, my favorite Super Robot Wars OG robot is the SRX.

Takanobu Terada: (Laughs) Thank you very much.

AniGamers: What’s your favorite?

Takanobu Terada: My favorite OG robot? Gespenst and Cybaster. That’s my answer.

So, since the SRX is something that I made it’s not that hard to say that I like it. But for the Gespenst and Cybaster they need to be there.

I’d like to ask you, what do you like about the SRX?

Ani-Gamers: I like how, well, big, but also, elaborate, and it feels like a real robot that becomes a super robot, and the transformation is so elaborate and ridiculous and magical, and it’s really, really fun in the games.

I recently got the new Riobot figure and love it. It’s really cool. I think it’s the bombast of it, and the super robots in general, the OG ones, are all so bombastic and exciting.

Takanobu Terada: Thank you. Thank you very much.