Figure King No. 34 - Robot Anime Hellscape - Nail it this time!!

 

PROFILE: Kōichi Ōhata, born in 1962. Film plan designer. Debuting in this issue is the series of emotional stories from behind-the-scenes of robot anime. P.S. Everyone who came to the Blue Gender event at Loft Plus One, many thanks!!

The year 1983, when the now defunct International Film Company produced “Subspace Mission Srungle”, was a good year for unique robot shows such as VOTOMS, Dunbine, Mospeada, Dorvack and Sasuraiger.

In the 70s, children’s heroes were super robots, and thanks to a multitude of hit products, they evolved from “toys” to “models”. To put it in brief, robot anime was “very important” to the male toy market. Around the time I said I’d become a mecha designer, the industry was shaken up in a big way, or rather it was out of order. In those days, there was a lot of forcibly throwing together a formula that robot anime + youth culture = money, and planning was done with an old man mentality. However, for better or for worse, robot anime proliferated thanks to that, and continued to grow. The farthest thing I’ll say is, TV shows and films injected with the reckless power of old men leave a bigger impact than the fancypants ballless robots of nowadays!! (I’m an old man too, y’know). 

In this column I look back on the robot designs I have been involved in, and the question I want to ask, what makes an interesting robot anime? This is want to do sincerely and to also introspect calmly, and see if the reader finds value in that. And now, my story of my debut in the industry for the first time with “Subspace Mission Srungle” (illustration 1, from 1983). I came into the job as a sub designer, however, due to a slump in toy sales, it was decided to introduce a second robot. After those designs were drawn (illustrations 2 and 3) I went to a meeting at the toy company, Clover - In the drawing room, I saw there was a big model of Dunbine, “this is cool!”, though the president revealed, “it didn’t sell though, so I told that guy to make it transform into a bird”. Furthermore, perhaps due the anxiety of a sudden downturn in business, he came out in an outburst, “that Tomino is totally talentless, the robots he makes never sell!!”, he said decisively. 

Of course, it can be said that Director Tomino is a charismatic individual in robot anime, so to find out it was an old man in a suit belittling him, it was something that was a big shock to me at the time. During a meeting with the producer, he brought out a scratch build model someone had gone through the effort of putting together to demonstrate a transformation. Somehow though, each part fell off one by one, then it turned to junk, the producer was on the verge of tears by the end using both hands to pick it up, “uh, it looks like this…”, they said, when the president saw it he said curtly, “we don’t have the money to make something so ridiculous, just design an existing robot that we can sell with something else!!”. That’s how the idea for how a fighter plane could combine with Srungle (illustrations 4 and 5) came to be resubmitted. However, when I went to the meeting there was an illustration of Srungle (a giant robot, no less), sitting on a snowmobile with a four-blade propeller on its head… “We’re trying out a few designs that could be toys”, the president said. Negotiating with the producer for an hour, who was on the verge of losing his mind, I just barely got the O.K. for my idea, but now the president was a little unhappy, “now that you mention it, robots didn’t do much at all last week, did they? I don’t care about the story, just get more robots out!”. The producer smiled promptly, “no, I believe there’ll be a big hit this week. Please look forward to it!”, (good luck!), at that moment the president quickly agreed, “a-ha, that should be some fun”. At this moment, having just turned twenty, it goes without saying I had seriously considered looking for another job. 

(Inset Caption) Perhaps the design motif of Srungle could be said to be a gorilla and a construction machine? Roughly, it can transform into land combat or air combat modes, but after the Valkyrie (Macross) came out, it’s no longer as convincing.

(Inset Caption) The design of the second unit looks nothing like the original Srungle. This isn’t surprising though, it was Submarine (Yuichi Higuchi from Designmate) of Ideon and Braiger who was responsible for Srungle’s base design (at that time for various reasons an alias was used).

(Inset Caption) Concept of the small-form air bike that centralises the transformed robot. In the world setting of Srungle, all robots are generally referred to as “trekkers” (like trucks and tow trucks, basically). 

(Inset Caption) There was an idea for a mini fighter plane to spearhead things by pulling giant weapon parts. In the final design the fighter plane was absent, and the cockpit was placed in the centre of the robot (it was cut due to budget, boohoo…).

(Inset Caption) Rough sketch of a design that was to be called Hyper Srungle (it lacks energy). A prototype was supposedly made, but as Clover faced bankruptcy during the show’s broadcast, it was pulled.