天神英貴「超時空要塞マクロス」画集　HIDETAKA TENJIN'S Artistry of The FIRST MACROSS

CROSS TALK – SHOJI KAWAMORI & HIDETAKA TENJIN

(Translated by Renato Rivera Rusca)

The following conversation between Hidetaka Tenjin and Shoji Kawamori took place at a café located inside the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. The real-life XB-70 Valkyrie is displayed inside the museum, with its distinctive silhouette also adorning the walls of the café, the name of which is “Valkyrie Café.” Thus, the location was, by all rights, the most apt and somewhat sacred spot for a discussion about the origins of the VF-1 Valkyrie, and the initial meeting of these two great minds.

The VF-1 Valkyrie

Tenjin: So how did you decide on the “Valkyrie” designation for the VF-1?
Kawamori: Well, I was always a fan of the XB-70 Valkyrie. When I was still in middle school or high school, I was leafing through a bunch of aerospace magazines at a used bookstore in Jimbocho, and stumbled upon this photograph of a rear six-nozzle engine, and I went, “What the heck is this?” (laughs) When I realized that was the Valkyrie, I was smitten. Later, when I came up with the transformation (for the VF-1), I felt that since I had put so much time and effort into it, I might as well name it after my favorite aircraft.
Tenjin: Did anyone around you oppose your naming of the craft that way?
Kawamori: Not that I recall, so I don’t think so (laughs). But nothing pointed to anybody minding.
Tenjin: Is there anything from the XB-70 that you used as a reference for anything in terms of design?
Kawamori: As far as aesthetic styling is concerned, not really. When designing, it’s the concept, or rather, a certain revolutionary originality that’s most important, after all. Although, I suppose you could say the variable wingtips of the YF-21 from MACROSS PLUS are one such thing.
Tenjin: True. But that wouldn’t have come until much later. Well, I guess we can say that there’s the fact that the VF-1 is white.
Kawamori: Oh, yeah, that might be one thing.
Tenjin: So then, 40 years ago, when you first saw the real XB-70 in person at Wright-Patterson, what did you think?
Kawamori: Oh, I felt like I had to bow down to it (laughs). It’s so godlike! It’s amazing to me that such a uniquely cool-looking plane, with such a simple structure and composition, could be designed and actually built. Plus, it looks like it’s been engineered to show off just how much concentrated technology can be included in such a beautiful design.
Tenjin: It really is both simplistic and incredibly beautiful, isn’t it? Conversely, then, didn’t you ever consider just making a transformable XB-70?
Kawamori: Actually, now that you mention it, no. Although I would probably have done so if I’d been asked to! (laughs)
Tenjin: So then, what was the reasoning behind the “VF-1” designation?
Kawamori: It’s an acronym for “Variable Fighter”.
Tenjin: Yes, of course, but wasn’t it rare at the time for mecha in anime to be referred to by their aircraft designation?
Kawamori: The point was to make it seem close to a realistic fighter jet. Of course, if we had gone with an “F-” designation, then it would be confused with a real-life jet. There was already a “VG-wing” (Variable Geometry Wing) designation for the F-14’s variable-sweep wings, so I decided that adding a “V” would work well.
Tenjin: So basically, it was named so due to the wings.
Kawamori: If I were to call it a “transforming” wing, that would imply that the wing’s shape somehow changes, but I wanted to include the aspect of functionality in the meaning, so I called it a “variable” fighter instead.
Tenjin: There is a wide range of VF-1 variants, isn’t there? S, J, A, D, and even Armored types. Was this something that you had decided on right from the start?
Kawamori: I didn’t set out to do it that way, but with the design that the VF-1 Valkyrie eventually ended up being, it occurred to me to just make it into a mass-production model. Also, there was the fact that I wanted to differentiate it from the Gundam. I’ve said this many times, but while the Gundam is a special, unique mecha, the VF-1 is mass-produced. And of course, in the real world, mass-produced fighters supersede their prototypes! (laughs)
Tenjin: So, you do actually take that sort of thing into account! (laughs)
Kawamori: I don’t know why everyone always seems not to grasp this, but no matter how impressive a prototype is, the mass-produced type will always have all the improvements! (laughs)

Do You Remember Love?

Tenjin: When THE SUPER DIMENSION FORTRESS MACROSS: DO YOU REMEMBER LOVE? (DYRL) was made, you were a director at the young age of 24. Did you have any concerns as to what the people around you thought, such as your superiors?
Kawamori: Hmm... I wasn’t really concerned about that. I became a director at 23 while at university, and DYRL was released when I was 24; all the while I was inexperienced and naïve (laughs). I mean, I had an idea that making a movie would be tough. My impression was that there were many good (live-action) TV series, but there were hardly any movies that were good all the way until the end credits. I’d seen a lot of movies, and generally I thought the first acts were usually very enjoyable, but then the latter ones would gradually become boring. By deconstructing each film, then splitting them up into quarters, I attempted to work out why making them interesting from start to finish was so difficult. As a result, I figured out that the second act would be twice as difficult as the first act, and then four times, and then eight times as difficult. Essentially, by the final act of the movie you need to have had included eight times the number of ideas in the story, but everyone only puts like twice the amount in and that’s why they fail. So, the way I constructed DYRL was to start from “OK, what do I need to do to put eight times the effort into this?”
Tenjin: That’s very logical.
Kawamori: It’s because I didn’t start off as a performance director in the traditional sense. From the beginning of my career, I’d been a designer, so I was basically “crafting the direction” with the sensibility of a designer.
Tenjin: Does that methodology extend to scriptwriting also?
Kawamori: Yes. Because scripts are less literature, and more logic based.
Tenjin: I see. (laughs)
Kawamori: But the problem with DYRL, was that the schedule was so tight, that I didn’t have time to think. I wasn’t able to make that final moment right before Hikaru unloads on Bodolzaa as cathartic as I wanted it to be.
Tenjin: Did anything change in you while you were making the movie?
Kawamori: I went to the US for about three weeks between the end of the TV series and the start of the movie’s production. At the time, there were things I used to make fun of musical films for, even while making a show like MACROSS. I used to say, “Why do people randomly break into song?” But then, when I actually attended a musical in New York, I was shocked at how amazing the experience was (laughs). That’s when I thought, I really need to go hard on the power of song.
Tenjin: So, it was from around that time that you started thinking about musicals in such a way?
Kawamori: That’s right. Having said that, musicals often have the dialogue play out as songs, but I had decided against doing that in MACROSS. The effect that songs have in the story is circumstantial, so it’s a little like a musical in that sense, but I opted not to actually follow the performative structure of a musical.
Tenjin: How did you consider differentiating DYRL from the TV series?
Kawamori: This is going to sound harsh, but the TV series was more like an experiment. I thought that if I tried a bunch of different things while avoiding tried and tested formulaic clichés and failed, then I would know precisely what did and didn’t work. But with DYRL, I had to tone it down and rein in about 70% of that experimental spirit. That made the production process much easier—I thought that making a movie would be way too tough otherwise.
Tenjin: I’m surprised a first-time director could have such self-control.
Kawamori: If I didn’t, things would have been impossible.
Tenjin: So, you had a very defined, objective outlook even from the time of your first directorial work.
Kawamori: That’s why I say I believe my approach is that of a designer. That logic is easier to comprehend, right?
Tenjin: It’s crazy that you were doing all that as a first-time director at age 24.
Kawamori: Personally, my policy has always been to never repeat what has been done before, but if DYRL had not been done as a completely new production from the ground up, there was no way I could have been so adventurous. Thanks to it being an original production, I was able to change everything starting from the re-design of the characters — it’s incredible that they let me get away with it (laughs). Usually, such a production would take two years, but we did it all in effectively half a year.
Tenjin: Normally, you'd only be able to commit to such a schedule because you had all the work from the TV series to fall back on, but in the case of DYRL, everything was changed. It's like "how on earth did you find the time to do all this?"
Kawamori: Exactly. We could all act more quickly back in those days. It’s shocking just how short the credits in DYRL are! (laughs)
Tenjin: It’s incredible how much you managed to pack into MACROSS.
Kawamori: We did, didn’t we? Especially when you consider that it was only a little over three years between MACROSS being pitched as a project and the end of DYRL. Flash forward, and I don’t even recall how long it’s been since MACROSS DELTA wrapped! (laughs)
Tenjin: Don’t say that! (laughs)

Connecting Ideas

Tenjin: At the time, did you think MACROSS would continue this long?
Kawamori: Absolutely not. I used to think that everything was old after three years. When I was younger, I thought my creative output would dry up by the time I reached 35, and there wouldn’t be much point in carrying on. To my surprise, that wasn’t the case.
Tenjin: Is that what you thought? (laughs) Do you still get the sense that at some point, your ideas might dry up, or perhaps they’ll be harder to come up with?
Kawamori: If I keep doing the same genres, then yes, it becomes increasingly difficult. It gradually ends up like I’m working myself into a corner. However, I feel that whenever I travel somewhere totally new, I can come up with fresh ideas. That’s also why I felt I could continue to do MACROSS, since I thought if I constantly switch mediums, I can do a movie after a TV series, then an OVA, then a game, and so on.
Tenjin: People from your generation really have gotten on. But I think somehow, you’re different!
Kawamori: I don’t know what it could be. Curiosity, maybe?
Tenjin: That’s a major factor. In the end, curiosity staves off age. In other words, it opens your eyes. I think that’s very important.
Kawamori: It plays a big part in human beings’ survival instinct, after all.
Tenjin: In performance training, they teach you what the difference between a young person and an old person is. A young person is one who keeps their eyes open, that is, they’re constantly trying to see things. If there is something beautiful, then open your eyes. If you do that, it’s a very natural way of depicting youth.
Kawamori: I see.
Tenjin: It’s interesting, isn’t it? In that sense, Kawamori-san, your eyes are always wide open! (laughs)
Kawamori: I hope so. I think they’re starting to “open” again; I’m getting back on track. Now that we’re through COVID and are past the critical point—although maybe we haven’t quite gotten there yet—as more opportunities for travel arise, I can start to make many new connections, even unexpected ones. It’s very important to have the skills to connect the unexpected. Making connections and bonding is essentially assembling and forming a unit. That’s why attending overseas events, seeing new things, meeting people, it’s all very stimulating and interesting.
Tenjin: It’s incredible how the fans overseas have waited so patiently, too. Well, one can also say that that’s how much history MACROSS has created.
Kawamori: The first time I went to a convention in Los Angeles almost 40 years ago, I was so happy when I saw people of all types and ages, even fairly senior folk, coming together and shouting “Deculture!” And whenever I go to military bases, there’s even people that tell me, “I became a pilot because of MACROSS!”
Tenjin: That’s exactly why even at Wright-Patterson there were people that knew MACROSS. Thanks to that, we’re allowed access to so many different places!
Kawamori: Yes, that’s right! We were even able to spend three days out at sea on an aircraft carrier. (laughs)
Tenjin: MACROSS really is a monumental achievement. It draws people together.
Kawamori: I’m so thankful. It’s really a collaborative effort by many people, but through their kindness I really am enjoying myself. I’ve had so many more opportunities to visit places recently; I see things connecting in new, and even unexpected, ways.
Tenjin: I love that. I feel that these connections are somehow guided by fate, that they happen because they’re meant to. It’s just that they can really wear you out as well! (laughs)
Kawamori: Yes, my physical endurance isn’t what it used to be. It’s holding up, though.
Tenjin: Please continue creating. I ask this as a fan! (laughs)
Kawamori: Don’t forget that you need to keep illustrating as well. (laughs)
Tenjin: Thank you very much.

August 2023.
Conducted at The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force,
Ohio, United States of America.