A fan meeting commemorating the completion of Yasuo Ohtagaki's manga "Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt" was held on December 20th at LOFT9 Shibuya (Shibuya Ward, Tokyo), with appearances by Ohtagaki, anime director Hiroshi Matsuo, designer Yoshiyuki Seki, and writer Shinsuke Hiraiwa. The anime also drew attention for the music composed by saxophonist Naruyoshi Kikuchi. Director Matsuo spoke about the anime's music.
"When you hear jazz, that's my signal," and "Free jazz is the best for Thunderbolt." These are famous lines from Io Fleming, one of the main characters in "Thunderbolt." Io fights while listening to jazz. In the anime version, jazz was used in the soundtrack, but director Matsuo was troubled.
"Neither I nor Ogata (Naohiro Ogata of Bandai Namco Filmworks, producer of the anime version) understand jazz. We couldn't just do it in a jazz style. We searched for jazz, Japan, famous people... and Kikuchi Naruyoshi's name came up. Kikuchi had never heard of Gundam. We just decided to meet him at least once. I have nothing to talk about with jazz artists, and Kikuchi has nothing to talk about with a Gundam director. We agreed that we wouldn't understand, right? We talked as if we were explaining something to an elementary school student. He played us a lot of CDs, and we talked about which ones we liked and which ones weren't... for about three hours."
In fact, Otagaki himself was not very knowledgeable about jazz, saying, "I didn't actually know anything about it. I just thought it would be cool if Io liked jazz. I love Kikuchi's soundtracks. I listen to them when I'm drawing the storyboards or when I want to concentrate on my work."
The folk song Kushimotobushi, which was played during the Acguy platoon's infiltration scene, also attracted a lot of attention.
Director Matsuo revealed, "We didn't order the Kushimoto style. The first film had a lot of overseas fans, and apparently there were requests for Japanese as well as English. However, I didn't expect the Kushimoto style to be used. Ogata was trembling, wondering what to do. It was the first time I'd seen him look so anxious. I had an idea: it had to be the Acguy scene!" Otagaki said, "I watched it smoothly and it didn't feel strange. It suited the scene. Although I was surprised later that I'd used it in that scene..." The scene has become a classic, with the original author giving it his stamp of approval.
"Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt" is a manga by Otagaki, who is known for works such as "MOONLIGHT MILE." It depicts the battle between the Earth Federation Forces and the Principality of Zeon in the Thunderbolt Sector during the One Year War, as well as the battles between the Zeon remnants, the Federation, and the South Seas Alliance after the One Year War. It has been adapted into an anime and plastic model kit, gaining popularity. The series began serialization in "Big Comic Superior" (Shogakukan) in 2012, and the final episode aired in September of this year, bringing the curtain down on a 13-year run. The final 27th volume of the manga was released on December 19th. The series has sold over 6 million copies in total.
