Entertainment headlines have a new entry this week, and Interview: What We Know About Mobile Suit Gundam RG XARX-ZERO with Director Kenji Kamiyama is generating real conversation. Here is everything you need to know about the story that everyone is talking about.

The Story So Far

The man tackled Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, The Lord of the Rings, and now Gundam. filmmaker Kenji Kamiyama has built an impressive career—and now he's taking on one of anime's most legendary franchises with Mobile Suit Gundam RG XARX-ZERO. We sat down with Kamiyama to explore his creative vision for this fresh Gundam project, how the Gundam universe has affected him as a person and creator, and how his work across Ghost in the Shell, Ultraman, and leading name Wars: Visions has shaped his directorial style.

Jacki Jing (ANN): What can you tell us about this fresh project? What does a larger transmedia project mean? Kenji Kamiyama: It's a 50th anniversary project, obviously.

The goal was to launch the anime and video game together, so it's a large media project that can cross over within the same universe. So this was named RG Project, and it's an effort to really cross over and also present the wider world of Gundam to the Western market. And what we did was the anime part of it.

Do you know why they decided to connect the game and anime? Did you find this challenging? Kamiyama: The approach to making two different media is quite different, because with anime, when you try to come up with an original narrative, you have to build a background—why things are the way they are.

Basically, you need to create the universe first: Lots of rules of the universe, how it should be working, why it's working that way. That's building from the ground up. Games are a little different, because you have to have the gameplay first.

That's the focus, and then everything afterward. In a way, it's approaching things from two different directions. But the universe's setting had to be revealed between both media.

We needed to do that, and it was a bit of a challenge, but we think we pulled it off pretty well. You said at one point you had to take a step back—but then recalibrated and thought, “I had been given the chance to create my own Gundam from the ground up for a series I've loved for years. What could be more exciting than that?” Kamiyama: Obviously, Gundam is what inspired me to become an anime filmmaker.

I was really happy to receive the offer to do a fresh Gundam, but at the same time, there's enormous pressure about, okay, what do I do? And how do I take this on? Obviously, there are certain Gundam tropes—it's about war; the war has to be there, it's an essential theme, and the message is anti-war, and also it's about humans using technology to get out there in space, and how that helps people to grow mentally.

So those are the common themes and tropes of Gundam. But, okay, then if I'm trying to make something fresh, what do I do here? And typically, when you're trying to work on an established universe and trying to do something fresh with it, what it takes is that you need to break it all apart, and it's a process of breaking it apart, analyzing what made it that universe, and putting it back together in your own way.

It's a little differ…

What happens next is anyone's guess, but one thing is certain: this development has added a fresh chapter to an already fascinating entertainment saga. Stay tuned to TeraMovies for all the latest updates from the world of cinema.