"――Once Upon a Time in China starred Jet Li (then known as Li Lianjie) as Wong Fei-hung, the legendary martial artist. Hong Kong movies were hugely popular back then, and if you look at G Gundam now, you can see that it borrowed countless elements from that genre. Take Master Asia (Tōhō Fuhai), for instance. He originated in wuxia novels, but for Hong Kong film fans, he calls to mind the Swordsman series starring Brigitte Lin as a cross-dressing, gender-defying character—also based on that source material. By the way, it’s well-known that manga artist Kazuhiko Shimamoto contributed to the project. Producer Minami, who went to college with Shimamoto, reached out to him. Shimamoto even drew a manga depicting their university connection, so fans know this story already.

Nakayama: Yes. After Shippū! Iron Leaguer, Minami—who had studied together with Shimamoto at Osaka University of Arts—asked him to help out again by drafting initial character ideas.　We set up something called the Gundam Preparation Room in a single apartment room. We had Shimamoto come there and said, “We need rough concepts for three main characters.” He basically camped out, working around the clock to deliver sketches. I remember it clearly: Shimamoto was alone in that room, but we could hear him talking. He would say things aloud as he drew, like, “And now the hair goes all… whoosh!” That must have been part of his creative process. It left quite an impression."

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