SciFi Japan

    Koichi Kawakita Attends GUNHED Event in Akihabara

    Signing for New Book about 1989 Toho/Sunrise Movie Author: Daisuke Ishizuka Official Site: hobby.dengeki.com/books (Japan)

    GUNHED (?????, Ganheddo) is a sci-fi movie which was released in 1989. The film was a co-production between Toho and SUNRISE, Inc., the famous animation company which has produced many popular robot anime TV series and movies (GUNDAM series, etc.). SUNRISE planned to create a robot movie by live action tokusatsu (traditional SFX) instead of animation, and this project was GUNHED. At that time of GUNHED`s theatrical release, there were no official book or magazine publications about the movie. But now, the book Gunhed Perfection (????? ????????) has been published by ASCII MEDIA WORKS. A new GUNHED plastic model is also now in stores. As a promotional event for these new products, GUNHED materials were displayed at the Akihabara Kotobukiya shop in Tokyo. Original movie props, theatrical posters, lobby cards, image boards, mechanical designs, art designs, behind the scenes photos of the special effects scenes, goods and many other items were displayed. On February 2nd, GUNHED tokusatsu director Mr. Koichi Kawakita was invited to do an autograph and talk session at Kotobukiya. Many tokusatsu and GUNHED fans gathered in Akihabara to get Mr. Kawakita`s autograph on Gunhed Perfection and listen to him share his memories about the film. "There were only a few computer graphic technologies available at that time," Mr. Kawakita explained. "Therefore, we filmed the robot action shots by tokusatsu. As a first step, we needed to decide on the character and design of Gunhed. When SUNRISE, Inc. joined the GUNHED project, we considered a robot which has two legs like some kind of GUNDAM. But a two-legged type of robot would not move quickly [in live action] so the designer considered a wheeled-type robot." Some of Toho`s classic sci-fi films like GORATH (?????, Yosei Gorasu, 1962) and ATRAGON (????, Kaitei Gunkan, 1963) would include a few scenes with a giant monster. Mr. Kawakita revealed that a similar plan was considered for GUNHED: "We had the idea to have a monster appear in this movie, but this concept was not realized." "Gunhed battled indoors only; that meant that the tokusatsu staff had to film in a narrow space. I remember that it was very hard, but I think that we filmed some cool robot action shots. I still like the tokusatsu shots of GUNHED." Viva GUNHED!

    Gunhed Perfection

    Publisher: Ascii/Media Works Series: Dengeki Hobby Books Release Date: January 31, 2013 ISBN: 978-4-04-891312-6 Format: A4 Wide Page Count: 128 SRP: ¥3,500 (approximately $37.17 US) This Perfect Book edition collects production information, photographs and additional related items from GUNHED, the 1989 live-action SFX robot movie collaboration between Sunrise and Toho. Fully supervised by GUNHED FX director Koichi Kawakita, Gunhed Perfection features a detailed look at the making of this film with pre-production materials such as mechanical design and photographs, development of the screenplay, storyboards, to photographs taken during production. Cast and crew interviews include a discussion with director Masato Harada.


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