In this case, I think it came down to:Darkerangel wrote:Why is it that Bandai or Sunrise do this sort of things? They hire someone "I got this, here's my idea." And they every time are like no, here's that you will do. I'm sure they're not the only company that did/does this, but still. Even Tomino had issues getting the stuff he actually wanted out.
a) Bandai had just bought Sunrise, and with it one of the biggest mecha franchises out there at the time.
b) They'd just gotten their biggest roadblock to marketing the Hell out of said franchise (Tomino) out of the way after he finished V Gundam and no longer had ties to it.
c) They looked at Tomino's successor and, in their eyees, saw a largely still pretty green guy that they figured would be easier to work with
and finally
d) After Victory failed to make bank in the merch department, they looked at the problem and figured 'People buy toys of the Gundams themselves...so we'll make a show with a lot of Gundams!'
So the Gundam fight idea was born.
Thankfully, they'd underestimated Imagawa taking on his instructor's perfectionist streak. He took their challenge and still managed to reshape it into a good storyline.