The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk I

[T.V.]

Since this thread is locked and new information is in, here's more on the Gundam Unicorn movie.

A second Italian Blog (other than Gundamuniverse.it/blog/) claims the Unicorn Movie is indeed confirmed, backed up by a Youtube video showing the announcement made during a Sunrise press conference at "Cartoon on the Bay 2009".

The blog speaks of Takayuki Yoshii, Sunrise' CEO, confirming a 2010 release for a Gundam Unicorn movie, during this private press release.

Secondo quanto annunciato da Takayuki Yoshii, il presidente della Sunrise, il 2010 vedrà l’uscita di un terzo film d’animazione ispirato alla saga di Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, tratto dalla serie di romanzi di Harutoshi Fukui. Confermate inoltre tutte le iniziative legate al trentennale annunciate in precedenza, come il festival musicale e la costruzione del Gundam in scala reale.

According to the big announcement made by Takayuki Yoshii, the president of the Sunrise, 2010 will see the release of a third animated feature film inspired by the Gundam saga, Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, drawn from the novel series by Harutoshi Fukui. Moreover, the previously announced initiatives tied to the 30th anniversary of Gundam, like the music festival and the construction of the real scale Gundam, are confirmed.

http://www.gundamblog.net/2009/04/08/gu ... o-il-film/
Gundam UNICORN Movie confirmed - Sunrise press conference at Cartoons On The Bay (Youtube video of the Sunrise panel)
At around 5:40 the Gundam Unicorn Movie commemorating Gundam's 30th anniversary is mentioned.

Edit;
Another Italian blog confirming that a Unicorn Movie was indeed announced by Takayuki Yoshii, based on the same video source.
http://www.gundamitalianclub.net/

[ZeroBusterXX]

I hope it's real this time. I'm just gonna wait for that "big announcement" at the end of the month.

[thanatos]

I hope it's real this time. I'm just gonna wait for that "big announcement" at the end of the month.

I'm gonna second this. Until someone on this board who claims to know Italian will agree that it actually was mentioned, I'm going to assume that this is just a multi-lingual troll trying to get us all worked up.
If only this had been done at a French con then I could have translated their conversation myself.

[Dark Duel]

Thirded. I'm gonna wait until an official announcement comes out before I commit to this - I don't want to be disappointed again.
Now, this is starting to look semi-confirmed at this point. I am fluent in French and have some Spanish, though my knowledge of Italian is close to zero. But I listened to it several times and I heard the Italian guy what sounded to me like "Film di(Film of) Gundam Unicorn", BUT I'm not certain. And I have no idea what the Japanese bloke's answer was.

So I won't say for certain IT IS coming.
But it's starting to look that way.

EDIT: Just noticed I'm "Monster of the Week" now...

[T.V.]

Another italian blog corroberates the announcement made in the video posted earlier.
http://www.gundamitalianclub.net/side-c ... -nel-2010/
So unless both italian bloggers got it wrong and/or are purposefully trolling together, they aren't mistaken in their claim, I presume.

I'm actually interested to see if Mark Simmons (Toysdream), Mark64, or others fluent in Japanese boardmembers are willing (and able) to translate (thus further confirming or refuting the claim) what's actually said by the Japanese panel members.

I just noticed on a third viewing that the video is shot looking over the shoulder of Tomino.

[Dark Duel]

So that IS Tomino-dono. I thought it was, but I wasn't sure...

[Deacon Blues]

I've only looked at the video briefly, but the "Gundam Unicorn" portion is only mentioned in Italian. I'll watch it again when I get home and have time to dissect it.

[toysdream]

Another italian blog corroberates the announcement made in the video posted earlier.
http://www.gundamitalianclub.net/side-c ... -nel-2010/
So unless both italian bloggers got it wrong and/or are purposefully trolling together, they aren't mistaken in their claim, I presume.

I'm actually interested to see if Mark Simmons (Toysdream), Mark64, or others fluent in Japanese boardmembers are willing (and able) to translate (thus further confirming or refuting the claim) what's actually said by the Japanese panel members.

I've been putting it off in hopes that an official announcement would show up pretty quickly and save us the trouble of doing any detective work. But maybe I'm just in denial that the official Gundam canon will now include a character named Full Frontal. Is it too late for us to have Elbow Smash instead?

-- Mark

[Destiny_Gundam]

Are the novels even close to being done? If not, then even if this movie announcement is legit, we'd be getting an unfinished product anyways.

[wielder]

An actual translation would be nice but, despite earlier doubts, with this I'm actually glad to see the rumor seemingly confirmed and if true, hopefully the movie turns out alright.

[Mark064]

While I'm not fluent in Japanese, I know a bit. Online dictionaries help too. Anyways... I ran into the same thing as Deacon earlier, I heard no mention of Unicorn on the Japaneses side only on the Italian translator. So I remain skeptical.

[T.V.]

Italian native and Zeonic-Republic (Deacky's board) forummember Wingzeta also corroberates the announcement of the unicorn movie made by the italian speaker/translator in the youtube video.
http://www.zeonic-republic.net/forums/i ... 75#msg6875

On the SRW Hotnews comments page there are a few other native italians (under the pseudonyms of Zechs and Prana) agreeing to what has been said.

Scanning the italian websites/blogs furthermore, it looks like at least the Italian speaking gundam community is sticking to it, from what I'm able to gather based on my not-so-fluent italian.
Now it's up to Sunrise to make a (worldwide) announcement of their own to convince those who have garnered a healthy dose of skepticism over the years.


As far as I can tell this seems to be a case of letting the cat out of the bag a little to soon with 'private' not existing anymore in the age of cellphone cameras and Youtube, but that's just me.

I've been putting it off in hopes that an official announcement would show up pretty quickly and save us the trouble of doing any detective work. But maybe I'm just in denial that the official Gundam canon will now include a character named Full Frontal. Is it too late for us to have Elbow Smash instead?

-- Mark

I reckon some things still are too good to be true.

[Chris]

I don't buy it since so far it's only being said in Italian. I want to hear some Japanese confirmation on this issue. Also, if this really is true, why is it only being reported on Italian blogs and not on major anime news outlets?

[Prana]

Someone was calling me?!?!

I was not able to speak before since with the forum change I was refused connection (thanks Chris for solving the problem)

I can confirm that the things said by the translator in the video (at 5:34) is literally "Then another announcement I have to give you is the making of a movie about Gundam Unicorn, that was originally a novel, and can be considered part of the 30th Gundam Anniversary. It will be shown in theaters next year". Even if the Japanese translator was not very fluent with Italian language and had no clue about Gundam (in the afternoon when Tomino met the public, he made very funny wrong translations), I thing there is no doubt about what he said.

Then for some more clarifications: as already said (and it can be read in the video) the guy giving the announcement was not Tomino (he can be seen on the left while cleaning his nails!) but Takayuki Yoshii.

The video was taken by Max Ambition, that along with me and Zechs and many others is a member of the Gundam Italian Club. All our gang was there to meet Tomino and we held our annual "Side Con" Gundam convention. Unfortunately that video was taken at a press conference with limited access (which Max indeed had).

Let me say that all the Italian community was "shocked" but pleased to discover that Sunrise gave such an important announcement in Italy. Sunrise was a guest of the Cartoon on the Bay 2009 to receive an award as anime producer: but it was clear that the business reason was to get contact with Italian companies (RAI, the major Italian TV broadcasting company and organizer of the festival, announced they got the rights to air Code Geass).

[Red Comet90]

I don't buy it since so far it's only being said in Italian. I want to hear some Japanese confirmation on this issue. Also, if this really is true, why is it only being reported on Italian blogs and not on major anime news outlets?

You bring up a good point. We never hear the latest Gundam news from Italy, so why should it be announced elsewhere where Gundam isn't as big? I will keep my fingers crossed and hope that this is in fact true.

[Chris]

I can confirm that the things said by the translator in the video (at 5:34) is literally "Then another announcement I have to give you is the making of a movie about Gundam Unicorn, that was originally a novel, and can be considered part of the 30th Gundam Anniversary. It will be shown in theaters next year". Even if the Japanese translator was not very fluent with Italian language and had no clue about Gundam (in the afternoon when Tomino met the public, he made very funny wrong translations), I thing there is no doubt about what he said.

There's a distinct difference between corroborating what the translator said and what was said being accurate to begin with. That's why I'm going to remain skeptical about this until I hear some confirmation from other sources.

[Mark064]

SEven if the Japanese translator was not very fluent with Italian language and had no clue about Gundam (in the afternoon when Tomino met the public, he made very funny wrong translations), I thing there is no doubt about what he said.

I'm not following your train of thought on this one. From what you are saying even if the translator was wrong (with a strong hint of that might be the case), there should be no doubt? Why do you say that?

[Genocide]

Are the novels even close to being done? If not, then even if this movie announcement is legit, we'd be getting an unfinished product anyways.

I wouldn't be surprised if the material was altered much like CCA was. At worst, they could primarily cover the finale and coincide the release of the movie with the final volume of the novel. But anyway, considering the ambiguity of this news, I think it's still too early to make any calls. The big announcement in volume 8 of the novel releasing on the 25th should clear things up, hopefully.

I wonder what the odds are of the whole thing being a misinterpretation of the Gundam 00 movie...

[Prana]

I'm not following your train of thought on this one. From what you are saying even if the translator was wrong (with a strong hint of that might be the case), there should be no doubt? Why do you say that?

I'll clarify: in the other conference, the translator was not sure about how to translate some words (e.g. mobile suits) probably because he had no clue about their meaning. He gave unclear or vague translations about what Tomino was saying.

In this case he was clearly speaking about Unicorn (he mentioned that it is currently a novel) and a movie (he said it will be on show next year in cinemas). So, from the many words he used, I think he didn't misunderstand what Mr. Yoshii said.

Now I can fully understand the general disbelief, but trust me that what the translator said is without doubt that "Unicorn will be a movie in 2010", and in the way he said it it would be very strange that he misunderstood Mr. Yoshii.

Of course not much more can be said. It was not really a public announcement even if every else he said was well know: in the video he spoke about the three parts of the 30th Gundam Anniversary plan - 18m statue, festival, music concerts, symposium - then about the Hollywood movie Cowboy Bepop with Keanu Reeves and finally about Unicorn.

[ZeroBusterXX]

I really want this movie to be real, but I'm still gonna have to take a wait and see approach. After yesterday (Zac Effron in a FMP movie? The writer of the new Street Fighter movie writing a Shadow of the Colossus movie?) I really want some good news.