GUNDAM has come, too!! (Part 2) of Yukito's room

GUNDAM had a good taste of music, too.
I took what little money I had and bought the sound track of GUNDAM. Of course in that time, they were analog records.

It's disappointing that the letters "for kids" are printed on the label.

Some still pictures for the episode 1 were in its jacket, and Zaku appeared just a little on them.
I relied that little information to create some cell-like drawings, for which I used transparent plastic board 0.2 millimeters thick.

In those days, there were no animation shops, so I couldn't get real cell. Besides, it was far before the specification materials of Mobile Suits or mooks appeared on the market, so there was almost nothing that can be called materials.
Later I got the spec materials of Zaku and compared the Zaku of the false animation cells I drew in those days, I found them fairly inaccurate as there were about ten more spikes on the shoulders, for example.


August 1980. It was the time a little more than six months passed since televising of GUNDAM ended.
I dropped in a model store in the Kinshicho station building in Tokyo, discovered BANDAI's 1/144 GUNDAM and Zaku, and model magazine Hobby Japan and purchased them. This photo shows the September, 1980 issue of Hobby Japan.

A soldier from the German army and another from the Allied Forces are grappling with a bang against each other. Its cover drawing was too much deep.
I loved AV plastic model since an elementary school student, burning for it at a different dimension from GUNDAM.
(Notes: In this community, AV means Armor and Vehicle. It's never the abbreviation for audio visual or adult videos. )

This issue has a composition of 80 percent for military, 18 percent for vehicles and remaining 2 percent for SF things, such finished samples of imported plastic model of Star Trek. An article tells about remodeling 1/144 GUNDAM into GM, which could be called the root of subsequent Gunpla boom, yet it appears as if it felt really ashamed.

The encounter with Hobby Japan changed my junior high school life. I was absorbed in import SF plastic models and poured most of my pocket money. However, in this section, I stay focused on GUNDAM.


It was the end of 1980.
When I was browsing in a model store, I discovered that 1/144 Z'GOK had released.
I felt a strong desire for it because Z'GOK was my second favorite Mobile Suit next to Zaku, but my purse was kind of light. Well, I could afford to buy a Z'GOK model, but felt if I got this, it would be a little bit tough after that
(If I remember correctly, the price of Z'GOK was 300 yen). I thought "Ok, odd fellows buying Gunpla are few, so it's fine for me after my purse gets heavy in the next year," and didn't buy it at that time.
I hugely repented in the next year.

1981.
The Gunpla boom arose suddenly.
Now I can't recall clearly whether there were some triggers such as the release of the first compilation movie Mobile Suit GUNDAM or not.
I had been convinced that GUNDAM was minor, so it was just a thunderbolt from a clear sky.
The Gunpla boxes, so abundant before, disappeared totally from the shelves of model stores. Of course I couldn't get a Z'GOK, which I refrained from buying in the previous year, either.
In the neighboring city Matsudo, kids thronged to the Gunpla and toppled over like a row of dominoes, which was reported by newspaper articles.
I heard a favorite model store would sell them with lottery and visited, but I found the shoppers in the line were all kids with around my waist height tall.
Because I believed firmly that GUNDAM was the animation of whole new era with the story that were not for children, I felt much annoyed about thus phenomenon.


I am a perfectionist.
If I determined one thing, I am not satisfactory until I pursue thoroughly.
Besides, I'm also dexterous, inherited from my parents, so I (believe) can make any image that I visualized in my head real, if I spend enough time and effort.
The problem is the part "if I spend enough time and effort." I am such a perfectionist that I can never complete forever, which is reality I face.

I had subscribed to Hobby Japan before the Gunpla boom and mastered all the newest modes of making plastic models. I mastered various techniques, from erasing parting lines (joint of parts) with putty, weathering (dirtying) by using lacquer and enamel properly, to adding illumination with optical fiber.

However, I was absorbed too much and completed only a couple of works (and those were not Gunpla). I was confident they would be awesome when finished, but completion was far away in the future. And I continued buying new plastic models from one to another, and unfinished ones were left forever.
Excusing to myself, "Someday I will complete awesome stuff," I just let the suspended models increase.
The three years of my junior high school were just like that.

One day, I went to my favorite model store and found a lot of entered works for a Gunpla contest were exhibited in the show window.
Probably, most applicants were schoolchildren. Adhesives were protruded everywhere, with no idea of erasing parting lines, and painting was horrible, just like throwing out the paint rather than weathering.
Because all of the works were such condition, I abused and ridiculed them.

However, at the next moment I noticed my present situation.
"To be sure, I might be able to make an awesome thing, if I finish it. However, in reality, I haven't any Gunpla completed properly!!" "Compared with it, these kids, inexperienced though, have finish them anyway!!" And they compelled a passerby like me to look at and to say comment!! Compared with me unable to show any finished work to anyone, their influence over reality are far beyond!!"

I was overwhelmed with a frightful feeling of defeat.
Obscure schoolchild Gunpla modelers blew me away.

"The fellow who did is absolutely greater than the fellow who didn't."

That's the bitter teaching I learned through Gunpla when was the third year student of the junior high school.