Exclusive: Studio Sunrise

— by Egan Loo

Quick—what do you think of when you think Sunrise?
If you belong to the super robot generation, you may have fond childhood memories of ZAMBOT 3 or DAITARN 3. If you were spoon-fed anime in the Eighties, your mind may have conjured up images of GUNDAM sequels, VOTOMS, or L-GAIM. If you are a relative newcomer to Sunrise works, you may have thought of ESCAFLOWNE or GUNDAM WING instead. (If you thought of rose-colored twilight at dawn, you better keep reading.)

The Studio Gundam Built

Most people's images of the animation powerhouse Sunrise have one element in common: robots. Sunrise marked its 25th anniversary last month, and in that past quarter-century, it has made its trademark known. Super robots. "Real robots." Fighting robots, sports robots, space robots, medieval robots, animated robots, live-action robots, transforming robots, combining robots, skyscraper-tall robots, super-deformed robots, robot piloted by humans, robots piloted by AI, robots piloted by a horse—if you can imagine a robot, Sunrise has probably (over)done it.



From Zambot 3 to the various Gundam series to Escaflowne, Sunrise has done them all.

What many people forget is the rich tapestry of non-robot works Sunrise has also animated. Saeba Ryo fans, Sunrise brought CITY HUNTER to life. CRUSHER JOE and DIRTY PAIR leapt from the pages of Takachiho Haruka to a worldwide audience thanks to the animators at Sunrise. Before BABY AND I, MAMA'S A FOURTH GRADER charmed audiences with a schoolgirl's attempt to raise a baby. GUNDAM's Yasuhiko Yoshikazu tried to break out of the robot and SF typecasting with NEO HEROIC FANTASIA ARION, a tale with Greek mythological roots. Sunrise took the controversial manga of a maverick Japanese nuclear missile submarine (THE SILENT SERVICE) and brought it to television and video. Sunrise has even taken on sports manga adaptation (GAMBARIST! SHUN) and cooking (MISTER AJIKKO).

Sunrise also has a slew of non-robot shows under its belt. Some examples (clockwise from top left): The Dirty Pair, The Silent Service, and Gambarist! Shun.

To be sure, most of Sunrise's works, especially television series, are still robot-related. In fact, Sunrise has not animated an SF television series without robots or armored suits in over five years. And yet, things do not remain constant. The recent four-year-long string of GUNDAM television series ended last year. This year, the studio that GUNDAM built is once again readying the kind of animation that is still relatively uncommon on Japanese television: science fiction that happens not to feature robots.
Currently, Sunrise is working on two such television series, COWBOY BEBOP and OUTLAW STAR. The first one out of the blocks is COWBOY BEBOP, a space SF story whose premise intrigues despite its rather "inspired" name.

COWBOY BEBOP: Lupin the 3rd in Space?

Early trade mag articles have described COWBOY BEBOP as "LUPIN THE 3RD in Space," although that is about as accurate as the (in)famous description of STAR TREK as "Wagon Train to the Stars." Set in the 21st century, the story revolves around the various colonized planets in the solar system where people have migrated after a disastrous spatial phase-shift experiment contaminated Earth. The same experiment and the resulting phase-shift gates ushered a new Space Age, albeit one rife with crime on civilization's fringes.
Amidst this new space order, twenty-seven-year-old Spike Spiegel pilots the good ship Bebop as a freelancing mercenary. Living in the 21st century hasn't prevented him from appreciating the arts of old, including jazz music and Bruce Lee flicks. Accompanying him is Jet Black, a hardened former police officer. He's hardened in more ways than one—his body is part cyborg. Their prodigious 13-year old hacker partner never knew her parents, and so she named herself Ed. Fay Valentine employs her natural talents and assets to the fine art of swindling. Rounding out the cast is Ain, the canine mascot of the crew.

When assignments take them on excursions off Bebop, Spike, Jet, and Fay pilot personal spaceships tailored to each of them. These nimble units incorporate spherical transparent MONO pods that can afford almost unobstructed 360-degree cockpit views. The jump gates, the spaceships, and the cast themselves recall Golden Age SF pulp novels, Sunrise's earlier work CRUSHER JOE, and the "Magentic Rose" portion of MEMORIES in its gritty yet stylish SF ambience.
For this project, Sunrise has gathered a talented cadre of in-house veterans and freelance creators. Watanabe Shinichiroh is one of the directors responsible for the stunning mecha choreography in GUNDAM 0083 and MACROSS PLUS, and he brings his expertise to BEBOP. Overseeing the story is MACROSS PLUS scriptwriter Nobumoto Keiko, the first female script supervisor for a Sunrise TV series in recent memory. Kanno Youko, fresh from her eclectic soundtrack for MACROSS PLUS and the "world music" ambiance for ESCAFLOWNE, brings a jazz-infused soundtrack to COWBOY BEBOP (hence, the title).
GUNDAM 0083's Kawamoto Toshihiro is responsible for the highly stylized designs on the character side. COWBOY BEBOP mecha designer Yamane Kimitoshi may be mostly known for his medieval robots in ESCAFLOWNE, but he mastered his art in such non-robot works as THE SILENT SERVICE, the GATCHAMAN OVA series, and several ARTMIC titles. Naturally, many of the writers and animators at Sunrise No. 2 Studio switched gears upon ESCAFLOWNE's end to COWBOY BEBOP.