Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino will become Person of Cultural Merit

Gundam’s Yoshiyuki Tomino Will Become a Person of Cultural Merit

The Japanese government will hold an annual honoring ceremony for Persons of Cultural Merit at The Okura Tokyo hotel on November 4, 2021. It will give honors to people who have made significant contributions to the country’s culture. One of the new recipients listed for the 2021 ceremony will be Yoshiyuki Tomino, the anime creator best known for Mobile Suit Gundam. [Thanks, Game Watch!]

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Born in 1941, Yoshiyuki Tomino has been instrumental in establishing the Japanese anime industry. Tomino started his career by writing the screenplay for Astro Boy, the first anime show to air in Japan in 1963. He also created Super Robot shows likeĀ Zambot 3 andĀ Daitarn 3.

However, Tomino’s name eventually rose to the highest prominence after creating Mobile Suit Gundam in 1979.Ā Gundam was the anime show that popularized the Real Robot genre, where combat robots appear as realistic military armaments instead of mighty superheroes.

While Tomino would create moreĀ Gundam titles, he also made many other mecha shows, such as Ideon,Ā Dunbine,Ā L-Gaim, Brain Powerd, and Overman King Gainer. The latest title that Tomino personally created to date wasĀ Gundam: Reconguista in G in 2014.

Yoshiyuki Tomino will receive the Person of Cultural Merit honor on the day right before his 80th birthday, on November 5, 2021. Prior recipients for the merit included Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki in 2012 and Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto in 2019.


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Kite Stenbuck
Japanese News Translator
Kite is a Japanese translator and avid gamer from Indonesia, Southeast Asia who learned the language mostly by playing Japanese games from the PS1 era. He primarily translates news about Japanese games and anime straight from Japan. After initially starting with a focus on Dynasty Warriors communities from the mid-2000s, he eventually joined Siliconera in 2020. Other than Dynasty Warriors, Kite is also a big fan of Ace Combat and other games featuring mechs, especially Gundam.