December 18th, 2020 
deackychu Diving down the rabbit hole of Gundam lore is a never-ending task. Nonetheless, when information is staring you in the face as you’re translating from it, it’s slightly embarrassing to admit how you missed something. As our lengthy discussions surrounding all things related to Gundam ZZ continued over on Twitter, toysdream (aka Mark Simmons) pointed out the “missing” source of the hot button issue of Elpeo Ple’s name. So, I donned my translation hat and decided to go all-in for the random sidebar blurbs dotting the Mecha Encyclopedia section of the book. Sit down and buckle up! This post has some info the Japanese side missed! The following is translated from the pages of Animedia’s Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ Part.2 book that was published back in 1987. This is the very same book I’m translating the original ZZ draft from.
WERE ALL THE ANIMATORS GIVEN THE AX?! THE HORRORS BEHIND REJECTED MECHA
In the bizarre colony of Tigerbaum in Episode 40 and 41, many replicas of underwater suits from previous works and rejected mecha popped up, much to our delight. However, there’s a tear-jerking tale behind this! To start, Episode 40 and 41 came about because the series air time was extended, so they were made for fun and completely unrelated to the main story. So, sparing no imagination, the staff decided to bring out the Zogok and Acguy mobile suits, which were rejected for previous Gundam works. Yet, while they have their own plastic models, they did not have any setting materials. The animation staff was given plastic models and the plastic models’ blueprints for them to draw from.
THE GEYMALK IS A MASSIVE MOBILE SUIT!
Piloted by Chara Soon, the mobile suit Geymalk resembles a moving mega cannon. In the setting notes for this mobile suit, it has a head height of 22 meters, but in the drawings, it was supposed to appear as a mammoth mobile suit in the Mantha-class. So then why did it become smaller? Initially, the Geymalk was planned to be released as a plastic model, and in order to go on sale at the 1/144 scale, it had to be around 20 meters in size. However, the manufacturer removed it from the release list in order to release variations of the old mecha (such as the Dwadge) that appeared in the Earth arc. Poor mobile suit.
THE ADORABLE FAIRY, ELPEO PLE
Elpeo Ple is super popular and her name also has a backstory to it. Director Tomino is the one who came up with her name. The director was reading a book that talked about a family of adorable fairies, so he used their name. In other words, the people of El. However, there was an issue with the name. When he suggested the name to the scriptwriter, Mr. Endo, he rejected it, saying, “But we already have Elle and Roux.” Despite that, he managed to get it through as he took a particular liking to the name Elpeo Ple.
THE DOVEN WOLF IS A GUNDAM?!
In the early stages, the Doven Wolf had the head of a Gundam, not the Zaku-style head we see today. So why did they decide to redesign the head? The Doven Wolf was initially designed as a psycommu mobile suit, a development of the Psycho Gundam, that even ordinary soldiers could operate. Because of this, it had a Gundam-type head and was called the G-5 (the 5th Gundam), but General Director Tomino said, “Let’s not have another Gundam on the enemy side,” so the head design was hastily redrawn with a new one. So, Kobayashi and Akitaka, the mecha designers, have a design for the fifth Gundam.
GLEMY AND PLE ARE SIBLINGS!
The relationship between Elpeo Ple and Ple Two was not made clear on-screen, but fans are still curious about it. So, we will tell you about the secrets of the origins of Elpeo Ple, Ple Two, and Glemy for good measure. It may have been unclear on screen, but the setting notes had already been fleshed out. First, let’s talk about Glemy. He was born inside a test-tube, by artificially fertilizing the egg of a woman with Newtype qualities with Gihren Zabi’s (who appeared in previous works) sperm. Both Ples were also artificially created in the same manner, from Gihren Zabi and a Newtype woman, so they are Glemy’s sisters in a sense. However, the egg used to make them were from a different woman than Glemy’s, and they are artificially created identical twins with the exact same genetics (DNA). This is why Elpeo Ple and Ple Two look identical. Ple Two’s personality was changed via imprinting after she was born.
To add to that, the Newtype Corps, which Glemy was saving until the final battle, are also test-tube babies like Glemy and Ple. Glemy felt that the Cyber-Newtype’s used by Haman were too unstable and had limited Newtype abilities (evident from the fact that Ple Two was able to control the Psycho Gundam MK-II which Rosamia, a Cyber-Newtype, could not), so he created an army of test-tube babies instead of using Cyber-Newtype. What a ruthless person, though, to use his brethren as soldiers.
PUBLICATION INFORMATION
Publisher: Animedia
Released: 1987.03.01
Price: 580
Size: —
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