Animage Original magazine volume 3 had an interview with Mizushima Seiji and Kuroda Yosuke. They told their reflections on the directions of “Mobile Suit Gundam 00″.
Kuroda: So we want the producer of the next Gundam series to bring Gundam back to the hands of children. I’m confident that we got Gundam back to the male fans by Gundam 00, but unsure about the kid fans.
Source: Scan of Animage Original
According to other news sources, Bandai recognized that the female fans were the main target of Gundam 00 and the reports of the Gundam 00 events indicated that 70% of the fans were women.
This tendency was originated from Mobile Suit Gundam Seed series, which grabbed teenage girls.
Sources:
Gpara
Famitsu
Yomiuri
Bandai
Other interesting remarks:
Mizushima: That’s why we presented “GN Drive” to account for the reason.
Kuroda: I followed the way of the series organization of the first Gundam and intentionally restricted the background information of the Meisters. … But I realized that the interest of the audiences had shifted from the drama to the characters.
Mizushima: I regretted that we should have implied the detailed backgrounds of the characters from the beginning of the series.
