Legendary Gundam Creator Dismisses Mars Colonization as a “Simpleton’s” Fantasy

Yoshiyuki Tomino, the man who created the famous Gundam anime, doesn’t believe humans will ever be able to live in space. This might surprise many fans, as his most popular work shows people living in huge space colonies. But after years of thinking about it, Tomino now says the whole idea is impossible.

Tomino shared his thoughts at Spacetide 2025, a space conference held in Tokyo. He spoke during a panel with Yoshifumi Inatani, a professor from JAXA, Japan’s space agency. According to The Sankei Shimbun, Tomino made it clear that he doesn’t think humans will ever leave Earth to live somewhere else.

“Humans will never be able to live in space,” Tomino said. He was especially critical of people who talk about moving to Mars. He said most people don’t understand how dangerous and harsh space really is.

In his words, “All the simpletons saying ‘Let’s immigrate to Mars’ have no idea how cruel outer space actually is… What are you gonna do about fuel when the time comes to return [to Earth]?”

He didn’t stop there. He said that people who talk about sending humans to Mars don’t think carefully enough about what that would actually involve. “All of the people who say, ‘Let’s send humans to Mars’ without considering the fact that there are no supply bases there are a bunch of amateurs.”

Even though Gundam stories often show people living in giant space stations, Tomino explained that he never fully believed that could really happen. For over 20 years, he tried to figure out how people could actually live in space, but in the end, he couldn’t find an answer.

“I never had a chance to openly say this when I was working on Gundam,” Tomino admitted. “But even after 20 years of thinking about it, I couldn’t find a way for people to actually live in space.”

Instead of dreaming about Mars or other planets, Tomino suggested that Japan should focus on short-term space projects.

He thinks the country should put its energy into space travel near Earth, like going into low Earth orbit. He said it would be better to send leaders, scientists, and young people into nearby space, instead of wasting time and money thinking about far-away planets.

So, even though Tomino built a whole universe around space colonies in Gundam, in real life he believes space colonization is just a fantasy. And not just any fantasy, one for people who, in his words, don’t really understand what they’re talking about.

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