Mobile Suit Gundam High-Streamer

About Mobile Suit Gundam High-Streamer

High-Streamer began as Tomino's vision for an semi-independent series of novels, inspired by the Gundam branding and storylines, but essentially as his own more personal series of long running storyline he'd have more direct creative control over with less sponsorship interference, an attempt to "distance himself from Gundam". The original outline for this planned novel saga was a grand connected 3 part story structure, one part which was planned to eventually turn Hathaway Noa into the protagonist and contain a tragic end theme. This was happening concurrently with the development of the Char's Counterattack film, which High-Streamer itself was adjusted to tie into by incorporating a later outline the movie's events into its structure halfway through the serialization.

However, during the planning of Char's Counterattack, Bandai rejected Tomino's plans to incorporate Beltorchika Irma and turn Amuro Ray into a family man. The sponsors didn't like the idea, so Tomino discarded them from them film, but kept those ideas in a separate older outline while he rewrote the film itself. He then later would write a new novel based on his rejected movie as a quick one volume alternate adaptation of the film for Kadokawa publishing, and also write a sequel to that novel based on discarded ideas from his earlier High-Streamer outlines. Because High-Streamer was being published concurrently with the film's development, the fandom believed it was being released as the "prequel" to the film, so Tomino capitulated and simultaneously added elements from the final Char's Counterattack movie outline into High-Streamer's second half, making this adaptation one that was closer to the final version of the movie, but still distinct from both the film and Beltorchika's Children.

Ultimately, High-Streamer was overshadowed by the success of the film itself, and Tomino did not appear to be entirely satisfied with the reception of the novelization nor its final sales numbers, so Beltorchika's Children became the better selling, more successful adaptation of the film's events, and Hathaway's Flash was written as a direct sequel to it, while the events of High-Streamer were left as a separa