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Sample translations submitted: 3
Japanese to English: Translation Hosoi Nakamura
Source text - Japanese
Q. まずはとても失礼な質問ですけど、細居さんと仲村さんはお夫婦ですか。
H. 違います(笑)
N. 面倒です(笑)
Q. よく一緒に働きますからそう思いました。でもとりあえずお二人の出会いを教えてください。
H. お仕事の『賭博黙示録カイジ』という仕事で初めて中村さんとご一緒しまして...
N. 2007年ですね。
H. そうですね。そのカイジが漫画原作があるんですけれども、とても好きで、その中でもすごい重要なエピソードをマッドハウスというスタジオで初めて私が作画監督として任せていただける仕事になりました。でもすごく頑張らなければと思って、向かったところ、あのコンテ演出をされたのは中村さん。非常に素晴らしいコンテをいただいて、というのが最初の出会いっていう感じですかね。
N. はい、カイジの中の鉄骨渡り/アイアンボーン、まあ要するに鉄骨の橋を主人公たちが渡ってエピソードがあるんですけれども、あそこが作品の中でもとても盛り上がる。バスだったということで、13話を僕が演習して、次のは荒木哲郎くんでした。『進撃の巨人』とかの監督ですけれども、ちょうど友人でもあって。二人で担当してたんですが。僕は演出までコンテを描くだけじゃなくて演出までやる予定だったので、誰が作画監督になるかっていうのを気にしてたんですね。実は最初は別の方の名前を聞いてたんです自分の数で、作画監督として、ですけど直前になって変更になったって聞きまして。それでいらっしゃったのが細居さんで多分細居さんもその以前の仕事の評価が高くて、やっぱり細居さんに作画監督にお願いしようっていうふうに監督やプロデューサーの間で相談したんだと思います。
Q. やっぱり2人の仕事のコンビはぴったりですね。
N. そのときが初めてだったんですけど、パワフルさにね、ことになってされて
Q. 2人での働き方を説明してくださいませんか。
H. 普通に平田くんと中村さんがコンテと演出で、私が作画ということがそうですよね。
N. あと各話だったり、オープニングエンディングだとそうですけどテレビシリーズだったり劇場だったりした場合はキャラクターデザインがあと、僕が脚本も担当することが結構多いですね。
Q. 中村さんの演習の魅力はなんでしょうか。
H. 例えばそのカイジわかりやすくカイジで言うならば、まずその皆さんご存知かあれなんですけれども、その漫画原作のとてもクセがあるんですね。とてもクセのある漫画で非常に面白いんですけれども、なんていうか、そのまま映像に置き換えることができない。映像にするには、映像にするための婚約が必要なんですね。そのときに、人によってはちょっとその人の感性で、いーやくする。つまり内容とはちょっと違う感じでになったりとか、そういうことも多いんですが、中村さんは原作の印象のままちゃんと映像に婚約してても、原作もその例えば漫画のコマは一切使ってないんです。全然違うんですけれども、印象が原作のままなんですね。もうそれで本当に感動しまして。原作よりも原作的な映像にするときにいますか。それの技術に本当に感動しました。はい。
Q. 細居さんのデザインや作監の仕事の魅力はなんでしょうか。
N. 何と言ってもパワフルさね。仕事のちょっとディテールの話になりますけど、原画マンに打ち合わせして、その原画マンからレイアウトが上がってくるんで、僕は演出としてチェックして、僕は細居さんの仕事を見るタイミングっていうのは、その僕が演出チェックしたものをさらに細居さんが作画監督としてチェックして、原画マンの元に戻る。原画マンが原画を描いて、そして僕のところに原画チェックとして来るときに初めて細居さんの絵を僕が見るんですよ。細居さんの仕事をしてから、僕が見るまでに結構タイムラグがあるんですね。原画マンから原画が上がりだしてきたときに細居さんがどういうふうに作画監督としてお仕事をされたのかっていうのを見て、そのパワフルさに衝撃を受けてこんなに直してくれるなら僕がそんなに絵を入れなくてもよかったなとか思いましたけど。とにかくどのカットもその手厚く直していただいてて、はい。あとはテレビシリーズだとどうしても予算上の作画枚数の目安というのがあるんですけれども、作画枚数の上で僕が諦めてたような動き、例えば涙がウルウルするとか、雷が風になびくとか、ていうのもですね、動かすべきだっていうふうにお考えになったと思うんですが、ばっちり全部動きが入っていて、おかげですごく動きの多いバスになりました。
H. そうですね、もう1個でいいですか。私は作画なので、絵コンテを受け取ってそれを絵にするだけですけれども、その絵コンテを受け取ったときに他の人の絵コンテによっては、例えばこのキャラクターこの表情かなっていうに納得いかないときが結構あるんですね。なんですけれども、中村さんはそれをずっと受けられることがほとんどで、なんだろう、このキャラの感情だろうというふうに絵で返すわけですけれども、それが間違っていないという自信を持って出すことができる。中村さんの絵コンテっていうのは私にとってそのような感じです。
Q. 結構長い友達ですね。友達と働くことは多分大変なポイントもあるんじゃないですか。
H. すごい喧嘩しますよね(笑)。
N. やっぱり疎遠の方があんまり強く自分の意見を言えないので喧嘩もしづらいと思うんですが、その自分が思ったことを親しい方が主張しやすいので、その部分意見がぶつかります。
H. なんですけど、結構そのアニメ業界でよく感じることがコミュニケーション不足、コミュニケーションがなりたかない。とても何かじれったことがある。
仲村さんは恐れがなく、もう何でもいいこともそうですけど嫌なこともいっぱいいる、言いづらいこと。それがどうすごくなんだろう意見を何かこう戦わせることができる。はい。関係が私にとってはすごくありがたいです。
Q. いい作品を作るためには喧嘩が必要じゃないかな。
H. そう、その通りです。
N. 美術監督の金子さんという方とは、細居さんよりもっと長い関係がある。もう実は3年前に亡くなったんですけれども、でも年齢が僕の父と同じぐらいの方でそうすると、喧嘩にはならないですよね。金子さんの方が遥かに僕よりも多くの経験があって、僕がうまくできていない部分も含めてもう事前に汲み取ってくれて、僕のことを支えてくれるというか。でも細居さんの場合は年齢も近いので、何て言ったらいいんでしょう。フラットな立ち位置でお互いが、はい。どちらが上とかどちらが下ということもなくぶつかるんで、はい。意見のぶつかり合いをして、作品をより良くしていくという。
Q. 簡単な質問ですけどいつ描き始めましたか。
H. もう私は本当に物心ついたときからという感じですね。もう漫画があったので、それを見てこう真似をして、もうほとんど紙と鉛筆ずっと描いてたような。そうですね、もう全然3歳とか4歳とか描いてたんじゃないですかね。
N. 僕は働くようになったです。子供の頃はあんまりアニメーション見ていなくて、アニメーションの仕事をしてみようと思ったのは大学の時に児童文学のサークルに所属していてそこの友人達がアニメーションをすごく好きだったことの影響で、なんでアニメーションを生涯の仕事にしていく自信があってこの業界に来たわけでは全くなくて、ちょっと二、三年覗いてみようっていうぐらいのニュアンスだったんですって、その間に自分に向いてるのはライターなのかあるいは全然違う仕事なのかを見つけていこうと思っていたら、アニメーションの演出っていう仕事が面白くて、ずっとやることになりました。なんで仕事始めたときから描いてたんで、最初誰よりも絵が下手くそで、はい。
Q. 今はどうですか。
H. いやなんていうのかな、いわゆるその技術なんかこの人間の骨格だとか、立体だとかそういうことではなく伝われをかけるんですね。そういう点では、とてもうまいですし、全然私も及ばないところもある絵を描きになると思います。
Q. 中村さんの家族は厳しかったんじゃないですか。アニメ業界に入るなんて。
N. そうですそうです。
Q. 東大卒業ですよね。
N. (笑)よくご存知ですよね。多分僕の知る限りでは高畑勲さんだけかなと思いますけれども。
Q. そうですね。家族が起こしたんじゃないんですか、業界に入ったときは。今は大丈夫ですか。
N. 今は大丈夫です(笑)。父親もFMラジオのディレクターだったので、他の仕事をしているよりかは理解はあったと思います。
Q. そうですね。ショービジネスですね。
N. はいそういう意味では一緒です。
Q. 細居さんは美術大学を卒業した。どうしてアニメの業界に入ったか。
H. 本当恥ずかしい話なんですけれども、手塚治虫の漫画が好きですね。就職どうしようかなと思って、デザインの勉強していたんですけれどもどうしようかなというふうに。で、手塚プロダクションから募集が来てたんですよ。アニメのことを、実はアニメが好きなんですけれどももうアニメの技術は全然なくて、そのときに手塚プロダクションから募集してたのを見て、手塚プロジェクションは手塚治虫の会社だというので応募したんですよ(笑)。制作と作画があって、私は絵が好きだから。作画に応じて実技は当然全く駄目なわけです面接があったんですね。そのときに手塚治虫が好きだっていうことを話して美術館に来てた方もずっと笑ってるような所で「ああこれ落ちたかな」と思ったんですけど、なぜか受かりまして(笑)。
H. 本当ね、役に立ったかどうかでいうと、全く違う。やっぱ実践...それは私がやっぱり初めて今までの経験の実感ですけれども、実践で学ぶのがやっぱり一番学ぶことは多いような気はしますね。実際私はそうだったわけです。手塚プロダクションの先輩たちに教えていただいたんですけれども、先輩たちには大変なご迷惑をおかけしましたがそれで良かったというの(笑)。それでよかったなと思います。
Q. 例えば役に立ったことは何を勉強しました。美術の歴史とか。
H. これもまたいい加減なあれだったんですけど、デザインの勉強を中心に...そうですね、デザインがすごく。とはいえ全然自分が楽しかったことがあるかな...まあ写真も勉強したり、はい。幅広く何か...でもね不真面目な学生でしたね(笑)。やっぱり一番好きなのは漫画でした。
Q. 手塚プロで出崎監督も居たんですね。どんな人でしたか。
H. あのですね、出崎監督というのは、どちらかというとお仕事でというよりも、遊んでくれていたって感じでした(笑)。もうね、何でしょう、今でもあんなに素敵な大人は出崎監督一緒に素敵な大人には会ったことがないと思えるぐらい、とても素敵な方で、はい。何でしょうね大人げなくもあるんですがとても大人な部分もあり。それこそ年齢の差も、ちょっと私の父親と同い年だったんですけれども、全くそういう差も感じさせず。当然私がお会いしたときから大監督だったんですけど、そういった肩肘張った感じも全くなく、とても自然な感じで。だから、そういう壁も感じないで、もう友達のようにお付き合いさせていただいてましたね。
N. 羨ましい！
H. いや本当そっちの方がはい、多かったです。
Q. 例えば気に入った面白い思い出はありますか。
H. 本当にいろいろ。『白鯨伝説』という作品がありまして、これがちょっといろいろあった作品で、手塚プロダクションじゃないところで最初作っていたんですが、スケジュールが大きすぎて途中でストップしちゃったんですよ。それを手塚プロが引き継いで、作ることになったんですね。出崎監督としてはそこには並々ならぬ思いがあったらしくてですね。普段ずっと絵コンテだけは全部描かれるというお仕事をされていたんですがその絵コンテの作業はOG自己自宅でやられてるんでそれが出崎監督スタイルだった。だけども○○はそのときだけは手塚プロダクションにあの席を置いて、そこで絵コンテを描かれてたんですね。いつもいらっしゃるのが終電間際、電車がなくなるようにいらっしゃるんです、もうほぼ深夜でまずいらっしゃってから「飯を食いに行くぞ」と、若手を何人か呼べとそこに召集されるのが、私とかは○○とかが呼ばれてカラオケに行くんです。それでもう深夜3時とか4時とかぐらいまでいて、帰れないんですよ。でも朝から出崎監督が仕事を始めて、私達はその会社に鍵を失くした。そこでちょっと寝て、はい私仕事をすると。
Q. カラオケは上手でしたか、出崎監督？
H. 監督は上手いね、ともね。そういう遊びに関しては、非常に上手い方でした。音楽とかも好きで、そういったものだから、友達の関係だったので、あれで、『ルパン』の音楽やられてる方、大野雄二さん、は出崎監督ともとてもコインで、新宿の小さいライブハウスで誘ってくれるんです。でもそれに一緒にこう行ったりとか、はい。
Q. 馬鹿な質問ですけど、どんな曲を歌ってました、出崎監督は。
H.『酒と涙』と『男と女』とかしてます。
N. 演歌ですか。
H. あれはねなんだったらちょっとそうですね。何かやっぱりこう。
Q. ブルーズかな？
H. よくしてます！そういったそこはとても出崎監督らしいんですが、何か人生の重みを感じるようなそういうような歌をよく。
Q. やっぱり『あしたのジョー』っぽい。
H. あのね、ご本人は『あしたのジョー』の歌も歌われてました。それも好きだったみたいね。(笑)
Q. 瀬谷新二のことも紹介してくださいませんか。
H. 本当に時間に教えていただいて、でも非常にご迷惑をおかけした方なんですけれども、いろいろと厳しいところもある方で、それこそ瀬谷さんが席はあんまり立ってはいかんと作業中にでそれを自分が身をもって教えるんだということを体現された方だったんですね。
N. さすがに原画といっても、その最後のクリーンアップはアニメーターだけの技術なんで僕にはできないんですけどレイアウトと、ラフ元と言われる動きのラフですね各ところは人手不足のときに、やたりしました。エフェクトが好きでエフェクトに関しては確かにアニメーターで得意じゃない方もいるので、そういった比べると、自分の方が得意かなと思うときもあります。そんな言わされてるけど、でも本当にエフェクトが好きです。
N. 一番大変な仕事ですか。すごく難しい問題ですね。どの仕事にも大変さはあるんだけれどもここは監督と言っておきます、それはなぜかというとやっぱプレッシャーがそこまたかかるっていうのがまず一点と、二つ目はその仕事を理解する人がその自分の仕事のスタッフの中にいないんですよ1人しかいないから監督が、だから僕と荒木くんとかと僕雑談してたんですけど、監督は孤独だと。僕は君はよくやってるよね。でもそういう人がいないから僕が代わりに行ってました。でもみんな言わないだけ監督よくやってるなって思ってるんですよでも日本人ってあんまりそういうこと言わないので、口に出さないです。監督の耳に入ってくるのは監督への文句ばっかりになりがちなんです。なんで精神的に追い詰められたりすることがあるんで、金孤独じゃないからっていう人が必要かなって思います。
Q. プロデューサーは全然褒めてくれないんですか。
N. あんまりないと思いますね。もしかしたらすごく年齢が離れてたりとか。あればまた違うのかもしれないんですけどね大体アニメーションプロデューサーと監督と同世代なことが多いので。
Q. でアニメ業界の一番面白い仕事はなんでしょうか。
N. 正しく面白くありますけどそれは演出と言っておきます。演出が一番面白い仕事だと思います。
Q. で一番大事な仕事。
N. 大事な仕事ですか、大事な仕事はねさすがに選べないですね、どこが抜けても...むしろね大事じゃない仕事を探すのが難しいかな。どうしてもやっぱりねって予算が多いわけじゃないから必要なことをだけはもう切り詰めてやってるようなところがあるので、正直作品の中で効果が大きくへこんだら、もう他が全部影響を受けちゃうので。
H. 作品にとってということで考えるならばやっぱりシナリオじゃないですか。
N. 作品にとってか...それはそういうのはシナリオがよくないとその後の人たちがみんな「これつまらないな」って思いながら仕事していかなきゃいけなくてつらいので、シナリオがいいことっていうのはスタッフみんなのモチベーションを高くするためにすごく大事なことかなとは思います。
N. そのシナリオがちょっと問題、難しかった作品で、シナリオを途中で変えて、常にシナリオライターの方が途中でギブアップになってしまって、企画をこのまま継続するのかどうかっていう相談になったんですね。僕が引き継いで書くならこの企画は続くっていう話になってて、僕が相次いで会談書いたんですけれども当時の僕では力不足でシナリオを十分に面白くすることができなかったっていうのは公開として残ってるんですが、でも作画だったり、撮影だったり、○○だったりいろいろなことで、自分が前からやりたいと思ってたことの多くを初めて試してみる作品にはなったんですね。そういう意味では野心的でチャレンジングな作品だったと思うんですけれども。
Q. I'm going to start with a delicate question, but are you two a couple?
H. Not at all! (laughs)
N. That would be annoying. (laughs)
Q. I was thinking about it because you often work together. So, to begin with, could you tell us a little about how you met?
So, to begin with, could you tell us a little about how the two of you met?
Mieko Hosoi: We began working together on the animated adaptation of Kaiji.
Ryôsuke Nakamura: It was in 2007, right?
Mieko Hosoi: Yes, that's right. I really liked Kaiji's original manga, and this was the first time Madhouse, the studio I worked for, entrusted me with an important episode as an animation director. I knew I had to work very hard, so I went to the studio and discovered that Nakamura was in charge of the storyboard and direction. I was given a very good storyboard, and I guess that was our first encounter.
Ryôsuke Nakamura: Yes, there's an episode in Kaiji where the main characters cross a steel bridge, which is a thrilling part of the series. I directed the 13th episode, and Tetsuro Araki, a good friend of mine, directed the following one. I wasn't just going to handle the storyboards; I was also slated to direct the episode. So I was a bit worried about the animation director. Actually, I had heard that someone different was going to be the animation director, but there was a last-minute change, and it became Hosoi. I believe that her previous work had been really appreciated and that the director and producer agreed to give her the job.
And so you two ended up being a perfect fit for each other!
Ryôsuke Nakamura: That was the first time we worked together, but it was really powerful.
Could you please explain how you two work together?
Mieko Hosoi: Usually, Nakamura handles the storyboarding and direction, and I do the animation.
Ryôsuke Nakamura: It depends on the format, but you also do the character designs, and if it's a film or a TV series, I often write the screenplay as well.
Ms. Hosoi, what do you think is the appeal of Mr. Nakamura's direction?
Mieko Hosoi: Well, let's take the example of Kaiji. It's got a very distinct style. That's what makes it so good, but it makes it particularly difficult to adapt. To do that, you need a certain level of commitment. And so, depending on their tastes, people might end up dissatisfied with the adaptation. To put it clearly, it might often deviate from the original… In Nakamura's case, he really cared about the original work, so even though he would never reproduce the manga's panels and make something completely different, the final emotional impact is exactly the same. This really impressed me. It's as if he managed to capture the spirit of the original work better than the original work itself.
Mr. Nakamura, for you, what's appealing in Ms. Hosoi's designs and work as an animation director?
Ryôsuke Nakamura: Above all, it's how powerful it is. Sorry, but I'll get a bit technical here.
I begin work by meeting with the key animators, receiving their completed layouts and then reviewing them. It's at that point that my work coincides with Hosoi's: as animation director, she reviews the drawings I already checked, corrects them, and sends them back to the animator. Then, the key animator draws their key animation and sends it to me for review. That's when I see the result of Hosoi's work and can see her drawings.
In reality, there can be a considerable time gap between these steps. The first time the first keyframes arrived, I saw how much Hosoi's corrections had done and was shocked by how powerful they were. She had made so many changes that I realized I didn't need to do as much on my end, and that made things easier for me as well.
Also, on TV series, there are limits on the budget and number of frames you can use, so I often have to give up on having to move some things, for example, tears welling up or the clouds fluttering up in the wind… I always think these should be given life, and Hosoi makes that real: everything starts to move, and thanks to her, the animation gives off a remarkable level of motion and life.
Mieko Hosoi: From my position as an animator, my job is to receive storyboards and turn them into pictures. But depending on the storyboard, I'm not always convinced - such as how the characters express their emotions or things like that. But that never happens with Nakamura's storyboards: the way he expresses things never feels wrong, and I have that confidence in me when I transform the storyboard into my drawings. That's how Nakamura's storyboards are for me.
You've been working together for quite a long time. Working with friends probably isn't always easy, right?
Mieko Hosoi: We fight a lot. (laughs)
Ryôsuke Nakamura: People who aren't close don't really fight because they never truly exchange their opinions. However, when you're close to someone, it's easier to assert what you think, which is when fights happen.
Mieko Hosoi: It's something I often feel about the animation industry: a lack of communication. People don't talk to each other. There's always something very awkward. On the other hand, Nakamura isn't afraid to say things, what he likes or doesn't like, even things that are difficult to say or hear. I'm very thankful for our relationship because of that.
Fighting is sometimes necessary to make something good.
Mieko Hosoi: That's right.
Ryôsuke Nakamura: I have an even longer relationship with art director Hidetoshi Kaneko than with Hosoi. He passed away three years ago, but he was about the same age as my father, so we couldn't really get into arguments. He had much more experience, could anticipate my shortcomings, and support me accordingly. In Hosoi's case, we're closer in age, so neither of us is above or below the other. We engage in healthy debates, challenging each other's perspectives, all in order to make something better each time.
I know this is a simple question, but when did you start drawing?
Mieko Hosoi: Really, as long as I can remember… I'd just copy the manga that was there, and I pretty much spent all my time with a pencil in hand. I was probably already drawing back when I was 3 or 4…
Ryôsuke Nakamura: I began drawing when I began working in animation. As a child, I didn't really watch animation… I decided to do that job because of my time in college: I was in the children's literature club, and my friends there were animation fans, so I was influenced by them. So, I didn't enter this industry to realize a lifelong dream or anything: I initially intended to spend 2 or 3 years in animation and spend that time thinking about what I really wanted to do: writing. So I was thinking about looking for something else completely different all the time, but I found animation direction to be so interesting that I decided to stay. Going back to your question, since it's only at that point that I started drawing, I was absolutely awful at it at first.
And how about now?
Mieko Hosoi: It's hard to describe, but his "style" isn't really rooted in anatomy, perspective, or volume, but it's about conveying things. In that regard, he's very good and is able to do things that I can't even come close to.
Mr. Nakamura, your family must have been very strict. They mustn't have been happy when you joined the industry…
Ryôsuke Nakamura: Yes, that's right.
You graduated from Tokyo University, right?
Ryôsuke Nakamura: (Laughs) You know your stuff, don't you? As far as I know, Isao Takahata is probably the only other one I know about.
That's right. How did your family react when you entered the industry? Weren't they angry? Are they fine with it now?
Ryôsuke Nakamura: Everything's alright now (laughs). My father was an FM radio director, so I think he was more understanding of my career choice.
I see. It's show business.
Ryôsuke Nakamura: Yes, we are the same in that sense.
Ms. Hosoi, you graduated from an art college, right? How did you get into the animation industry?
Mieko Hosoi: I am ashamed to admit this, but it's because of my love for Osamu Tezuka's manga. I was studying design, but I wasn't sure what career path to follow. It was then that I saw that Tezuka Production was recruiting, and I applied because it was Osamu Tezuka's company. (laughs) I liked anime, but I didn't have any technical knowledge or anything. So, of course, I couldn't do animation… The only thing I said at the interview was that I loved Osamu Tezuka… Everybody laughed at that, and I thought I had failed, but somehow I got in. (laughs)
Ah, I wanted to talk about Tezuka Pro as well, but before that… All the animators I've talked to who went to technical schools said it hasn't been useful at all. But how about art college? It must have been useful, right?
Mieko Hosoi: Well, it's just my own feelings based on my experience, but I think learning by practicing is the best way to learn. That was the case for me. I was taught by my seniors at Tezuka Pro, and even though I may have been a big nuisance for them back then, it was really for the best! (laughs)
Osamu Dezaki used to work at Tezuka Productions, didn't he? What was he like?
Mieko Hosoi: Well, I often got the feeling that Director Dezaki was more interested in having fun with me than strictly working together (laughs). To this day, I genuinely believe that I've never encountered such a remarkable person as him. It's difficult to put into words, but he had this remarkable ability to be both childlike and incredibly mature at the same time. Moreover, despite the fact that he was roughly the same age as my father, I never really felt the age gap between us. Of course, he was already an accomplished director when I first met him, but he never came across as stiff or formal; he was always natural and easygoing. This is precisely why I never sensed any barriers between us; we hung out as if we were close friends.
Ryôsuke Nakamura: I'm jealous!
Can you tell us about a funny memory from your time at Tezuka Production?
Mieko Hosoi: A lot!
One is from the time of Hakugei: Legend of the Moby Dick. It wasn't supposed to be done at Tezuka Pro at first, but the schedule became too tight, and it was interrupted a first time. That's when Tezuka Pro came in and took it over. It seems that it was all driven by Mr. Dezaki's passion for it. He'd usually draw all the storyboards himself, but his way of doing things was usually to do that at home. But Hakugei was the only time he had a desk prepared for him at Tezuka Pro, where he'd write storyboards. He'd arrive at the studio just before the last train - so, in the middle of the night. When he arrived, he'd invite everybody out for meals, including even young animators like me, and after that, we'd go to the karaoke. We would stay out until 3 or 4 in the morning, far too late to come back home. But in the morning, Mr. Dezaki began working. The rest of us locked ourselves in the studio, caught a bit of sleep, and then began working as well.
Was Osamu Dezaki good at karaoke?
Mieko Hosoi: Yes, he was very good. In general, he was very good at anything that involved having fun. He was passionate about music in general. He was very close to Mr. Yuji Ohno, the composer of the music of the Lupin series, and so sometimes he'd invite us to this small livehouse he owned in Shinjuku.
This is a silly question, but what kind of songs did Director Dezaki sing?
Mieko Hosoi: Sake to namida or Otoko to onna, things like that.
Ryôsuke Nakamura: So enka?
Mieko Hosoi: Yes, kind of.
Blues?
Mieko Hosoi: He often did blues songs! It was very typical of him to sing songs like that, in which you could feel the weight of life.
So, really, things with Ashita no Joe vibes, right?
Mieko Hosoi: You know, he did sing some Ashita no Joe sometimes! I guess he liked that too. (laughs)
How about Shinji Seya? What kind of person is he?
Mieko Hosoi: Mr. Seya taught me for a long time, and I'm sure I caused him lots of trouble… He can be very strict, saying things like you shouldn't stand up too much from your seat while working… He's the kind of person who teaches from his own experience.
He never got angry or yelled at me or anything, but you could feel the severity in every one of his words. (laughs) But for example, he never said anything about how I'd go to the karaoke with Mr. Dezaki or things like that.
Q. Could you please tell us about your teacher Mr. Shinji Seiya as well?
H. Mr. Seya was my instructor. He maintained strict standards in many aspects, and he embodied the very principles he imparted, even admonishing me not to stand up too frequently from my seat while working. How could I say… To illustrate the extent of his rigor, there was a substantial chain binding the desks' legs to the chairs (laughs). He would twirl it around so the chairs would be stuck to the desks, to restrain us. That’s how strict he was. But when we talked, he was not harsh at all. I mean, he never yelled at me or anything like that but there was a sense of severity in every word he taught me (laughs). Still, I’ve never received any direct critiques or admonitions for going to karaoke sessions with Director Dezaki.
Mr. Nakamura, you graduated from Tokyo University and started as a scriptwriter but also did some animation. Isn't that unusual?
Ryôsuke Nakamura: I did some animation, but an animator's most specific task is the final cleanup, and that's something I can't do, so I really didn't do much. It's just that whenever we lacked people, I would fill in the gap.
So, in the end, you had a hand in all the aspects of the industry: director, episode director, key animator, scriptwriter… What would you say is the most difficult job in animation?
Ryôsuke Nakamura: The hardest job? That's a very difficult question. Every role comes with its own set of difficulties. However, if I were to pick one, I'd say that being a director is the most demanding job in this field. The first reason is how much pressure there is. The second is that there's nobody in your staff who truly understands the work you're doing. The director is always alone. Nobody ever praises the director. Japanese people don't really say these kinds of things, even if that's what they think. So the only thing the director hears are the complaints… In that sense, it's very important to be surrounded by people who can alleviate some of that loneliness and be there when you're starting to feel pushed into a corner.
And on the other hand, what's the most interesting job?
Ryôsuke Nakamura: Everything's interesting to some degree, of course, but I think that being episode director would be the most interesting job for me.
And the most important one?
Ryôsuke Nakamura: The most important job… It's really impossible to choose. In fact, it'd be hard to pinpoint any job that isn't important. Budgets aren't high in the first place, so we already have to make compromises. Frankly, if any aspect of the production was compromised, it would have a cascading effect on the whole.
Hosoi: Overall, for the sake of the work, people would usually say that the most important thing is the scenario, wouldn't they?
Ryôsuke Nakamura: For the work, huh… Certainly, if the scenario isn't good, the people who have to work with it will find it boring even though they have to do it anyway. Whereas if it's good, it will make the staff more motivated. So I agree that it's something very important.
I would like to talk a little about Psychic School Wars. It is a very unique work, particularly the color design and the photography. Could you please tell us more about it?
Au moment où ça parle de Nerawareta Gakuen, Ludo introduit la question en demandant : Despite riding on The girl that leaps through time’s success, Nerawareta Gakuen is a rather peculiar work. (lens flare etc. dans la traduction originale + question du budge à mettre avant la question des effects)
Q. I heard the production period was on the short side ? It’s hard to believe looking at the final product . Was the budget really high ?
N. I don't know if I should tell you how much, but the budget was quite small for a regular movie.
Q. Yeah, it’s almost imperceptible. There were so many effects that were so wonderful. Like the lens flare.
N. Yes, the use of lens flares started becoming more prevalent during that time. While I was already aware of Makoto Shinkai's films, it was before he transitioned into making more commercial works. Lens flares weren't as commonly used then, and I wanted to experiment with them. I felt that they also complemented the themes of my film. I'm not sure if the word "seishun" (youth) exists in English, but for Japanese people, youth carries profound significance, and depicting it is a crucial theme. Therefore, I attempted to use lens flares as a means to convey youth in my own unique way.
Ryôsuke Nakamura: The script for Psychic School Wars posed some considerable challenges. The initial scriptwriter gave up on the initial script, and it led to discussions on whether or not we should even go on with the project. Ultimately, we agreed that if I rewrote it, it could continue. It took multiple writing sessions for me to do that, but my skills weren't up to the task, and the script didn't end up interesting enough. However, on this film, I tried out for the first time things that I had wanted to do for some time regarding animation, photography, and so on… In that sense, I think it's my most ambitious and challenging work.
As an analogy, if you think about auto racing, when preparing for a race, you have to plan meticulously to ensure the car performs at its maximum speed without crashing. That's the good way to go, but that is not really what happened on Psychic School Wars: it was more wild and youthful, keeping the foot on the accelerator all the way, even if it meant getting into obstacles.
Since very early on, I've often been told that my work felt like it came from someone with experience, despite my young age. On Psychic School Wars, I wanted to try out that kind of inexperienced method. In the end, it aligns well with the theme of the work since it's a teen movie.
It's a great film. The lens flare effects, in particular…
Ryôsuke Nakamura: That's right. This kind of technique has become more prevalent nowadays, but back then… I was already aware of Makoto Shinkai's work, but that was still before he transitioned to making more commercial works, and in commercial anime, lens flares and such weren't used a lot, so I wanted to try it out.
I don't know how it is overseas, but in Japan "youth" is a very important theme. So, I attempted to use lens flares as a means to convey youth in my own unique way.
Talking about light flares in animation, what about Yoshinori Kanada's flares?
Ryôsuke Nakamura: I believe Kanada's effects are more design-oriented. In my case, I prefer the kind of effects that naturally come from the use of lenses rather than the intentionally designed effects often associated with Kanada.
The other thing is that Nerawareta Gakuen moves all the time. Wasn't that difficult?
Mieko Hosoi: It was not easy. However, we were fortunate to have an exceptionally talented animation team.
All the animation directors were extremely skilled, and all drew key animation on top of that… On my end, it was a huge workload to supervise all the drawings, but it was a truly fulfilling environment.
Japanese to English: Translation Kutsuna (part 1)
Source text - Japanese 最初は沓名さんのopは何かアナログ撮影の感覚を再現するようにしていますね。そのことを説明してくださいませんか。
そうですね音楽は非常に大事なんですよね。なのですがなかなか例えば山下清悟がやっているようなメジャータイトルでメジャーな曲がドンっていうのを自分やってきてないので。幸いマイナータイトルで今回はBABYMETALの曲とか使った方、BABYMETALの曲作ってGive me chocoって有名な方ではあるんですけどとはいえそのいわゆる今で言う星の子のYOASOBIとかチェンソーマンの米津みたいな有効ビッグな方々ではないところもあるので、良くもあるもうマイナー感が自分は非常に作りやすいなと思うというところは感じておりますで逆にそういうEVEとかYOASOBIとか米津とか何か自分に来たら結構悩みますよね受けるかどうかから。メジャーなものを作れはするとは思いますけれども。
Translation - English Q. With the Magical Destroyers opening, it seems that you tried to recreate the feeling we get when watching analog film photography. Could you tell us more about that ?
There are many different types of animation, some modern and some of the past. I feel that when you look at it from a good point of view, without making too much discrimination or distinction, to me the shades/coloring are the most beautiful part of these works. It is not that I am nostalgic or that I think that it was all better in the past, but simply that I feel these are the most beautiful when I look at them side by side, and so I make them according to how I feel.
Q. So it’s not really a way to imitate analog film making, you simply want to recreate the works that you like ?
That’s right. Plus, for me, it is the colors that I simply feel are the most beautiful in these works.
Q. About that, you wrote in the VladLove dōjinshi that you were influenced by “Princess Mononoke”. Could you tell us more about the appeal of “Princess Mononoke” for a moment ?
Princess Mononoke was made at the time of the switch between digital and analog animation, so the most definite part of the analog technology and the early stages of the digital technology clashed together. If you look at it in that way, the quality of the second half of the movie is not so high. The first half of the story was really made at the peak of analog animation. Considering why I was particularly influenced by the first half of Princess Mononoke, it naturally comes from the way the art was drawn, the direction of Mr. Miyazaki’s storyboards/ekonte, and the colors used by Mr. Miyazaki et Mr. Yasuda at that time. Concerning film photography, it all comes down to the Covid period when there was some kind of a Ghibli revival. At that time, I was able to experience “Princess Mononoke” again when I saw it in a movie theater. I already did see it at the theater when I was in junior high school, but never again besides that one time. It had been a long time since I had seen it in a theater and I was once again struck by how beautiful it was. I felt that the colors that were used in that era were no longer used today. So I thought that it was not that it couldn’t be done with digital animation, but that they were just not being used, so I simply decided to use them again.
Q. Now, not only Mr. Kutsuna, but also Kentaro Waki and China-san among others want to reproduce an analog sensation. Is it representative of a generation ?
I think that is one of the reasons. And I think that it is also true for independent artists, such as Komugiko-san among others. Young animators nowadays seem to enjoy the same kind of colors that I do. I am already 40 years old, so I was able to see those (colors) in real time, but obviously, Komugiko2000, China-san and the others did not. Maybe I try to be fair, without resorting too much on my good memories, between older works and more recent ones.Since China-san couldn’t see “Princess Mononoke” when it was released, they would probably prefer some works such as “Utena”. That is why I feel a strong respect for Shichiro Kobayashi, who was in charge of art and technique.
Q. The character design has a little bit of Umakoshi's touch, doesn't it?
Yes, it does. I think there is probably some influence from Utena, as well as the works he did for Toei. Comparing his visuals from back then and more recent ones, I really find they are equally good, the same way as I do for China-san and Komogiko-san. I also think that I made the work without any memory correction, by simply thinking : “this way is the most beautiful” and simply went with it until the completion of the work.
Q. Going back to your work, how do you create that feeling? Do you use any particular software?
In my case, I usually have the background drawn and the cells colored. The background is something that doesn't move, so I use Photoshop to change the hue, lightness, and saturation of the background to the desired effect. For the character's celluloid, I take what I have received from the color designer, and I use Photoshop to maintain the hues, sides, meters, etc., and then I create the celluloid color that I think is good for the art. Then, I would give it to the color designer again and ask him to paint everything from there.
Q. And what about the filming? Besides you, are there any other staff members?
For "Vladlove," I asked for Mr. Matsuki of 10Gauge. I have a bit of a clicking relationship with 10Gauge, and Mr. Yoda has been very active in various animation projects recently. Mr. Matsuki is the one who has been doing all the photography for "Vladlove," and through trial and error, we narrowed down to a certain extent what kind of processing should be done for the film. After that, putting Mr. Matsuki aside, I request the person in charge of the photography to shoot it in this particular way.
Q. If the staff is different each time, how do you keep the same style?
Regarding the coloring of the body and the celluloid, I have to say that I’m doing all the work on Photoshop. When I was working for the director of “Beck”, the late Osamu Kobayashi (Note 6), I asked him how he was able to make films following his own personal color scheme and I was told he used to tweak them in Photoshop. It felt obvious. So, in many cases, when you’re tweaking the background and the cells, you have to respect the work of the color designers and the people doing the characters’ poses, so you have to touch on parts where you actually can’t do much.
Also, in a sense, Osamu Kobayashi is not a native of the industry, but rather a person from outside. Within the Japanese animation industry, he was a bit like a foreigner, he didn't know the rules, so he made his own films by saying to people “please let me do it”. My own origins are also called web-based, it’s not a style where you have to work your way up through the ranks up into the industry. I have decided that I’ve had enough of that so I’m following the style of Osamu Kobayashi and making my works in that way.
Q. Mr. Kobayashi was a genius animator and director, but he also managed various events. When I went to Mr. Oguro’s events, if Mr. Kobayashi was there, there was always a lively atmosphere and it was a very interesting time. Wouldn't you like to create such a lively event ? Since Mr. Kobayashi has now passed away..
He created a meeting place for the industry, joining young animators and veterans. It functioned like a community, and even people outside of the industry were invited. He would invite illustrators and manga artists, musicians and have them doing DJ sets. I think that someone has to carry on the legacy of Mr. Osamu Kobayashi, who was trying to mix such culture.
I would like to do that myself, but I am a little busy with work, so I am not able to hold many events. Obviously, without a middleman/intermediate, we’re in a situation where communication is stalled. But I keep this ambition, at the tip of my heart/the edge of my mind I really want to do it.
Q. Even as a MC, he was very knowledgeable about sakuga. Osamu Kobayashi was the president of the Isao Kanada Fan Club. Today, among animators, aren’t you the most knowledgeable one ?
I am not the most knowledgeable one. There is Toshiyuki Inoue, for example. But I think that the culture of the animation style should not be allowed to be taken for granted. It is very encouraging to have such people here. Mr. Oguro told me to call myself a student of animation studies, so I have recently started to include that in my profile. So I am a bit busy doing that while also being a creator. It's a lot of work, but I was very much nurtured in that culture, and it is thanks to that culture that I am where I am today, so I want to make sure that I don't let that culture get away.
Q. Mr. Kobayashi is obviously well known for "Beck" and "Gurren Lagann," can you tell us about your memories of those productions?
At the time of "Beck," I was still a university student, so I was called "Vespa-san," which was my handle name at the time with both teams. Now you have Hayashi, who does character design at Toei. Hayashi was scouted by Osamu Kobayashi as an amateur and joined the production of "BECK". I was very envious of him, and I used my summer vacation from college to have some meetings, and only made a few cuts. I only did a few cuts but I remember participating. At the time, there was still an atmosphere that animation work should be drawn on paper, so I decided to try my hand at it and didn't do very well at all. I could have done it digitally, which is what I was used to, but I thought I couldn't draw well at all if I didn’t try to do it properly on paper, it was my job after all. I eventually quitted using paper when I started working.
Q. Did you go to college at an art college?
Yes, I did. Nagoya University of Arts and Sciences has a department of visual arts, so I decided to study visual arts as a regular course.
Q. Animators who went to technical schools say that they were not very useful, but how was college?
It's very useful. (Laughs) I am still in contact with some of the teachers at the university. I am even teaching at my former university, even though I am a part-time lecturer. The basic art education I received there, such as color science, aesthetics, art theory awareness, contemporary art, and sound art, has been very useful. I also took general education courses at the university, and I still think that what I learned in the religion and philosophy classes there was very meaningful. I like to read books on philosophy, and I also like to study religion, but I found it easier to learn these things because I took philosophy classes and studied religion, even though I felt sleepy in class. So my university life has been very meaningful for me.
Q. Who is your favorite philosopher?
Deleuze. As for film directors, I like Godard. Deleuze figured Godard out, and the content of Deleuze's evaluation of Godard has the greatest influence on me now. Recently, Masaya Chiba, a Japanese writer, has written various books on Deleuze's work in an easy-to-understand manner, and I have been influenced by many of his works. I originally liked French structuralism, so I like French philosophy a lot.
Q. What are you teaching at university?
I teach animation. I have my own class once a week in the first and second semesters. The first semester is divided into two parts. During the first one, I teach basic animation, while the second part is taught by Yoko Yuki, the artist who was in charge of the second half of "Magical Destroyers," and she teaches the students various techniques of expression in animation.
Q. Did Mr. Seigo Yamashita (Note 7) or Mr. Kobayashi, who also work in the Web industry, also have an influence on your OP creation?
Yes, I don't think they were influenced as much as I was. In the case of Seigo Yamashita, the strongest influences were Mitsuo Iso(*8), an animator and director of photography, and Makoto Shinkai. He used aftereffects and followed the visual updates in real time, so I feel that his school is quite different from mine now.
Q. You used to work with Mr. Iso at Eddie Mehong's studio Yapico.
About Eddie, I went to Yapiko, and since I was doing the digital animated flash drawing for him we became good friends. I think he's still making money at NFT right now, and I'm thinking that would be a good idea to get closer to NFT soon. We are good friends, but I was not really involved with Yapiko.
When I was a college student, I went to Madhouse to visit Mr. Iso. Mr. Oguro from Anime Style took me there. I met Mr. Iso there and had a short conversation with him. I also had drinks with him and talked with him about various things when he came to an event organized by Osamu Kobayashi. I talked with him a little bit, but it was not for work.
Q. Did you receive the Iso shock? (from his sakuga work)
Yes, his sakuga work clearly got me.
Q. What kind of work in particular ?
I think "Like Clouds Like Wind" and "Final Fantasy" are the main ones. These two I particularly like. The fourth and sixth episodes of “Gosenzosama” also feel like a natural choice. I really like the character animation in those episodes. Naturally, I was introduced to it through "Gundam 0080," but if you follow it closely, you can see the way Mr. Iso made the characters move in "Final Fantasy" and "Like Clouds, Like Wind”. Well actually the very first one was the battle of Unit 2 in “The end of Evangelion”. I was influenced by that movement, and Mr. Iso was the base for the way I and Mr. Seigo Yamashita depicted movement in anime. I was greatly influenced by Mr. Iso’s method of digitally copying and pasting the movements on paper. As such, it’s like copying and pasting and moving it around : while you move the paper, the parts which are supposed to move are moving but the face stays still. These kinds of techniques let us make complex sakuga while saving energy. Now that it's digital, everyone is using this technique, but it had a great influence on me. Especially foreign animators, more so than Japanese animators, use this technique where they are constantly making subtle changes to the image while copying it. I have the impression that many overseas animators are better at using Japanese techniques than Japanese animators, and I wonder if all of them are Iso children. Mr. Iso’s brain must have been thinking digitally since the age of paper. When I met Mr. Yamashita, we talked about what we both liked in Mr. Iso’s works. The first time we became friends with Mr. Yamashita was this kind of conversation we had where we talked about what we liked about Mr. Iso.
Q. You mentioned Mr. Iso, but your mentor is Satoru Utsunomiya (Note 9), isn't it?
It’s always a desire of mine to build on Utsunomiya’s style, but it is the most difficult thing to recreate the atmosphere he was able to create. I might do it more like Mr. Iso or Mr. Matsumoto. Compared to Mr. Utsunomiya, it is so much easier to imitate. So I was kinda discouraged following Mr. Utsunomiya’s style half way through. I always wanted to reproduce his good qualities but I never felt like doing a job even the parts where I was able to do it properly. Halfway through, I started working without being conscious of it all. I felt that, no matter how, my work wasn’t going well and that I wouldn’t be able to flourish following Utsunomiya’s style. It is my ideal animation, and I still think Utsunomiya’s work is the most beautiful, it is just that I couldn’t do it myself, it was out of my league. If I could do it, I would like to follow his style, but even today, I am incapable of doing so.
Q. From the outside, Utsunomiya's animation looks simple and free, but it is actually the opposite.
It is very delicate. It really is like threading a needle, and it is very delicate with the genga positions and time sheets, so I couldn't do it at all.
Q. Which of Utsunomiya's works do you like best? Is it "Gosenzosama"?
Of course "Gosenzosama" is my favorite, but I wonder... As for work not often mentioned, Mr. Utsunomiya also did a lot of genga for "Legend of Christania" and he also did a lot of genga for the final episode of the movie version of the OVA, I really like those.
Takashi Nakamura(Note 10) full length films are also wonderful. Mr. Utsunomiya’s scene comes right after a scene Mr. Nakamura drew some animals, tigers and lions, fighting. Then, Utsunomiya's scene comes in, a cast is spelled and a flame bursts out. It is the best animation because you can see the connection through Utsunomiya.
Q. Thank you very much. Now let's go back to the opening. Nowadays, there are more and more animators and directors who focus on openings. In your case, Mr. Kutsuna, how did you come to focus on openings?
In my case, I take a limited number of worlds where I can direct the animation by myself. I was watching closely how Mr. Utsunomiya, who was my mentor, supervised several works at once and got criticized because it didn't resemble the rest of the movie. He was very depressed.
In this day and age, it is practically impossible to work as such a supervisor for a full-length film, and because of the strict client checks, it is impossible to work as an animation director for a full-length film as it was in the early 2000s, 80s, and 90s. Therefore, I generally do not take on the supervision of the main work. I accept the opening work only when there are directors who think it is okay for the opening to be different from the main feature film, and only in such cases. Otherwise, I basically turn down all the other work.
Q. In other words, your openings are completely free.
I only accept jobs that are completely free.
Q. Do you like working alone?
I don't need to work alone. Actually I tend to slack off, so I always try to work with other people. By working with others, I have to deal with some tasks such as drawing the ekonte to some extent in order to get the others to work. So I always try to work with others and to keep in mind that I cannot do everything by myself.
Q. How many people do you usually work with?
For the opening of a work, I leave it up to the producer of the production company to gather the animators for each film. No matter what kind of drawing/sakuga comes in, since I control everything in the end, they’re made with the idea that it doesn’t matter if they are good or bad. My storyboards are pretty much independent of how good or bad the drawing is, they basically mean to give intensity. If the sakuga is not good, I can just stop it, and if it is good, if it has this movement, I draw the storyboard to make it work, that’s how we’re processing.
Q. Your openings always have the same motifs. For example, flowers, water, fish, and so on. Could you explain the motifs?
Mamoru Oshii said that it would not be good if I revealed everything here. (laugh) I think I should keep quiet according to Mamoru Oshii's teaching, it is better to keep that part secret. But basically, it is a fetish. It is based on it.
Q. Since Director Oshii has a dog, do you buy goldfish?
Yes, I do. (laughs).
Q. In "Magical Destroyers," there is a goldfish in Ms. Yuki's part.
It's not mine. That's Yuki doing it on her own.
Q. Could you introduce Ms. Yuki’s part a little bit?
Ms. Yoko Yuki is actually a junior at my university. When she was directing the opening of "Koneko no Chi," she created an opening in which there was some kind of collaboration between the CG and the animation creator. In this work, Ms. Yuki, Mr. Hiraoka, and Mr. Tetsuya Tamitani’s amazing characters kept continuously morphing.
Ms. Yuki, Mr. Hiraoka-san, and Mr. Tetsuya Tatamitani are not so-called "commercial animation" artists like Komugiko2000 and others, but all three originally graduated from art universities. Ms. Yuki, who is also my junior, went to the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music and studied under Koji Yamamura (Note 11), while Mr. Tatamitani and Mr. Hiraoka both graduated from Musashino Art University, so they are short animation artists within the so-called normal art stream.
I was very happy with Ms. Yuki when I collaborated with other people, and in fact, I asked her to join Marza Animation Planet, the company I was working for. After that, we worked together on various jobs and became good friends, and then the job for "Magical Destroyers" came up, so we decided that the latter part of the song was best left to Ms. Yuki.
Q. So Ms. Yuki was completely free.
Yes she was, I didn’t tell her anything on my own. I was confident that she would take an approach that was completely different from the methodology of so-called commercial animation, so I think we were able to create a good sense of discomfort there.
Q. How was the retake process? Did you submit retakes?
I did send out retakes of the photography, but I did not retake the animation. I am the animation director, so if I think something is a little different, I will obviously fix it without sending retakes. All the arts were OK, and I did send out two small cuts, but for the most part, I just sent out that one take and then I retouched and changed the colors on top of the artwork. I just couldn’t retake the photography by myself so the average number of takes I asked for was 3 to 5. There’s just one take that was repeated 3 to 5 times I think.
Q. How do you match the music and pictures for the OP? Do you have a special method?
In my case, I make a storyboard first. Well it’s not a regular process of editing that I draw, but simply I start by drawing a bunch of pictures like an image board, thinking about the motifs that I'm sure will be used in the cut. I would then fit it into the drawing, edit it, and make changes to the cut if necessary. In my case, I start editing with the sound in mind. For example, considering the measure of a cut, I ask the length of a cut to be 21 frames per second, it’s purely frame by frame, a completely fixed state so the animators don't make any changes from there.
Q. Which is most important, the picture or the music?
Well, music is very important. However, I wouldn’t like to do the same thing Mr. Yamashita does, connecting a major title with a major song. Besides today’s big hit such as the songs YOASOBI made for “Oshi no ko” or even the one Yonezu Kenshi made for “Chainsawman”, there are a lot of other things to do. I think it’s way easier to work for minor titles. On the other hand, if someone like EVE, YOASOBI, or Yonezu came to me, I would be quite worried : should I take the offer, should I not ? Well, I think we’ll do it anyway if the opportunity arises.
Q. Do you feel that you don't want the animation to be overlooked because of the music?
Rather than thinking of it as a battle against animation and music, it’s more like I want to adjust myself to the music. It’s a ceaseless idea, to adjust oneself to a major artist, so I think it could be quite hard on my mental state if I had to do it.
Q. But is it okay to work with music you dislike, rather than music you like?
A. Yes, I am fine with music I don't like. Sometimes I can do it with that.
Q. You have to listen to it over and over again, though.
Yes, it’s true that I have to listen to it. Of course, it would be ideal if I could work on music I like. But if I worked on music I do like, it wouldn’t be with major artists. So I think I would do it as a personal project when I’ll have the time.
Q. What kind of bands or artists do you think about?
It’s a thing I thought about but wasn’t able to do in the end. I was thinking about the drummer who plays on Yonezu Kenshi’s “Kickback”, the opening Yamashita Shingo worked for, his name is Ishiwaka Shun and now he’s also playing for “Blue Giant”. He’s a very successful young drummer on the Japanese scene and he has this project where he writes songs in a songbook. Besides playing in a band, he does have this project. He also released a multitude of albums and plays live a lot. I've been talking about making music videos, and since I'm not making them on a big budget like Yonezu Kenshi, even if I were to make an anime music video, even if I say I could bring it to a high level, the most I could get out of it is 1 million yen. So I would have to raise more money to get myself involved in such a project. So I have to raise more money in order to make it happen. But I would like to create an environment where I can raise money and make music videos for such artists someday.
Q. How much does a music video cost?
If I work for free, I can make them cheaply, of course, but... Depending on the way it has to be done, I have various techniques under my sleeve. If it’s what we shall call “normal” animation, it does cost money. But I have used independent animation techniques since university : I can do CG, rotoscoping, collage, live-filming, all kinds of techniques freely.
Q. Cool, really. How much does it cost for a normal music video? It's usually expensive and not cheap.
If the length of the song is 3 minutes, for example, it would cost about 4 million yen. If the total cost is about 3 million yen, you can usually make it. It is cheap. And I can make it quite inexpensive. Since I can do most of the work myself, I can handle most of the work without hiring someone else, and there’s only my fixed cost to cover. Of course, if I were a regular director, I would have to arrange for other people to work on the project, and I would also have to cover the costs of a regular commercial animated film, in the end it will require more and more money. But if I am by myself I can usually make a film if I have 3 million yen.
If I had about 6 million to do a MV, I would feel I have too much of a budget. However, for example, the people at Toho and other companies spend 10 million to 20 million yen, so that kind of production is also conceivable. Rather than spending a lot of money to make a film, I like low budgets because it allows me to think more creatively about how I can create new techniques to attract people's attention.
Q. Isn't that the influence of Osamu Kobayashi?
That's part of it. When it comes to creating something as an individual artist, the smaller the budget, the more I feel passion. For me, it's a lot of fun to try to make something interesting as long as I can keep it within this budget and not go into the red. I think there are many people who do suffer because of that, but on the other hand, there are crowdfunding opportunities, so if there is no money, it is also nice to think about ways to raise money on your own. I rather like this kind of environment.
Q. Regarding crowdfunding, you released a music video called "Back to you" for the Animator Dormitory Project. Could you introduce that music video?
I have a long-standing relationship with Animator supporters and The Animator Dormitory NPO. Even before this MV, myself and Michishita Shintarou were working on the cover of an online seminar that was run by Animator Supporters and it took us about 5 years to complete the project together. In the process of doing this, the Animator Support Organization itself has accumulated a lot of skill for raising money through crowdfunding. Just providing dormitories is not a fundamental solution, if possible, the NPO’s intention was to actively try to generate work for animators by helping them plan their own projects, usually at a higher unit price than usual. That’s how that project was born. Then, the project “Back to you” was born and I ended up doing it myself.
Q. This was your first time designing a character.
That was certainly the first time for me to design my own character in an original work, and certainly the first time for me to do it on a large scale. There are a lot of things I've done on my own in my works. I had to do some redesign for “Vladlove”, as for “Magical Destroyers” I had to change the model sheet to some extent, so I already have some experience in redesign.
Q. How do you like your design work? Do you like it?
I love my design work. It is a fun job.
Q. Did you often meet or talk with Director Oshii?
I met him only twice, when I was making "Vladlove". All in all I met him first during the preparatory meeting, and then after having completed the work, at the time of the delivery. At the time of the meeting, the way it went could be summed up as : ”I leave it to you, the end.” I took the time to have this meeting, but at that time, I didn't even know what kind of person he was, only that he was confident that he would be successful because Mamoru Oshii never failed an opening in his life. So he told me he would let me do it freely, and he said he was leaving because he had a karate lesson. It’s as if we had no meeting..
Q. Mr. Oshii also loves French films. It's a pity that you couldn't talk with him even though he was your colleague.
We were as far apart as a father and son, so when the film was completed, we had a lot of conversations. When I delivered "Vladlove" to the client, the content was quite aggressive, so they asked me if it would be all right. Mr. Oshii assured me that it was 100% all right and that I should let it go as it was. There was this detail where I put red letters on the red clothes. I was of the opinion that it was difficult to see, but Mr. Oshii said : "No, you don't have to change it”. On top of taking all my requests in consideration, Mr. Oshii completely backed me up and I was able to release the work to the world in total accordance with what I had in mind. Even after I finished making the work, I still thought I had some kind of a mysterious coloring, that it had a strange vibe to it, but Mr. Oshii said that it wasn’t strange, that it was charming. He asked me where I came from and I told him I was a disciple of Utsunomiya Satoru. Then, it was as if the points connected into his mind and it was as if our bond became deeper. He asked me how Utsunomiya-san has been doing but I told him I haven’t met with him for a long time, and the conversation went on like this, discussing various topics about Utsunomiya-san.
Q. In the end, you were glad to have met him, weren't you? Thank you very much.
いや、入江さんは、どちらかというと逆に自分が現場のメインでコンテを描いてもらってる側なので入江さんから教えてもらえてはないですよね。入江さんの現場に入っていろいろ話したことはないんですよ実は。自分から入江さんに発注して、お話が多少できたぐらいでっていう感じです。あのBack to youのはキャラクターデザインは入江さんのまんまです。入江さんがやっぱり案内のデザインをそのまま踏襲してるだけです。服装とかは変えましたけれども、顔の捉え方でもそれはエリア内の原作の持っているもので、入江さんが整えたものですけれども、その考え方をそのままやってますっていうぐらい影響は強く受けてます。
Translation - English
Q. Speaking about Vlad Love’s opening, you mentioned the red color of the font but, were you also in charge of the character font for Magical Destroyers ?
Yes, I used my own font and, to a certain extent, I also took care of the font colors. I also gave instructions as to what percentage of the font should be used and how it should be transformed. For "Vladlove," I asked Mr. Yoda of 10Gauge to design the font. It’s a luxury to have Mr. Yoda who’s normally working on heaps of episode direction to only create the font, but we have a long-standing relationship with 10Gauge. While studying the various options we had, I came to understand the shapes and colors of the letters that I liked, so I have followed that style for a long time.
Q. I heard that Kutsuna-san is called "a sakuga theorist" by Mr. Oguro. Where did the nickname come from?
Ah, it was rather suddenly that Mr. Oguro told me to call myself a "critic". I think it was after this event presenting Mr. Iso's work. In fact, at one event, I was explaining to the public what I liked about Mitsuo Iso's movements, using GIF animations I'd created myself. Mitsuo Iso wasn't present, but we had this material I'd created and Toshiyuki Inoue as a guest. In fact, while discussing with Inoue, we were showing the audience which part was particularly characteristic of Iso's style. Since it's difficult for the general public to see Iso's animation with an analytical eye, I was trying, in the way that Shingo Yamashita and I had, to present Iso's animation style in a simple way with this animated material. I imagine that at that point, Mr. Oguro must have thought I could call myself a "critic". I didn't talk to him any more about it than that, but that's where it all started.
Q. How did you meet Mr. Oguro?
I met Mr. Oguro when I was... I was 18, and by then I'd created my own website where I published GIF and Flash animations. It was like a sort of diary in which I compiled my daily research on what I'd seen, what sakuga I thought were good, who had drawn them and so on. It was this BBS culture that has all but disappeared today. If, for example, I wrote something incorrect in my diary, Mr. Oguro would come to me and say something like: "Actually, you talked in detail about this sakuga from Kanada, but it was actually drawn by Yamashita". On this page, you could find many big names such as Oguro, Kobayashi Osamu, Tadamachi Hiramatsu, Tetsuya Nishio, Toshiyuki Inoue, who never wrote anything but always looked, apparently. Still on the subject of the web at that time, in the late 90s, on the Production IG site there was a section entitled Inoue Juku, which has now disappeared but in which Mr. Inoue talked about the sakuga and animation work he found interesting among IG animators. Based on this, I did a lot of research and people interested in this subject would come to my BBS. Other young people like me were certainly doing the same kind of enthusiastic research, but no one was presenting his work on the web yet. So information began to accumulate on my site, for example about who was drawing which part of which work. It was around 2000 that I began to feel part of a real community of sakuga enthusiasts.
Q. When did you meet Mr. Oguro in real life?
I met him around the year 2000. During my summer vacations at university, Mr. Oguro told me that, if I wanted to become an animator, it would be good for me to meet other animators and talk to them. So he took me to Madhouse, where I was able to talk to Mitsuo Iso and ???, then I was taken to studio 4°C where I met Tanaka Eiko and Morimoto Mitsuji, to Production IG with Hiroyuki Okiura, Toshiyuki Inoue, Tetsuya Nishio, at which time I was even able to say hello to Mamoru Oshii. After that, I had a drink with Kenji Kamiyama, then we went to Gainax to see Sushio and Yoh Yoshinari, as well as Chikashi Kubota, Yusuke Yoshigaki and Hiroyuki Imaishi. We ate together and I learned a lot. It was a great experience and I got to know a lot of people.
Q. Back then, there were BBSs, but now there's Twitter! For example, Toshiyuki Inoue still communicates with foreign fans, much to their delight.
Yes, he corrects erroneous sakugabooru information or adds missing info! At the moment, Endo-san is also on the site. I think it's a very interesting time.
Q. How often do you use sakugabooru?
Actually, I don't use it when I do my own drawings. However, for events like Animestyle, I may use it as a documentary reference. There are a lot of works that are very difficult to find on DVD. With subscription services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc., rental stores like TSUTAYA have all but disappeared. Softs that are easy to get by going to Shibuya or Shinjuku are no longer available today. Now, if you want to access certain references, there are many things that can only be accessed via sakugabooru. Especially works that haven't been released on DVD or videocassette.
Q. I'm really pleased! Thanks to sakugabooru, there are no longer any boundaries between foreign and Japanese fans!
Thanks to sakugabooru, foreign fans of Japanese animation are also becoming very strong. They can easily see the technical side of Japanese animation, and gradually absorb all this information. It's a very good thing.
Q. Today there's a movement called Twitter Anime Animator, in which foreign animators and young animators work on Japanese productions. What do you think of this as a web animator?
I think it's a very good thing. It all started back in the days of Bahi JD and the others... I've been wanting to collaborate with Bahi for a long time too, but our schedules never worked out. At the moment I'd also like to work with Weilin, but since we were working on an opening at the same time, we had a lot of genga/key poses to draw, so I had to decline her invitation. I feel a bit sorry for Weilin, I'll ask her to help us next time.
Q. Has Bahi returned to Austria?
I'm not sure what he's doing now... On the other hand, I think it's great to have that kind of movement in the drawing we were talking about earlier. There are surprisingly few Japanese who can move the lines in such a powerful way. So I think foreign animators have become indispensable, especially when it comes to drawing action scenes.
Q. I see. In fact, when I ask Japanese animators, I'm often told that foreign animators tend to be behind on their work, only wanting to do action scenes... It seems that Japanese people can have a bit of trouble with foreign animators.
There's not much we can do about it... I think Mr. XX made a rather bitter tweet about it. It's this opinion that the movement is too exaggerated and gets in the way of understanding the story and the characters. Personally, I don't think it's a problem. It's a matter for the director to decide. I think an animator should be able to draw according to his own intention. It's also a way of thinking that comes from Mamoru Oshii. You can see it clearly in Innocence: Ghost in the Shell 2, with the concept of casting animators and assigning scenes to each one. The director knows what each animator is or isn't capable of drawing, and assigns this or that person to this or that scene. In short, for me, this view that animators should adjust upstream to the scenes they have to work on is a form of negligence on the part of enshutsu. (It seems that my speech has become a dig at Mr. Hiramatsu, I'd just like to ask him to be careful about the way he draws). As I see it, it's the enshutsu's job to get the casting right in the first place.
Q. This is a bit of a difficult question, but at the Anime Style event, you said that sakuga was made up of three parts. These were the image, the movement and the animator's style. Could you tell us more about this?
Okay, sort of... I've kind of forgotten what I said [laughs]. I need to find the notes I wrote at that event. I think I have them.
(interruption café + ne trouve pas le mémo, conclusion : on verra ça la prochaine fois)
Q. Who is your favorite animator ? The first one you liked, for example?
My first was Mitsuo Iso. I saw the famous Unit-02 fight scene in The End of Evangelion when I was in middle school, and I was so moved that I wanted to become an animator. In fact, it wasn't my original ambition, but it was Mr. Iso who made me realize that being an animator was an exciting profession.
Q. Did you start drawing flipbooks inspired by Mr. Iso?
Yes, I drew a lot of flipbooks to recreate the Unit-02 fight scene.
Q. So you learned animation on your own?
Yes, on my own.
Q. Like Mr. Iso, then?
No one around me taught me animation when I was in high school, and the Internet didn't exist back then. So I had to draw a lot of flipbooks to capture the impressions I'd had when I saw the film in the cinema.
Q. Do you still have them?
I think it's probably in storage at my parents' house.
Q. Like Mr. Iso, you said you wanted to be in charge of a production if the opportunity ever arose. It's a pity you didn't get the chance to meet.
Back then, in Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack, I thought the movement of the funnels was really great. In fact, I still don't know whether it was Mitsuo Iso, Hidetoshi Oomori or even Shinya Ohira who was in charge of the funnels in the film. In the end, I don't know whose work I was reacting to, but I remember trying to reproduce these movements in flipbooks. So I think the first anime that influenced me was The End of Evangelion with the Unit-02 fight scene and the funnels in Char's Counterattack.
Q. Speaking of fans and animators in the '80s, back then fans found the names of animators in dedicated magazines. But what about your generation, Mr. Kutsuna?
Back then, anime magazines didn't have specialized articles on animators in particular. We were on Windows 98 and starting to have an environment where everyone could use the Internet, but events on the scale of Animestyle were not yet organized. Obviously, if I bought dōjinshi or Animage magazines in Tokyo, I could retrieve some information, but in a country town, we didn't have access to this information, and without the Internet, I simply couldn't remember the names of the animators. I made a note of the video credits, but there was no information I could be sure of, so I would note the recurrence of names for each scene, if Matsumoto's name came up several times, for example. I'd probably been doing this since elementary school. With Gundam, for example, I'd written down the names of designs I liked, and Katoki Hajime's name came up a lot. So, when I went to the video rental store, I'd look at the back of the cover to see which ones had Katoki Hajime's name on them. Then I started watching a lot of Tomino's work, like Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, Char's Counterattack and so on. It's not something I was taught by anyone, but I had the desire to watch something similar to these scenes that I thought were good.
(interruption thé)
I read all the interviews in Anime Style, all the articles in Inoue Juku, I looked at everything I could find about the software available around me, and I also watched a lot of TV series. It's hard to talk about it officially in an interview, but those were the days of WinMX, Napster and Winny, and if you couldn't find something in a rental store around your home, you could get it through file sharing and swapping... Thanks to this, I was able to discover, through EMS, many things that were probably not available in rural rental stores.
Q. *Complicit wink* (laughs). What films made you love cartoons as a child?
I've always loved the Doraemon films. I always loved them as a child and I still love them today, limited to the Tsutomu Shibayama films.
Toshiyuki Honda used to do the layouts for the Doraemon films. I also interviewed him and sometimes visit him at his studio, now called Ekura Animal. Mr. Nakano's wife will be in charge of character design for the next Doraemon, but this is still a secret.
When I was in elementary school, I loved the Doraemon films, but my classmates stopped watching them and switched to Dragon Ball. The Doraemon films were rather tender, so everyone switched to more galvanizing works like Dragon Ball and Slam Dunk, but I always loved Doraemon. Even in elementary school, I was told that Doraemon was too childish, so I used to sneak home and watch the films on cassette. If other people were thinking of Dragon Ball or Slam Dunk, I think that even before the Unit-02 fight in Evangelion, it was Doraemon that inspired me to draw flipbooks. In Doraemon: Nobita and the Kingdom of Clouds, there's a great scene where Doraemon escapes from prison, runs at full speed and gets blown up by diving headfirst into a tank. As Doraemon runs into the tank, his legs fly off, and you see him running like a ghost with lots of legs. It's a movement that baffled me, so I started rewatching the video frame by frame, and that's when I drew my first flipbook. You could say that my very first influence was Doraemon.
Q. Which Doraemon film do you prefer?
Doraemon: Nobita and the birth of Japan. Fujiko F. Fujio himself supervised this title.
Q. You're also very familiar with the older anime, aren't you? In fact, at the Anime Style event, you mentioned Koji Mori's name and I was very surprised. Surprised and happy that a young animator like Mr. Kutsuna continues to watch and respect these old works.
Oh, as far as Mr. Mori is concerned, the most famous work he worked on must have been Horus, Prince of the Sun, but personally I wasn't too keen. At the time, Toei was producing more experimental films, like this anime with animals and lumberjacks, which I really liked.
Q. It was Shiroi Kikori to Kuroi Kikori (White lumberjack and Black lumberjack), wasn't it? The short film precedes Hakujaden.
A friend who was taking an introductory course at Tama Art University had lent me a DVD from the university's archives, and it was this famous story about the lumberjacks. When I saw the way the raccoon dogs and squirrels served themselves drinks, looking like they were saying "Itadakimasu!" with gestures that seemed typically Japanese, I was really enchanted.
Q. The human characters aren't very good. But the animals are great.
The humans are a bit grotesque, but I really liked that. After all, we were still at an experimental stage back then, while we were drawing with a whole history of animation in mind. I think at the time, Mr. Mori didn't have Disney-like foundations in mind, he was probably interpreting things from reality as much as possible to create his animations. I was very impressed by the primitive character and energy he was trying to represent in his drawing. Mori was certainly the first Japanese animator who knew how to represent this gesture, without following in the footsteps of Disney and the Western way of representing movement in an exaggerated way.
Q. I understand the feeling. When you think of this kind of typically Japanese realistic sakuga, you think of Yasuji Mori.
Even if it's the animals that take on this realistic air (laughs). It was wonderful. In a way, it also validates how I feel. Of course, in an age when we can see information from the past as well as the present, it's naturally impossible to draw with the same kind of feeling, but I think I learned a lot from the strength of expression of people who drew like that in those days.
Q. I'd like to ask you what you think of Keiichiro Kimura.
I really like Keiichiro Kimura's Tiger Mask opening. But if you compare the quality of Tiger Mask with his self-produced GO! SAMURAI, it's quite different. If you look at his work through the current line of high quality, such as Utsunomiya's or Takashi Nakamura's animations can have, some might say that the movements are rather disappointing, but I've always thought that was the wrong way to reason. There's definitely some good in this kind of work. I think Keiichiro Kimura expresses things in his own irreplaceable way. In a way, I found it incredible to release such a production without changing style. The quality of sakuga has improved and animators have learned to better meet the demands of enshutsu since his generation. The roughness of the '70s and '80s is still present in Kimura's work, in this way that brings the images closer and closer to the viewer. Kimura's work is capable of conveying and correctly expressing a message, but it remains considered a mysterious object, and the industry is content to say that the quality is low without taking advantage of its merits. I've always believed that animation quality isn't the only important thing in a work, so I think it's wonderful that such productions exist. The value of what we want to do cannot be based on the technological superiority or inferiority of our work. Animators are technicians, so they will tend to think that the more technical a work is, the better it will be, but if we get rid of this perspective, and simply look at the work in terms of expression, can we still talk about superiority or inferiority? If I want to continue to work against the grain, I think it's important to maintain a certain richness of expression in my animation. I'm a disciple of Utsunomiya, but also of Osamu Kobayashi, whose sakuga are very generous. In a way, I'm not aiming for the same vision as Keiichiro Kimura, but for my own emotional expression, which I can draw in my own way.
Q. After Kimura, there's Yoshinori Kanada of course! Since I'm a big Kanada fan and have been researching him for a long time, I'd love to hear your thoughts on him too.
Paradoxically, I don't think Kanada can simply be confined in the “Kanada style” category. He animated things back then that could very well be applied today too. Looking at the number of frames, you'd think there were a few missing, but as far as the poses and timing of the animation are concerned, if manipulated with designs or a way of inserting today's inbetweens, it could totally pass muster in a recent production. I think the quality of the work was such that you wouldn't be able to see the slightest hint of it, even today. Shinya Ohira's effects are also a development of Kanada's style. In a sense, what Mr. Kanada was doing was exactly the same as what we were talking about with Koji Mori earlier: they were invoking a real image and then putting it down on paper, they were pioneers in the genre. The way we conceive of effect-animation for the web generation is completely based on this Kanada system, this concept of materiality. An image is a simple engineering phenomenon, isn't it? The film passes through a lens and we react to the movement of the light. In short, I think Kanada drew his effects thinking that the audience was just watching the RGB system flicker. Today, in animation, since Utsunomiya's work, this idea of considering things as if they were matter and making them move as if we were modeling them has become quite common. But I think Kanada was the first to draw with the very principle of the image and the flickering of the RGB system in mind.
Q. M. Otsuka also did a lot of effect-animation when he worked at Toei.
But I think Otsuka drew effects like he drew objects. It's the same for the whole Telecom Animation style: Kazuhide Tomonaga, Hayao Miyazaki, Sadao Tsukioka... In terms of effects, there were several things that had been tried for a while, but I think it was really Kanada who made them look so good. There's also a kind of physical manifestation in Kanada's effects. Although in his later years he started drawing with rulers, at first - and I quote what Takashi Murakami had observed - the beauty of his drawings came from the fact that when he drew natural phenomena, he managed to link the splendor of the forms with the sensation of the bodies. It was Kanada who provided the keys to determining the right timing, the right way to draw colors, to change them, all the basics of successful effect-animation.
Q. If I remember correctly, you're also a fan of Hiroyuki Imaishi. What's the difference between Kanada's and Imaishi's designs?
Imaishi is a follower of Kanada's style in his later years. That's the impression you get when you look at their movements. But I don't think Kanada himself is his greatest influence, but rather the Kanada school in general. He loves the delicacy of Masahito Yamashita's work, Hideki Tamura's is also of great importance, and he must also greatly appreciate the work of Nobuyoshi Habara. But he's not a Kanada fundamentalist, unlike Shinsaku Kozuma, for example. And, yes, there is a difference between these Kanada fundamentalists and other fans, but animators like Hiroyuki Imaishi or Yoh Yoshinari make no such distinction; they see 80s culture as a whole. All things considered, you can't understand a cultural system if you haven't lived in it in real time. If you look with today's eyes at Ohira's work, Kozuma's Kokuryūha, or even more recently Bahamut, you can't help but reduce them simply to Kanada-style animation. From the point of view of a Kanada effect-animation fundamentalist, at least that's how I see it.
Q. What's the difference between Kanada and Yamashita, and which do you prefer?
I don't really want to have this discussion (laughs). Yamashita himself is very sensitive, so it's difficult for me to talk about him. I know he'd be hurt if I said too much about him. I really like Mr. Yamashita's work, his poses and timing are so unexpected that you'd think you'd have stepped out of the Kanada school. He has achieved his own inimitable style. I think Imaishi has a great admiration for Yamashita, and in the same way that I can't reproduce Utsunomiya's style, Imaishi may be facing the same thing with Yamashita. At least, that's how I see it, but in reality I don't know.
Q. Who do you think is the most important presenter at the Kanada school today?
I think it's Mr. Kozuma. It's amazing that he still manages to represent this style without changing a bit. It would be rude to say that he's a living national treasure, but he's the only person still able to draw in this Kanada-esque style today. Of course, Mr. Ohira also developed this style, but only Kozuma is capable of representing this style so intensely and so close to its origins.
Q. Were you able to admire Kozuma's Kokuryūha at the time YuYu Hakusho was broadcast?
I watched YuYu Hakusho at the time of broadcast, but it wasn't my favorite work, I just followed the anime broadcast sporadically at home. Since the work didn't really make an impression on me, I certainly didn't witness this Kokuryūha. I watched Yu Yu Hakusho every week but the fights were long so I figured I'd just watch the end of the Toguro arc. I figured if Hiei was still fighting, I didn't need to watch the anime properly until Yusuke appeared.
Q. By the way, you mentioned the names Kozuma and Ohira. I think their styles are similar, but there are differences in the way they handle distortion or timing.
There are differences. If you go back to the source, Kozuma's work is very similar to that of Kanada. Ohira himself often compares himself to Yamashita, but there are still differences. For example, in the Dallos era, Yamashita used a lot of leaves to animate a movement, which has nothing to do with Ohira's style today.
Q. Yes. But, for example, in the Dororo remake, Kozuma's editing looked a bit like Ohira's. That's my personal opinion, but...
It's very complicated in this field, you know. I imagine that Mr. Ohira and Mr. Kozuma share the same way of imagining things before converting them into images.
Q. Mr. Ohira forms a duo with Mr. Hashimoto, doesn't he? What can you tell us about these two?
As far as Shinji Hashimoto is concerned, he worked on The Hakkenden up until the third episode. Even then, for Hakkenden, Shinji Hashimoto drew in a realistic way that's close to today's taste. Still, it was Shinya Ohira who was mainly in charge of sakkan/animation direction, and we can see that he had remnants of Utsunomiya's style. Seeing this, Utsunomiya asked ??? to supervise the work, and Hashimoto changed his style. Looking at the scenes today, the parts supervised by Hashimoto and Utsunomiya don't look the same at all. I think it's an important piece of material that stands on the boundary between two eras.
Q. What is your favorite episode of Hakkenden?
The third episode. The fourth episode too, and in fact any episode! They're all such masterpieces that I don't really need to talk about them! Of course, there are many innovations throughout, but from a connoisseur's point of view, it's Takashi Nakamura's work that I love most about Hakkenden. It's all about this kind of lightness. With Utsunomiya and Ohira, there's always a certain heaviness in the movement, even if, in the case of Ohira, Masaaki Yuasa is able to extract lightness from his style. Takashi Nakamura's images, on the other hand, manage to be very light while retaining a three-dimensional feel. But I still feel that the only one capable of truly touching this lightness today remains Norio Matsumoto.
Q. Takashi Nakamura's original scenes in Ougon Senshi Gold Lightan or Genma Taisen didn't really have that sense of lightness, did they?
Yes, it's a style that required a lot of paper. But depending on Nakamura's work, he could use different styles: works oriented towards full animation, and others based on just 2 or 3 frames. But it's really Takashi Nakamura's light style that I appreciate the most.
Q. Do you like Catnapped!/Banipal Witto?
I like Catnapped. As far as that sense of lightness in action is concerned, the opening to The Adventures of Peter Pan is the best example. Gold Lightan was also wonderful, not forgetting Urashiman. It's hard to say to what extent, but Nakamura's style has undergone such a change that it has also influenced Ohira. I don't think you can really answer that question in an interview... Personally, I haven't been able to reproduce Utsunomiya's style properly, and I don't think any animator has. In the same way, I think Shinji Hashimoto's style today is just as difficult to reproduce. It's perhaps a little impolite to say so, but by way of comparison, even in Ohira's style, there are still things that are easy to understand. What I mean is, you can admit the birth of a Hokuto Sakiyama, for example, but the birth of someone like Shinji Hashimoto is much rarer, because what he does is so difficult. Like Satoru Utsunomiya, he possesses the same finesse that is so difficult to master. In terms of the difficulty of the animation style, I think it's these two who have set the bar the highest.
Q. What about your collection of original artwork?
Since I'm good friends with Oguro Yūichirō and Takahashi from Break, I can ask them to send me anything I need. I've never paid for anything, I get the gengashū from the artists and if Studio Break publishes one, I just ask to see it and they bring it to me. I self-publish my own books at Break so....
Q. Do you own any original genga/drawings?
I don't, but Mr. Takahashi does. We're good friends, in fact we go fishing together. When I went to his place, I saw some genga by Shinji Hashimoto. I spent the night at his place in Chiba until the morning before going fishing, and fell asleep admiring his genga.
Q. Finally, what do you think is the best anime for sakuga fans to watch?
That's a tough one. I don't know whether to give a very complex answer or something easy to watch as an introduction. For an introduction, works like Akira or Innocence are pretty easy to watch. I think Innocence is probably the easiest to understand, it's like a sakuga relay race. You can see the work of animators like Shinya Ohira, Shinji Hashimoto and Satoru Utsunomiya in the scenes. For me, it's easier to understand than Akira because you can see the different approaches of the animators side by side. My second choice would be Taiho shichau zo, particularly episode 37 with Matsumoto's beach volleyball scenes.
Q. I haven't seen it yet. It's embarrassing.
I think it's because the genga weren't successful, so his name isn't credited. In Innocence, for example, we have this same problem of movements that seem heavy because of the large number of images used, but in TV series, there are a lot of genga/key images missing with this 3 koma base (one image for three frames) hence this lightness. As far as Matsumoto's work is concerned, he began with a lighter drawing style on Ranma, before gradually switching to a 3-koma base. As he matured, his style came closer to what he was able to do in the last episode of Okojo-san, the battle of Ikedaya in Rurōni Kenshin, or the infirmary scene in Blood: The Last Vampire. If 3-koma animation has become Norio Matsumoto's specialty, it's not least because the Beach Volley episode of Taiho ni shichau zo was the ground for all kinds of experimentation, good and bad. That's really where you can best observe this style of animation.
Q. You mentioned Mamoru Oshii earlier. What's your favorite film by this director?
I'm really struggling to choose between Patlabor 2 and Innocence...
Q. We've talked about several animators, but if you'd like to say something about an animator whose name hasn't yet been mentioned, please don't hesitate.
I mentioned Tsutomu Shibayama for Doraemon, and I think that in recent years, my opinion of Mr. Shibayama has grown even stronger. If you compare what he did with today's Doraemon, I think you'll understand right away. Even as enshutsuka/episode director, he was offering works of great sobriety and high quality, even though they were aimed at children. It's an ambition Fujiko Fujio also shared. The layouts, too, were very flat, so that the viewer was fully immersed in the characters' animation. In recent years, several animation techniques have been used in Doraemon films to make the action dynamic or flashy, and in a sense this lacks refinement. On the contrary, I think Tsutomu Shibayama's era perfectly represents Fujiko Fujio's balance between elegance and vulgarity. Shibayama's Doraemon films have always been among my favorite works ever since I was a kid, and usually when I revisit the works I loved as a child, I end up finding them rather bland, whereas with Doraemon, I always think it's great. In an interview, Shibayama said that, as an animator, we're bound to come across scenes we're not going to enjoy, and every animator has his or her own pet peeves, but our self-esteem drives us to draw the scene correctly for the sake of the work. I have the impression that modern Doraemon films are made in such a way that the animators can have fun throughout. Nonetheless, I think there's a lot to be learned from this attitude of Shibayama and his contemporaries, the fact of containing themselves in order to painstakingly create an elegant, perfectly executed work. If you look at the works where Shibayama handled the sakuga himself, such as Dokonjō Gaeru or his adaptations of old Japanese tales, you'll find a lot of surprising movements. Some even claim that he's better at drawing and moving characters than Hayao Miyazaki. With Dokonjō Gaeru, for example, I think Shibayama Tsutomu was the only one to create layouts that surpass Miyazaki's.
Q. Mr. Miyazaki's drawings are much coarser, for example in Hols and Araiguma Rascal, where he creates particularly action-oriented animations. In contrast, Mr. Shibayama and the A-Pro animators are completely different. They draw in a more refined style.
They probably have their own style. I imagine they draw with expression in mind, not in an animator's way, but from an illustrator's point of view. It's Shibayama's ingenious way of perfectly drawing the expression he has in mind, so as to convey it in the best possible way. I have a lot of admiration for this way of doing things and, on a personal level, I think it should be re-evaluated and appreciated more. When I see how flashy the modern Doraemon films are, I feel a little frustrated. But you have to keep up with the times. Interest in Shibayama's Doraemon may be waning fast, but I want to be able to pass on the elegance of these films so we don't forget it.
Q. You also worked on ?????, didn't you? Yet you didn't mention Yasuhiro Irie's name.
Actually, I work a lot with Irie. When I was assistant director on Koneko no chi, he drew a lot of storyboards/konte for me.
Q. Are you Irie's mentor?
No, let's say Irie takes the lead role in drawing the storyboards/konte, so there's no real handover between us. In fact, I've never really been inside Mr. Irie's studio. I just ask him for something and we have a short chat about it. In Back to You, the main character's design was done by Irie, and he followed the requested design to the letter. We changed the clothes and a few details like that, but all the work on the face came purely from Irie and we kept the same ideas.
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Translation education
Master's degree - Université Paris Cité
Experience
Years of experience: 3. Registered at ProZ.com: Oct 2023.
After dedicating five years to immersing myself in language study and
experiencing life's most enriching moments in Yokohama, I made a pivotal
career shift towards freelance translation. This undertaking has finely
honed my linguistic proficiency and enriched my capacity to foster
cross-cultural communication. Concurrently, my passion for gastronomy
has left an indelible imprint at pivotal junctures in my career
journey—be it through cherished family gatherings, an earnest pursuit of
tangible achievements or even a significant kitchen injury. This fervor
led me to undertake formal culinary training at the esteemed Ferrandi
school, where I acquired both technical prowess and an exhaustive
comprehension of the gastronomic sphere. Presently, my primary focus in
translation work centers around media outlets specializing in animation
studies and research, yet I remain open to opportunities in the realm of
culinary literature and content due to my culinary background.
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