Otakon 2010: Japanese Producers & Directors Panel

Koujina, Masunari, Ochikoshi, and more!

Fifteen minutes before this panel, which brought together some of the best guests (minus Maruyama) at Otakon, there were four people, myself included, waiting in a room that could easily hold 200 people. By the time the guests of honor showed up, there were maybe seven of us. With such small attendance, the panel hosts asked if we just wanted to pull some chairs into a circle and talk. I couldn’t picture anything more wonderful for a Q&A session with such notable directors and producers (and their translators). What followed was one hour and fifteen minutes of back-and-forth with some surprisingly frank answers and even one soap-box rant. This was the best Q&A I’ve attended so far. What follows are some of the more interesting questions and answers offered during that session.  Unfortunately, I was a writing a bit too feverishly to note whom was responding to which question, but the questions and answers themselves usually give some clue as to which guest was talking.  The answers given at least serve as a great overall view of the range and solidarity of attitudes amongst these famous directors and producers. Some questions have been omitted due to either my poor handwriting, poor audio qualty (no microphones were use din this larg room), or the asking of a question we've all heard 10,000 times over in interviews.  The questions I posed and their corresponding answers follow the break, along with a link to the full transcription. Enjoy!

Q1: How hard was it to animate all the pieces of paper in Read or Die?

A1: To be honest, it was actually the animators who had the hard time. As the director, I just told them what I wanted. For the OVA, all the pieces of paper were actually hand-drawn, but that was too tough for the TV series. So a lot of the background pieces/pages of paper were actually 3D CG, and only the foreground papers that were more principle were hand-drawn.

Q2: What were the influences for the use of magic realism in R.O.D., if any?

A2: The idea of using paper as prop(?) was not my original. It came from Hideyuki Kuratra, who wrote the novel that Read or Die is based on. And the ability for Yomiko in R.O.D. to manipulate paper goes hand-in-hand with her normal apparent lack of any athletic ability. So the ability for her to be a sort of superman who can do anything to villains and to be the complete klutz who can do anything has to be reconciled into one coherent character.

Q3: Which scenes did you animate in Crystal Triangle?

A3: I’ve completely forgotten. That was such a long time ago.

Q4: How much does the budget allotted to a show affect the animation quality, and how much is scheduling and staff. And when it comes to budget, it is mostly spent on hiring animators, and how do you go about finding animators?

A4: It’s not just the money. Of course, finding the right director, and getting the staff together. And sometimes you can get away with not having to spend too much money on a project. Also, in a Madhouse title, there’s a lot of lines we have to draw, so it does take a little bit of a budget sometimes. So we have to see what we can get from where. And so when it comes down to actual budget, it changes depending on the actual title or for a TV series. But when it comes down to it, you gotta pay the people involved.

A4a: Budget is an important factor in coming up with the quality of work, because if you have the budget, you can afford to create a working environment for quality animators who work long hours. And that is very important. However, a good working environment alone does not ensure the quality of a piece. It’s really the passions of the creative talent, the creators themselves that assure the making of quality work. And most of the budget does go into labor, the animators’ pay.

A4b: When it comes down to it, it’s up to the creators. ‘Cause if you give the animators a month to do something, they’re gonna do the best they can for that month...right up to the last minute. And if you give them a week to do the same work? They’re gonna put the same effort in to it until the very last minute. So sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s bad, but the creators tend to maximize the time they have to do the best work they can. So when it comes down to it, it’s not really about time or money.

A4c: And all these years we’ve always appealed to the good conscience of the people who work on the project, so there’s a lot money hasn’t bought...but I do take them out to Korean BBQ after we’re done.

Q5: Is the anime industry losing staff to the videogame industry? Why?

A5: That would have been the trend 4 or 5 years ago, but they’ve started to come back to the anime industry.

Q5a: Why is that?

A5a: He can only speculate, but perhaps the videogame industry was far more severe than the work required in the anime industry. But it’s very likely that the animators have a better sense of accomplishment that they worked on a piece of work, a story, a piece of film working in the anime industry.

Q5b: Rather than on cut scenes to video games?

A5b: Yes.

Q6: How do you feel about American fans as opposed to Japanese fans?

A6: I feel that American fans are much less shy, they’re not afraid to ask questions. And that makes answering their questions easier.

A6a: To add to that, back at [recording unintelligible], Director Magawa showed the first episode of Giant Robo, showed it to a room full of people, and the reactions that the people did to every scene, he was just really moved by how pure and straightforward the reactions were compared to an airing he would’ve done in Japan.

A6b: In fact, watching the audience react to Welcome to the Space Show yesterday, the American audience had a deeper and higher response to expected scenes than the Japanese audience.

A6c: And a story I heard from the Trigun director, when the movie was shown here, in the scenes where we would have really like to have gotten a laugh, the entire audience just burst out into laughter, and he couldn’t help but take the guts pose from watching the show.

Q7 (from panel to attendees): Welcome to the Space Show does have a heartwarming ending, and I’m wondering if the audience was laughing too hard that they happened to miss that part.

Q8: This is about, Kamichu! My friend noticed there were a ton of key animators, like more-so than normal anime. Was there that many people on staff, or did the animators call their animator friends to animate parts of it for you?

A8: Actually, it’s not really something to be proud of, to have so many key animators on a show, but if we put a positive spin to it, you can say that there were so many people who helped out in making that show. And in reality, there are only so many individuals, as an individual or as a production company, so many animators that you can call upon. So for Kamichu!, it was the poorer key animators who called upon their capable colleagues, and those colleagues called upon their other colleagues. So there was a multi-level team effort that helped out in the production of the show.

A8a: The positive spin, that’s the beautiful version of the story, but when you’re really tight on schedule and you needed that many people to the show...c’mon!

Q9: omitted

Q10: Regarding young animator training program...

A10: I’ve been in the animation industry for 20 years, and it’s an ever-evolving industry. And in order for such an industry to keep evolving, it needs new blood. In order to have new blood, you have to train new animators. And by training these new animators, we’re also affected by their presence and continue evolving ourselves. So in order to keep the industry evolving, I think it’s a very important thing we have to do, to train new animators.

A10b: My belief is that our friends and predecessors brought the show not tell format of anime to what it is today. But I think, especially in the past 10 years, this is a storytelling skill that is being lost especially with the young animators. They have gotten very good to show things, but the needed ability to be able to bring stories that make you feel is something that’s not so prevalent, especially on TV. And in some ways, that might be inevitable, but these are very necessary storytelling skills that need to be passed on.

Q11: Building on that, you mentioned storytelling skills degrading.... Do you think this happens because animators spend more time growing up with animation as opposed to say watching actual films?

A11: You can say that there’s an element of that, but it’s not really in the storytelling as much the skill of the animator to be able to convey that. In respect to the actual storytelling, that would be the responsibility of the writer and director, and that’s a whole other department to worry about.

A11a: I’ll have to agree with what the director said regarding some of the younger animators. That may be true, but in order to teach or raise young animators, I’ve got a little project going on right now, of creating a show using just the younger talent. So when you let animators work, just freely create, you get some really imaginative creations from these creators. And in a production house like Madhouse, we got a lot of higher-ups with a lot of experience, and a lot of the beginning talent doesn’t really get a chance to grow. And doing a project like this gives them that opportunity.

A11b: It’s fairly possible a lot of the young animators just don’t know what to do and do not have the skills, and that really becomes our responsibility, because we’re the ones who aren’t really dependent on what their potentials really are.

A11c: When it comes down to it, it really is our responsibility to recognize it and raise it, so we have some work to do as well.

Q12: Question about foreign animators program and the attitudes towards foreigners working in Japanese animation industry.

A12: This is my first time hearing about the program, but working in anime is not exclusive to Japanese nationals, and we’re always hungry for fresh new ideas, so assistance would be very welcome. However, one of the most important tools in working in anime is communication...so when that language barrier is broken, we would probably be able to collaborate. It also means that as employers, we should have staff members who are capable of communicating with foreign animators.

Q13: omitted

Q14: This is for Director Koujina. There are a lot of hand combat scenes at the end of Genedier, and I wanted to know who is responsible for that fight choreography.

A14: I did the choreography myself *applause*. But I did use the gun kata from Equilibrium as a reference.

Q15: Regarding Noitamina, the programming block in Japan late-night that kind of addresses older female viewers, anime not directed geared to shonen viewers. How as directors do you welcome this availability for different programming?

A15: I don’t think we make any *laughter*. Maybe some interest in working with it, but not really familiar with it.

Q15a: Is it viewed as any sort of competition, or is it just written-off as having nothing to do with you?

A15a: I haven’t written of Noitamina, but Noitamina may have written me off.

A15b: Actually, I will be working on a Noitamina title. I ended up doing that, and what I’ve been told is that the intent for Noitamina is to make shows that are meant for mature audiences, both male and female. And that the intent is to make an animated show that is like a live-action drama and it would be consistent with that type of spirit. And this would be meant for viewers not familiar with anime. So we need to make the show as accessible as possible for a non-anime-viewing audience.

Q16: Regarding digital distribution, are company’s noticing rise in sold copies, and if so what effect is it having?

A16: I think that visual works are something that isn’t so affected by what kind of medium it’s shown on. I think it’s very savvy and incredible. However, I think the intent behind distribution is to reach a wider audience, so if digital distribution actually shrinks the market, then that means the number of titles that can be produced will decline as well.

Q16a: “Shrink the market.” Does that apply to only physical sales?

A16a: By that I really do mean a decline in revenue.

A16b: This is because you have to be interested in the shows to begin with in order to go to digital distribution to access the content, whereas if it’s a TV show, all you have to do is flip on the TV switch and it’s there for you. So that means that the commercial, the publicity needs to be redone and changed to something suitable.

A16c: However, in the Japanese market, there’s been a slight decline in DVD sales, but reaching other regions and expanding to other markets compensates.

Q17: Do you miss anything about the bygone era of cell animation?

A17: One correction: the actual animation is still done pencil-on-paper. So that part is analog. And everything after animation, the filming and post-production, is all digital.

A17a: But one of the things that was extremely improved by going digital is effects like fire and water, which were very difficult to hand draw. Now it’s all handled by CG effects and very easy and time saving. But I have to admit that I kind of miss the feel of the old hand drawn fire and water effect. And also it comes down to being able to use your time, maximize the use of your time to the last moment.

A17b: After going digital, the loads for directors and technical directors got really increased. Because it’s the job of the technical director to be responsible for the production of the animation all the way to the end, and instead of telling the camera operator what to do, it’s really faster for the technical director to do the work yourself. So they may end up doing everything themselves all the way.

A17c: One of the differences also, is that by going digital there’s a lot of work that lies on the shoulders of the director of photography. The director of photography has to take directions from the director, saying “ok here’s how I want the effects to look,” and the director of photography now needs to know actual directorial types of skills in order to convey, to do what the actual director wanted to have depicted. In the old days, we just have the cells, …time sheet, ...and it was much easier to communicate. It just sort of speeds things up sometimes and takes away from creative aspects sometimes.

Q18: Ratio of DVD titles sold vs. not selling – does a lob-sided sales figure mean the popular shows are taking away sales from the less popular?

A18: I do admit that the discrepancy between titles that sell and titles that don’t sell are getting bigger, but the increasing of sales is also expected to come from Blu-ray sales as well. As companies in the anime industry, we always need to keep up with the current technologies. So that when there is a change in the media technology, we take that as the opportunity to catch up and get even.

Translator’s question to audience: I have a question for the audience, in terms of DVD sales. Right now the industry here is hurting...you know this. But you guys have come all this way, travelled from afar, and spent, I don’t know, X amount of dollars to buy your passes. How many of you have bought an official DVD release from the US this trip? Of the 25,000+ people at this con, how many do you think have bought an official DVD at this show? You know, I say this at every con that I go to...if everybody attending, every single one of you, picked up one copy of an official DVD from the dealer’s room, you’d save this industry. One, you know? And I say this at any con that happens at every con that happens every weekend in the United States. You would all save this. Just one copy. And it’s sad when a US release is selling less than 10,000 copies of something, might even be 5,000.

Q19: omitted

Q20: Regarding the translator’s earlier question, does the Japanese industry realize US conventions are more social events as opposed to the mass-buying events that the comic markets of Japan represent.

A20: It is something that I hear about, that American conventions are more like a general gathering, that’s something where your friends gather and you have social time, whereas Comic Market is something that’s more for individuals’ desires.

A20a: I’ve actually not been to Comic Market that much myself. I only hear about this. But I hear that fans who go to Comic Market end up spending perhaps 100,000 to 150,000 Yen a day to buy stuff there. So there is a central fixation in buying up stuff, and they don’t have time to socialize at all.

A20b: I feel like Otakon’s sort of like a Japanese festival that people come out to enjoy...too busy enjoying themselves to buy anything.

Q21 (paraphrased): One reason sales might be slipping is because people wait for their technology to be served. There’s no reason in buying standard DVD if the Blu-ray version will be out later, etc.

A21 (translator): That’s more of a US industry question. One of the biggest roadblocks to FUNimation, Aniplex, or Bandai would run into is that Blu-ray is the same region as Japan. So if you buy a Japanese title you can play it here on your PS3 or your Blu-ray player and US releases can be played just the same in Japan. And in Japan, it’s normal to spend $75 for three episodes. Would US accept that pricing?

(Unanimous answer from audience: no)

So Japan would let US company put six episodes on one DVD and sell it for $30, with English dialog and subtitles and allow it to come out in the US, at the same time, because everyone demands simultaneous release? Yeah, it’s not gonna happen. So, one of the ways to get around it would be to release Blu-ray with only English. Would the fans wanna buy that?

(Unanimous answer from audience: no)

So, with the whole convenience of the same region thing, come a bigger hurdle of a lot of the companies not being able to release an English language Blu-ray at the same time or without waiting six months to one year. I don’t think there is an answer, but if you have an answer, we’d love to hear it.