Interestingly enough, Newtype USA also included the occasional novelist interview. This one is with Mushi-Uta creator Kyohei Iwai, who was at JSDF boot camp when he first heard he would get to be published.
Along with an understanding of the broader context of the subject, the most vital ingredient to good anime coverage is a reliable source. So when US journalists actually interview people on the production side in Japan, it’s generally worth noting unless the interview consists entirely of fluff. This is the latest of what will hopefully be a couple more posts archiving articles from Newtype USA’s [inside] series of articles written by Amos Wong. This article on studio 4C includes President Eiko Tanaka talking about global markets and the technical aspect of continuous takes, Koji Morimoto talking about his work on the Animatrix and the producer who got him involved in the project, and Shinichiro Watanabe talking his issues with tight schedules.
Note: Pictures are scans of the article made on my crappy scanner, which cover the article text but not the entire page. They’re also in greyscale, because I’m interested in archiving interview text and color scans make the process more of a headache than it needs to be. Apologies for that. Scans after the jump, along with comments on the contents of the article.
This is a short, short piece on Kino’s Journey included entirely for the novelty of the staff quote section on the first page, where multiple staffers talk about eating one meal a day (presumably due to hectic scheduling).
Maeda Mahiro discusses his work on The Second Renaissance portion of the Animatrix, which took a draw-first, write-later approach to creation. It also (weirdly) contains the other half of the director-CG guy conversation started by Hiroshi Shirai in the [inside] Gonzo article. Also has one of the better quotes I’ve read so far; “That’s all anime is – something you do to kill time when school sucks.” (Talking not about the viewers, but how animators get to drawing and how then-modern technology had made it easier to create things with that lackadaisical, bored-during-class feel.)
This is a neat interview tidbit showing off some of the thought processes permeating earlier era Madhouse (the [inside] article on Madhouse, in another issue, elaborates a bit on their clamp connection). Morio Asaka talks about the blurred line between manga for girls and manga for boys (considering Chobits as a shojo manga even though it ran in a shonen magazine). Hidetoshi Abe mentions a post-credits revision to the second CCS movie’s ending that never made it in. Nanase Ohkawa talks about how she depicts male characters and the less intensive role (relative to CCS) she played in the anime’s production.
Along with an understanding of the broader context of the subject, the most vital ingredient to good anime coverage is a reliable source. So when US journalists actually interview people on the production side in Japan, it’s generally worth noting unless the interview consists entirely of fluff. This is the latest of what will hopefully be a couple more posts archiving articles from Newtype USA’s [inside] series of articles written by Amos Wong. This one talks about what-if superstar studio gonzo, years before bankruptcy filings forced their biggest talents to split off into David Production and Studio Sanzigen.
Note: Pictures are scans of the article made on my crappy scanner, which cover the article text but not the entire page. They’re also in greyscale, because I’m interested in archiving interview text and color scans make the process more of a headache than it needs to be. Apologies for that. Scans after the jump, along with comments on the contents of the article.
Along with an understanding of the broader context of the subject, the most vital ingredient to good anime coverage is a reliable source. So when US journalists actually interview people on the production side in Japan, it’s generally worth noting unless the interview consists entirely of fluff. This is the latest of what will hopefully be a couple more posts archiving articles from Newtype USA’s [inside] series of articles written by Amos Wong. In this one (the first chronologically in the series) President Masahiko Minami talks about the studio’s origins and namesake, Hiroshi Ousaka talks about research trips to Morocco, and Toshihiro Kawamoto talks about using digital effects to produce more effective POV shots.
Note: Pictures are scans of the article made on my crappy scanner, which cover the article text but not the entire page. They’re also in greyscale, because I’m interested in archiving interview text and color scans make the process more of a headache than it needs to be. Apologies for that. Scans after the jump, along with comments on the contents of the article.
I wasn’t planning on scanning this until I read it, but this one just so happened to contain some juicy tidbits. Toshihiro Kawamoto not only opens up a little about what the job title “Art Production Director” entails, and has a cool point about the cost of extra lines in character designs for anime movies (the more times you have to draw it, the more expensive it gets). He also mentions that Shinichiro Watanabe tends to be more hands-off in handling his staff, hence some of the fanservice in the motion-heavy scenes (in other words, kind of an entertaining polar opposite to Tsutomu Mizushima in 2012).
Note: I switched to greyscale here because I kept making mistakes in scanning the pages with small margins and it takes significantly less time than color per scan.
Hanada Shonen-shi is an oft-overlooked series that holds a few unique fun-trivia attributes; it was one of the earlier shows in the awesome NTV 24:50 Tuesday slot and put up 3%+ ratings long before doing so was cool, and it’s got the only opener done by the Backstreet Boys. This brief spread talks about how the manga creator, Makoto Isshiki, was the one who pushed for that opener. There’s also an interesting comment on the voice actors practicing for a body-swap sequence. Not much text, but it’s neat.
Yutaka Izubuchi jokes about the length of the Eva manga, goes over designing his preferred style of face-bearing robot, mentions his Sunrise Production Planning Division connection with the director of Gundam SEED, and talks about getting gently nudged into the director’s chair by Masahiko Minami (President of Bones). Also, he get a pretty hilarious congratulatory card from Mamoru Oshii; “I don’t know why you don’t just quit… and don’t come crying to me when you fail!” More refuse for my “Is Mamoru Oshii just affecting that cranky demeanor he always has in interviews, rather than being legitimately bitter?” pile.
Animetics 