As we head into Anime Expo 2014, we thought it’d be nice to look back on the events of last year in anticipation of upcoming happenings. Sentai Filmworks brought filmmaker Makoto Shnkai to debut his film Garden of Words. Director Masaaki Yuasa brought a 12 minute film funded entirely by kickstarter. Attack on Titan producer George Wada came and saw his show was more popular than he ever knew in America with the panel hall full of Titan cosplayers, which probably led to Funimation eventually getting the show onto Cartoon Network’s Toonami, even though as Wada noted during a pres conference, the show was meant to teach 10 year old kids the dangers of going over the fence into the outside world.
Attack on Titan was also some thing Production I.G. director Mitsuhisa Ishikawa touched upon at his press conference, as it’s one of a few big shows they’d been working on. He spoke even more on another project entitled Space Battleship Yamato 2199, which was an unusual business model, initially releasing multi episode blocks theatrically before they were broadcast on TV “We’ve remade Space Battleship Yamato as a TV series and new movies are coming. The reaction in Japan was very positive.” He continued, “Yamato was originally considered dead project. (Our) enthusiasm got project running. Hopefully we proved detractors wrong.”
When asked if he foresaw future Yamato 2199 projects remaking parts of the story, he noted “When making some contract, there are hurdles to be cleared. I think it will be made. Not a question of fans support but when hurdles will be cleared.” Apparently they were at some point as a new trailer went up recently promoting 2 new 2199 movies which will review the TV show and introduce The Comet Empire as the next invasion force. (He asked me about American reaction to Yamato 2199 whether it’s individual or across the board. So I told him many people who watch love the animation and appreciate the fact that the story expands on so much. I’d like to think this helped to get Star Blazers 2199 distributed here, but who knows?)
The focus shifted to his new OAV series Ghost In The Shell: Arise “I was inspired by shows like CSI and 24 and wanted to do 1 hour blocks to tell stories and maybe do better a bit than Hollywood.” He met with GITS creator Masamune Shirow and was very impressed afterward. “Shirow had mountains of books on the sci-fi genre. He took the concepts most likely to occur in next 50 years and put them into GITS.”
Arise will be comprised of four 50 minutes episodes total, two of which were screened nationally by Funimation recently. “When you watch them all, you’ll know why this many. I wanted to make something completely new.” He noted some of the pitfalls and peaks of this new show’s direction. “There are new seiyuu, new designers, new music, etc. Internet folks were really sad and disappointed to see changes initially, and that was the starting point we had.” Continuing on the changes and fan reaction, “Your end product depends on director. We’re on our third director, who mostly animates The director can or can’t have something changed. We had a feeling some folks might not like changes but had confidence people would ultimately accept what we did.
Focusing on the origins of Maj. Kusinagi the setting is the year 2027, before she gets to be part of Section 9. “Motoko isn’t superwoman or immortal. In this series she’s suffering. Just her brain is human, her body is metal. She was raised as weapon of war, but wants to live as a human. I feel fans will support someone who is suffering more than someone w/ no vulnerabilities.”
The Blue Exorcist movie which came to home release a couple months back was screened here as well, with a panel hosted by Animation Director and Character Designer Keigo Saski, as well as overall producer Takamitsu Inoue. They spoke initially about the focus of the film. “The theatrical film is an extension of the TV story about the brothers’ trials and tribulations. It will be very obvious when you see film.” Also, “the movie isn’t battles in combat lands but bonds between various characters.”
Saski noted about his work, “The character designs have been brushed up to be new and fresh. For me the tough part was making sure character designs got closer to the original story and keeping them faithful.” Continuing about his contributions here, “I learned a lot doing Nightraid. I’m still developing style, though. Never constant or satisfied. Not something that will ever be fixed.” As to his own inspirations, “Space Adventure Cobra is my biggest influence. Any work where the guy is strong.”
The duo fielded a question similar to one asked at a convention in France: “Why would Japanese people tell a story about the devil?”, and they noted, “We drew from inspirations and cultures around the world. Not to negate what religion is about. I’m sorry if some sensitive people may have trouble accessing it. The movie’s not a critique of religion; more an inspiration. We hope everyone can enjoy our work as a whole and not just religious aspect.” Continuing they noted more about the film’s setting “Very Japanese / Asian. We took effort to be accurate setting. Hope you enjoy. Story is meant to be accessible to people who’ve never seen BE before, to entice new people to see the TV show while entertaining people who’ve seen it before.”
And now, let’s get ourselves ready for…
