Welcome back to another week of Hyouka comments. The series is currently re-airing on Gifu Broadcasting, so I’ve taken the opportunity to translate the staff comments of the two episodes that aired today. Well, as you’ll see, I had to get a little creative this week. Now, shall we venture back into Kanya Fest?

Episode 13: A Corpse by Evening

Photographer Norihiro Tomita:

I’m the director of photography for episode 13, Norihiro Tomita.

In this episode, a Tarot card was lost.

Who is this Jyuumonji?
What is their purpose?
I’m curious!!

How has Mayaka and Kouchi’s relationship changed?
Has she found A Corpse by Evening?
I’m curious!!

And then I’m really curious about who Kouchi will cosplay as next!!

So in order to liven up the setting and to make the cultural festival feel livelier, we not only applied filters, we also used 3D CG to make minor characters appear here and there. How many people did we add? Please check it out for yourselves.

There’s still more to come in this cultural festival. The fun’s just begun. Please enjoy the bustling festival with the Classics club.

So here’s usually the point where I start translating the next comment. We have a problem though. Episode 13 only had this one comment on the site. Since I don’t want to shortchange the readers, here’s a bonus translation of a few blog entries dealing with production of a show:
2012/07/13: Festival Season

And so, this time we infiltrated the digital paint room.

A screen of a computer in the “finishing” stage.

This section, under the “color supervisor” or color key, coordinates the colors, finishes (colors), inspects, adds special effects, etc for each episode.

As all the process has moved to digital production, computers with special software for coloring the images are used.

Let’s zoom in a bit…

Eru

And so it looks like this at the moment.

Each person has their own style. People try out different methods when they’re coming into their own style to produce images quickly and accurately.

I was surprised when I first saw the staff work. They were typing on the keyboard so quickly. If you’re not able to hit a certain key quickly, you’re not able to work properly…

And so that’s the digital paint room used to color Hyouka!

2012/07/27: Infiltrating the Digital Imaging Development Room Pt 1

Continuing on from last time, let’s sneak into the digital imaging development room!

This section working in “photography.” In addition to combining painted cels with backgrounds, they add various effects and complete the images that come into your living room.

In the past it was called photography due to using a camera to literally photograph a cut, but now this whole process is done on computers.

Here we have screens when episode 1 was being worked on.

Screen when cel and background are combined

The screen when effects are added

I’m sparkling!

By adding effects, Eru’s divineness is amplified! The illusion of depth is created by scattering light along the front part of the image.

2012/08/03: Infiltrating the Digital Imaging Development Room Pt 2

Like last time, we will talk about the digital imaging room.
This post is an introduction to the 3DCG imaging process.
This scene from the third episode was Eru’s memories made to appear like a pop-up book.

Episode 3 scene

Using 3D software, we have created an image that looks like a real pop-up book!

3D Software screen

When played, a page moves and the image pops up from the next page. It really gives you the impression that Eru’s memories of her uncle really look like a picture book.

But if you look on the right side, you’ll see 1, 2, 3, 4 cameras…. that’s quite a lot. Do we really need this many cameras for one scene….(laughs)

Each blog post had more text, but those detailed the website and the surrounding episodes, so I’ve left those untranslated for this purpose. I hope it makes up for the lack of comments from the staff on episode 13.

Episode 14: Wild Fire

Director/Storyboards Naoko Yamada:

This is Yamada. I was in charge of directing and storyboarding episode 14: Wild Fire.

When I read The Kudryavka Sequence, I felt each of the Classic Club’s members’ thoughts were so loveable. Thus for this episode I greatly selected a set of scenes that would show their determination to express that loveable nature of the members.

Though each of the four’s methods are different, their goal is the same. When their hearts are synchronized, it’s a beautiful sight.

Ah, high school students are so wonderful.

Key Animator Fumie Okano:

I’m Okano and I was one of the key animators for episode 14.

This time in Hyouka we had quite a lot of action, tons of highlights, tons of characters, and tons of tiny objects!!!! Of particular note is the big crowd surrounding the Classics Club’s kitchen in the cooking challenge…. as time went on, they began to change, making the kitchen more exciting.
With the running Mayaka, the cute pumpkins, the shouting Hyoutarou, the slightly overwhelmed Irisu, the long-sleeves and apron Satoshi, the grinning cooking club president and vice president, the wonderful cooking skills of Eru, and so on… There were so many highlights this episode. We’re pleased if you were able to enjoy the variety of scenes this week.

Special Effects Rina Miura:

Miura here. I had the privilege of working on episode 14′s special effects.

It’s Wild Fire! COOKING! INGREDIENTS!
In order to show lovely food, you should first be acquainted with how it’s supposed to appear. When the time came to work on this episode, I relied on the power of civilization. I used the web to find pictures.

Many kinds of meat, and bream in shells… That cooking club is quite amazing. Imomochi, teriyaki amberjack, omelets, shrimp and vegetable fritters…I was hungry.
I wonder which team took the fish heads.
Imitation cooking… imitation cooking? Imitation cooking?! Even Takeda, our own Satoshi-like database had no idea what that was.

I’m curious!!!

Ha….No! I mustn’t. I just gazed upon it.

With all the straying and running around to finish dishes, how could you cook?
We’re sorry if our late night broadcast made people hungry. Please go to sleep following the episode and then make breakfast when you awake. …Primarily through imitation cooking.

And that’s it for this week. The wild fire has been put out and we’re moving on to the next set of episodes dealing with the lost items. What’ll happen next week?

As mentioned before, currently Hyouka is being re-broadcast this season by Gifu Broadcasting. This gives me the opportunity to look back and translate the staff comments for the two episodes broadcast each week. This week, we delve into the third big mystery of the show: the Jyuumonji event!

Episode 15: The Jyuumonji Incident

Director/Storyboards Hiroko Utsumi:

This is the director/storyboarder for episode 15, Utsumi.

This time we’re in the second day of the festival! In this episode there’s quite a few instances which build up to make this episode begin the mystery.

While Houtarou is the immoveable salesman, the other three do their best. Looking back on Eru and Tougaito’s conversation, it becomes a comedic moment. We wanted to make Eru serious in this scene, so we couldn’t over-do it with the comedic portions.
Like Tougaito’s cramped facial expression.

We thought surely he’s used to dealing with girls, so we had him thank Eru with a sweet smile and added a hunk filter to it.

Tani… well the key animators were quite picky about him.

Mayaka’s confrontation scene was already called intense in the storyboard phase, but it became even more treacherous in the final version so to say.
We took great caution for her “patience, patience somehow” appearance so it looked like she was about to cry, but didn’t…

With all the various things to focus on, personally I was in charge of Satoshi.

As he gradually got wrapped up in this incident, he changed from the usual Satoshi and started to believe he could solve this case. When he first went into the Magic Club’s showing he was confident that he’d be able to find the culprit easily. It excited him. Later that night, during his monologue, he became vexed by Houtarou and his soul was decided. The part after his smile disappeared was frank if I had to say. He was so lovely during that part!!

Didn’t it feel like you were getting a glimpse of the inside of Satoshi? This is lovely!

Anyways, we are pleased if you were able to enjoy this episode. Please continue to watch!

Key Animator Midori Nonoue:

This is Nonoue, one of the key animators for episode 15.

Though each of the Classics Club members had their own troubles and struggles this episode, our director Utsumi called it “The so-called Satoshi episode!☆”

Though I regret to inform you that I did not draw Satoshi this episode. My meal ticket was solely Houtarou and the Manga Club. I know, you can’t believe that in this important and astringent episode of Hyouka>, I spent my days drawing girls in cosplay.
For this episode, the only one tasked with drawing them was myself. Truthfully, I don’t know what kind of series I could draw by myself, but once I was done, Mayaka was to feel gloomy in peace.
Oh, isn’t that just an awful scene though.

As I was instructed at first to make Houtarou’s lunch multicultural, I spent some time researching food from each Asian nation. However, the recipes and types covered a vast amount of food. Also, there would be no time for the meal to be made as an odd job. Houtatou’s older sister’s feminine power wasn’t even halfway completed.

This episode had a lot of women appearing, so it turned out to be a lot of fun. Some may be in a minor role, but together they help to add the important reality component. I’m pleased if you’re able to feel how deep the show becomes because of them.

In-between Checker Emi Nakano:

This is episode 15′s in-between checker, Nakano.

Episode 15 is the episode where we rousingly prove what the rules are for the Jyuumonji Incident. Who’s behind all of this?…. You’ll just have to stay curious.

Personally, I’m curious where Houtarou’s Straw Millionaire trading game will go…
How does Tani keep his hair so silky smooth…
I’m very curious.

While I was working on the episode, that curiosity kept me entertained. It’d make me happy if all our viewers were entertained as well.

I’m curious what everyone thought.

Nevertheless, it’s nice to be young… and in high school, isn’t it?

Color Coordinator Naomi Ishida:

I’m the color coordinator for episode 15, Ishida.
I think I’ll talk about one of the more impressive scenes from episode 15.

The image in the opening scene when Satoshi was depicting the “Master Detective of the Classics Club” was Director Utsumi’s own image from a vampire manga. Combine Houtarou’s pose with a suspicious red background that made you go “who is that?” and you’re guaranteed to have a scene that people will remember from the episode. I’d not had the opportunity to work on one of those rare red night scenes, but because it was part of episode 14′s preview, I had to hurriedly finish it.

Naturally, I was satisfied with my work, but I ask that you allow me to think it’s good similar to how Irisu would say it’s nice.

Though my desire to have everyone enjoy the show continues, I thank you all for watching.

Episode 16: The Final Target

Director/Storyboards Kazuya Sakamoto:

This is the director/storyboarder for episode 16, Sakamoto.

Houtarou: “This involves a very adult topic. Are you sure you want to hear?”
Eru: “A very adult topic?! I’m curious!!”
Houtarou: “What?”
Mayaka: “That’s right! Tell us about it too!”
Satoshi: “What?”
Eru: “What adult topics was Oreki going to talk to Fukube about……
I’m! Curious!!”

……What would Houtarou have done in this situation? I’m interested in that.

And so I directed this episode keeping that simple question in mind.

I’d say that this arc, The Kudrvaka Order, shines a spotlight on the other three members of the Classics Club rather than Houtarou. Each of them have their own complexities and problems they encounter which changes how they act. Episode 16 particularly shows how Satoshi settles that dispute inside himself.
This is a part of growing up, isn’t it.

Well, it was full of Satoshi’s smiles for me.

Key Animator Hiroshi Karata:

This is one of the key animators for episode 16, Karata.

I was responsible for the scenes in the manga clubroom and the conversation between Houtarou and Satoshi on the crosswalk.

It has been a while since I drew minor characters, so drawing them in the manga clubroom was very fun. Especially with the variety of outfits they were wearing.

Also, one of the key points of this episode was when Satoshi’s emotions let loose on Houtarou. (I can say he let loose since I was in charge of this scene) I kept that emotion in mind while I was drawing his facial expressions and gestures. It’ll make me happy if my Satoshi turns out not like the usual happy Satoshi.

Color Coordinator Kana Miyata:

I’m Miyata and I was the color coordinator for episode 16.

Did you enjoy this episode?
We’ve entered the final day of the cultural festival.
This time, each section had to experiment with colors for Mayaka being splashed with dirty water.
The finishing staff ensured there was dirty water on top of the desk (even though it was just a few drops). It was quite through.
Please enjoy the water presentation.

And this episode had the debut of Radio show host Yoshino. Though he only appeared a little, his impact was quite large. Definitely a highlight of the episode!!

Everyone, please enjoy the final day of the cultural festival. Thank you for watching.

Backgrounds Ikuko Tamine:

Tamine here. I was in charge of drawing backgrounds for episode 16 of Hyouka.

This episode continues from the previous episode, so we drew the backgrounds even more excited about the cultural festival.
In order to show the zeal each club had for their events, we decorated the entire hall with banners and decorations. Just one look and you’ll unintentionally see their hard work and go back to your student days.
If everyone who watched felt the same as we did, it’s a work well done.

While there’s plenty of highlights in the episode, I think the core part of the story happened to be about Houtarou and Satoshi’s friendship. Especially Satoshi’s expressions and emotions, right?
The backgrounds were also secretly done to reflect the emotions of the characters on screen. Pay attention to the contrast between the light and shadows.

We’re just a little bit aways from the truth, so look forward to next time!

Another week down and we’re one episode away from finishing the Kudrvaka arc. While I greatly enjoyed the lighter atmosphere in episodes 12-14, these two episodes really helped bring everything together and executed the dramatic portions very well. I greatly enjoyed viewing them when I first watched the series. Next week, we finish the Kanya Fest, and question weather over mountain ranges. Look forward to it!

As mentioned before, currently Hyouka is being re-broadcast this season by Gifu Broadcasting. This gives me the opportunity to look back and translate the staff comments for the two episodes broadcast each week. This week, we delve into the third big mystery of the show: the Jyuumonji event!

Episode 17: The Kudryavka Order

Animation Director Nao Naitou:

This is Naitou, the animation director for episode 17. With this episode, the culture festival ends.

Each minor story came to its end. We had a great many of our characters appearing sad or troubled. People looking at them wouldn’t be able to understand why they’re sad or troubled and simply go, “I’m jealous of that life you live.” That’s what we were aiming for.

The person we paid attention to this time was Tanabe. For some reason I have this somewhat biased image of glasses characters being these intense, plain, scheming (and this one was scheming) characters. I’m only partially biased!
And so I worked hard to constantly portray him as a “good guy” so that wouldn’t come out in the episode. We should ensure he gives off a kind mood around him…

And this episode gives a fresh look at Satoshi, who had been always smiling up until this episode.

And Kouchi….NOT IN COSPLAY!!!

I’m kind of curious how the members of the manga club finished their culture festival.

Key Animator Teruyoshi Shidou:

Shidou here, I was one of the key animators for episode 17.

I drew the Eru/Irisu scene and the middle portion of the Houtarou/Tanabe scene.
With this being the end of Kanya Fest, the event where every character’s emotions was directed, we wanted to fire ourselves up to finish this important episode and reach a break in the tale.
I like Irisu’s character, so I drew her as someone who focused the atmosphere around her and kept an eye on her sweet underclassmen.
The Houtarou/Tanabe scene was so long, there were three animators allotted to it. Naturally we’ll each differ in our preferred camera angles and subtleties even given the same work materials. Usually it’s uncomfortable for the low person in the hierarchy, but this time it was different. We talked, fired ourselves up, and created a good rhythm between us. I’m not sure I could’ve accomplished my task without doing that. The bicycles were all CG imagery, so we could solely concentrate on the character drawings.
Since this episode didn’t have a lot of flashy movements from the characters, you really sensed that the festival was coming to a close. Personally, I really liked this episode. Thank you for tuning in.

Backgrounds Jouji Unoguchi:

This is Unoguchi, one of the background artists for episode 17.

This episode leads to a stopping point in the bigger story.
If we have to choose a talking point about this episode, it’s got to be that bicycle storage area, right?
Actually, did you notice how we changed the position of the sun between morning and afternoon scenes at the storage area?
Amusingly enough, this episode takes place over a large portion of time, so we worked hard to draw the lighting differently to display the changes in the time of day.
And then we finish the episode with a calm, subdued evening light.

Episode 18: Are the Mountains Sunny?

Director/Storyboards Noriyuki Kitanohara:

Kitanohara here. I directed/storyboarded episode 18.

This episode allowed Houtarou and Eru to see a portion of the other they’d not seen before.

They weren’t aware of the others private hobbies either.

Rather than say Houtarou has another side to him that we’ve not shown since there hasn’t been a chance, this time we finally have the opportunity to show you another part of him.

Key Animator Haruka Fujita:

Nice to meet everyone! I’m Fujita, one of the key animators for episode 18.

The portion of the episode I was tasked with was when Houtarou became curious and everyone was shocked he would go to the library to search for an article.

While working on this scene, I wanted to draw Houtarou’s mood as “In other words… I’m…curious about it.” This would give off the impression that “Houtarou gets curious sometimes.”

When the colors and voice was added as Houtarou said that line, I was just as surprised as the other Classics Club members. I couldn’t stand up and my face became as shocked as Mayaka’s was.

Houtarou becoming curious is a big occasion. And then when I was drawing Eru approaching him after his statement, I put the maximum amount of curiosity in her.

This episode has Eru seeing a soft yet clumsy side to Houtarou that everyone didn’t know. Gradually he’s starting to become brighter than he was when we first met him. It’d please me greatly if everyone was able to sense that Houtarou and the other characters had changed. Thank you very much for watching.

In-between Checker Naoko Fujita:

Hello everyone. This is Fujita and I was the in-between checker for episode 18. Did you all enjoy this episode?

Episode 18 is a nice calm story after the culture festival had ended. I was pleased to help depict a new side to Houtarou and to the scenes of the sky. I hope they gave an airy feeling when in motion.

As for the in-betweens… bicycle…bicycle…we did our best with all the vehicles!
Ah! The helicopters too!
This episode was rich in vehicles.

Backgrounds Yumi Okada:

This is one of the background artists for episode 18, Okada.

In order to show the gradual change in time from after school until twilight, we gradually drew the backgrounds to change bit by bit. with the temperate Kamiyama city and the grandiose Kamikouchi mountain range in this episode, you can’t pick just one background that’s the best, can you?

I was tasked with drawing the background for the delusion scene with Eru and Houtarou riding her bicycle. When I first thought about that scene, I thought that he would be riding behind her. And it became true in the episode. It was a pleasure to work on.

This episode had a really sorrowful feeling throughout it. We matched the changes in Houtarou and Eru’s minds with backgrounds to fit their current moods. I think everyone will enjoy this one.

And now Kanya Fest is over and the mystery behind Ogi and the helicopters is solved. Now we’ll head into the rest of the fourth novel in the next four episodes. Look forward to them!

The KyoAni show Hyouka is currently being broadcast again in Gifu by Gifu Broadcasting this season. In order to celebrate the re-airing, I’m translating the staff comments for each week. This week’s episodes involves two Classics Club members creating their own mysteries.

Episode 19: Anyone Who Knows

Scriptwriter Miyuki Egami:

This is Egami, the scriptwriter for episode 19.

This episode is nearly all Houtarou and Eru! With just their conversation and just the two of them in the clubroom together, there’s a lot of meaning in this episode. Though it took me a few tries, I was able to complete the vast amount of dialogue.

Up until now Eru’s put her face very close to Houtarou, but now she’s becoming aware of that closeness… The distance between them has started to change.

Nevertheless, it’s amazing, or should we just say the usual platitudes, for Houtarou to figure out the meaning behind a school announcement just from hearing it. It’s also amazing that Eru could transcribe it perfectly after only hearing it once.

It’d please me if you enjoyed this episode. Thank you for watching.

Key Animator Yuki Kakuda:

This is one of the key animators for episode 19, Kakuda.

When the episode was at the meeting stage, the director said “episode 19′s the grinning episode.” These type of episodes are my favorite dish, but I recall the tension kept rising and rising as we worked. It was a new feeling.
It’s after school…in the clubroom…by themselves… and in that kind of provocative situation, Houtarou and Eru have a conversation. That kind of action is just what you expect from them though.

The highlight of this episode has to be the moment when the distance between our fair Eru and Houtarou changes ever so slightly, doesn’t it? Up until this episode, she’s been ever so flirtatious with Houtarou, but now we see the shyness of a young woman. Oh yum. You can’t call this adolescence without shyness.

Personally, my gauntlet was the final portion where Eru asks “Why don’t we try to figure out why we did this?” Let’s see how cute I could make her. Upturned eyes… hidden mouth…slightly tilted head… Just like a small animal! If our fair maiden was able to pull on your heartstrings ever so slightly, it’d make it all worthwhile.

Thank you for watching.

Backgrounds Aiyou Yamatogi:

Nice to meet everyone, I’m Yamatogi, one of the background artists for episode 19.

This episode focused entirely on Houtarou and Eru’s conversation in the clubroom, so we regulated the backgrounds to reflect the passage of time. In the scene following Eru’s attempt to get close to Houtarou’s face, we made the atmosphere more adolescent than usual.

I was tasked with drawing the background of cat burglar Houtarou’s classroom! It was already cute during the layout phase, but the final version was even cuter!
My other portion was the image of Koubundou. The interior was twisted, curved, and a truly suspicious wine red. Definitely gave off the scent of a crime. It was a trial and error to match my image with the one the director and key animator had. It’s also one of the scenes our photographers were paying close attention to as well.

And then well… to draw the counterfit ten thousand yen bills, I had fun copy and pasting the designs. Did I overdo it?
Remember that good boys and girls don’t become copy cats!

Episode 20: Sappy New Year

Director/Storyboards Rika Oota:

Director/Storyboarder Oota here.

Sappy New Year was a story that I really wanted to do when I read it (grinning the entire time), so I was very pleased when I was tasked with directing/storyboarding this episode.

Let’s start with the first thing that I thought about when I saw the art boards for the incredibly beautiful shrine. “This is definitely the best date spot ever!” (Grin Grin)

And then while the interior of the shed was dark, everyone was able to see how cute Houtarou, ah, and of course Eru too was drawn! (Grin Grin)

When you watch those two, you don’t think about how cold they are. Your first thought is “Ah, adolescence is so nice.” (Grin Grin)

Thank you very much for watching. What a fantastic feast of a tale.

Animation Director Chise Kamoi:

Animation Director Kamoi here.

What did everyone think about the clothing this episode? Were you aware of Eru’s nape and casually amorous attire?

This episode had different attire with Mayaka’s nape showing in her shrine maiden attire and the Houtarouish, yet not Houtarouish white trenchcoat.

Shrine maidens can wear an undershirt underneath their robe (though it has to be white). Revising the color of that might have been a point I became obsessed with. (laughs)

Personally, I liked the scene where Eru/Houtarou give sake to Kaho. Eru gives a look to Houtarou and he knows instantly to hand over the sake to Kaho without a word. They’re just like an old couple!

Seeing the mature Eru and the contrastingly teenager Houtarou together is so cute. Unintentionally we weren’t able to put too much of that in.

If you enjoyed the date episode (smile), it makes us quite pleased. Thank you for watching.

Key Animator Nami Iwasaki:

Entering the new year, this is Iwasaki, one of the key animators for episode 20. What did everyone think?

This time our story takes place in the new year on New Year’s Day. Houtarou, that energy saving Houtarou left the comfort of his warm kotatsu and went to a cold shrine in order to see Eru in a kimono! Even more, he wanted to see her in one after she told him she’d be wearing one!
Well… you can’t help but smile with these two. Honestly…are they dating or not…

And then they’re locked in a shed! AH!!!! You sinful shrine geezer!

A cold locked room… windy breeze…Eru in a kimono…by themselves..

Though he can’t deny the temptation, Houtarou’s preference is to escape the cold. Slightly disappointing, but our Houtarou is a fine gentleman.

Though it’s only a glimpse, episode 20 allows us to get a glimpse of the world that Eru has to act in as a representative of the Chitanda house. Though she’s able to act differently in school, when she’s the Chitanda daughter, she has to do a complex change.

If I had to pick a point to highlight, wouldn’t it be Mayaka in a shrine maiden outfit? Awfully cute. That cosp…shrine maiden outfit suits her so well. Satoshi only appeared briefly in this episode, but you can’t resist smiling at that evil look on his face when he opened the shed. I love him when he’s smiling. Incidentally, we made his smile more evil than it was in the storyboards. I so love it!

It’d please us greatly if you enjoyed all the highlights this episode had to offer. Thanks for watching!

That wraps up stories 5/6 from the fourth novel. Next time we take on the final parts and possibly get some romance?! See you next week!

This is the final week of Gifu Broadcasting’s re-airing of KyoAni’s Spring 2012 series, Hyouka. For the past ten weeks, I’ve been translating the staff comments with each week’s episodes. Today finishes the final two episodes!

Episode 21: The Handmade Chocolate Incident

Scriptwriter Maiko Nishioka:

Nishioka here. I was the scriptwriter for episode 21.

What did everyone think of episode 21? It’s Valentine’s Day, so it’s got to be a girls’ festival! So I thought I’d convey their cuteness a bit. “Valentine’s… What were the children feeling back then…hmm…” And so I frantically looked into my past for ideas. They’ve already become distant memories… (far away look) Right now the current trends are to enjoy purchased chocolate. Making it by hand is too difficult! No one wants to follow Mayaka and Eru’s examples!

With all the components in this episode, it was quite difficult to write. Everyone’s own feelings go around and around in the atmosphere. It was important to convey each one of their thoughts. Especially Satoshi’s. This is the first time we’ve seen Satoshi act fishy since the cultural festival.

Though it might overload you at first, each character’s actions and expressions are representative of their feelings this time. If you watch it again, you might enjoy it even more noticing more things.

It’d make me happy if everyone enjoyed this episode even just a little. Thank you for watching!!!

Key Animator Yumi Fuji:

This is key animator Fuji.

This time I was able to draw several scenes, but for some reason I wasn’t able to draw Mayaka…
Or perhaps I’ve just noticed the chances to draw Mayaka in the series is quite few.
I didn’t plan to ignore her…this is a mystery.
As it is, I was assigned to the male team mant many times (I’m a spy!) and I was able to enjoy it. Thank you for watching.

In-Between Checker Motoki Matsumura:

Hello everyone. This is Matsumura, the in-between checker for episode 21.

While I love how cute each of the Classics Club members are, I absolutely love how cute Sawaguchi’s hairdo is. Don’t you think her three dango, three braids, and ribbons are cute?!

I look forward to meeting my Sawaguchi-style brethren!

This episode’s mystery was the disappearing chocolate. As you watch the episode and read everyone’s expressions, you start to think “could it have been…?!” This is a somewhat pitiful episode, but one whose contents is appropriate to enjoy as we enter the final stages of Hyouka.

Episode 22: The Doll that Took a Detour

Director/Storyboards Yasuhiro Takemoto:

We’ve reached the final episode.
As we’ve walked through the year with the Classics Club, we’ve finally reached this point.
It’s a somewhat happy and yet sad feeling at the same time.
Their anime story ends here, but their lives are just starting from this point.
What kind of high school careers will they have?
What kind of lives will they have?
Thankfully each member of our viewing audience will be able to draw their own future from this final scene.
To everyone who watched, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Animation Director Futoshi Nishiya:

This is episode 22′s animation director, Nishiya.

Those final sensations swept over me and I was able to get excited for this final episode!

Houtarou as an umbrella carrier.. I had these thoughts in my head as we finished the design: “Ah… This look definitely clashes with his hairstyle…good…good.”
When you watched the episode…at that momemt…were you surprised? Not?….Maybe…Possibly…
…is that how you felt at the end?

Houtarou…
was completely enchanted by Eru’s doll appearance… He was so lovely to see captivated…
It was troubling to combine that lovlieness with the stylistic hairstyle that a doll has to wear.
When our photographers helped match that look with the atmosphere, the final product looked wondrous.

During the latter half of the show, as we reached this point, Houtarou and Eru started to become aware of each other’s feelings. It was a bit embarrassing for me to work on these episodes. Especially around Houtarou. Should I gradually have his expression become softer throughout the episodes? It really pleased me to see the entire staff pour their love into this show.

And then episode 22 arrived.
Sakura season began and then the entire staff poured all of their love into that final repeating sakura final scene.

For everyone who watched and who followed us throughout this long season, thank you so much for watching!

Photographer Ryuuta Nakagami:

This is one of the photographers for episode 22, Nakagami.

It’s the final episode.
And for this final episode, all the accumulated feelings were puttered out into this one episode. “Puuu”!

That’s shown by how effective our filters became.
You can see their effect in the final product.
Hyouka is bitter! Bitter! Bitter! Bitterrrr! Bittersweet!!!, so we’ve had to restrain ourselves from feeling too excited.
It’s been going on for half a year. Come on Supervisor!

And then we were completely free.
We were released.
Ah~freedom is so sweet…

And so we thank everyone who watched us very very much. We can look back at images of a story packed with adolescence.

And that’s how it is.

This wraps up all 22 episodes of Hyouka. I’d also like to thank everyone for reading over these past 11 weeks. It’s been an extreme pleasure to translate these comments and I appreciate everyone who’s viewed them and/or commented. It’s always encouraging when your work is appreciated. I’ve got some good projects coming up, so look forward to seeing them come out.

On April 26, 2013 Kyoto Animation announced their 17th self-produced animation production entitled FREE!, a series about a group of friends re-uniting in their passion for swimming after going their separate ways following a victory in the elementary school nationals. What really got people in an uproar was the fact that all the main characters in this series were male and a previous advertisement involving these characters was very focused around their appeal towards female viewers. Of course this caused certain fans to be upset, things have been said, etc. I’m not going to focus on that (it’s been covered already). Nor am I going to focus on what mistakes have been made in covering this series (again, already covered). What I want to focus on is the impact FREE! has in future productions by Kyoto Animation that’s been heavily ignored by most fans, production and revenue (and no, not focusing towards a different audience).

Anime is produced in a variety of ways. A few are made by certain TV stations who pay for all the costs out of their own budget (like mainstream TV shows), but what most anime fans end up watching are “late night” shows which are made by a conjunction of companies who form what’s called a “production committee.” Essentially, producers from different companies get together and haggle out a project they want to make. They get basic information hammered out like who’s directing, how long it should be, who’ll animate it, and then they pitch it to their companies. Those companies then come together and form the committee via contracts. Each participant puts in some money towards the project (though not all the same amount) and that gets used for production. Animation studios generally get contracted to produce the animation here, but some can be on the production committee themselves in circumstances. Anime gets made, promoted, and then publications/merchandise/disc/music sales come in and proceeds are split between the members according to the contracts.

In 2002, Fuji TV wanted to animate a spinoff of the popular Full Metal Panic! series and asked Kadokawa to make a committee. They did, but instead of using Gonzo like the main series had done, they decided to chance the series on a studio who wanted to produce their own series for the first time, Kyoto Animation. KyoAni accepted the funds and made the show. Since they weren’t on the production committee, they did not receive any additional financial support from this project. Producers from TBS/Pony Canyon/Movic/Key saw their work and decided to partner with them to produce AIR, their second self-produced series. It was a success and KyoAni got some of the returns from the sales. The cycle goes on between Kadokawa and TBS/Pony Canyon for nearly ten years with KyoAni moving up in the production committees. Eventually, we start to see a trend being formed with two main committees KyoAni worked with:
Kadokawa clique: Haruhi, Lucky Star, Nichijou, Hyouka:
Kadokawa Shoten (publisher/international rights)
Kadokawa Pictures (video distributor/domestic distribution (TV and internet), later combined into Shoten)
Kyoto Animation (animation production)
(Lantis) – Only in a couple of shows (music distribution/production in all shows)
Klockworx (rental distribution)

TBS clique: AIR, Kanon, Clannad, K-On!:
TBS – (main financier/domestic distribution (TV and internet)/international rights)
Pony Canyon – (video distributor/music distributor/producer (K-On! only)
MOVIC – merchandise/live event producer
Kyoto Animation – (animation production)

In 2009, KyoAni decided to undertake something radical and announced a contest for novels, manga, and scenarios to be published. They received some entries and announced no Grand Prize winners, though a few Encouragement Award winners. This wasn’t viewed as anything important at the time, but it marked a huge course change for the company. Instead of being contracted to animate someone else’s work, KyoAni wanted to be the producer of their own material. This led to our third clique:
KyoAni clique: Chuunibyou, Tamako Market:
Kyoto Animation – (publisher/animation production)
Pony Canyon – (video distributor/music distributor/producer (Tamako only)
(Lantis) – (music producer/distributor – Chuunibyou only)
TBS – (digital distribution/international rights)

Notice the huge shift in committee lineup? Instead of being third/fourth on the list and earning a smaller portion of the profit, KyoAni not only became the biggest financier of the project, but owned the copyrights/publication rights to get a much bigger share of the earnings. They have to invest more (higher risk), but they get to earn a lot more than before (higher reward). For a show like Chuunibyou, they not only got a much bigger share of revenue from BD/DVD sales compared to something like Kanon (15k sold to 18k sold), but they also got their novels published in many new stores and increased demand for that label. People look at Chuunibyou‘s earning as only BD/DVD sales, but it was much much much more profitable than that for them. They took a big risk, and got rewarded heavily.

The opposite could somewhat be said for the second part of that clique, Tamako Market. This show wasn’t given very much promotion and was likely part of the same finance commitments with Chuunibyou, but disc/music sales were much much lower than the latter. Again, higher rewards come with higher risks. I’m not going to say it bombed or didn’t break even, but it’s easily apparent it wasn’t as successful as Chuunibyou.

So what about the new show FREE!? Where does it fit in? The answer to that is very intriguing: none of the above. Yes, FREE! is using a new committee partner in Asahi Broadcasting (ABC) for broadcast distribution. Here’s the portion of the committee we know:
Kyoto Animation (animation production/rights holder/original creator)
Asahi Broadcasting (television rights/domestic distribution (TV/internet))
Lantis (music production/distribution)

What FREE! tells us is that KyoAni is no longer limited to the Kadokawa/TBS&Pony committees and can find other partners with their original works. This means they’re more open for projects Pony/TBS didn’t want to work with and that Kadokawa wouldn’t fund (in favor of their own titles). That in itself is cause for celebration for any fan of the company and yet cause for sadness. With their focus on quality over quantity, they’re unlikely to continue working on adaptations, so fans of the Full Metal Panic!, Haruhi Suzumiya, and Lucky Star franchises looking for more adapted are going to be disappointed in this change.

I’ve somewhat jokingly used this on Twitter before, but I think it’s really amazing to see how far the studio has come in 20 years.
April 1993: Subcontractor
April 2003: Animation Producer
April 2013: Content Producer

Who knows what else may come from FREE!? This is also Animation DO’s first co-production (previously they were listed as production collaboration with KyoAni shows), so they may be able to break off from the main studio and work on their own shows at some point. We may see Kyoto Animation become similar to Sunrise with multiple studios working on multiple projects simultaneously. It’s definitely going to be interesting to see what comes in the future for this studio.

In April 2006, a reasonably popular light novel franchise by the name of The (blank) of Haruhi Suzumiya began airing its anime adaptation. Little did the producers know that the anime would become one of the top selling series of all time. The franchise became huge and a second season seemed inevitable. However, fate had other ideas in store. This post will detail how the Haruhi Suzumiya franchise has yet to receive a third season after selling nearly 100,000 copies per volume on DVD in 2006 (oricon miscalculations).

It’s July 2006. The singles for Haruhi Suzumiya are selling insanely well. God Knows… is being sung in karaoke booths around the country. The first DVD literally sold out in Akihabara. Novels are being printed at an astonishing pace, including the newly released 8th novel which had a first pressing of 150,000 copies. Kadokawa (both Publishing and Video) and Lantis are eating up the profits from a mega blockbuster. Fans love Haruhi all around the world and they want more. Sometime this year, the SOS Brigade production committee (Kadokawa Shoten, Kadokawa Pictures, Kyoto Animation, Klockworx, and Lantis) will meet and green-light a second season to be announced on July 7th, 2007. This second season will focus on the fourth novel of the franchise with other episodes detailing the second novel and short stories from the third and fifth novel. Scripts are being written… and something changes.

No direct member is the cause, but somewhere in the summer of 2007 the plans for a second season of Haruhi Suzumiya become scrapped and instead they decide to make Disappearance into a movie. Instead of airing S2 in spring 2008, the new episodes are delayed until spring/summer 2009 in a “re-airing” of the first season while Disappearance is planned for a movie release in February 2010. This is the cause for the delay in new animation for Haruhi, but there’s something else happening.

The ninth novel in the franchise, The Dissociation of Haruhi Suzumiya, is released in April 2007 and ends on a cliffhanger: to be concluded in The Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya. This novel is set to be released in June 2007 to conclude the tale, however, Nagaru Tanigawa ends up delaying the novel to an unspecified date. No additional stories are released in 2007, 2008, or even 2009. Yet the novels continue to sell very well (4.5 million copies in print in early 2009).  A spinoff manga, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya-chan, is created in 2007 and promoted via web-anime shorts on YouTube (and with the original second season). This sells very well for Kadokawa in both manga/disc form. Another spinoff manga based on the fourth novel, The Disappearance of Yuki Nagato-chan, is created in 2009 to be promoted with the movie.

Time passes with the new animation project and movie eventually being released and we’re now in mid-2010. To promote the novels along with the movie, Kadokawa re-releases the 9 novels in a panorama cover edition with 9 new covers drawn by Noizi Ito. No new novel is coming 3 years after it was supposed to be released. The spinoff manga are selling well. The BD-Boxes and movie video release sell very well with the TV series BD-Box having a 50,000 printing.  Yet it’s only in December 2010 that we hear Surprise is being released at last. It’s scheduled for a “worldwide release” in May 2011 (6 month delay due to translating).

In 2011, Kadokawa promotes the novel like no other. Trailers around Akihabara, advertisements in nearly all their magazines, commercials, store displays, midnight sales, you name it. With a record 513,000 first pressing for the two-novel limited edition, Haruhi appears to be back. Only one problem’s left: what’s next? Tanigawa hasn’t submitted any more stories beyond the short included with the LE. The manga don’t need promotion. And then KyoAni’s has a mutiny with animation rights.

In 2009, Kyoto Animation decides to hold an award for submitted light novel, manga, and scenarios to animate. In 2010 they decide to publish one of these submissions and animate it. That submission: Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai! (see blog for TL novels). Concurrently, they also decide to make an original franchise under the supervision of their second biggest show K-On!‘s director: Naoko Yamada. Following their adaptation of Hyouka in 2012, KyoAni has yet to animate an adaptation by another IP-holder. This takes away one of the big supports for the Haruhi Suzumiya franchise (the animation from Kyoto Animation).

However, losing KyoAni alone is not enough to doom the franchise. Plenty of other series have switched animation studios and done well. The problem lies elsewhere.

Again, we’re still in 2011. Surprise has come out and done well, though not as spectacular as hoped (423,000 LN sets sold is nothing to be ashamed of). The manga series are selling well without any special promotion and Tanigawa still can’t submit any stories. What’s to promote? Therein lies the real cause of no Haruhi Suzumiya season 3: Kadokawa, who makes anime to promote their own publications, has nothing left to promote for the Haruhi Suzumiya franchise and no support from the main animation studio. In addition, the main producer for Kadokawa that works with KyoAni, Atsushi Ito, is demoted from head of animation production likely due to backlash from fans in Nichijou and his inclusion of Minoru Shiraishi in many shows/bonus footage (See edit below for more information). Without Ito, it’s unlikely anyone will push for more Haruhi. There’s other unknown franchises that can be promoted via anime materials and earn much more revenue for Kadokawa than Haruhi, so why waste resources on it? Nothing new’s coming out.

And that’s the reason for no more Haruhi. It’s not Hirano, it’s not Goto, and to some extent it’s not Shiraishi. It’s the fact that Tanigawa can’t consistently write the story enough for Kadokawa to promote the novels more. Two books in 4 years doesn’t lead to anime production. Other factors include KyoAni moving to their own IPs and the demotion of the producer of the show, but if Tanigawa had written more, we’d be seeing Haruhi S3 by now.

Edit: In response to a comment about the issues with Producer  Ito and Minoru Shiraishi, I’ll expand on that situation. Ito was the main producer for all of the Kadokawa/KyoAni shows (Full Metal Panic!, Haruhi, Lucky Star, Nichijou, and Hyouka). He and Shiraishi first met around the time of the first Haruhi broadcast and Shiraishi was brought back and had a big role in Lucky Star. The JP fans liked him in the Lucky Channel segments, but he got placed as the singer for the second cour’s EDs in live-action footage in an expanded role. Additionally, Shiraishi was focused upon in an video extra “The Adventures of Minoru Shiraishi” featured on 11 of the 12 DVDs. During the next Kadokawa/KyoAni production, Haruhi-chan, he was featured as “Oniguchi” in the CMs and bonus footage and even had an autograph session. The 2009 Haruhi DVDs had Shiraishi accompanying the group on the location scouting feature, Shiraishi’s own Taniguchi Goes! feature, and a voiceover feature as Taniguchi on each DVD.  Additional bonus features were made for the Haruhi and Haruhi-chan BD-boxes again focusing on Shiraishi. The Disappearance movie BD had an extra showing the filming of Minori Chihara’s music video and Shiraishi showed up in that! During early 2010, he was given his own web show to race go-karts called Lucky Racer (spun off of Lucky Star) to promote other Kadokawa (and other associated companies) properties. By this time, there was a growing sentiment against the guy as it wasn’t just KyoAni shows he was focused on (Gai-Rei and Kiddy Girl-And also had Shiraishi bonus features, but he was cast in every Ito show). The final straw came when he was cast as Sakamoto-san in Nichijou, had a character song single, and was featured in location scouting/bonus footage AGAIN.  Ito used him constantly and fans got sick of him over these three years. Thus Shiraishi wasn’t cast in Hyouka and the future special shows had other talent participating instead of him.

As for Ito, during Nichijou he was listed as Video Media Department Vice President/Animation Division Head/Project Planning Section Chief. In the following year during Hyouka, he was only listed as a project producer. It’s not a secret that Nichijou was a flop on video disc sales and music sales (it did well for manga volumes and introduced a new manga magazine). He took the blame for that and was demoted afterwards. He’s not been listed as a producer on any Kadokawa show since Hyouka.

In 2003, Nagaru Tanigawa (under the Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko department) published the first novel in the Haruhi Suzumiya series. That series has gone on to be one of the top-selling novel franchises in Japan and seen success around the world. To celebrate its tenth anniversary, Kadokawa published the second artbook containing illustrations drawn by Noizi Ito for the novels, magazines, and related products. Inside the artbook was a short story written by Nagaru Tanigawa entitled Random Numbers.

Random Numbers:
PDF – epub (click file ->Download)

Translated by ultimatemegax and Yumeka
Edited by 2DT
ePub: zorogou

I promised that I would translate the short story and I did. What I couldn’t expect was both how busy I would be and how utterly devastated my motivation for translating would become. I apologize for how late this is coming out (especially when you see how short it is). In a way, I feel like Tanigawa did after Surprise was delayed for 4 years.  My only excuse is that the story itself is pretty much fluff. There’s interesting details in it, but it’s still fluffing out one normal day in the life of the SOS Brigade. I enjoyed reading and working on it, but it’s still no excuse for this delay. Again, I’m sorry. I hope everyone enjoys this short and I can hope to try better for the short released in September by Tanigawa!

Forgive the long title, but that pretty much sums up what this translation is covering. In 2011, the Japanese Cultural Affairs Department held an art festival in Kyoto from October 29 to November 23. On November 3rd, the local animation studio, Kyoto Animation, had three of its employees come to talk and give input about the company. I found a blog that gave a good transcript of the roundtable and thought people would be interested in a translation of it. (images used w/o permission from the owners)

After a long day of the Munto movie, first two episodes of K-On!!, and the long long Haruhi movie, the roundtable started at 16:30.

The MC for the event was a young female producer/manager from KyoAni, Riri Senami. Our three guests are decently well-known to KyoAni fans.
Yasuhiro Takemoto: Director of Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid, Lucky Star(episodes 5-24 + OVA), The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, and Hyouka.
Yoshiji Kigami: Director/screenplay/series composer for the Munto series, layout supervisor for The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya and K-On! The Movie! as well as an episode director for nearly everything KyoAni has done since 2003.
Taiichi Ishidate: Assitant Director for Nichijou and countless episode director/key animator credits.
Without further adu, let’s head to the transcript:

MC: Why did each of you want to become an animator?
Takemoto: My reason isn’t that pure.  (laughs) Kigami-san’s reason is more untainted. (laughs) I didn’t want to live as an office worker and an acquaintance told me about how tough it was to be an mangaka or illustrator, so I knew that would be impossible for me. One day I was watching a show and saw all the people listed in the credits. I thought, “why not try to put my name in there with them.” Once I got into the business, I realized that there’s a lot of talented people that were listed in the credits of a show.
Kigami: I was very moved by the Disney movies and Tezuka anime I watched as a child. At that time, there weren’t any studios in Osaka, so I relied on a contact to join a studio in Tokyo.
Ishidate: I don’t have a good reason either. (laughs) People told me I could draw well, but I prefered live action work instead. When I interviewed at a production company, I was told “You need a lot of physical strength to work here,” and gave up hope of being in that business. I chose to apply at KyoAni because it was close to my house. (laughs) But, I realized how naive I was once I joined; especially looking at Kigami-san’s drawings. “Sorry for my horrible work.” Since then, I’ve really devoted myself to working here.
Takemoto: Once our new animators see Kigami-san’s work, they sense how difficult animation can be.

MC: What do you consider most important when you’re working on a production?
Takemoto: How do I want to portray this project? During production, you’ll say “I want you to do it like this” and people follow what you say to them.  I believe that’s how a show takes consistent form.  Unless people are willing to follow your instructions and make it appear how you envisioned, they won’t produce a show how you tell them to make it.

MC: Takemoto-san, you directed the film The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. What scene were you very pleased with?
Takemoto:   I was mortified when I saw it was listed on today’s program. (laughs) Sorry for how long it ended up. (laughs) Thanks to everyone who endured through it today.  As for what I was pleased with in Disappearance, I really liked the scene when Kyon was running to Kouyouen Academy after hearing that line from Taniguchi.  I was shivering when I first saw that scene.  As for a scene I liked as a director… oh, I can’t say anything else than all of it.

MC: The movie itself has such a long running time. Did you incorporate any schemes to ensure people didn’t lose interest mid-way through it?
Takemoto: We had no plans for anything like that. (laughs) We put in everything we wanted to include in the film and it ended up that long.  There wasn’t anything else we wanted to add to it. We cut one portion of the film and the rest is what you saw.

MC:  Today we received a lot of inquires about the location scouting process. Would you mind sharing some stories during location scouting?
Ishidate: There’s the time when Takemoto went astray, the time where he fell into a gutter…(laughs)
Takemoto: No! I didn’t go astray! (laughs) When we went to Hong Kong to do location scouting for Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid, I saw a university building and thought it would be good to take some pictures from on top of the building. So, I went up there and did so (unauthorized of course). Afterwards, I got severely scolded by the staff.

MC: How do you decide where to go for location scouting?
Takemoto: If it’s an adaptation, then we consult with the original author for the original setting.  Was there a place you modeled the story in? If not, then where would it be? After that, then we’ll go there for location scouting. We always want to match what the original creator had in mind.

MC: Then what about the location scouting for Munto?
Kigami: Munto‘s location scouting took place in a neighborhood close to our studio. It was easy to walk to. (crowd laughs) Of course we had to choose locations that matched the worldview of the characters.

MC: Could you talk a little more about the Munto project?
Kigami: This project was created when our studio was shifting to digital production of anime and so we wanted to create an original show.

MC: Was there any pressure when creating it?
Kigami: No pressure on us at all. With our great staff, we easily made it together.
Takemoto: No, the pressure for the animation staff was quite intense. (laughs)
Ishidate: We made that the first year I joined the company. It was the first time I drew key animation frames, so it still holds a big impression on me.
Takemoto: About halfway through the project I stopped getting remake notices from Kigami-san.  Usually you’ll get pointers for how to draw here and there, but this time we didn’t get any back. When I asked why I wasn’t getting any back, I was told Kigami-san was fixing them all himself! I started to wonder what was the purpose of me drawing them anymore. (laughs)

MC: What do you feel is most important to keep in mind when working on a project?
Kigami: We at KyoAni have amazing abilities to get into our character’s heads. We always draw our images with love in mind. We want to ensure that feeling is always with us.

MC: So after the K-On! movie, will you be making more original works?
Kigami: We have a project in motion that uses Kyoto as a base location. We also have a work that won an encouragement award in the Kyoto Animation awards that’ll be animated.
Takemoto: I was also involved in the screening process for the Kyoto Animation award and we’re not obsessed with any genre in particular. If it’s entertaining, anything is fine with us.

MC: Ishidate-san, recently you not only did key animation for the series Nichijou, you also served as director. (umx note: credited as “assistant director”) What was most important to you when working on the series?
Ishidate: What can I do to make this show entertaining? That and having love for the series and its characters. After all, the character for “love” is hanging above the entrance at studio 2, where I work. (laughs) You can’t put your ego into the production. When you’re thinking about the best way to present a series’s characters and world, thinking of ideas to animate the characters is eight kinds of torture.
Takemoto: Nichijou had that lively kind of feeling too. (laughs)
Ishidate: The beginning and the end were completely different from one another. (crowd laughs) We met to go over the series’s organization two to three times, no… more like four to six. I hadn’t had any series go that long when I was working on it. We would begin the scenario and then have the organization changed again. It was the first time I thought Director Ishihara was cool. (crowd roars in laughter)
Takemoto: He’s the kind of person who rudely points a finger at someone when they’re talking to you. (laughs)
Ishidate: No, that’s just a quirk he has. (laughs)
Takemoto: But, it’s the first time I’ve met someone who points a finger at someone else like that in real life. (laughs)

MC: Please tell us a little about the series K-On!. What do you feel is the charm of the show?
Ishidate:  When I first read the manga, I was a bit skeptical. I questioned how could we make this entertaining.  What Director Yamada did to pull everyone together was huge. Also, I think it’s charming not because Yamada herself is a woman, but because she has the ability to see the show the same way that the audience will view the show. She has a way of delving into the character’s little quirks and behavior that lurk underneath to help appeal to the audience. I think she’s a bit obsessed with that.  Probably, others see those little quirks in the show themselves. That’s what I think is K-On!‘s charm.
Takemoto: Madam Yamada’s ability to delve into characters is amazing. She’s able to think of bits about them that no one else notices.
Kigami: Actually, we were finishing the final check of the K-On! movie right before coming over today.  We left right during the middle of the movie, so I’m a bit annoyed we didn’t get to see the end before coming here. (laughs) My impression of the movie is “incredibly cute.” It’s really soaked in Director Yamada’s view of the characters. There were some points during production where we had some trouble, but you wouldn’t guess that when watching it.  It’ll move you to tears. Animation Director Horiguchi also did a magnificent job. It’s really cute.
Takemoto: You wonder if the characters have really come to life. “Have we done it!”

MC: What training did you go through to become a professional animator?
Kigami: An animator’s job is to bring characters to life from a blank piece of paper.  I drew everyday after I returned from school after eating dinner until I went to sleep. It wasn’t a pain even when I drew until dawn. When you start, you’re constantly viewing an image so you can improve your own skills.  You’ll spend a lot of time against a lot of images. At that time you know exactly what you need to do in order to draw it. There’s no need for you to take lessons in that.
Takemoto: For my training, I copied/sketched off of photographs. At that time, the important factor for me was time. I started at 10 minutes a copy. Then next it was 5 minutes. I practiced until I could copy it in 3 minutes. When I joined the company I realized how useless that was for me, but I did that every day.

MC: Who is your favorite character?
Takemoto: All of them! (laughs)

MC: Then what was your favorite story to work on?
Ishidate: I don’t have a favorite or second favorite, but there is one that made quite the impression on me.  It was the first episode I directed; the one where Nagato and Asakura fought.  No matter what I thought of, it didn’t fit in the allotted time.  I began to think “this is useless” when Kigami-san told me “We’ll work on this all night.” I immediately said yes. That evening, Kigami-san went home and came back with the original novel. He waited, sitting beside me reading that portion until we were finished.  It took us until 4-5 in the morning to finalize it, but I made sure to remember that walk home together.
Kigami: I don’t remember that at all though. (laughs)
Ishidate: What?! (laughs)
Kigami: KyoAni is a place where you’re able to have professional animators and the newcomers they raise peacefully face other and work together through their troubles.  I think it’s full of staff who’ve been properly brought up to want to put even more love and affection into the work they deliver to everyone.

MC: What’s your favorite place in Kyoto?
Takemoto: The Junkudo bookstore. (laughs) I’m always happy inside that store. I’ll start thinking “What should I read next?” Other than that are the temples and shrines.  I really like the area around Arashiyama.

MC: What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses anime has against live-action film?
Ishidate: As a matter of fact, anime’s strength is “drawings.” At the same time, it’s also its greatest weakness.  I’m not saying “this can’t happen in anime form.” Its whether or not you can create an good impression on those who view it. Can you create something that’ll leave an impact on people while overcoming its flaws?
Kigami: Drawings themselves are not the weak point.  It’s all about putting the right information into the drawings. To bring up an example, there’s a program called “Anpanman” who keeps Ishidate-san’s children glued to the TV for 30 minutes. What is so magnificent about Anpanman? The drawings convey information properly.  In short, it’s all about whether or not you’re able to convey your story with drawings.

MC: In about a month from now, the K-On! movie will begin screening in theatres. What would you say to describe it?
Takemoto: We talked about this earlier, but I want people to see how lively the girls appear on the screen.
Kigami: For those who loved the TV series, the movie really captures the sensation you felt when watching it.
Ishidate: I think the fans will enjoy watching it. We should convey what you enjoy about the series in one movie.

MC: What is the title of the next project KyoAni is working on?
Takemoto: Is it alright to say it? (laughs) Won’t anime magazines report what it is soon?

MC: What genre of show will it be?
Takemoto:  A hint would be that the genre starts with “my.”

MC:  We have reached the end of this talk session. Would you leave with a message for the fans in the audience?
Takemoto: Thank you for those who’ve spent the whole day here. (laughs) We aim to make entertaining shows for everyone. We’re always happy when people watch our productions.
Kigami: I heard some here came a long way for this session today. From here onwards, KyoAni will continue to work hard as well. Please continue to follow us.
Ishidate: We want to make shows that immerse people into entertainment or enjoyment, make them say “ah, that was fun” when watching, or make them look forward to tomorrow. I think we want to make shows like that feeling plus more.

MC: Thank you very much for coming today.

(Thanks to superdry and Goggen for assistance with editing!)

The latest edition of the Spoon magazine’s special edition, Cloud_G, had a big feature about the Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai! franchise; most notably featuring an interview with Director Tatsuya Ishihara about a multitude of things. Here is the relevant portion of the magazine (there was a discussion about “chuunibyou”, the OVA, and introduction to the series I excised). Big thanks to superdry, TMSIDR, and Goggen for proofreading this interview.

When did they inform the cast of Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai! there would be a second season? How will season 2 differ from season 1? What should we look forward to in the movie? And what will the new character, Shichimiya, do? We’ve come to the source, Director Tatsuya Ishihara, for a backstage report!

-The announcements for the movie as well as a second season were announced simultaneously. Which of these two was decided to make first?
The second season was determined first. We had just decided to make a second season right before the final episode’s recording session. When the dubbing ended, we announced to the cast “We’re making a second season.”

-That’s such a beautiful way to announce it. The cast thinks the series is over and then they’re informed it’s continuing just like that. Everyone must have been thrilled, right?
Yes. Everyone was overcome with joy.

-Director, did you have the plot for the second season in mind at that time?
Since I hadn’t read the second novel at that time, I had just thought that it would be nice if we could make a second season. However, the story for the first season did lend itself to making a second season. (laughs) Rikka and Yuuta had just gotten together after all. If I had been thinking about a story for the second season, I have a hunch I would’ve been thinking if it would’ve been alright to end with the couple coming together.

-Is that so? That’s really surprising especially now that there is a second season.
I wanted the first season to, as they tend to say, “tie up nicely.” The second season would continue from the first season and tell a new tale. If I’m pushed to comment, I’d say that this tale wouldn’t be as serious as the first season; it’d be a bit more softer and gentler in feeling. In other words, I’d emphasize the romantic comedy portions more.

-So, the second season wouldn’t have any of the seriousness the second half of season one had?
I personally love that kind of serious story, but I want to be kinder to Rikka in the second season since we gave her that type of serious development in the first season.

-When was it decided to make a movie?
The movie was talked about after we had decided to make a second season. We thought it would be a good idea that, if we were to make a movie, it would be able to bridge between the two seasons. We thought it would be appropriate to make a take that connected them just like we did with episode 13 on the final BD/DVD volume. We could do a new recording, but it wouldn’t be anything more than highlights if we didn’t add new animation. Therefore if I have to call it something, rather than say it’s a summary of the first season, it’s more like a fan movie.

-Still, I imagine the battle scenes look fitting on the big screen, don’t they?
Yes. They’re quite the attraction. We considered components like that when choosing scenes for the recap. Would the audience want to see things like chuuni battles on the big screen; would they find it vastly entertaining to see it there?

-Looking back on the first season, the narration during the final episode sounded quite similar to the narration at the start of a certain Japanese film.
XXXX, right? I also saw that film. While I was watching it, I thought I could insert something like that into the show as a base. When we first started making Chuunibyou, I was worried about occasionally switching to the chuuni battles. Should the audience be able to see them? Would they understand what was going on? And then it became needless worrying. Once we switched over to having them occur in Rikka’s mind, the audience would be able to see them and understand the joke. I was immensely relieved.

-Perhaps this meant that Chuunibyou vocabulary may be permeating the mainstream.
There’s so many individual chuunibyou phrases that would differ between individuals. I think it’s unlikely to say they’re permeating the mainstream audience. What we would call a chuunibyou phrase now was just a phrase that was influenced by a manga my generation read previously. You could think of it like we were just being delinquents. (laughs)

-The “Manga culture” was big, wasn’t it?
My generation are now people in their 40s who actively watched anime and read manga when they were children. Perhaps this franchise came about by taking those imaginary scenes and making them into visuals.

-In your generation, manga was a 2-dimensional genre you could become absorbed in. With the recent anime and live action era starting, and with seiyuu like Uchida-san (who plays Rikka) acting in games and anime, wouldn’t you call this the 2.5 dimension era?
That’s right. Today there’s a lot of seiyuu who have their eyes on acting in anime first. Perhaps we could say they have a high affinity to working in the medium.

-Uesaka-san (who plays Dekomori) also had quite the formative anime experience didn’t she? (laughs)
Yes, she certainly did.

-Surely you can call the current voice actors who grew up on shows you made the 2.5 dimension generation.
That’s quite the troubling use of words. You’re making me feel old. (laughs) Recently, our new employees have been saying they’ve loved the shows I’ve directed. However, that doesn’t mean that I consider our Chuunibyou cast to be too young. I find our NicoLive Chuunibyou radio shows to be immensely entertaining. (laughs) One could say their knowledge of the subculture is grand. They even know about things I would expect to have to ask if their fathers told them about it.

-There must have been a point in time where even Uesaka-san didn’t know about that.
The interesting part is we didn’t know about her interests. At the time we chose her to play Dekomori, we completely didn’t know that she was a Russian otaku or that she liked to wear lolita clothing. If we had known that, I would have definitely inserted more gags about that in the series. It was the same with Uchida-san as well. We had no idea she cosplays or had performed as other chuunibyou characters. Whether those types of people tried out for our show or if birds of a feather truly flock together, it was pure coincidence they were chosen for our series.

-Around the final episode, Dekomori changed her appearance greatly and showed about the same amount of depth in her character as Rikka did. What do you think was the reason that people became attached to her character?
Dekomori is the kind of character we could say that story with, so you sensed her changes more. Since she didn’t appear in the novels, we had a high amount of freedom with her.

-Director, you went to see the fan events. Did the reaction there make you feel like the characters had become real through the seiyuu?
-It may be just Akasaki-san or Asakura-san, but today’s seiyuu’s popularity really feels like they could be called 2.5 dimensional. After all, idols are in 3 dimensions. 2.5 D is what you would get when idol and anime otaku unite for certain seiyuu. If you packed in all the idol otaku and anime otaku into one group, it’d easily be incalculable. While 2D and 2.5D are rather close, 2.5D and 3D are very far apart in feeling. That’s why it feels right to call this boom of seiyuu 2.5D, especially Uchida-san and Uesaka-san who feel like they’re always cast in anime now.

-It felt like the casting for the first season felt perfect. So, when thinking about the new character for season 2, Shichimiya, what are you contemplating when determining who to cast?
We’re currently in the middle of deciding who to cast, so I can’t say at this point. (laughs) Surely you are immensely worried about how to add a new person to a four person group who already feels complete. Whether you think about adding a new voice or someone who’s been around for a while, they won’t fit in with what’s already been completed.  So, when you don’t have a general idea of what you want to do at this point, we don’t know what to look for in a voice. It’s still unknown how big of an impact Shichimiya will have in the second season.

-The second novel really felt like the Shichimiya tale. I also think you have to include her in the anime.
Rather than Shichimiya joining the group in season two…….

-She becomes an antagonist?
If I’m pressed to say something, she’s that way due to being an opposing force for Rikka.

-So a rival. So will there be a new key phrase in the second season like the Invisible Horizon was in the first season?
Personally, instead of creating such a difficult theme for Rikka, I want to treat her as kindly as I can.

-Will you be depicting her ordinary daily life?
I want to tell stories about her that are relatively softer and gentler. Of course they’ll contain things like battles. I think it’ll move to that type of series where it switches over to more hijinx. I think concepts like the Invisible Horizon will still exist, but instead of being about her father’s death, there won’t be any serious component in them.

-So each episode in season 2 would be a show you could watch leisurely.
I think so.

-Perhaps we could say that the Invisible Horizon mentioned in season one would be a symbol of something that 2.5D girls born since 2000 are searching for.
Part of the charm of chuunibyou girls is that they are always searching for something. With Rikka as well, we’ve already accepted that this is one part of her appeal.

-Maybe it might be due to the support of Uchida-san and Uesaka-san that we can feel their charm. They seem to be searching for something more than what people are usually satisfied with and their fans also believe so.
There’s certainly many people out there who aren’t satisfied with a normal life.

-Finally, Dekomori is very popular in this magazine. Can you please tell us about how her hair will look in the second season?
It’s basically unchanged.

-She let her hair down in the first season. Was it just for that brief time?
That would be so. There might be small changes to her hair, but it’ll remain basically unchanged. The same will apply to the other characters as well.

-So what will be the message you want to include and communicate to the viewers in the second season?
I’ve probably remained chuunibyou all my life. The message in the final episode of season 1, “Resist Reality,” is a theme I’ve never said, but included. For the second season, I want to include a theme like I’ve lived. “For those who resist reality, continue rebelling, but let’s all search together!” I think that’s something that probably the people reading this magazine and people who love anime should do. Perhaps they can continue looking, but get the sense that they should look together with that person! (laughs) It’s a bit surprising and I’m not sure if it’ll actually be communicated.

-It would be nice if the viewers and the director continued watching the same screen until the final episode, wouldn’t it?
I’m not sure how we could do that, but I think it’d be a nice thing to do with the fans.

-Understood. We look forward to the movie and the second season.
Please do. Or perhaps I should say “you will look forward to it.” (laughs)

In 2011, Kyoto Animation published a list of encouragement award winning light novel entries from their second Kyoto Animation award contest. Included on that list was a title called High Speed!, something no one noticed at that time. In April 2013, the studio announced that they were going to be animating an original sequel to the novel that would air in the summer season. This is an interview that details how first time director Hiroko Utsumi and character designer Futoshi Nishiya took that content and Free!ed anime this summer. This interview is divided into two posts due to length. A link to the second part is included at the bottom. Giant thanks to irrevilent, Goggen, and TMSIDR for editorial contributions.

-The new series Free! gives an image completely different than what Kyoto Animation has previously done. Would you mind telling us how you came to participate in this project?
Utsumi: To start, I was asked if I wanted to make High Speed!, one of the Encouragement award winners in the second Kyoto Animation Award, into an anime by the producers. The manuscript itself focused on elementary school boys, but there hasn’t been many anime titles focusing on boy leads as of late. It was a very entertaining story, so I really wanted to turn it into an anime.

-As you said, High Speed! detailed the elementary days of the main characters. Why did you decide to age them to high schoolers when making the anime series?
Utsumi: The original story focused on elementary schoolers; it would have been very difficult to make an impression animating those specific characters. Furthermore, it was difficult to see what kind of stories you could tell with that age group. We wanted to go along with the themes of the source material as well as finish the tale of the swimming team, so we aged the characters and set them in a swimming team in high school. Since I was in a swimming team during my high school days, I could use my experience in the story and whittle it down as we needed to. Also, I had a really strong desire to draw the muscles they would’ve developed by high school.

-When did you compete in swimming races and could you tell us about how that helped detail portions of the series?
Utsumi: I swam all three years of high school. I’ve loved the water since I was little, but I wasn’t in environments where I could swim as my elementary and middle schools didn’t have a team. As I entered high school, I had finally reached a school that had a team, so I swam continuously for all three years. There were a lot of very good kids there, so I know quite well how Rei feels seeing talented swimmers. (laughs) I wanted the anime to detail my previous experiences in the water on the screen: how it felt, what good feelings it brought, etc. I wanted to produce something where people watching would begin to think how good it felt to swim.

This is an illustration drawn by director Utsumi which was posted on Animation Do’s home page. From left to right is Kaede, Nagisa, Haruka, and Makoto. The character in the background is Rin.

-What are the themes this show revolves around?
Utsumi: Water, friendship, bonds, and upper bodies! Regardless of genre, there’s so few series that involve swimming, so I’ve wanted to make a boys swimming story for so long. Excluding water, this series’s biggest selling points are friendship and bonds. Once you add water and upper bodies, there’s no other big points to mention.

-Utsumi-san, you seem to have an obsession with upper bodies as a director. Would you talk to us about that?
Utsumi: While we were working, Nishiya-san would also come to talk to me saying “What’s this? Upper bodies?” (laughs)

-Nishiya-san was chosen to be the character designer for this show. Was there a particular story behind his selection?
Utsumi: Nishiya-san was chosen from the very beginning. Everyone was in agreement. (laughs) Nishiya-san is the authority when it comes to male characters among our staff.
Nishiya: There’s not really been an opportunity to draw muscles until now….
Utsumi: When I had the opportunity to see Nishiya-san draw muscles, I fell in love with his work. Besides that, he was able to break down my various instructions and adapt them into the way he drew. There was no one else but him! And also his way of depicting how the swimsuits go around the hip area was superb.
Nishiya: By that time, I was already very influenced by Utsumi-san’s suggestions! (laughs)
Utsumi: We had originally decided to have a guy draw the guys. I knew we would be able to grow accustomed to drawing his style, so I asked him to lead us astray.

-Nishiya-san also thought about how they would dress casually, didn’t he?
Utsumi: Definitely pay attention to Nishiya-san’s fashion sense. He thoroughly researched with many magazines so that his characters would look in-style.
Nishiya: They can’t look unfashionable after all…..  It’s especially difficult for anime characters as well. Whatever looks nice in a magazine may not fit on a character. You always have to think about how it would appear on the character when you’re drawing them.

-So you entrusted the casual clothing for Haruka and the rest of the cast to Nishiya-san?
Utsumi: While I wouldn’t hand the main 5 over to him, I did roughly request he work on it. I interjected a little bit with opinions.
Nishiya: This time my goal was to frantically do my best to live up to what the director wished for.

-What was it that she wished for?
Nishiya: She wanted to detail the tautness of the bodies… Up until now, we’ve always drawn about 6 head-lengths for the body, but we altered it to seven for this series. Once I thought of it and tried drawing it, I personally felt that we could bring out the masculinity of the characters.

-What portions of the character designs do each of you view as “masculine?”
Utsumi: For me, I worried that the presentation of the faces would become distorted. Like if we put a hand in front of the face, we need to communicate that it’s a hand in close-ups. Rei wears glasses, so when he fixes their position, I wanted to show that his hand would be so big it’d cover both the glasses and part of his face. We also emphasized the bone structures. Their frames have to be masculine and powerful. Knowing a lot about the beauty of the skeletal system, your conversations about things like how the ribs curve and such never end. You’re never letting those details about the curves or the muscles slip away!
Nishiya: For me it was how their chins hang from their heads. With how big heads are, it feels like the chins are tucked underneath them. Same for the chests too.
Utsumi: Sometimes when looking over what we’ve drawn, I wonder if we’ve gone too far; it never feels like we’re completed. Reality is so amazing. Foreign athletes have such a strong hip bone too.

This was the first character image drawn by director Utsumi. This is Haruka, the protagonist. This image was carried by the director as the base for each character’s design.

-So then, introduce us to the main characters please. Let’s start with Haruka, the protagonist.
Utsumi: Haruka in one word is “cool.” Haruka seems to be equipped with “cool”ness. One aspect of him is his love for water. He has a bit of an eccentric image; he has trouble interacting with people at a fundamental level. If he’s not interested in something, he won’t do it. Normally his facial expression is very unsociable, but he gets highly emotional when it comes to water. He’s a direct boy who has a strong obsession with the freedom that water gives him. I think the audience will get to see Haruka’s unshakenness gradually change as he matures throughout the series.
Nishiya: When thinking about Haruka, the first thing that comes to mind is his eyes.
Utsumi: He has a peculiar strength in his gaze that attracts people.

-Were there any troubles when designing Haruka?
Nishiya: Once we had the base visual image, there were no difficulties with him.
Utsumi: Haruka was the foundation we built the other characters on.
Nishiya: We ensure that his body had just enough muscle on it to feel stylish.
Utsumi: His eyes were made blue to reflect his love of water.
Nishiya: We ensured that his eyes shone through his hair in order for his eyes to show his emotions throughout the series. Even if the hair was in front of the eyes, you would still be able to see his expression.
Utsumi: We made sure that there were a lot of detail packed in the eyes when we drew a close-up of his face. We considered basing this on using a lot of frames for the close-ups.

-Please tell us about Haruka’s habits and his clothing.
Utsumi: Haruka is lightly dressed because when he sees water, he wants to swim in it. He only wears the shirt for his uniform so that he can instantly go into the water when he takes it off. Similarly, his jacket is also unfastened in the front for easy removal.
Nishiya: Actually, we designed the swimsuit models first for the characters. Then when we put the uniforms on each of them, everyone’s matched but Haruka’s!
Utsumi: We were shocked. The mismatched sense it gave to us was incredible. We wondered if everyone else looked this mismatched, but it fit everyone but Haruka…. Actually, this doesn’t mean that Haruka is always wearing his swimsuit! There’s the problems it would bring up in daily life or shall we say how moldy it would become…. (laughs) He only wears it whenever there’s a sign water will appear. Call it natural intuition.

-I’ve heard that Haruka’s personality referred to as a “waterdere.” Could you please tell us what that is referring to?
Utsumi: Haruka’s a human, so of course there’s things and times that make his heart flutter.  We call him a “waterdere” because it’s difficult for his face to express those heart-fluttering emotions, but water brings out his true emotions onto his face. Since he loves water, this was a necessary component of his character for us. Up until the current time, Haruka is someone who’s difficult to approach, but we questioned if this side of him would make him appear cuter to others. Sometimes it’s just obvious he loves water by how much his eyes sparkle when seeing it. Those kinds of actions and glances speak as much as words to help bring out that humanity in him.

Makoto’s rough images. Various images like “wears glasses in class” were created.

-Continuing onward, please tell us a little about Makoto.
Utsumi: In one phrase, he’s a sweet boy. The impression hasn’t changed since I read the novel. He’s your everyday common high school boy. Strong, sweet, and a very helpful older brother. He was childhood friends with Haruka, so there’s not anything he hates about him. Conversely, he knows quite well the things he likes about Haruka. And because of that, he knows how to handle Haruka very well. Since Haruka isn’t the type to talk much, Makoto will follow up for Haruka and speak in his place. If Haruka wasn’t like that to begin with, Makoto wouldn’t become close to him. Since he is flawed, Makoto’s there by his side. I wonder if Haruka would also notice if Makoto’s big existence wasn’t always taking care of him.  Actually, one point of Makoto’s character is that he’s scared easily. He’s big, yet scary things get to him. It was a bit sad when we decided to make him scared easily yet have that body style. My impression is that as he grew bigger, he didn’t know how to use his size to his advantage. Really, a smaller body seems to fit that side of him.
Nishiya: One aspect of his design are his drooping eyes and eyebrows. Having both droop give him a softer expression. And of course his body has to have big dimensions.
Utsumi: Balancing the size of his face was also very important. Since Makoto is tall, his skeleton itself is oversized. So, we were aware his face would appear slender in comparison.  I also got the impression he would wear his pants around his hips like today’s male high school students do. If we made a mistake, then people would say he had short legs, so Nishiya-san skillfully drew the pants just slightly lower.
Nishiya: My work had a highly refined sense. (laughs)
Utsumi: Makoto’s standing pose where he crosses his arms is meant to confer that he’s keeping watch over you. It’s a post Nagisa would never do.
Nishiya: Makoto’s nape is a bit long. Actually, he’s a bit hard to understand, so he has no real border there. The best way to describe it is “hidden.”
Utsumi: Makoto’s image color is green. It gives off the kind of atmosphere you feel in a gentle characters.

Nagisa’s rough images. There’s a portion that is different than the atmosphere decided upon for him.

-Next, please tell us about Nagisa.
Utsumi: Nagisa’s the cute younger brother type of character. He always acts childish for his age, even though he’s not even a year younger than the rest of the group. Nagisa is the only one who physically plays around with Rei, but since it’s Nagisa, Rei’s good points are brought out. He’s the one who’s able to bring out everyone’s various expressions. His outer appearance also feels childish with his big and round hairstyle. His personality is a natural airhead; everything goes over his head. He’s the type of person who gets by on instinct. As soon as he thinks of something, he acts on it instantly. His character is very important to help move the story along.

-Are there any points the audience should pay attention to regarding Nagisa?
Utsumi: Nagisa has a lot of small penguin accessories because he loves big penguins. In the first episode, you’ll get a glimpse of his underwear which have penguins on it. Definitely check the frame! (laughs) Of course he enrolled in Iwatobi High School wanting to swim again with Haruka and Makoto…. but there was actually another reason. Iwatobi High School…. Iwatobi… means rockhopper penguin. With that kind of inspiration, he easily made his decision where to apply.
Nishiya: He’s a cute character, but as a first year high schooler, his body is a bit tense. He’s not just cute and, while he does say some stupid things as he pleases, he’s not an idiot. We drew him carefully while examining the rest of the cast to maintain balance among designs.
Utsumi: Also, Nagisa’s uniform is slightly too big for him.
Nishiya: However, at times he does act a bit more delicate to give the impression he’s a first year.

-Please tell us about the differences between the rough design of Nagisa and the current design.
Utsumi: Originally he was supposed to be a cool and somewhat stand-offish character, but as I was thinking of ways to convey the novel’s atmosphere on TV I settled on what you see now. As for why he would become cool and stand-offish when he was very childish in the past, he had admired Haruka then and so perhaps he would’ve set his goal to act like Haruka in the future. However, Nagisa not changing is very Nagisa-like. He’s the important mood-maker of the group. And so I ordered Nishiya-san to depict him very childishly.

When I first thought about anime original characters, I created Kaede. Rei inherited his track-and-field team setting.

-Please tell us about Rei, the person who joins the swimming club mid-way.
Utsumi: Rei initially feels cool like Haruka does, but as soon as he opens his mouth and starts to frolic, that similarity ends immediately. He’s the type of person girls would complain “he looks so cool, but it’s such a shame he had to open his mouth…” (laughs) He’s a quibbler in the theory side of things, but I can say he has a problem in the heart of things. He loves beautiful things, so his appreciation of beauty is very high. His face immediately expresses whatever he feels, so he’s easy to read.

-In the early stages, Rei wasn’t present. Instead there was another character called Kaede. Could you please tell us how you came to create Rei?
Utsumi: I was thinking about original characters even before series composer Yokotani-san was included. The first character I thought of was different than Rei; he was an more idiotic character named Kaede (a redheaded boy in the early color illustrations). He was close to what Nagisa is now, the fun, somewhat stupid boy who’s easy to get along with that you always see in a boys’ high school. Though I felt I explained it in the rough draft stages, I felt his connection with Haruka wouldn’t need to be spoken. As he was originally on the track and field team, he would be a beginner in the swimming team. He couldn’t keep up with the rest of the team during their practices and it’d take Haruka and the others to help him overcome his handicap. At that moment, the viewers would begin to bond with him on his interest in swimming and feel some empathy for him as he continued to practice. He’d be somewhat of a entertaining “how to swim” book. If we were successful, people would begin to empathize with him as they watched. He was given short hair because I wanted at least one person to have it.
Nishiya: Some of his characteristics are still present in the minor characters.
Utsumi: Since he would have a keen appreciation of beauty, I thought of a sound that would be pretty and thus changed his name to Rei.
Nishiya: Rei was the character I had the most difficulty designing. I was very troubled trying to find a hairstyle that matched his glasses. I tried everything from monk to long haired.
Utsumi: It was really difficult, wasn’t it…. I had also thought about long hair, but boys who are serious about sports tend to prefer shorter hair.
Nishiya: And then he couldn’t act like the other characters.
Utsumi: His characteristic is his forehead. Rin is also a forehead character. Sometimes when looking over Haruka’s team I wanted to plan some differences between them. Since he’s a character who loves beauty, I thought he should have an obsession with keeping his bangs trimmed. Every morning he trims them and makes sure the angles are correct.
Nishiya: He’ll make sure the lengths of both sides match his peculiar sense of beauty.
Utsumi: I had wanted to make him have close-cropped hair, but that style of hair was a disappointment when we drew it. So, accordingly, we made ensuring the lines of his head were beautiful a priority when drawing him.
Nishiya: Since he wears glasses, we had to ensure his eyes weren’t too big either.
Utsumi: When Rei swims, he’s supposed to take off his glasses. However everyone would become incoherent to him. Our plan to overcome that was to depict everyone’s faces clearly whenever he took off his glasses in the anime since he only needs them slightly. Rei’s eyesight is about 0.4-0.3. He doesn’t need glasses, but he doesn’t like it when everything gets blurred, wouldn’t he? This is another quirk of his beauty sense.
Nishiya: It was a relief not to have a lot of things revolving around that.
Utsumi: As an original character, Rei was exceedingly difficult. We had a lot of help given to us in creating him.

These are Nishiya’s rough drafts of a couple of the characters who inherited Kaede’s atmosphere. On the right is Sasabe and on the left is Nitori.

-I’ve heard Rei is a bit outdated in fashion…
Utsumi: His sense of beauty overdoes it to the point where he always tucks his shirt in. (laughs) Look closely and you’ll see he does everything properly, even ensuring the straps on his backpack are perfectly tight around his uniform. As for his casual clothing…. ?! That’s beyond what we’ve contemplated. After this, we’ll plan to discuss it….!

These are rough images of Nishiya’s attempts of Rei’s hairstyle. Among the various hairstyles he drew are the close-cropped style and the arrowhead.

This is it for part 1 of the interview. CLICK HERE for part two, which delves into Rin, elementary school era designs, Gou, Amakata-sensei, and more!

In 2011, Kyoto Animation published a list of encouragement award winning light novel entries from their second Kyoto Animation award contest. Included on that list was a title called High Speed!, something no one noticed at that time. In April 2013, the studio announced that they were going to be animating an original sequel to the novel that would air in the summer season. This is an interview that details how first time director Hiroko Utsumi and character designer Futoshi Nishiya took that content and Free!ed anime this summer. This interview is divided into two posts due to length. A link to the first part is included at the beginning. Giant thanks to irrevilent, Goggen, and TMSIDR for editorial contributions.Continued from part one…

Early images of Rin. The jagged teeth were already in place in this image.

-To finish the main cast, please tell us about Rin.
Utsumi: I was determined to have the cool character who would enforce his will on others. He’d be curt, but once you get through the coolness, you have a stylish character who can’t help having his faults. A somewhat bad boy type of character, wouldn’t you agree? Don’t girls find those types of characters cool for some reason? We made sure his face would be pretty as well. He’d also be the type of cool older brother a sister like Gou would be fond of. We ensured that he would have a very cold feeling around him and would be and speak very roughly like a real boy. Rin has certainly changed from when he was younger. I wanted the audience to watch and wonder what it was that caused him to change so much. His uniform, that of Samezuka Academy, is white. They have a more traditional uniform look than Iwatobi does. I was worried about whether it should be black or dark blue, but our color coordinator, Yoneda-san, advised me it should be white when we talked. Amazingly, it matched beyond what I had ever imagined.
Nishiya: Actually, the traditional style of uniform Rin wears is rare.
Utsumi: Though you see it in the production materials, the uniform only shows up in episode one of the anime.
Nishiya: The season instantly goes to summer, so we couldn’t show the winter uniforms.
Utsumi: Generally we see him in his jersey, so the first episode had a rare appearance really.
Nishiya: Originally it wasn’t going to appear, but one way or another it showed up in episode 1.
Utsumi: In the end, it was a relief seeing him in his uniform in episode 1.

-When you were designing Rin, did you cooperate with other staff members to compete against his design?
Nishiya: I’ve already been beaten by him. (laughs) For Rin, while we were going down the standard route suggested by his personality and such, I did get advice from the female staff about how to make him cool.
Utsumi: Rin’s hair was really difficult….. Everyone on the staff was like “the center part is just impossible.” We carefully obtained opinions, made various changes, and then had more discussions once production had begun. Happily, Rin didn’t make many appearances early on, so we could quickly make changes. Since he and Haruka are the protagonists of this show, I really didn’t feel like compromising on this issue.
Nishiya: At the beginning, every picture we drew had Rin wearing his goggles. His hair looked good when they were on, but once he took off the goggles, something was lacking.
Utsumi: Once he took off the goggles, he became this very weak rival character. Since nothing was coming along, could we decide he’d always be wearing goggles?!…. But that wouldn’t fit his character. We continued to compete against him after that.
Nishiya: Rin was based around wearing goggles to begin with.
Utsumi: Now that it’s been settled, when he wears the goggles, he feels most like “Rin.”
Nishiya: That strand of hair coming down the middle is difficult to gauge.
Utsumi: Delicately balancing his bangs is a point of note for Rin.
Nishiya: In the beginning, we had something like a headband on him. One of those bands you’d see on athletes like soccer players. When we changed the goggles he wore, we all agreed it looked very unfashionable. (laughs)
Utsumi: We had already decided on it, but I was thinking about it on a train ride back to Osaka and it didn’t fit at all. So I called Nishiya and said “Let’s think about it a little more!” When we asked the female staff if wearing a headband fits his character, everyone instantly said “NO!” (laughs)

These are early hairstyle images of Rin. This version replaced goggles with a hairband.

-What are points you’d like people to notice about Rin’s design?
Utsumi: What I personally people recommend to watch for is when he’s wearing a tank top. It’s something that people don’t wear if they don’t feel comfortable with their body. We were easily able to draw lines illustrating his back muscles, so that looks extremely good. Also we made sure that Rin’s feet weren’t shown in situations where other characters like Nagisa would wear shorts or short pants. They illustrate more childish notions, which doesn’t fit Rin’s character.
Nishiya: And also the teeth.
Utsumi: Nishiya-san asked earlier if his teeth could be jagged. I easily rejected them.
Nishiya: I felt his teeth should be jagged from the very beginning. They’ve broken through now.
Utsumi: They wouldn’t convey that his image is supposed to be a shark. It’d feel like his canines were protruding as an infant. Somewhat like a shark child.

Nishiya’s rough drafts of the four elementary school swimmers.

-How did you design the cast as children?
Nishiya: I wanted the children to appear just as they were depicted in the novel.
Utsumi: Initially, the children were unpopular and had a bad reputation internally. Once we had imaged them and made them a bit more childish than the older anime versions, their reception had improved.
Nishiya: We tried to clearly differentiate between the two ages. The elementary school group were the very beginning of the project yet it felt like the high schoolers were the ones commonly used.  Listening to the staff, they felt the same, though none of us had realized it. Only the swimsuits were changed from the high schooler look, so we altered the length of the inseam and brought out the differences to make them appear more childish.
Utsumi: Everyone but Rei had a elementary school design, but perhaps later…..?!

-I’ve heard you’ve adopted an animal motif for each character.
Utsumi: Haruka is like a dolphin, isn’t he? He naturally coexists with the water. I think his “enjoying” appearance is very much like a dolphin. Their swimming club’s motif was a dolphin, so perhaps he seems to have carried those memories with him since then. Makoto is an orca. At first glance you wouldn’t think either of them could be so gentle. In the original novel, he’s described as having a “violent swimming motion.” In reality, I think he’s the type of person who swims powerfully and violently through the water.
Nishiya: Initially we also included that he likes to view the sky as well.
Utsumi: Swimming while viewing the sky would easily indicate that he swam the backstroke. Nagisa is a penguin. Constantly moving around with quick motions in the water feels like Nagisa. Rin is a shark. With his glare and his sharp teeth, you instantly feel so, but of course he swims like one too. He’s always been like that. He even goes to a school with “shark” in its name. As for Rei, please watch the series and see with your own eyes.

Nishiya’s rough drafts of Gou. At this time her hair was still rather short.

-Next, would you please introduce us to the two female characters, Gou and Amakata-sensei.
Utsumi: They’re really supported by the male staff members. (laughs)
Nishiya: At her core, Gou has that “girl” feel to her.
Utsumi: Her expression is similar to Rin’s. Her eye angle is also similar.
Nishiya: Perhaps its her drooping eyelashes.
Utsumi: Her hair isn’t exactly the same color as Rin’s, but they resemble each other’s. Matching siblings are cute, wouldn’t you agree? You sense that she really became emotionally attached to her older brother. I didn’t want to have her feel like a character who relied on anyone else, so I made her the kind of girl who’s got her own independent will. She’s a kind of girl who does whatever she wishes. She has her own reasons for joining the swimming club. It’s not that she’s weak as a character; she joined because she would enjoy looking at muscles. Thus we also depicted her discovering her own reason to enjoy the swimming club.  Her personality is feminine yet clearly cheerful. I requested to Nishiya-san that I wanted her hair to be long.
Nishiya: Having her wear her hair down would overdo the “girl” feeling, so we put it in a ponytail.
Utsumi: And her hair also moves around a lot too.
Nishiya: I think she’s a character who splendidly stands out amongst the cast.

-Are there any points you want people to see about Gou?
Utsumi: Since she’s a girl that likes her older brother, we initially had her wearing shark accessories….  but they weren’t cute when we put them on Gou, so we changed them to ordinary cute fish accessories. Also, her ponytail moves around a lot and feels light; be aware that it doesn’t feel heavy. Actually, Gou is really poor athletically. If she and her brother were both athletic and swam, we would have to insert differences between them to show weaknesses. The amount of repetition between them jumped out at me. She’s also poor at running. So, Gou only joined the swimming club to watch them swim.

-Gou also gets into arguments with Nagisa about her name in the anime…
Utsumi: That’s because Nagisa won’t change how he calls her. “Don’t call me Gou, call me Kou.” They’re the same age, so there’s no hesitance for her to speak like that. Gou has some aspects of her that are childish, so the two of them together feel like a couple of kids arguing with each other. At any rate, Gou is in an important position as a character. She’s Rin’s sister, so she acts as a bridge between him and the Iwatobi swimmers. I also contributed things I clearly wanted in her personality, like how she loves looking at muscles. And so it was immediately put in. (laughs) I hope there may be a surprising amount of women who love looking at muscles.

-What made you think there may be a surprising amount of women who love looking at muscles?
Utsumi: The commercial that aired before we announced this series. At our internal preview screening, I asked the staff if we had overdone Nagisa’s muscles… I was worried that we may have, but after looking at the reaction of the staff members and the amount of people who said they enjoyed that difference in characteristics, there may be a surprising amount of women who like muscles! (laughs) I had resigned myself to feeling disappointed, but I was shocked at the good feelings I got from that preview. Perhaps that may a hidden side of all women throughout the world… (laughs)

Nishiya’s drafts of Amakata-sensei. Her hair is short due to the decision to give her a slightly childish feeling.

-Continuing on, would you please tell us about Amakata-sensei?
Nishiya: I, happily, was able to put a lot of my own preferences in her. However, utmost was that she feels like a teacher.
Utsumi: Initially, she was supposed to have straight hair so she would appear a little immature, but that settled into her current look. Her character was determined quickly. Gou is the beauty, so we considered Amakata-sensei to be the cutie. However, we trimmed down points and trimmed down her character. A good literature teacher would be able to quote suitable phrases, so we thought it’d be cute if she wasn’t able to do it well.

-What are points you want the viewers to look for in her?
Nishiya: Both the sense of her wavy hair as well as her protruding forehead.
Utsumi: I’ve trusted Nishiya-san with her character.
Nishiya: I wanted to depict our rare female characters very cutely.

-A swimmer needs three items: a swimsuit, goggles, and a cap. However, I think that would be difficult to include all three to represent each of the swimmers. As a director, what did you advise the episode directors?
Nishiya: The biggest problem was that we couldn’t distinguish characters when they had their gear on.
Utsumi: Even though it’s done in real swimming competitions, I was very worried that viewers wouldn’t be able to distinguish between characters and tell what was happening when they put on their caps and goggles.
Nishiya: Usually swimmers tuck their hair inside their caps, but in order to distinguish between characters, we had a little bit of hair protrude out.  Also, we wanted the audience to empathize for the characters, so we had to make them different somehow.

-How did you decide on the design for the swimwear?
Nishiya: It wasn’t that complicated to think about.
Utsumi: We wanted the swimwear to be stylish, however we were really picky over the logos that appeared on them. The marks’ design had to be similar to what was used in reality and be simple. We were also very particular on the length of the swimsuits. Especially Makoto’s due to his height. We determined each character’s swimsuit based on variables like how they would appear length-wise, each character’s physique, and so forth. Rin’s goggles changed from what we had first decided. The Iwatobi club’s goggles are all different colors. We also had to consider balancing everything with the caps.

This is an image illustration drawn by director Utsumi that was posted on the Animation Do homepage.

-How did you decide the color for each character’s swimsuit?
Utsumi: Each character’s swimsuit reflects their image color. However, Haruka’s eyes are blue, so we changed his to purple. In return, Rei obtained Haruka’s blue. Only those two’s colors changed.

-I imagine reflecting male emotions would be difficult for a female director. What did you do?
Nishiya: Speaking from a male point of view, I think she was able to depict male emotions well.
Utsumi: I became worried that I was depicting a misinterpretation of emotions, but as the story continued, I deeply considered each character’s emotions and how those feelings would be reflected. Properly showing those were very important to me.

-Nishiya-san, speaking from a male point of view, please tell us what points you want us to look for in the show.
Nishiya: Since it’s a sports series, the bonds between characters and the fiery competitions of course. Though it’s a sports series with characters having different color hair and rivalries, I think we’ve enjoyed this sports series like anything else we’ve done up until now.

-As a representative of the male staff, how does it feel to work on a series which features a lot of male characters in it?
Nishiya: I think it’s a good series for us; it’s one that we can depict a male point of view. I’d like to hear about the opposite though. Up until now, we’ve done a lot of series that had a majority female cast. How did you feel during those series?
Utsumi: As a woman, I knew how those characters would act, so I knew how to draw them. Because of that, it was easy to imagine how their posture would be when I started drawing.
Nishiya: I also haven’t felt like this series has been that difficult for me. I’m not talking about gender relations; it feels very fresh to draw a lot of guys.
Utsumi: The staff has also enjoyed drawing the male characters. Since this project features a lot of muscles on the characters, it’s important that we not falsify their bodies.
Nishiya: It’s certainly difficult to pay attention to that. We can’t cover them with clothes in this series.
Utsumi: It’s important, yet it’s fun. The key animators are also saying “I want the muscles of these guys!” (laughs) We can’t falsify the muscle tissue and how it moves on top of the body. The staff has also been independently training for this series. I see books of poses on desks.They have been very ambitious about depicting upper bodies.

-Finally, please give a message to the viewers.
Utsumi: This work is about the bonds that were born from swimming. I want to thoroughly depict those emotions. Also for those tuning in, please notice the fascinating upper bodies!
Nishiya: I think we’ve depicted a cool high school student life. This time the goal we wanted to pursue was coolness!
Utsumi: I’ll be pleased if the female audiences watches and are shocked by how cool they are.

And that’s it for this interview. Thank you for taking the time to read through all 5,000+ words of this one. I hope it gives you a better outlook on the series.

Opening this weekend in 27 theatres across Japan is the highlight film of the first Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai! TV season, Rikka Takanashi Revision. To promote the film, the director of both the TV series and the film, Tatsuya Ishihara has done various interviews with various publications. One of those publications which focuses on subcultures is bonet. They published an interview in two parts; one prior to the film, which is spoiler free, and one following the film’s release which has spoilers for the film. This post will translate the sections of the interview that were first posted and are safe to read before watching the movie. Linked at the bottom of this post will be the spoiler portion of the interview. Thanks to irrevilent for editing!

“With chuunibyou, I think we could depict a new adolescent love story.”

The TV anime Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai! combines the characteristic high quality visuals and cute characters known from Kyoto Animation while using a unique motif known as “chuunibyou,” a period of puberty where one’s self-awareness fluctuates. The story’s characters include former patient Yuuta Togashi, known previously as the Dark Flame Master, the current patient Rikka Takanashi, user of the Wicked Eye, Shinka Nibutani, who holds a grudge against chuunibyou due to her Mori-Summer days,  Sanae Dekomori, the user of the Mijnoir Hammer, and Kumin Tsuyuri, an slightly airheaded upperclassman who likes naps and goes about her life at her own pace. This romantic comedy contains parts that’ll make you laugh, cry, as well as battles.
A second season has already been announced, but this movie Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai! The Movie: ~Rikka Takanashi Revision~ opens ahead of it today, September 14th, to highlight the first season’s events through the perspective of Rikka.  It’ll be shown in 27 theatres.
In order to commemorate the movie’s release, we asked the series’s director, Tatsuya Ishihara, to talk with us.

The power that lies within yourself!

-Before we talk about the movie, would you please introduce the theme of Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai! (hereafter Chu2).
Ishihara: The main motif is “chuunibyou” of course. However, the phrase “chuunibyou” has various meanings depending upon the person saying it. For this work, we’ve explained it as “your serious view of yourself mixes with the part of you who dreams like a child causing you to say and act ridiculously.” For past examples, middle schoolers who loved movies with heroic leads would walk out of the theatre and try to bump into people to make them angry and the generation before me would be rebellious against adults. Both of those would be called chuunibyou now.
However, chuunibyou occurs during the time where adolescents have other worries. If we were to depict those in this work, the darker parts would be much stronger. We didn’t think about Chu2 going in that trend though. “Why not use chuunibyou to stress the comedy aspects of a love story?” was our idea from the very start. Our way of handling chuunibyou was to have our delusions being about “someday a power will awaken inside you and you will change the world!” And because of that as well as the boys and girls influenced by manga/anime, I think we were able to make a new adolescent love story for this generation.

-The first half of the TV series detailed chuunibyou in humorous fashion, yet the second half was a heartbreaking story that delved into the difference between delusion and reality.
Ishihara: Chu2 itself is a comedic work, but I think the shifting of the soul as children grow to be adults is beautiful and I thought it’d be nice to depict that. I also remember when I was around the age of chuunibyou constantly doubting myself about special powers. “I have a power inside me… no, I definitely don’t…. But I really do?!” I depicted Rikka’s chuunibyou like that. Usually you’d just have a character pretending to have some power, but near the end of season 1, the gap shook back over to someone saying seriously “you do have a power.” Series composer Junki Hanada and I discussed that scene many times over; I was quite worried by it.

Fly, Incomplete-Winged Angel!

-You depicted the swaying back and forth of Rikka and Yuuta’s story in season 1 until everything was settled. Could you tell us about how season 2 as well as the movie came about from there?
Ishihara: Season 2 was decided first. The movie was decided afterwards.  Our company’s producer thought about doing a movie that would depict an episode occurring between seasons 1 and 2, not just a simple highlight movie. New footage would be included. Once he spoke of that, it was green-lit.

-Rikka Takanashi Revision is a very unique title. Could you tell us what you meant by it?
Ishihara: The first impression you get when reading the characters is the embodiment of chuunibyou itself. We instantly decided that the movie would be from Rikka’s point of view, so it fits that perfectly. However, the real title itself had many twists and turns while determining the particulars. From troublesome foreign words to parodies like “Rikka-chan’s Foul Mood” and “Rikka-chan Goes Out,” we had many ideas tossed about. (laughs) After straying around, we finally came to the current title.

-One of the big characteristics of the film is that it re-organizes the events of the TV series through Rikka. The TV series was told through Yuuta’s point of view. As a result, some episodes were mostly trimmed.
Ishihara: They wouldn’t fit into the hour this movie had to re-tell a cour’s story. Re-making the story’s emotional points into that short length was quite difficult. We comprised everything down into the memorable scenes from the TV series. In particular, we put emphasis on enjoyable scenes. In order to make it seem like a fan movie, we chose scenes where the characters were cute, comical parts, and put them beside Rikka and Yuuta’s love story.
Also, to infer this film is from Rikka’s point of view, while there’s no newly drawn animation in the highlight portion, the music was newly made to reflect Rikka’s emotions in those scenes. After all, there were more than a few scenes where Yuuta’s point of view make it a gag while Rikka’s point of view takes it much more seriously. Of course, with the movie being very comical, changing the BGM makes the same scene appear differently than before.

-It’s amazing how the atmosphere has changed in the movie. Incidentally, by emphasizing the comedy aspect, it feels like a taste of what to expect in the second season.
Ishihara: That’s right. The second season emphasizes the comedy nature of the work, so the movie works as an in-between to that feeling. While there’s a few heartbreaking scenes in the new portion, it’s mainly action and comedy.

Click here to go to the spoiler section of the interview!

Opening this weekend in 27 theatres across Japan is the highlight film of the first Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai! TV season, Rikka Takanashi Revision. To promote the film, the director of both the TV series and the film, Tatsuya Ishihara has done various interviews with various publications. One of those publications which focuses on subcultures is bonet. They published an interview in two parts; one prior to the film, which is spoiler free, and one following the film’s release which has spoilers for the film. This post will translate the sections of the interview that were first posted and are safe to read before watching the movie. Linked at the top of this post will be the first half/non-spoiler portion of the interview. Thanks to irrevilent for editing!

Click here for the first half!

Explosive Sleeping!

-Speaking of comical portions, we were surprised that the Lite episode started the movie.
Ishihara: Foreign animation films usually have a short shown at the beginning, don’t they? With that in mind, we decided to try and replicate that with opening with our Lite episode. The newly made samba ending for this lite is among my favorites. (laughs)

-Just like before, the Lite has a distorted Rikka doing the Samba. In contrast, the opening for the movie has Rikka singing, which was not the case for the TV series, but representative of a movie detailing Rikka’s tale. The visuals emphasizing Rikka were also impressive. Were you the storyboarder/director for these?
Ishihara: I was in charge of it. For the scene in the opening where Rikka grows wings, one side’s wing is smaller. Since Rikka’s a dark chuunibyou girl, I quite liked using the “incomplete winged angel’ motif for her. (laughs) Personally, I feel that image is quite representative of people like Rikka. There’s more than a few people out there who don’t do well at academics, don’t fit into their environment, or who are anxious about finding a career or not becoming useless. So that useless wing image is representative of the chuunibyou patients unable to become adults.

-At the beginning of the movie, Rikka appears in a wedding dress similar to what you’d expect to see in a fan movie. It’s contrasting with her “incomplete winged angel” motif, but is still entertaining. By the way, though I know you can’t reveal some details, were there any scenes in the movie that you had a particular image in your head for?
Ishihara: Since it’s a movie, shouldn’t it have that “movie surprise” to start it off? (laughs) While I was meeting with Hanada-san, we both agreed “we want to start off with a flashy action scene.” But we also wanted the audience to understand that this is a lie despite having a fantasy world action battle scene with Rikka and Yuuta unfolding. Regardless, the dream had to end. I thought adding Yuuta’s narration combined with a bit longer reality exposition to start the film would be a bigger surprise, wouldn’t it? Also, shouldn’t the audience be able to read what Rikka’s feelings were during that scene? Besides, that type of self-deprecating humor is very chuunibyou-ish.

-The battle scenes in the film made great use of CG, especially depicting the group battle against the dragon. It felt powerful. Which of the new scenes in the film would you say is your favorite?
Ishihara: One would be Kumin’s battle/action scene. Since she never had chuunibyou, she was more in the expanded world as I call it, but…. she couldn’t participate in the battles in the fantasy worlds like Rikka, Nibutani, and Dekomori thought up in the first season. Then at last she’s finally there in the movie. I was pleased. Her finishing attack literally is spelled out “fast asleep” but read “EXPLOSIVE SLEEPING.” I was exceptionally pleased with that scene. (laughs) In addition, I was pleased with Nibutani’s transformation that was included as well as Dekomori’s introduction.

A mysterious new character… the curtain rises on a new chapter!

-At the end of the movie, a new character and setting appears to bridge the gap to the second season. At the start of the highlights, Rikka holds her hand outside the door of a train at the exact time it opens while the new character holds her hand inside the door of a train at the exact time it opens. I was impressed with the lovely interaction between the two.
Ishihara: I wanted to really emphasize the rival, opposing, nature to Rikka in that scene.

-When I saw the actress listed for her in the credits, it appeared she had a history with past Kyoto Animation productions before casting her in this role.
Ishihara: I was very worried relating to casting the key character for the second season. Usually when casting a new character, you’ll request someone who knows what recording is like and who’ll grow accustomed to the atmosphere. This time however, I decided upon someone who participated in the first season via a student role.

-At the present point, there some other points you’d like to talk about regarding the second season’s plot, right? How about preparing the shocking development seen at the end of the movie concerning Rikka and Yuuta.
Ishihara: This was also suggested by Hanada-san, but I absolutely wanted this kind of setting to give a fresh feeling. Not quite devastating, but isn’t it giving off a different feeling when starting than what you’ve seen before? Ordinarily when seeing something like that begin, fans would be shocked and think immediately that Kuzuha, Yumeha, and Touka’s screentime would drop. When you check the first season again, they didn’t have a lot of appearances, so their screentime wouldn’t change a lot.
I’ve said before regarding the story that while the love story between Rikka and Yuuta would be the main plot, the comedy aspect would be stronger. We’re also preparing episodes that dig deeper into Dekomori, Nibutani, and Kumin, so please look forward to those.

-Having experienced the movie myself, haven’t there been pieces that have changed like direction and image drawing? At the start of the first season, the processing of hair gradients was something I noticed when watching. The color of the principal lines were also exceptionally peculiar on the screen.
Ishihara: I’m grateful you noticed that. I wanted to give the female characters a softer impression in the colored outline when there was a close up. However, it’s not a simple change. For example, a stray line in a black uniform feels out of place; proper coordination of colors is needed. It’s definitely difficult to do. Although since we’ve done this before, the second season won’t have a very different taste.

-Finally, would you please give a few words to the readers?
Ishihara: Up until now I’ve worked on a lot of anime with original materials. Though Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai! is a light novel written by Torako, I’ve been able to add original characters and alter it to find an ending. For me, it feels like it’s nearly an original series. Of course I’ve loved all the series I’ve worked on thus far, but I have a different kind of love for this anime. I think it’d be great to do a third season or second movie.
In regards to Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai! The Movie ~Rikka Takanashi Revision~, I’ve made this film while working hard on the drawings for the battle scenes at the beginning and contemplating how to finely tune the audio to suit the 5.1 channel audio mix. I’ve pondered how to make this worthwhile to those who go to the theatre to see the movie, so I’m grateful to those who have/will go to see it.

Base Details (bottom left):

Character Descriptions:

Delicious points! (pink boxes)

Main article:

ultimatemegax: I’ll be working on translating the interviews from the guidebook for the next couple of weeks. This is the first in the series. Thanks to irrevilent for editing assistance and OliMcGown for help with swimming portions.

Director Hiroko Utsumi Interview

Free! was Director Utsumi’s first role as a series director. In this interview, she passionately talks about the enthusiasm she put into this work as well as the thoughts she had during the creation of the characters.

Director Utsumi’s obsession with Free!’s staff

-The original novel, High☆ Speed!, took place in elementary school. Why did you decide to make the characters into high school students in Free!?
To start, I felt the manuscript was an awfully charming work when I first read it. At the same time, I felt the same as our judges; “They sort of feel like adults in children’s bodies.” High☆ Speed! takes place when the main cast are elementary school kids, but wouldn’t it still be entertaining to see a tale when they’re high schoolers? That was how I began thinking about having the anime set in high school. I was in a swimming club when I was in high school, so I could use my experience and help people understand the characters. Even now I can’t remember how I felt in elementary school despite having thought about it over and over… (laughs) And there’s also another more personal reason for it to be in high school… I like to draw beautiful bodies. (laughs) And so when I replied that I’d also like for the anime to be set in high school, Free!’s production began.

-I’m told that the character designer, Futoshi Nishiya, was designated by you.
Yes, I had truly wished to have him join, so I proposed to him. (laughs) I’ve been watching his work since a while ago; he’s an artist I’ve been quite fond of. Our company has been involved in many works over the year that focused upon female characters, but you can catch a glimpse of male characters in there as well. The way he draws males is so charming;  to put it in one word, they’re sexy. This would be the first time I ever directed a show, so I just knew the only one who would be able to listen to my wishes regarding the boys’ appeal and also be able to firmly draw their beauty would be Nishiya-san. I thought it had to be him and so I requested he work on this show.

This is an illustration drawn by director Utsumi which was posted on Animation Do’s home page. From left to right is Kaede, Nagisa, Haruka, and Makoto. The character in the background is Rin.

-How did you create the designs for the characters? Also, were there any characters that gave you difficulties?
At the very beginning, I created image boards of all the characters based off of the image I got of their appearance, ambiance, and physical shape based from the novel. So thus this project started with Haruka, Rin, Makoto, and Nagisa. At that time, it wasn’t certain that Free! would be made into an anime, so I asked Nishiya-san to draw some temporary designs. They were a step below what the current designs are. As for the anime original character Rei, his name nor personality doesn’t match what I had originally imagined when I first started creating him. Originally he was supposed to be a very cheerful and energetic boy, but as series composer Masahiro Yokotani and I progressed through the story, he pointed out that overlapped with Nagisa’s character. Surely not….. Then what type of character should I make? A frank and serious character? A committee chairman? As I began making suggestions, Rei’s draft started to form. And then that character completely changed and the Rei we know now doesn’t match names or personalities with those drafts. His design and ambiance was completely original as I left it up to Nishiya-san to create that. My only request was to ensure he wore glasses.

-Besides Nishiya-san, would you please introduce us to the important staff you collaborated with on this show?
First, I’ll talk a little about the veteran staff I asked to direct how the water looked. I avoided the water and stayed out of it during the production of Free!. After all, water is very difficult to draw and yet when it came time to draw the swimming scenes in the water…. these people were able to wipe away their anxiety and aggressively show the wonderful form and motion the water took. They allowed me to focus on the drama portion of the show.

Next will be Joji Unoguchi, the art director for the show. I can’t speak at length about the background process, but the setting materials he drew were a bit different than reality; I really liked how they created a very gentle atmosphere that I had definitely wanted to depict in the show. And rumor has is that if you want to depict a rural location, Unoguchi-san’s the best choice in the company! (laughs) My favorite scenery has to be the streets around Haruka and Makoto as well as the older style of Haruka’s house, both inside and out. He also lived up to the minute details I had requested about the pools’ scenery. The color key Yuuka Yoneda also had senses that were close to mine and helped me out in so many various ways. She’s the one who decided on the beautiful shade of blue for Haruka’s eyes. They’re so fitting for him! Though I also made her work so much on thoughts for casual clothing and the like….

I actually didn’t work that much with prop designer Seiichi Akitake, but I felt that the tiny details for all the props he drew felt so natural for all the characters in our company’s previous shows. When he was designing the goggles, he actually wore a pair so that he could thoroughly draw them from each and every angle. He was a real life-saver.

Finally, I want to highlight the director of photography Kazuya Takao. I’ve sparingly worked with him before, but I was charmed by how entertaining and expressive his ad-libs were during production. I’ve heard he also had a lot of disobedience during production too. (laughs) I was always worried that the directions I gave for the many difficult portions wouldn’t be transmitted to the photography process, but they always knew what I meant and delivered visuals beyond my imagination. One of those scenes was the night scene at Samezuka’s pool where the water swayed back and forth when Haruka was swimming. It was Takao-san’s job to film that scene and he surprised even me with it. “You could do something like that?!” And then when I handed over the first pieces of the first cut from the ending and told the photographer “Good luck☆” expecting disappointment, I came back and was met with this amazing sight. “Who did this?!” “I did,” said Takao-san with a satisfied smirk on his face. (laughs)

-That Samezuka pool scene was really pretty.
I thought the pool would look really beautiful in the night setting. With moonlight reflecting on the water surface and the glass ceiling above reflecting the water, it looks soooooooo gorgeous! This was why we created a glass ceiling for the pool in the academy. I really like outdoor pools where you can see the blue sky above, but indoor pools have charming points like this as well.

The cast brings out the appeal of the characters

- Please tell us about the casting process. I’ve heard that you didn’t hold auditions.
That’s right. I requested to receive various voice samples from different actors that read for the show and chose the ones that matched the image I had inside of the character. For example, Haruka’s main premise is a cool character, but that doesn’t mean he’s cool all the time. There’s times where he’s emotionally elevated or depressed as well. He usually doesn’t speak, so when he does speak up, it’s important that his words carry a certain power. I don’t think just anyone would be able to perform this role; it’s required to get all the minute details out in your performance. When I heard Nobuanga Shimazaki-san’s voice, I immediately thought “Ah, it’s Haruka!” His fearlessly clear voice completely slipped into my image of Haruka.

-Were there other impressions you could share from the remaining casting processes?
Actually, casting Makato was a surprise when the role was determined. I had requested the opening song by OLDCODEX and I was listening to Tatsuhisa Suzuki-san’s voice sample as a reference and thought “It’s Makoto!” It must have been fate. (laughs) I immediately requested “Suzuki-san has to play Makato!”

-Please tell us your thoughts during the live recording sessions.
I thought everyone in the cast brought out the appeal of each of the characters. They shared a tight bond with their character; I was moved by how strong it was. Shimazaki-san came with good questions about how to appreciate the succinct Haruka, Suzuki-san proposed several suggestions for Makoto, and there were a lot of great ideas and ad-libs to change scenes as well. My chest grew hot as I heard Miyano-san speak Rin’s role from the delicate scenes to the violent rage scenes. Yonaga-san gave us several ad-libs for Nagisa during recording. The way that Hirakawa-san’s Rei spoke so fondly about Haruka was so cute it melted my heart! I have a lot of gratitude to everyone for how they played their characters.

Wanting to create Free! to be a realistic drama

-Free! obviously was a swimming anime, but other than that, were there any points you fixated on or were difficult to work on?
At the beginning of the production, the decision to make it occur in either fantasy or reality was a big selection. I wanted to depict it as a realistic drama, so I chose to base it in reality. I dislike it when people think the swimming races were a bit fake when they watch it. I personally have a lot of experience swimming, so my utmost desire was to never give off a false feeling when people watched it. On the other hand, there are many different frames that were hard to draw and maintain a sense of reality. For example, when you’re swimming front crawl, you need breathing spells where you breathe out through your nose and in through your mouth. I think people who may watch would have a different impression, so while I think you do have to include a few fibs, I did my best to apply the rules of reality in this series.

-This show has a lot of comedic elements interweaved in; were those determined during the series composition?
That’s right. I’d tell Yokotani-san “That’s one part I won’t give you!” I personally love comedy, so I wanted to include it in this series; however the original novel had very little comedy, thus I initially left it out while I decided if it was alright to include it in the anime. Yokotani-san weaved it so well into the composition, so gradually the comedic direction and impression began to match its image. One example of that is Haruka’s stripping upon seeing water. If you just look at that, you’d think he’s just a strange boy, but there’s actually a reason for it. Haruka loved to swim, but he stopped swimming when Rin left, so the stripping is an unconscious reaction when he sees water. Underneath the comedy, we show a reason for things to happen so you get a greater appreciation for the characters, or rather understanding them better after seeing the whole tale.

On the animation side, one of the adlibs was in episode 1’s scene where Haruka and Rin take their clothes off before their race. In the storyboards, they had the same style of undressing, but the key animator changed Rin’s style to be very aggressive and showed me the rough drafts. “Would this be alright?” I felt it really contrasted with Haruka’s cool image, so I replied “It would!” and so it became what you saw.

-By the way, who’s idea was it to have Haruka’s eyes flutter once he sees water?
That was my idea once I saw the video footage. In the scenario, the directions says his eyes show “his trembling soul” but I thought more about what to do when I saw it on video. Since Haruka doesn’t speak much, having his eyes throb once he sees water would easily communicate his feelings to the audience. Video is great to communicate feelings through actions and expressions. In the studio we called Haruka a “waterdere” since his heart starts to beat once he sees it. (laughs)

-Speaking of comedic scenes, the fashion show in episode four was a shock.
We had already decided that Rei would show off his swimsuit in a flashy manner during the scenario planning, but was it alright to have him wear a butterfly suit? (laughs) Haruka’s eyes not changing a lot was Yokotani-san’s idea while the obsession with tightness was mine. In a race, you’re also competing against the water, so it’s important to lose resistance as best you can. I don’t have any professional swimsuits; since they’re so tight, people wouldn’t want to put one on voluntarily. Haruka unconsciously feels like that too…. right? (laughs)

-This show has a lot of female fans, so what points did you keep in mind when handling the female characters?
At first, it was very difficult to determine where the female characters stood; I even said the show should take place in an all-boys school back then. But since I went to a co-ed school, I had girls appear in this show. Gou is Rin’s sister, so she was allotted the role of in-between for the Iwatobi team and Rin. From Gou being around, Haruka and Rin were able to meet again in episode 1. Besides that, I also gave Gou the role of being the person to explain about muscles. (laughs) If Gou was only Rin’s sister, she would be a rather weak character, so that’s why she was given that depiction. However cooking or the like being her strong point was too ordinary for a manager, so she grew to love muscles. (laughs) Her outward appearance was something we paid attention to as well. When she’s next to Makato, she looks incredibly small, but her height is 160 cm, which is by no means small. If you compared any of the guys to a girl in height, they’ll be bigger; I thought that would give a better sense of the guys having masculine bodies. And so, looking back, Gou was assigned these various roles. If she wasn’t there, I don’t think a lot of things would’ve happened.

-What about Amakata-sensei?
Compared to Gou, who’s the more beauty type character, Amakata-sensei is the cute type of character Nishiya-san requested to insert in. She also has a cute tale to go along with her looks, but to economize the cast, she was also put in as an adult. Having an adult woman was also important too since we also knew that women were also attracted to stories with a woman in the core.

The final image was determined from the start

-What scene from the entire series continues to leave an impression on you?
Definitely Rin’s crying scene in episode 12. I’d always wanted to make him cry! (laughs) Perhaps that’s due to me wanting to say what happens to him, but I couldn’t say it until now! At last I can! And I wanted to hold him tight in that scene. (laughs) That scene means so much to me; it’s what we worked for this whole time since the very beginning, so I won’t forget it easily.

-The series started with a scene from their elementary school days, didn’t it?
Yokotani-san did a wonderful job weaving in the memories of their past throughout the series. We deliberately planned scenes so that the audience would keep in mind their youth and that spectacular relay race from that time and how everything tied together in the final episode.

-Besides the pools, this series also had a lot of focus on the sea as well.
Originally the swimming club only swam in the pool, but we inserted the storm scene in episode 6 because I wanted to show a different image of water. Swimming in a pool has a very safe image of water: there’s no waves, you can touch the bottom easily, and it’s totally clean. In contrast, the sea has the situation where the weather can change to make it a dangerous place. I wanted the audience to experience that feeling of danger and thrill from violent water.

-It felt like the entire second half was a full rush to the final episode.
The episodes after episode 7 were very condensed down. We also had to re-do the scenario many times. There was also a very strict schedule to follow.

-How did you come about deciding what to do for the final episode?
I had decided on those events at the very beginning. I wanted to show Rin swimming in the medley with Haruka and their friends, especially that joy of holding your teammates. While I had easily decided that Rin would replace Rei in the race, I was very troubled about how to get there. During the scenario meetings, we went over many ideas and I couldn’t agree to any of them. We thought of everything we could during those meetings.

And then, since I’m not great at thinking about series construction, I began to put myself in Haruka’s position. Suddenly, at last, I could see the story unfold in front of me. At first, Haruka said he didn’t want to swim any other way than free, and then he couldn’t see other people besides Rin. So how did his friends get him to want to swim in the relay? I noticed that was the turning point in the story. If he never said he wanted to swim with everyone else, he wouldn’t have grown. After seeing how Haruka felt, I next went to how Rin felt. Rin had the same problem: how would I get him to notice other people besides Haruka? Shortly after I came to a decision on what he would go through and told the general gist to the staff about what would happen and they gave their understanding of the situation. Yokotani-san said “Let’s proceed with that,” and we started once again.

-Please tell us a little about the opening.
Since this was a sports series, I requested my desire to have an opening song that had a very upbeat tempo from the music producer. At the same time, I also wanted it to have a painful melody to reflect the moments in the story that pulled at your heart. And then the song I received, Rage on, was so beyond what I had imagined, my hands stopped moving. “What should I do….I don’t think I can make cool visuals to match this song.” (laughs)

I listened to the song many times over when making the animation. I inserted swimming cuts during the portion of the hook when the song reaches its peak. My favorite cut is when Rin is crying. Though that only appears at the end of the tale, I wanted to suggest it in the opening so people would get a hint at it throughout the series. His crying is so beautiful! It’s still an opening that gives that “cool” feeling until the very end.

-Please tell us a little about the ending.
I wanted the ending to be completely different than the main story. The opening and main story give away a large serving of water but the ending dried up. (laughs) To do that, I thought it would be interesting to detail something you’d never see in it: a world parallel to the main story. While Haruka and the other characters are in there, he still searches for water, showing there are things that haven’t changed.

-Looking back over production, what comes to mind?
It felt so fast. I frantically crammed all that I could during the limited time we had. I greatly love these boys and grew fond of treating them harshly (though lovingly of course!). I think everyone was able to catch what I wanted to show after having stuffed it all in. (laughs)

-Finally, please give a few words to the fans.
I’m truly grateful for all the viewers who watched to the very end. Thanks to all of the encouragement of the viewers, we staff were able to give our best efforts in this dash to the end. I’m happy to think that the viewers and I were surely tied together like the bonds I wanted to describe in Free!. What makes me happiest is that everyone also loves the boys like we do. Thank you from the bottom of my heart and maybe… you’ll have fond memories of them when you see people diving into the pool come summertime.

Truly, thank you to everyone who watched! During production, the gentle and fiery cries from all the fans gave us strength. Thanks to your encouragement we were able to make this show happen. If asked to say one thing to everyone who loved the boys, to everyone who felt the same coolness I did, to everyone who doesn’t swim, but was inspired to, to those who enjoyed the summer sensation, it’s that I’m truly happy you enjoyed it. From here on, I think we’ll always be looking at Free! together.

Profile:
Hiroko Utsumi (内海紘子)
Her previous accomplishments include co-directing K-On! The Movie!, as well as episode director/storyboards for Hyouka and Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai!. This work was her first time as a series director.

WARNING! THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE WHICH WILL BE APPARENT IN EPISODE 1 OF SEASON 2! If you do not wish to be spoiled to these events, I have uploaded a spoiler-free version to Pastebin. Out of the three articles in the monthly magazines this time, I chose this one due to its content regarding the new character, Satone Shichimiya and more content in the second season. The illustration for this article is posted below, but this clean image comes from the poster included with the magazine, not the exact article image itself. Thanks to my good buddy superdry for editing this.

Rikka! Rikka Night Fever!

Adorned in a red cap, Rikka Takanashi is proud of her explosive popularity since her debut last year.  At the end of the movie which premiered this September, she and the fated partner bound to a contract with her Wicked Eye, Yuuta Togashi, are now living together.  January starts a new stage in their lives as the embarrassing cohabitation of these inexperienced lovers begins…
HOWEVER! There is a however! Peace and harmony are never present for inhabitants of this chuunibyou romantic comedy.  For Rikka and Yuuta, who have pinky-touched as much as they can, developing their romance is an unseen area even more obscure than the Ethereal Horizon. One example of this strange development is the extra episode broadcast on Christmas Day. Definitely watch it so you can get a glimpse of their emotions in January.
And furthermore,  the hurdle of love has been raised even higher. Yes, we mean the twin curled pink haired girl who appeared at the end of the movie, Satone Shichimiya. Will the arrival of Yuuta’s middle school partner invite disruption into their relationship?! A new stage begins in the chuuni souls adorned with a Black Raison d’être!

Shinka Nibutani:
Once upon a time when she was infected with chuunibyou, she was known as the mage Mori-Summer. What does she plan to do in order to return to a normal high school life upon moving up to 2nd year?

Sanae Dekomori:
Rikka’s prized servant, the user of the Mjölnir Hammer, has finally moved up to her first year in high school.  While she and Nibutani only quarrel, are they actually really close?!

Kumin Tsuyuri:
This easy-going young miss helped construct Rikka’s circle so she could nap. As she’s moved up to third year, she hasn’t changed at all as she pours all her love into napping.

Rikka Takanashi:
At one point she had been rehabilitated from her chuunibyou, but, thanks to Yuuta, she’s made a great relapse! How will her life change now that fate has set her in the Togashi residence?

Satone Shichimiya:
This chuunibyou girl calls herself a dark lord magical girl. During her time as Yuuta’s friend in middle school, she called him “Hero.” Bright with an affable personality, she has a habit of clinging to people.

About this girl, Satone Shichimiya:
During her second year of middle school, she disappeared in front of Yuuta, changing schools. She was also influential to Nibutani at her new school. Will Mori-Summer have a new enemy?

Words from the board!

Imaginary Affair!
Speaking of one of the highlights, plans are for Shichimiya to participate in the chuuni battle action scenes. You can’t miss seeing how the self-styled dark lord magical girl and the Wicked Eye fight! Also, pay attention as the number of appearances of the Dark Flame Master will also increase.

Black Raison d’être!
ZAQ continues to sing the opening song like the first season; this time titled “VOICE”.  With the visuals being a delusional battle, what will the final result be?! The ED will be sung by the four girls’ unit, Black Raison d’être. Conversely, this song gives a cute feeling to it. Looks like the footage as well as songs will be a point to talk about this season too.

Forget me not!
You can’t forget about the supporting character who got his head shaved in episode 6 of season 1, Isshiki Makoto. His tragedies, like having no one recognize him after his haircut, are further accelerated in the second season.  The audience will be tempted to cry when they see them like how his first meeting with his unrequited love, Kumin, doesn’t go as he expects.

Director Tatsuya Ishihara Interview:

The story’s world becomes wider and brighter than before.

-With the new character Satone Shichimiya appearing in S2, we’re curious what developments will occur.
Ishihara: While we were certain that Shichimiya would appear, I had many many conversations with composer (Jukki) Hanada-san regarding how Riika and Yuuta would change and where she would appear at in the story. I want all three to be happy at the end of the tale.

-Will Rikka also become worried with Shichimiya appearing?
Ishihara: But Shichimiya would say that Yuuta is going out with Rikka in the first place. I don’t know how she would feel in her middle school days, but she wouldn’t want to insert herself between two people. She’s just not that kind of character. She’d say “Good for you,” “I’m cheering you on,” to Yuuta.  Though Shichimiya being around does have Rikka feeling depressed… and then in the second half of the story… that kind of thing. (laughs) Though things may get serious, there’s still a lot of comedic moments. Be sure to see how Shichimiya’s presence causes a chemical reaction.

-What do you think her charm is?
Ishihara: It’s hard to put into words, but she’s the kind of girl who decided “that’s how I want to live” in her second year of middle school. Personally, I can emphasize with her easily. Perhaps her chuunibyou may not be chuunibyou after all. She’s a cheerful girl who’s able to take a large view of the world around her and who feels somewhat heartrendering.  I’d be pleased if we were able to show that type of subulty in her character through visuals.

-Shichimiya’s a self-called dark lord magical girl. How did you come up with her outfit?
Ishihara: A chuunibyou patient typically feel a school uniform would be very cool to wear as a battle costume. This time we wrapped it together with a magical girl feeling. (laughs) We made something like that for when she has a delusional battle.

-Has Rikka and Yuuta’s relationship more-or-less advanced?
Ishihara: It hasn’t advanced much; it’s become more or less non-complicit. (laughs) Yuuta will chop Rikka like usual and she’ll speak to him familiarly.  Though they’ve become closer physically, it’s more like “Grandpa and granddaughter” than lovers.  But that’s how Nibutani would describe it in episode 2. (laughs)

-Will Nibutani, Dekomori, and Kumin have their own unique tales?
Ishihara: When making this season, we also wanted to add new components. We brought up these characters in the first season, so we wanted to capitalize on their development in the second season. Nibutani makes her debut as a second year, Kumin starts to love puns and starts to battle in her naps.  Their main episodes are quite entertaining if I can say so myself. (laughs)  Among all of them, I really think the episode where Dekomori becomes emotionally attached to Nibutani is a must-see.  It’s so cute, so cute. Dekomori wanting to become an ally is so cute, but she’s still a nuisance to Nibutani. (laughs)

-On a side-note, you guys were a bit too harsh on Isshiki last season. (laughs)
Ishihara: Season 2 is more oriented towards gags, and Isshiki is handled like a gag in this one too. (laughs) Well, be sure to check out his disastrous relationship troubles in the main story.

-It seems you wanted this story to become even more bright and fun in the second season.
Ishihara: While certainly fans of Rikka will enjoy it, I think fans of Nibutani, Dekomori, and Kumin will also enjoy this season. We’ve prepared separate episodes for each of the girls in a series that’s become downright foolish, but still very entertaining as well. The number of classmates for Rikka also grows in number, so the world is bigger than before. Please enjoy it until your shoulders pop.

This is a translation of the “Directors’ Dialogue” stage event held at CTFK 2013 in Kyoto, Japan. The attendees on this panel were Director Tatsuya Ishihara, (AIR, Kanon, Clannad, Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai!), Director Yasuhiro Takemoto (Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu, Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid, Lucky Star (episodes 5-24), Hyouka, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya), and Director Naoko Yamada (K-On! K-On! The Movie!, Tamako Market). The MC for this panel was Maiko Nishioka (Literature production and scriptwriter for Kyoto Animation). The transcript for this panel was provided by this blogger.

At the very beginning this exchange was had:
Takemoto: “I haven’t directed one of the CTFK works, so why am I standing with Ishihara-san and Yamada-san? (laughs)”
Ishihara: “The T in CTFK stands for Takemoto, doesn’t it?”
Yamada: “T is for Tamako!”
And then the talk started.

-What are your impressions of each other? Let’s start with your thoughts on Ishihara-san.
Yamada: Since I sit near him at the KyoAni studios, I see that he loves cameras, always looks like he’s enjoying himself, and wears shirts that look like children’s pajamas. (laughs) Recently he’s been so busy he looks cool.
Ishihara: The final stretch of Chuunibyou S2 episode 1 has been quite the struggle. (This episode was screened prior to airing later that day)
Takemoto:  I think he’s quite cold. (laughs) When we went to a bookstore together, I had a stomachache and had to go to the bathroom. While I was in there, someone rudely knocked on the door “Bang!” I don’t mean just once, it was like “Bang! Bang! Bang!” as if the person was furious someone was in there. When I went outside he looked nonchalant and said “Ah, it was you who was in there Takemoto…” (laughs)

-What are your thoughts on Director Takemoto?
Ishihara: His sense of balance is amazing. He’s able to not only balance his sense as a director, he also keeps production on schedule easily.
Takemoto: Personally I think it’s quite difficult.  People who create works are a bit strange; they’re able to fulfill what they originally wanted to do unlike normal people; or rather they’re able to recognize things that ordinary people don’t. Thus, I’m a bit envious of Ishihara-san and Yamada-san. (laughs)
Yamada: When I was a key animator, I wasn’t affected very much by scary things. Thus as we were working on the final episode of TSR, he handed me about a mountain of rough key frames and layouts and said “these aren’t good enough,” and made me re-do them all. If Takemoto-san hadn’t judged my work so harshly, I wouldn’t have worked as frantically as I did to improve. (laugh) Also the visuals for “Super Driver” (The 2009 Haruhi Suzumiya opening) was so cool. Oh, the first opening for Nichijou was also cool; it’s one of the highlights in recent years.
Takemoto: Whenever my kids see that opening they scream and start dancing. (laughs)

-What are your thoughts on Director Yamada?
Ishihara: She’s just as she appears. (laughs)
Takemoto: She attracts a lot of people around her.
Ishihara: There’s always a lot of people around her desk.
Yamada: Are there really that many people? (laughs)
Takemoto:  The other day you got a lot of presents on your birthday. I was so jealous…. (laughs) When I say it’s my birthday, people just say “no it’s not” and we go back to work. In Yamada’s case, they say “It is?!” and their eyes light up. I’m really jealous.
Yamada:  I might think about not saying anything so they wouldn’t do that at my next job…..

-How do you decide what to name your characters?
Ishihara: (Points at MC) That’s your job isn’t it?! (laughs) Nishioka-san is the editor in charge of the original work.  For my case, I’ll think about it over and over until I think too much on it.
(He talks a few disqualified names for characters that would’ve appeared in Chuunibyou)

-What do you two (Takemoto/Yamada) think about Chuunibyou?
Takemoto:  I’m probably not infected with it.  Earlier Ishihara-san mentioned balance. Wouldn’t it be better to be normal than to have that illness? I feel a bit superior over these two due to being normal and struggling to achieve what I wanted. (laughs)
Yamada: We’re all happily normal. (laughs)

-What were some difficulties upon inserting original aspects into anime that weren’t present in the original work?
Ishihara: (regarding Chuunibyou) I inserted original aspects because I felt there wasn’t enough characters since we didn’t even have a full volume of material to work with at that time.  Thus, making the anime was convenient for me; there weren’t really any troublesome portions.  For Kumin-sempai, I wanted an ordinary person, but she ended up somewhat weird. (laughs) Dekomori was (Jukki) Hanada-san’s idea. Her saying “death” was one of the first things we decided, so it was easy for her too.
Yamada:  Dekomori looks like a strawberry especially with her bangs. When I drew the storyboards, I was so busy I ended up drawing her face too round. (laughs)

-Are there any characters you have a strong emotional attachment to in a work you didn’t direct?
Yamada: Free!’s Gou-chan is the cutest ever. I absolutely love her. Her long skirt, her perfectly fitting uniform, her somewhat thin ponytail…. She just looks cute. She’s not just girlish too; she’s got some boyish traits in her as well. Like her hair color is the same as her onii-chan’s.
Takemoto: Yamada-san’s love of high school girls is too much. (laughs)
Yamada: I love them. I would always compete to do Gou-chan’s cuts with Free!’s Usumi-san. (Hiroko Utsumi was the director for Free!) I think I may love Gou-chan more than she does. (laughs)
Takemoto:  Utsumi-san talked with me one time saying “Takemoto-san…. I’m worried that Yamada-san and (Taichi) Ogawa-kum love Gou-chan too much!’ (laughs) You let your love of Gou-chan show way too much. (laughs) (Director Utsumi-san wanted you to) Enjoy drawing the guys instead!
Yamada: But it was natural for me to draw Gou-chan when her scenes came up in the episode I directed, so I didn’t feel guilty about that. (laughs) It’s not like I switched from a different cut. (laughs)
Ishihara:  Utsumi-san directed episode 5 of Chuunibyou and an episode of Hyouka. I don’t think that anyone else would have drawn Houtarou’s (Oreki from Hyouka) rear with as much vigor as she did. (laughs) Women have a fainter drawing stroke, so when I saw that the storyboards for episode 5 of Chuunibyou were so thin during the school swimsuit scene, I had her re-do it.
Takemoto: Yamada-san loves high school girls. Utaumi-san loves high school boys. (laughs)
Yamada: However she continues to draw muscles as much as she wants until she’s pleased with how they look.

-Takemoto-san, who’s your favorite character?
Takemoto: I think everyone knows, but I’ll say it again to clarify; I really love Houtarou Oreki! (laughs) I like male characters more than female characters. (laughs)
Ishihara: So you’d like someone like Sousuke?
Takemoto: Right, I really like him. I also love Kyon. Though I like more characters than just guys. (laughs)
Yamada: Do you not care for Mochizou? (laughs)
Takemoto: I do, he’s cute.  I really like how he never gets across what he wants to say, but if pushed I’m more of a Dera-chan fan…. (laughs) I really like the girls in K-On!, but they’re some type of (unintelligible) aliens to me. (laughs)
Yamada:  I just thought of how K-On! would look if it were older guys instead of girls. You wanted to draw something like Drifters. (laughs)
Takemoto:  I went to one of the Sega lottery prize games now and played, but I couldn’t get Houtarou’s prize. (laughs)

-Who is your favorite character, Ishihara-san?
Ishihara: Misuzu from AIR, the first show I directed.  There’s various things about her I won’t ever forget. I also like another character from one of my own works: Clannad’s Fuko. Key’s characters have a lot of weirdness, but there’s a lot of great characters in their works. Most recently I like Rei from Free!. That guy is a really good chap. (laughs)
Takemoto: I got a text from one of my former friends saying “I watch Free! every week. Rei is such a great guy!” However I’ve not gotten anything since the final episode. (laughs)
Ishihara: The person who did Fuko’s transformation scene was the director of Kyoukai no Kanata, (Taichi) Ishidate-kun.
Yamada: At that time I was assistant director so I was worried about Fuko’s skirt flipping up during that scene from his storyboards and wondered how it would be alright to prevent her rear from showing. So when I went to ask him about it, he said “we’ll throw a bunch of stars at the screen to prevent it from being seen. Then, vexingly, Ishidate-san threw so many stars that he created a hole. (laughs) That scoundrel created a hole. (laughs)

-We received a lot of questions relating to the towns modeled in our shows. The four shows on display today were located in the Kansai region, specifically in the Kinki region. What do you think the charm of each of those towns and the region is?
Ishihara: We’re not particular that shows have to be modeled here. Kanon was modeled in Sapporo. Clannad took place around the Yokota region and in Aoimori.
Takemoto:  Speaking of locations, you two went to London. That’s a bit far off from where the e-mails mentioned. (laughs)
Yamada: Ishihara-san went with me to scout it for K-On! The Movie!.  (Asks the crowd if anyone’s been to London. A few people raise their hands.) There’s a lot of rich people here! (laughs)  I really really love music, so I was a bit overwhelmed by going to a holy land where my favorite bands and musicians were from.
Ishihara: Why did we go to London again…..?
Yamada: Wasn’t it because Mio chose that city? (laughs)
Ishihara: (laughs) I guess it was because it’s the birthplace of British Rock and the Beatles.
Yamada: Right. The cool badge you see on Ishihara-san’s flat cap is a gift I got when I went to a film festival in Scotland.  I bought a cross that I think Rikka would like. I have so many good memories there.
Ishihara: During location scouting we went to Stonehenge and other places we didn’t end up using. We also went to Windsor Castle.
Yamada:  We went to a lot of live music clubs. Those were fantastic experiences.
Ishihara: We had conceptualized where the girls would go and what tourist locations they wouldn’t visit.
Yamada: Right. By going there, we were able to feel how impressive this stone paving was, how cute the windows were shaped, how cute this candy’s colored and such.  We restrained ourselves a little from going to all the locations we wanted to go, but as the story progressed, we were able to think about the trip from the girls’ perspective.
Ishihara:  After we had scouted as hard as we could in London, Google Street View came out and we were shocked.  We were a bit reluctant to draw from what we had previously seen and use Street View for locations we didn’t photograph! (laughs)
Takemoto: To be quite frank, we are incredibly thankful for Street View. (laughs) Thank you Google! (laughs) Though while it’ll easily photograph areas where a lot of traffic goes, there’s some places it won’t go into and you’re thinking “I want to see that, you rascal!”
Ishihara: We basically use it to give a reference for locations we may use.
Yamada: I don’t know what to do on the site, so I’m not great at using it. I’m not talented at using computers. (laughs)
Ishihara:  Recently when we went to do scouting for Chuunibyou, we came back to look at how it appeared on Street View and were shocked. “Whoa, I photographed that!” (laughs)
Takemoto: When I went to Hong Kong and took pictures, there were a lot of shopkeepers who were looking at me like I was doing something wrong.  I guess it was impolite to take pictures there.  The other staff became aware of it and had left me behind.  Perhaps they wanted me floating in Victoria Bay for some reason. (laughs) Aside from that, Shouji Gatou-san had a serious expression when we were on the subway to the airport. I asked him what was wrong and he replied “my stomach hurts.” (laughs) One stop would’ve delayed us from reaching our airplane, so he held on until the very last moment.  The big man ended up having a big explosion, didn’t he? (laughs)

-Today we have a special guest joining us. Please welcome the chief animation director for Tamako Market, Yukiko Horiguchi!

(Horiguchi stood between Yamada and Takemoto. She was about 2-3 cm shorter than Yamada, who was wearing thick soled shoes.)

-There’s an announcement coming soon regarding the new Tamako Market production, but we received a lot of questions about it from the fans. Director Yamada, can you tell us what story it’ll be about and how the phrase “Everybody Loves Somebody” affects it? Also, is this the love Tamako feels towards everyone or is it towards a certain person?
Yamada: There’s a lot of things I can’t say, but the “love” part of “Everyone Loves Somebody” is definitely strengthened. Up until now we’ve depicted everyone around Tamako, so this time I wanted to depict Tamako herself.  For that, Horiguchi-san and myself have powered up Tamako.
Horiguchi: There’s various plans in progress for her.
Yamada: That’s not saying a lot about our powered-up Tamako. (laughs)
Takemoto: Will you increase the amount of braids in her hair? (laughs)
Yamada: We’re increasing her split ends to 5. Actually we talked about decreasing them. (laughs)
Horiguchi: There’s some minor changes that people may not notice….
Yamada: There’s no reason to change them if people don’t notice them! (laughs) You’ll unconsciously sense them.
Horiguchi: I’m sad we had to change the designs, but the movie will definitely….

(The crowd starts to realize something leaked out.  Horiguchi comments “That’s why I didn’t want to come up here.” Instantly Takemoto starts to think “did I just hear her say that?,” Ishihara is frozen stiff, and Yamada is trembling as she comments “It’d be nice if everyone forgets that! (laughs)”  Takemoto says “I ask all of you here to take a covenant not to leak this. Right, we need Fukuyama-kun to cast his Geass here!”)

Horiguchi: Thank you all very much for the support. (sweats)

-Our time is nearly up, so this is the final question. What about working as a director makes you proud?
Ishihara:  Making something good in this line of work affects children that’ll love it when they see it for the first time and remember it later. I think the works that affected me will still be around after I pass on.
Takemoto: I’m happy and grateful for the opportunity to show my work to many people. Those responses encourage me to keep going and make me think I did a good job.
Horiguchi: Works that’ll be around after I move on. Working with this staff to complete something makes me feel happy.
Yamada:  Um… when making something… um…. (after thinking about it for a moment when Horiguchi was about to say something, she forgot what she was going to say) Ah, I got it. I’m not great at putting my thoughts into words, but when making anime I want to tell a story that’ll match the medium. I’m grateful for this way to tell something. When someone tells me how they were moved by something I made, it makes me so happy and happy that I was able to participate in making it.  I want to make many more works and study how to spread them through many more ways of representing the story so that it could touch everyone’s hearts.

-Our time is up. Thank you all for coming to the first talk event of the CTFK 2013 event, Directors’ Dialogue!

This post is the second in a series of posts translating the talk events held at Kyoto Animation and Animation Do’s CTFK 2013 event. This time, I’ve translated the second panel of the day, Futoshi Nishiya’s Free! character design chat! The transcript for this panel is provided by this blogger. Editing support comes from irrevilent.

Takemoto: Hello, I’m Takemoto, the guy who was just up here a while ago in the Directors’ Dialogue. For some reason I’m MCing this panel, so I’ll do whatever I can. Sorry for the long opening, so let’s quickly call out our guest. Please welcome Futoshi Nishiya-sensei!
Nishiya: It’s a pleasure to be here.
Takemoto: Personally, I’m a big fan of your work.  The way you draw characters, both male and female, is so sensual.
Nishiya:  No, no, I could say the same of you. Wasn’t it you who drew Nagisa, Makoto, and Rei on these posters around the room?

Takemoto: A while ago we asked for questions for Nishiya-san on our site, so now we’ll ask some of the ones we received. Let’s start with one from a man in Kanagawa:
Nishiya-san, you’ve previously designed a lot of female characters. Free! has a primarily male cast, so what did you pay attention to when designing them? Additionally, could you please tell us who your favorite character is?
Takemoto: So please tell us about each of the cast. First let’s start with Haruka, the protagonist.

Nishiya:  As you can see from Director Utsumi’s prototype in the top left, he was pretty much unchanged.
Takemoto: I’ll ask a question about Haruka we received here.
I really love the roundness of Haruka’s head, especially when he’s turned sideways. Was this one of the obsessions Director Utsumi had where she asked you to draw it a particular way?
Nishiya: Haruka is the most difficult character to represent… I still haven’t grasped how to perfectly draw him. (laughs) When we designed Haruka, we designed him with his swimsuit on, so he’s the one who best suits their swimsuits. Conversely, we were troubled when we had to put him in casual clothing as it wouldn’t suit him.  What suits him second best was the swimsuit apron. (laughs)
Takemoto: A swimsuit that matches an apron… (laughs) Following Haruka we have…. Huh?

Takemoto: Right, let’s go back.
The screen shows Haruka again.
Takemoto: So next is…
Once again the screen shows Nagisa.
Takemoto: Nagisa. Well, do I need to say it? He’s the character you think of after Haruka. So let’s go with Nagisa, in a strictly business sense of course. (laughs) Um…. There’s no questions here about Nagisa.
Crowd: What?!
Takemoto That’s really cruel. (laugs) So why don’t you tell us about Nagisa?
Nishiya: Nagisa has changed immensely since our prototype.  Originally the director wanted Nagisa to be 80% pure and 20% dark, but in the end he ended up being 100% pure. (laughs) If he didn’t do something, then no one else would do anything and the story would be stuck. I had the most fun drawing him.

Takemoto: Next we have a question about Rei.
Rei was a completely original character that Nishiya-san designed from scratch, so could he please tell us about any fixations he had when designing Rei.
Nishiya: I wanted someone to wear glasses so he was stuck with the glasses. (laughs) Also his hair gave us problems. We could never decide on the right style.

Takemoto: Now we have a question from a woman in Osaka about Rin.
I love Rin very much, but I was shocked when I saw his characteristic teeth. Why did you include that in his design?
Nishiya: Well, as you might guess, he troubled us until the very end. (laughs) With his body looking like this, is it alright for his teeth to look like that? But as I drew him more, I became familiar with them. Also his hairstyle. When I discussed with Director Utsumi about the designs, he had his bangs parted in the middle and we had more or less settled on that, but then the women in the company saw him and commented “something’s lacking.”  A lot of women said that about him. (laughs) So we set that to pasture and began from scratch and settled on the bangs you see now.
Takemoto: Did the female staff at Do really say that? (laughs)
Nishiya: They did. I was quite troubled by their harsh criticism. (laughs)

Takemoto: Finally we come to Makoto. Actually, we have a surprise guest here today.
Tatsuhisa Suzuki comes out.
Crowd: Oooh!
Suzuki (in Makoto voice): I’m here everyone!
Crowd: Kyaaaaaa
Suzuki: But Haru isn’t here today…  Well, let’s start this preposterous talk. (laughs)

Takemoto: And so this is Tatsuhisa Suzuki, the voice of Makoto.
Suzuki: Pleasure to meet you all. I’ve been back there listening to you all give loud receptions. So are all of you out there big Nishiya fans?
Nishiya blushes
Suzuki: The passion of Free! fans is amazing. Everyone watches the episodes multiple times. I’ve heard that the first time you soak in everything during that episode, the second time you watch your favorite… sorry, the second time you appreciate the depth of the conversations as you listen, the third time you watch your favorite character, and the fourth time you watch the backgrounds.
Nishiya: What? Seriously?
Suzuki: That’s what I heard, but from only one person! (to the crowd) If you’re not embarrassed to say it, raise your hand if you watch it that many times! (laughs)
A few people raise their hands
Suzuki: Only that many? Then if you’ve seen it at least twice!
Nearly everyone raises their hand.
Nishiya: That’s incredible appreciation for the key animation.
Suzuki: Actually I met Nishiya-san for the first time today. Furthermore, he was late getting there! (laughs)
Nishiya: Sorry about that. I mistook where we were supposed to meet.
Suzuki: My first image of Nishiya-san was him sweaty… and then I shook his hand! (laughs)

Takemoto: And onto Makoto. For some reason we don’t have any Makoto questions either.
Suzuki: Really? No one’s interested in him? (smiles) Then I’ll ask something I’ve wanted to know. Makoto’s the best looking, isn’t he? What did you keep in mind as you drew him?
Nishiya: Makoto’s built well and is tall, so I kept that in mind as I drew him. There’s a nice difference between his body and face.
Suzuki:  I noticed you also paid attention to his mannerisms too. In the first episode when he’s walking downstairs, he’s a bit bowlegged. That reminds me of how his string tying back his yukata sleeves is slanted.
Nishiya: We inserted the slantness to give off a different feeling between yukatas so everyone’s looks different. (laughs)
Suzuki: Ah,  really? I thought it may have been a popular trend in rural areas. Maybe it is popular just in those areas. Even when I go back to my home town I see kids with standing collars. They still think that’s cool. So cute. Keep it up guys. It’s really nice to see that trend still going on in the 10s. (laughs)
Nishiya: Director Utsumi almost trusts me with the casual clothing. They only need one OK before being used.
Suzuki: She’s definitely got fashion sense.
Takemoto: Right. If it doesn’t suit her sense, I have to re-do it. I drew Rei’s pajamas like usual and had to re-do them. But when the butterfly outfit was completed, I went “Oi Utusmi!” (laughs)
Nishiya: She’s way too free! (laughs)
Takemoto: I called the storyboards for the first episode she brought with her an official doujin. (laughs)
Suzuki: Is it alright for us to talk about her like this? (laughs)

What illustration are you most pleased with? You can point it out in this hall if you want.
Nishiya: Is it alright for me to say it instead?
Suzuki: Well, as long as you drew it. (laughs)
Nishiya: Right. (laughs) My favorite illustration is the one from spoon where the four guys are by the pool with Rin behind them with a deckbrush and Makoto’s handing out ice cream. It was still a temporary summer clothing design. (laughs)

They begin to talk about the posters of the five swimming that were on display in the hall.
Takemoto: Nagisa has it the most difficult… the butterfly and crawl poses are so cool, aren’t they? But the breast stroke… (laughs) When I saw the Kitashima swimmer in motion, he looked so cool, but the images when he paused were so troublesome. It was very troubling to pick out which moment he looked coolest.
Suzuki:  That image still looks amazing except the shade of water looks a bit off.

Next is about Free!’s popularity.
Suzuki: Free! is really popular. I can’t get my hands on any goods. I wanted to get some goods of the character I play, but I can’t ever buy any when I go to the stores. I also get told by people around me how much they love the show.
Nishiya: Really?
Suzuki: It’s difficult to get any Free! goods. Oh, one more question from me. Did you do any alterations when putting the show on disc?
Nishiya: We didn’t correct anything. Maybe some trivial details.
Suzuki: Why would that be?
Nishiya: When we delivered the broadcast version, it was already complete so we didn’t need to do any changes.

Takemoto: And so our time is nearly up. Before we leave, I have an announcement. High Speed volume 2 has been green-lit. The details will be on the official site at a later date.
Crowd applauds.
Takemoto: Now, please give us some final comments. First from Suzuki-san.
Suzuki: I’m thankful to be able to talk to you all in a place like this. The broadcasts have ended, but the releases are still coming out, so it’d be great if you could still enjoy the show through those. (Makoto voice) I’ll meet everyone again next summer.
Nishiya: I’m truly thankful for everyone coming out here today. (blogger forgot the rest, but were likely general comments)

This is the third in a series of posts translating transcriptions/summaries of the four stage panels at Kyoto Animation/Animation Do’s CTFK 2013 event held November 30, 2013. This post will be about the Producers’ Discussion panel detailing background information about the works featured at the event. The transcriptions/summaries for this panel come from these bloggers. Editing support comes from irrevilent.

This panel was led by one of the literature producers at Kyoto Animation (male) and consisted of Eharu Oohashi (Producer of Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai! and assistant producer on past shows), Shinichirou Hatta (Producer of Free! and assistant producer for Munto (TV) and the Lucky Star OVA),  Shinichi Nakamura (Pony Canyon Producer;  involved in all the CTFK works) and Shigeru Saitou (Lantis Producer, involved in CFK at this event).

This panel primarily had the MC ask a question that was previously sent via the website and each producer would reply.

-Animation Do is usually listed in the credits as doing “Production Assistance,” but for Free!, they were listed under “Animation Production.” What was the difference?
Hatta: Animation Do is an affiliated company of Kyoto Animation. They’ve wanted to do an original production for a while.  The very positive response to the Swimming CM, the predicator of Free!, which aired during Tamako Market encouraged them during production.

-Works from Kyoto Animation have their settings in a real location and faithfully have backgrounds drawn to those locations. How are those locations chosen?
Oohashi: When there’s a location the original material was set in, like Otsu (in Shiga prefecture) for Chuunibyou, the director will definitely demand to use that location as the stage.
-Some of the locations used in the series seem to be prime date locations.
Oohashi: Is that so? Director Ishihara and I went by car to scout the area, so I didn’t know about that. (laughs) We’d go here and there with Ishihara holding his camera taking pictures of the scenery wherever the naked eye could see. I started to wonder “This really isn’t planned well, is it?” but as we moved along, I was astonished at the control he used when photographing. (awkward smile)
-I assume you go to a high location in order to get a big view of the entire city for overhead shots.
Oohashi: I can’t say the name of this show, but I remember Director Ishihara sliding down the side of a snowy mountain during scouting in Hokkaido for a certain “falling snow anime.” (audience laughs)
-What about Free!’s location?
Hatta: Free! was based in a port town in Tottori that overlooks the sea of Japan.
-It feels like the characters in our works are in a “nearby area” in anime compared to the real world.
Oohashi:  The “nearby area” has some small differences, so wouldn’t it be more like the locations are “used for a reference?” Things that aren’t there are drawn, but we don’t get any e-mails from people saying “that shouldn’t be drawn.” (awkward smile)

-How is the music decided with input from the director?
Nakamura: When I met with Director Yamada for Tamako Market, she had this amazingly detailed image of what she wanted and tried to explain it using sensible words, but it was incredibly difficult to understand what she wanted. I always have to be aware of what she’s trying to convey whenever I have a meeting with her.
Oohashi: Yamada-san uses “cutesy” phrases, but these phrases also carry multiple meanings.
Nakamura: And if I can’t properly understand what she means, I can’t make anything to present to her.
Saitou: I chat with the director and producers and try to sense where the work is going towards.  We definitely have to insert some spirit into the “face” of the work, the OP.  I’ve also thought about inserting some kind of energy into the songs of late at my company (Lantis). I have to speak differently with different directors and works. Ishihara-san is a very intuitive person, so we both endeavor not to leave any gaps/misunderstandings whenever we talk.  I’ll get very concrete instructions from Free!’s Utsumi and use that suggestion to make something to get a reply of “This is a nice song.” Ishidate from Kyoukai no Kanata is more of an intuitive person if I have to say. He’ll use a few key words that I’ll take to make the song.
-Music is very important to Kyoto Animation now. Live events featuring artists and seiyuu in addition to various works are all wrapped up into one package.
Saitou: Certainly live events have increased recently. I feel that fans want to “come together” for events. Take today’s event for example. Not many people in the streets of this town would say “I love anime!” but they want to come together in a place like this with other people who love anime too. Back on the opening topic, the CD single is often the first item that fans get in their hands. OP song sales are a big influence on Blu-ray sales, so music is very important for the work as a whole. If it doesn’t add power to the work’s world, then everything else falters.
-Though new methods of listening to music have come around, some say the music industry is in a slump.
Saitou: Anime music sales haven’t declined at all; they’ve gone up. We’ve expanded our ways of distributing music too.  Animation CDs aren’t just a simple CD anymore, you have to think of them as “a good” now. That’s why it’s so important getting cover art that makes someone feel “I’m happy to have this, it makes me proud to own it.”
Nakamura: Definitely music is the most common of all languages between us all.  It’s wonderful to experience the power of music. Video packaging has also become important. In the past we would attach a figure to it, but now that’s not the case. You need to have the package itself be something people “want to hold in their hands.” I think that there’s also a lot of people who want bonus features that are heavily related to the content like visual footage and audio commentaries.

-Finally, what do you think of the animation series yet to come? You can answer as vaguely as you like.
Oohashi: I think they’ll be delivered to fans in different forms through a mix of mediums. Over this past year, KyoAni has worked hard to deliver anime straight to fans from the core of the studio. I think from here on, KyoAni will produce and animate series in order to deliver goods and events straight to the fans.
Hatta: Something you want to see. Something you want to make. Something you want to go to. We want to make anime series that will bring energy and revitalize Japan.
Saitou:  Haruhi was what, 6, 7 years ago now? Recently, when I go to work, the amount of people there that will go “when I was a student I watched Haruhi” has really increased.  Even in the mainstream businesses, there’ll be people who comment “I watched (blank)”, and so the amount of people who used to watch anime and enter the business world has been steadily increasing. For that reason, I wonder if little by little anime itself will start to spread and become more mainstream. I think the people in charge “want to do something with anime.” Among that, I wonder what we should do to continue down that trend.
Nakamura:  I want to continue ensuring that animation is brought to the fans in a complete form.
Oohashi:  This past year KyoAni has produced a wide variety of works in order for a wide variety of people to enjoy them, thus I feel the past year has been a success. I want to continue down this path more in the future as well.