(JINROH Character Designer)
February 12, 1997: at Production IG, Studio G2
Interviewer: Kenji Kamiyama (Animation Director)
Listener: Kenji Horikawa (Production Manager)
Special guest: Masanori Yoshihara (Animator)
| KAMIYAMA | I'd like to start with Mr. Nishio. |
| NISHIO | Yes, please. |
| KAMIYAMA | How did you get appointed as JINROH's character designer? |
| NISHIO | How? |
| KAMIYAMA | Yes, when did you first hear about it? |
| NISHIO | When... let's see, at first it was nothing like a chief animator or character designer. It was more like a referral from my friend Yoshihara who was one of Ghost animators. He told me about the project which was going to be directed by Okiura san. I've always wanted to work with him so I thought that this would be the best chance. And then it turned out that they wanted me to be the chief animator! |
| YOSHIHARA | I was the one who gave Nishio's phone number to Okiura san. |
| KAMIYAMA | I see, so without you, Nishio would've never been appointed. |
| YOSHIHARA | I believe so... (everybody laughs) |
| NISHIO | At any rate, I still don't know why Okiura san chose me. I'm still too scared to ask... |
| KAMIYAMA | Hmm... |
| YOSHIHARA | I know why. Arakawa san who was one of the Ghost animators has suggested Nishio to Okiura san, who at that time was looking for an animator that can create a realistic image using fine lines. Then Arakawa san said how about the character designer Nishio who did the TV series "Ninku." In that sense, Nishio was going to be appointed either way. |
| NISHIO | Is that so? |
| KAMIYAMA | I see. So, Okiura san knew about your Ninku and really liked it. I guess you found out something new here! I also hear that you'd never spoken with Okiura san up until your appointment. What was your first impression of him? |
| NISHIO | Well, you see, there's more to it before our encounter. I had heard about the offer only indirectly, and I didn't end up seeing him until the fall. This was also the time when we were debating whether to extend the Ninku series or not. If the extension were decided, I would've had no choice but to reject the JINROH offer. Nothing was definite at that time, so I wasn't able to respond to Okiura san yet. That was the situation. If there had been no conflicts, then I really wanted to give myself the chance with JINROH. That7s what I had told Okiura san. |
| KAMIYAMA | So you didn't tell him yes or no. |
| NISHIO | No, I guess I didn't. |
| KAMIYAMA | And this is what leads to the incident a.k.a. the "drinkers' accident"... |
| NISHIO | That's right, I totally blew it then! |
| HORIKAWA | What exactly happened there? |
| YOSHIHARA | He acted gay. |
| HORIKAWA | What??? |
| NISHIO | We had a blast. We were crazy that night. It was our first encounter and we ended up drinking throughout the night. |
| YOSHIHARA | And people found out that you were gay! |
| NISHIO | Stop that! (laughs) |
| HORIKAWA | Was it just you two drinking? |
| NISHIO | No, Kise san and Oshima san were there too. Oh yes, and there was Ishikawa san. He told me the next day that they have chosen the wrong man! (Everybody laughs) |
| KAMIYAMA | So you were a deep impact to IG. |
| YOSHIHARA | I asked Okiura san about his impression of Nishio and he said that Nishio was completely different from what he had heard from other people. |
| KAMIYAMA | Like this can't be the real Nishio. (laughs) |
| YOSHIHARA | I was very shocked when I heard the news. I was like what the heck did this man do? |
| NISHIO | Well, the first impression is always important, right? I wanted to spice myself up! Well, back to the subject. The Ninku extension had turned out to be only 5 more episodes and JINROH also got postponed till February so it all worked out perfectly and I was able to participate at both. |
| KAMIYAMA | That's right. I remember that you and I came to IG together in March. |
| NISHIO | Wow, it's almost a year now. |
| KAMIYAMA | What did you think of JINROH when you read the script for the first time? Did you think it suited your idea? |
| NISHIO | Not at all. It was completely different from what I had been doing, so in that sense, it felt very challenging. In fact, I had never done a long feature in full vista, over 10 thousand cels, so it was a great chance! I was just so overwhelmed with such a big position offered to me. Plus I had also been interested in the 70's student activists and security treat like the theme Oshii san uses in his piece. So I gathered lots of information on it, but then despite my time and effort, Okiura san had decided not to concentrate too much on these topics. |
| KAMYAMA | Not a lot of animators like that subject and you are too young to fit into that generation. |
| NISHIO | Not really. |
| KAMIYAMA | Well, I guess Nishio was the perfect choice in that sense. |
| NISHIO | Well, I'd actually done a storyboard on the topic of the student activists in the 70's for my graduation project. |
| HORIKAWA | Really? |
| NISHIO | A love story among the student activists. It's about a man whose friend gets killed by an activist and he struggles to become a stronger fighter. |
| KAMIYAMA | Then he gets his hair cut short and tells the girl that they are no longer kids. |
| NISHIO | No, no it's more entertaining than that. Hey, this is going to be on the world wide web, right? |
| HORIKAWA | I want to see that storyboard. |
| KAMIYAMA | Yea, me too! |
| NISHIO | No way! |
| KAMIYAMA | Do you have your past ideas in your current designs? |
| NISHIO | Not really. Okiura san's ideas are very different from those of mine so I can't include any of my ideas into the work I'm currently doing. It's hard. Only the details of their looks, things they carry etc were something that I had in my "drawer" so I was able to utilize them, but the characters themselves were something that Okiura san had to show me. Okiura san has taught me a lot. He's amazing. I was astounded when he taught me how to distinguish the Japanese from the Westerners. It was like a big culture shock for me! |
| YOSHIHARA | You mean like the colors of their hair, right? |
| NISHIO
|
No!! (laughs) Well, then you must be a Westerner yourself with a bleached blond! |
| KAMIYAMA | But my mustache is black. |
| NISHIO | Not to forget your eye brows. I DID learn quite a bit through a year of working on JINROH. The word "compromise" does not exist in Okiura san's dictionary. He could easily tell if I was working hard or kicking back by looking at my work, and he was always right! I've gotten much better technically compared to last year. I wish I could redo some of the characters I designed in the past. Since I've never done a big scale project like this one, everything seemed new to me. Everyday was full of surprises and I actually learned the real making of movies! One thing that surprised me about Okiura san at first was that he wanted to decide on his own about the types of layout sheet he was going to be using. |
| KAMIYAMA | Uh huh |
| NISHIO | I was like "wow! they start out by selecting the sheets!" |
| KAMIYAMA | That's one thing that's different from doing a TV series. There is no time to think, debate or worry when doing the series. |
| NISHIO | That's right! TV series are usually very systematic. Every one has their own task and knows exactly what to do. There is already a solid track and one needs only to follow the track. |
| KAMIYAMA | How about the part where the characters have no shadows? I bet it must've been difficult and challenging to eliminate the shadows upon doing this feature. You probably had to pause and figure out how to go without the shadows. |
| NISHIO | Yes, that's the first thing Okiura san told me. Try reducing the number of lines and go without shadows. He was like, let's try something completely new and different although he seemed a bit unsure about the idea. But then I suggested the same too! Now that I am the one who made the final decision, I knew that I had to be responsible for this idea. |
| KAMIYAMA | I bet all the animators were happy about your decision. There is no need to work on the shadows. |
| NISHIO | That's right. I've done elimination of the highlights in the eyes for Ninku, and now I'm doing the same to the shadows. Do you think that I'd be able to return to the normal drawing after this? (laughs) I wonder if studios would ever hire me again... |
| KAMIYAMA | Just think of it as gaining experiences by losing something (laughs). |
| NISHIO | Sometimes my habit comes back and I subconsciously pick up a color pencil to do the shadows. |
| KAMIYAMA | I used to be like that too. I was always afraid that the pictures will look cheap without the shadows. But when you do the film test, the shadowsless characters don't look as bad as you may think. |
| NISHIO | But no-shadows and less-lines may give the audience the expectation of an action film. In order to increase the number of action scenes, we're going to have to reduce the number of lines. But Okiura san didn't want to make it an action film. He wanted to make it more dramatic and emotional instead. |
| KAMIYAMA | I know. He wants to make something more serene and humanistic. |
| NISHIO | I started to understand his feelings gradually, but then for those animators who don't know anything may be shocked. |
| KAMIYAMA | Hmm, I wonder... We shouldn't go into too much details at this point. Just so that everyone knows, this film is far from an action film. |
| NISHIO | That's right. Okiura san said to me the other day that although JINROH is a OSHII brand, he could make it a lot more exciting now that he is the director. |
| KAMIYAMA | I see. If JINROH had been directed by Oshii san, we would have had to draw a bunch of headgearded troops! |
| NISHIO | I haven't drawn any headgear yet... I really don't know what's going to happen though. |
| KAMIYAMA | That's true. We haven't done any headgear yet (laughs). Just lots of middle aged men. How many of this old dudes have we done so far? |
| NISHIO | Let's see... how many? Quite a bit, I believe. |
| KAMIYAMA | I'm afraid that JINROH may become the first animation feature with so many middle aged men involved. (everyone laughs) |
| NISHIO | You may be right. I've never seen anything like it before. |
| KAMIYAMA | Even the main character is an old dude! |
| NISHIO | 27? 28? |
| KAMIYAMA | I thought he was 30. |
| NISHIO | The dude looks old for his age. If you compare Okiura san's main character on his recent layouts to the ones on his initial rough designs, the recent one looks much older. Most of them looked like young boys in his initial designs. |
| KAMIYAMA | And the heroine is an 18-year-old girl. |
| NISHIO | Yes, the funny thing is that it's easier to draw old dudes than pretty girls. |
| KAMIYAMA | That's cuz you're getting old. |
| NISHIO | IG is famous for producing old dudes! (laughs) |
| KAMIYAMA | True, like in Patlabor 2. |
| NISHIO | Why is that? |
| KAMIYAMA | Well, Oshii san is an old man too. |
| NISHIO | If you want to draw a policeman most realistically, he automatically becomes an old man. Is that a similar reason? |
| KAMIYAMA | Right, just like there is no pretty girls or young boys in a police squad. There is a girl character whom we refer to as JIBAKU chan. She is the youngest in the story. I guess 15? Oh, I just remembered something funny! Shimizu san came to me one day and told me, "what is that street JIBAKU (self explosion) is walking on?" I had no idea what he was talking about... self explosion walking? Then I found out that he was talking about the girl. |
| NISHIO | Shimizu san calls her without the "chan". |
| KAMIYAMA | Right, he does. Her actual name is Nanami Agawa. |
| NISHIO | I was the one who named her JIBAKU. Some use the kanji for JIBAKU and some use katakana for chan. It's supposed to be JIBAKU in katakana and chan in hiragana. The staff was all confused and later confused me even more! Her name is just like Doraemon. You've gotta know where the katakana ends and hiragana begins. (everyone laughs) Well, let's get back to the subject. One of the reasons I chose to do this project is that there are not many pretty girls in the story unlike most of the anime. JINROH is very different. It may not fall into an anime category. I wouldn't even want to go near the voice recording (post recording) studio. |
| KAMIYAMA | Ugh... I wonder if there are that many male voice actors. (laughs) |
| NISHIO | Old men tend to have lots of different voice types. |
| KAMIYAMA | Yeah, I guess we're gonna have to use some movie actors after all. I don't know if I want to participate in that crowd for post recording. There is going to be at least one day where there are only guys and not one girl! |
| NISHIO | Ugh... I believe you're right. (everyone laughs) |
| HORIKAWA | When a bunch of female actors get together, they chat, smile and laugh etc, but imagine a bunch of old men doing that... (silence) |
| KAMIYAMA | Let's drop this subject. It's too depressing. Now, Nishio-san, what do you think the best scene in JINROH may be? |
| NISHIO | Best scenes? You mean in the story? |
| KAMIYAMA | The climax of the story and also what you think is the best in your own work. |
| NISHIO | The climax will depend on Okiura san... oops! (laughs) |
| KAMYAMA | What about the part where you can't have anyone else do but yourself? |
| NISHIO | I'd say the mob scenes. I want to make it as good if not better than the one from Akira. |
| HORIKAWA | It must be hard to make a good mob scene. I wonder what kind of information the audience or the people who are not involved in anime productions gets by watching the scene. |
| NISHIO | People who don't know animations? |
| HORIKAWA | I assume that the only people who get excited over the mob scenes from Akira and Ponpoko are the ones who have experienced making it. |
| NISHIO | But when Nostradamus was played in Japan, they made a big deal about the mob scenes made by CG. |
| HORIKAWA | They made some great profit out of CG. |
| KAMIYAMA | CG was popular and new then. Lion King was the same too. They used CG for a herd of buffalos. |
| NISHIO | And we are doing all that by hand. That's going to be our killer promotion! The other promotion would be the complexity of the story. JINROH talks about the dark and hidden aspects of the police organizations and systems. Since the story is so real, some people advised us to do a live action instead of an anime. But I personally prefer to see this kind of stories in anime. |
| KAMIYAMA | I do too. Oshii told me this before. He started out with Patlabor 1, then 2 and then Ghost in the Shell at last. They all have very complex stories, and that's why they became wildly well known. I think that is a good start. I respect his strategy. Unlike Glibly who became popular doing simple stories, IG should do the opposite. We'll do the heavy stories, which is more difficult to make into an anime. |
| NISHIO | Although the fans are still a minority in the anime industry. |
| KAMIYAMA | That's right. Guess how many cuts we are doing for JINROH? 1200! |
| NISHIO | My goodness! 1200? |
| HORIKAWA | No, 1300 cuts! |
| KAMIYAMA | And you are the only one chief animator for the entire 1300 cuts! |
| NISHIO | That's right, me alone. I guess that's what's most significant about JINROH! |
