Kunihiko Ikuhara's World: Anno & Ikuhara discussion

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Kunihiko Ikuhara's World: Anno & Ikuhara discussion

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Postby C.A.P. » Mon Oct 14, 2013 1:31 pm

So yeah, there was an event revolving around Ikuhara, Anno was involved, and there was this talk about his work. Transcript below, but right now, all we know is that Anno talks about how Ikuni's idea of normal isn't like anyone else's normal, and what's in the title.

Pictures (and quote)

Untranslated transcript

Have fun.

(And I have no clue what happened with the title)

edit: Changed title into something bit more descriptive. - Xard
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Postby Noriko is my wife » Wed Oct 16, 2013 12:52 pm

It's only in bullet point form but you can get an idea about some of the things they talked about here
http://archive.foolz.us/a/thread/94970153

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Postby Xard » Wed Oct 16, 2013 1:17 pm

I'm working on the translation as is, it's just that my mid-terms tomorrow probably keep me from finishing it before tomorrow afternoon.

View Original PostNoriko is my wife wrote:It's only in bullet point form but you can get an idea about some of the things they talked about here
http://archive.foolz.us/a/thread/94970153


I must question some translations:

-Anno storyboarded the transformation bank for Neptune and Uranus. "Women are all about the nape of the neck and the colllarbones" -Hideaki Anno


This is nitpick and I may in fact be mislead by comments of transcriber but

(演出テーマは)女の人のうなじと鎖骨!


Clearly says neck and collarbone were the "theme" for the henshin sequences, not statement of Anno's biggest obsessions per se.

-"There are people like a certain Osh-whatever-it-was who don't care about money. He thinks the sponsors are gifting him the money" -Hideaki Anno


Not mistranslation but thrown out in the wild like this makes it sound like Anno is criticizing Oshii in very severe fashion.

Also I'm interested in hearing what moon readers like Noriko think about

-Even ten years after leaving Toei Ikuhara still thinks of places that are not Toei as "outside". He talked about this with Hosoda about this recently.


because I was slightly unsure how to translate this:

もういいから!色んなトラウマが蘇るから!……東映をやめてかなり経つのに、いまだに喋っていて「東映の中・外」という分け方でしゃべることがあるんです。こないだも細田君と話していて、いまだにそういう言い方をするんだ?と指摘されました(笑)。


In particular what Ikuhara means with 東映の中・外. This anon writes it as if Ikuhara views not-Toei places as "outside" places, meaning he identifies with Toei. The way I understood this is that Ikuhara still is still affected by his work at Toei to point he finds it difficult to talk about his work/traumas at the studio outside it, as if he was airing company dirty laundry.

It may not seem significant but the way anon interprepts Ikuhara is as if he's still in love with Toei (see one anon commenting on this as proof he doesn't hate Toei after all) while mine translation makesi t more of a psychological complex on Ikuni's part:

Ikuhara: Oh stop already! All kinds of traumas are getting revived! It's been considerably long time since I quit at Toei but even now I divide "in and out of Toei" when I talk. The other day I was talking with (Mamoru) Hosoda and he pointed out "Even now you're talking like that?".

Also

After staying in silence during the Penguindrum part, Anno said "You're always doing something different" "Iku-chan, your normal is not the same as the rest of society" "I never want you to change"

-One day I would like to make something with you (Anno)- Kunihiko Ikuhara

That was about it, apparently.


This is misleading, Anno doesn't say much but he DOES comment during Pinguindrum around the time he made the Oshii jab.

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Postby Xard » Wed Oct 16, 2013 5:54 pm

Event name: Kunihiko Ikuhara's World
Speakers:
- Kunihiko Ikuhara, director
- Hideaki Anno, director
- Lily Hoshino, mangaka
Moderator:
- Ryouta Fujitsu, anime critic



Speaker entries


Fujitsu: Today while listening to stories we'll explore what sort of elements constitute Ikuhara.

Ikuhara: But will people really want to learn about that?

Audience: applause

Ikuhara: Thank you very much (laughs).

Entries of Anno and Hoshino follow. They too get big applause.

Fujitsu: Please give us simple self-introduction.

Anno: Hi, I'm Anno and I work as director and producer of anime and live action films. Well, recently I've done bit of voice acting on the side...

Audience: laughs

Fujitsu: Looking at him from your pov what's the impression of Ikuhara?

Anno: Well as you can see his clothes really stand out.

Hoshino: As if shouting "I'm a natural prince"...

Ikuhara: Whaaat!?

Audience: laughs


Anno's and Ikuhara's meeting/about Sailor Moon


first animation bank for Sailor Moon's henshin scenes play on screen


Fujitsu: First can you tell us about how Anno and Ikuhara met?

Ikuhara: Anno was a special person as same generation's "Top Runner". I was introduced to "DAICON Animation" in Anime magazines and while I wouldn't get to see the film before entering industry it really drew my eye as student. Well, now he's more famous for "You have to live!"...

Audience: Laughs

Ikuhara: It goes without saying Anno is genius at working extremely hard but what is really amazing is how he always manages to tie what he wants to do with the end results. There's no other person like that.

Anno: Iku-chan was a heretic within Toei Animation. Because there was rotation key framing went through horrible (work) cycles, but in middle of that Iku-chan was playing, animating single cuts on ones*. In first episode the good number of key frames to be used is decided and in case you don't take care this quality is kept up this'll happen (*motions head chopping*) but under such conditions he was doing strange things. He'd animate on ones inconsequential scenes that were supposed to be as motionless as possible, for example Ami complaining after getting pinched.
There was no other guy doing such foolish things and I was sure he had to be interesting guy. When I asked from others "is Ikuhara interesting person" I'd get "he's interesting person" as a reply. So after getting invited for drinking session we hit it off face-to-face.

Anno: Then when he showed me the proposal for Sailor Moon I was speechless. To make such a blatant parody of tokusatsu hero shows...! But looking at the series after start Junichi Sato's directing was also good.

Ikuhara: During second year's Sailor Moon R Sato was busy with Junkers Come Here so need arose for on-site director. That's when I raised my hand.
Indeed in the planning memo titled Sailor Moon you could see doujinshiesque ideas and certainly no one on staff initially thought it would become such gigantic hit.
We did think we'd get "big friends" but no one thought it would become *that* popular with kids. At the time I just thought I wanted to stand out playing active part and did my best.

Anno: So it was about wanting to stand out after all!

Audience: laughs

Ikuhara: Of course I was busy during Penguindrum too, but during Sailor Moon I was doing storyboards for 8 episodes* a year - it was the busiest time in my life: It was quite common to not sleep for 3, 4 days. If I was on train I'd suddenly notice I was in Tokorozawa!

Anno: Sato's previous series Goldfish Warning was also good. By the way Ikuhara's work after Sailor Moon is talked of but I think his true value is in Goldfish Warning!

Ikuhara: My youthful works also have several traumas so don't touch them so eagerly! Anno helped with Sailor Moon R film. It might've been with Sailor Attack's explosion.

Fujitsu: Was it done by Ikuhara's request at the time?

Ikuhara: No, by the time I noticed he had already finished...

Audience: laugh

Anno: During Sailor moon tv series GAINAX's animator staff had free time and after I contacted biz we got to do parts. With things like that Yoshinari did also good work, for example.

Ikuhara: After that we also got you to direct animation banks for Uranus and Neptunus transformation scenes...

Uranus and Neptunus transformation scenes are shown on screen

Anno: Original time scale was just 7 seconds and after I said that was way too short I managed to get it extended. Nevertheless I still would've wanted another 4-5 seconds. (This work's theme was) women's nape and collarbones!

Venue: laughs

Ikuhara: Anno might've said that at time! (laughs) Lips glow was specified by sponsors...

suddenly Sailor Venus's transformation animation bank starts playing

Anno: This is Iku-chan's rendition!

Ikuhara: Oh stop already! All kinds of traumas are getting revived! It's been considerably long time since I quit at Toei but even now I divide "in and out of Toei" when I talk. The other day I was talking with (Mamoru) Hosoda and he pointed out "Even now you're talking like that?". (laughs) It might be case I've been heavily formed by the work I did at the time. When I first got hired I thought director was congenial creature, but I realized I had desired to create works differing from that line while making Sailor Moon.

Anno: Toei doesn't really ask for much individuality and when that kind of person wants to maintain good relationship with the company there really isn't other options than to bail from it. Ikuhara and Hosoda and Taku-chan (Takuya Igarashi), every director I know has left from there.

Ikuhara: For creator seriousness/sincerity is important. For example Sailor Moon's Naoko Takeuchi's designs are great.Takeuchi likes figure skating so she incorporated figure skating costume details into designs. So she draws her designs with utmost seriousness without hint of embarrasment. I understood vitality of this at the time. In my case the key was Shuji Terayama.

Fujitsu: How did Terayama influence you to be specific?

Ikuhara: When you tell you're anime director to ordinary people it's pretty painful. When I was a kid I thought all anime was drawn by original mangaka such as Go Nagai though of course this is not true (laughs). Terayama did his work on stage of course, but instead of dissing work of individual actors he moved in order to "colour" the space in his colour. I realized that sort of way to act was crucial for director.

Fujitsu: Hoshino, what kind of image do you have of anime production?

Hoshino: Though I have experience of being responsible for original work as basis for anime it can't be avoided that when it comes anime production there's a lot I don't understand.

Ikuhara: When it was decided to turn Zakuro into anime you didn't think you have to draw anime's drawings every week?

Hoshino: laughs



About Utena


first Utena's OP plays on the screen


Ikuhara: I thought creating original work would be fast but whatever I tried to do it would turn into parody so I was quite worried.

Hoshino: At that time Anthy was eerie but when I watch it now Utena is more like adolescent girl so making contact with her fels more scary. Now I can also understand Anthy better than Utena.

Ikuhara: Breakthrough didn't come just with Utena but also with different axis - Anthy. I was reading Saitou Chiho's manga titles and went "found it" at Anthyesque character. Until then I only had girl who wanted to become a prince (Utena). In reverse Anthy was a girl who wanted to become princess but couldn't as Prince's little sister. Thanks to Anthy Utena stood out. By finding this [settei] creating work called Utena became possible.


About Mawaru Penguindrum


First Mawaru Penguindrum's OP is played on screen


Hoshino: Guy in charge came to me telling Ikuhara wanted to meet me and I went "Ikuhara?... 'Guy behind Utena!!!'" Even without running into Ikuhara's name I had watched Utena a lot. When I went to meetup place heart racing Ikuhara was very late so producer(s) around me got very scared. At that time Ikuhara didn't have mobile phone with him and he said when he had it with him it was impossible to get in touch with him because of that so I thought "What a demanding person! The kind of guy to say things like 'I hate being bound by time'". (laughs)

Ikuhara: Was I that late?

Hoshino: You were! Even though Ikuhara lived at station closest to meeting place out of us! But I was glad he turned out to be easy person to talk with when we met. (laughs)

Ikuhara: Perhaps because I did Sailor Moon I became someone who'd incorporate women's opinions quite much. There was feminine sensitivity incorporated into Utena and even with Penguindrum I'd go "is that so" and start having second thoughts if women team called my opinion "lame". Even regarding Takakura brothers I'd get told "Absolutely they should die for sake of their sister!) Even if in the beginning even that had more of a "we have to survive" feeling to it. (laughs)

Audience: laughs

Ikuhara: But I'd turn for women team for consultation after getting told "it isn't like that".

Ikuhara: During Penguindrum's planning stage I often flipped over the dinner table. In the beginning there was plan with only animals appearing so I decided to make heroine penguin girl. However after seeing Hoshino's picture of Purikuri (Princess of the Crystal) I wanted to make them all penguins. This is why Hoshino was here! - and something had connected. At that stage I thought it might be time to do "Story of 95" I had wanted to do for long time. Why couldn't there really be penguin on train card after all. So the connection was born. If you look at my career from Utena to Penguindrum there's a lot free time in there - the thing is I was really trying to do "Story of 95" all this time. However when I answered sponsors' "why do you want to make such unhappy story" with "what if my reason is just wanting to say such things"? it just couldn't make it past planning stage. If I couldn't make story of 95 what's the meaning of my life I wondered - it was of absolute importance to me up to this extent. I thought it was the most important theme to us who followed the Ampo generation and there was no one else but me who'd depict this in anime. However when we entered production phase Tohoku earthquake happened and I was appalled by flimsyness of the fiction I was going to depict. If it wasn't for that it would've been more edgy haughty kind of series, I think. There was a major shift towards story about family and siblings. For first time with Penguindrum it became irrelevant to me if I was making parody of something. It really didn't matter one bit. I had found out there were more important things than that. That it is important you have something you want to communicate.



The gap between world and Ikuhara



Fujitsu: Ikuhara and Anno both are both strongly commited towards sound/normal, right?

Ikuhara: To be frank people like me are discommunicative, getting actors and others understand immeaditly what I want to express is impossible. However if you interpose professionals while at it and gradually progress time will come when [obstacle for understanding?] it will come crashing down. For example I think there are things actors can finally discover during making number of retakes... and besides, don't you want to talk more with (Yui) Horie!

Audience: laughs

Ikuhara: Anime is project with billion yens involved so the pressure really is incredible. Recently Hanzawa Naoki (tv drama) has taken hundreds millions so hasn't it become pretty dangerous thing too.

Audience: laughs

Ikuhara: With Sailor Moon we didn't need to do all money management but at Utena's time we created studio called Be-Papas and that was the single most scary thing about being independent. I'd see billions vanish before my eyes. It felt like wads of cash were used for baked sweet potato cooking fire.

Audience: laughs

Ikuhara: When you cook baked sweet potatoes with billions isn't getting nothing more than baked sweet potatoes out of it inexcusable? At least I want to do something good. If you carelessly use money you don't even have anything left to pay staff...

Fujitsu: How does director Anno feel about money pressures?

Anno: Every person is unique isn't he. Iku-chan is quite careful type but that Oshii-something guy does not think about these things in the slightest.

Ikuhara: Hey...!

Audience: laughs

Anno: He doesn't think money is something he's given. That's why he makes works that don't make it without concern.

Ikuhara: laughs

Anno: When I suddenly showed Otsuki proposal for Penguindrum with "how's this" (Anno does high-quality imititation of producer) I said "It won't be hit" though. It looks like it will be interesting, but it will not be big hit.

Ikuhara: How harsh! (laughs)

Anno: Otsuki went (Anno imitation) "Yeah, I guess it really won't" too. But I really think if it will be good that's enough. I want you to continue making weird works. You can tell just from (Ikuhara's) clothes he isn't normal.

Ikuhara: I am normal!

Anno: No you ain't! You're weird! Because the world is different from you I think it's better to recognize the gap between you and it!

Fujitsu: Could we get messages from you two to Ikuhara in the end?

Anno: I want to be with you forever like this.

Audience: laughs

Fujitsu: Hoshino?

Hoshino: Well, please let me be with you forever like this. (laughs)

Fujitsu: Well, could we get one more time few words from Ikuhara?

Ikuhara: I'm lucky. Encounter with Terayama was like that. Same goes for my mom who got me into art school with insane effort despite being single parent. If I had not gone to art school I wouldn't have entered anime industry. Meeting Anno was the same too. If it wasn't for meeting Anno I don't think I would've left Toei and created Utena. I still have countless dreams left, even though I don't know how much of my career is remaining...

Fujitsu: Now now (laughs)

Ikuhara: But there's no way that can be true. I have a dream to create something together with Anno one day.

Audience: applause

Fujitsu: Thank you very much for today.



______________

Notes: There were some parts that were hell to translate and I'm not sure I got them right. First there's the whole "koma" part:

庵野 イクちゃん(=幾原監督)は東映アニメーション内では異端でした。ローテがあるので作画が酷い回があるんだけど、イクちゃんはそんな中、1カットだけ1コマ作画で描いたりして遊ぶんです。1話で使っていい作画枚数は決まっていて、それを守らないとコレ(クビのジェスチャー)ですが、彼はそんな中でも変なことをしていて。他のシーンではなるべく動かさないようにして、亜美ちゃんがつねられて痛がってるシーンだけ1コマで描いたりとか。


which I translated as

Anno: Iku-chan was a heretic within Toei Animation. Because there was rotation key framing went through horrible (work) cycles, but in middle of that Iku-chan was playing, depicting single cut with one frame. In first episode the good number of key frames to be used is decided and in case you don't take care this quality is kept up this'll happen (*motions head chopping*) but in middle of that he was doing strange things. In other scenes that were supposed to be motionless he'd draw frame for Ami complaining in pain after getting pinched.


I don't know the animation terminology in moon well enough to be entirely certain what Anno is talking of. From the text and wiki it seems koma in anime industry slang means basically animation frames while "cut" is of course shot that is animated with x number of frames. Mananing the number of frames dedicated to each scene and episode is one of the core responsibilities of anime director and Anno seems to be saying Ikuhara was idiosyncratic with this to say the least, using frames to add extra animation to eg. Ami's reaction getting pinched when it was supposed to be place to save resources... but this seems to run counter with the whole "1カットだけ1コマ作画で描いたりして遊ぶんです。"

which seems to basically say Ikuni did single cuts with single frame aka the exact opposite of superfluous movement. So I'm quite baffled how to translate it.

EDIT: Revised after helfpul comments by Noriko and meimi. Thanks a lot you two, I was misled by literal meaning of what Anno said. New translation:

Anno: Iku-chan was a heretic within Toei Animation. Because there was rotation key framing went through horrible (work) cycles, but in middle of that Iku-chan was playing, animating single cuts on ones*. In first episode the good number of key frames to be used is decided and in case you don't take care this quality is kept up this'll happen (*motions head chopping*) but under such conditions he was doing strange things. He'd animate on ones inconsequential scenes that were supposed to be as motionless as possible, for example Ami complaining after getting pinched.
There was no other guy doing such foolish things and I was sure he had to be interesting guy. When I asked from others "is Ikuhara interesting person" I'd get "he's interesting person" as a reply. So after getting invited for drinking session we hit it off face-to-face.


re:animating on ones see for example here. Basically it means animating 1 second broken down to 24 frames with 24 individual frames. Animating on twos means animating 24 frames with 8-12 frames doubled to 24 etc.

*I'm not sure WHAT Ikuhara is referring to with 8本 of storyboards. 8 units of course but eight what? Episodes? That's a lot but nothing unusual for anime director doing year long series and many directors do that many storyboards on 26 ep shows (and some crazies on one cour series) so I can't help but think he means something else. 8 books worth of storyboards maybe?

EDIT: Assuming Ikuni means 8 episodes aka the most natural reading. Thanks Noriko.

Ikuni's mobile phone: Not sure I understood what was being said because it seemed nonsensical to me:

当時幾原さんはケータイを持ってなくて、待ってるときもそのせいで連絡が取れないと言われ、「絶対気難しい人だ!”僕は時間に縛られるのはキライなんだよね”とか言う人だ!」って思ったんですけど(笑)。


As for "but there's no way that can be true" でもそんなにあるわけでもないですからね。 I'm not entirely sure what it refers to either. Maybe he actually still having career ahead him, lol.


Also this was ******* big ass load of work, way more than I expected it to be when I started. This happens almost every time I decide to try cracking moon interview. Understanding and reading it is one thing and doesn't take long but readable translation :|


edit: Fixed Uranus's explosion. It was "Sailor Attack's explosion" so this mistake is case of sloppy editing/proofreading on my end. Thanks SSD for noticing.
Last edited by Xard on Sat Oct 19, 2013 5:12 pm, edited 4 times in total.

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Postby C.A.P. » Wed Oct 16, 2013 11:09 pm

You have done the anime community another huge favor Xard. I'm honored to get a F.U. from ya.
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Postby Fireball » Thu Oct 17, 2013 3:26 am

Great work Xard

View Original PostXard wrote:After staying in silence during the Penguindrum part, Anno said "You're always doing something different" "Iku-chan, your normal is not the same as the rest of society" "I never want you to change"

-One day I would like to make something with you (Anno)- Kunihiko Ikuhara

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Postby Sailor Star Dust » Thu Oct 17, 2013 11:02 am

Great interview, thanks! ^_^ I wonder if Goldfish Alert is good? I've heard of it but haven't seen it myself.

It took me a moment to remember the scene where Ami gets pinched, but it was this episode: http://www.usagi.org/doi/smoon/staff/ikuhara-kunihiko.html

View Original PostXard wrote:Ikuhara: My youthful works also have several traumas so don't touch them so eagerly! Anno helped with Sailor Moon R film. It might've been with Sailor Uranus's explosion.


Uranus and the other outer system senshi are in the Sailor Moon S* (Season 3) and SuperS (Season 4) movies, not R (Season 2).

*Takeuchi-sensei herself worked on the Sailor Moon S movie since it was based on one of her manga short stories.

And fun fact: Takeuchi did have a figure skating manga as well. Here's a fan website about all her different works: http://www.takeuchi-naoko.com/

Ikuhara and Anno finally working together on something would be glorious. :love: Hope it happens sooner than later!
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Postby Xard » Thu Oct 17, 2013 11:27 am

Whoops, thanks for that SSD. I've seen R film and am well aware Uranus isn't in it but looks like I let that brain fart through. It was "Sailor Attack", not Sailor Uranus. I've fixed it now.


As for Goldfish Warning it was goofy shoujo manga running from 1989 to 1993: Opening kinda speaks for itself.

Wikipedia wrote:Chitose Fujinomiya, former heiress and currently an orphan, has been kicked out of her super elite school, Tokai no Gakuen (City Academy), and shunned by her former friends. She is sent to a rural public school, Inaka no Chugakko (Country Jr. High School), where even pigs, oxen and chickens are students. The only possession she has left is a pink goldfish named Gyopi, given to her by her beloved father, and very valuable. Her family's attorney attempts to steal Gyopi, but is foiled by Chitose's new schoolmates, namely Wapiko, a simple girl who can outrun almost anything and is well liked in school. As it turns out, Chitose isn't poor; the attorney was merely hiding her inheritance for himself. Instead of going back to the super rich school, she buys the rural school and attempts to transform it into a refined school to compete with that of her rival/former best friend. However, the students of the rural school don't want to be refined.



Anime adaptation of the series was made right before Sailor Moon anime by exactly same staff, including director Junichi Sato (and Ikuhara as ass. director on Goldfish). I'm sort of bemused and puzzled by Anno's insistence on Ikuhara's "true value" to be found from this particular series because as said he didn't direct it or contribute much of his own to it at least obviously. I'd guess Goldfish Warning contains in particular a lot of "goofing around with animation" that got Anno's attention in the first place.


Apparently first season of Sailor Moon has quite few references to Goldfish Warning due to the staff connection

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Postby Noriko is my wife » Thu Oct 17, 2013 11:39 am

I understand 1 koma to mean animation on ones. So more or less the opposite of it's literal meaning of one frame. Ikuhara did 8 episodes of SM's first season. I don't dare to try to help with anything else. Sorry.

Thanks for your work Xard.

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Postby Sailor Star Dust » Thu Oct 17, 2013 12:24 pm

View Original PostXard wrote: It was "Sailor Attack"


Pretty neat sequence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1OyPNHQ90Y (Sorry for the crap quality, only one I could find.)



I remember noticing and reading up on those years ago. Nice to see other Sailormoon fans on here pick up on all the fun things. ^_^
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Postby meimi » Thu Oct 17, 2013 4:59 pm

About the frames: Ikuhara was very famous during Sailormoon for using 24 frames per second for casual/comedic sequences. Usually you would only use that many frames for action-intense sequences, and this became something of a famous trademark of his style. The Utena staff also mentioned he was really committed to using an intense number of frames for the sequence of Utena climbing the stairs to the arena, and that they had enough key animation cels to literally fill boxes just for that sequence alone.

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Postby TMBounty_Hunter » Thu Oct 17, 2013 6:10 pm

This thread is awesome.

Xard is awesome.

That's double awesome.
"Hooray for other things!" -NAveryW

ath
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Postby ath » Thu Oct 17, 2013 6:30 pm

Thanks a lot, Xard. I'm sure you know we have an open position for a translator in the Commentary Project... :lol:

View Original PostXard wrote:At that time Ikuhara didn't have mobile phone with him and he said when he had it with him it was impossible to get in touch with him because of that so I thought "What a demanding person! The kind of guy to say things like 'I hate being bound by time'". (laughs)

I don't remember where I read about it, but I'm sure I've heard that back when they were in the planning phase for Penguindrum Ikuhara didn't even own a mobile phone. The staff bought him a "traditional" ("flip") phone, but he couldn't get used to it. They bought then a smartphone, and he found that much easier to learn and use. That's the reason why the entire cast of Penguindrum has a touchscreen smartphone - something almost unheard for an anime series in 2011.

View Original PostXard wrote:At that stage I thought it might be time to do "Story of 95" I had wanted to do for long time. Why couldn't there really be penguin on train card after all. So the connection was born. If you look at my career from Utena to Penguindrum there's a lot free time in there - the thing is I was really trying to do "Story of 95" all this time.

I'm sure every self-proclaimed Penguindrum geek has read those already, but I can't help but link again to the 1998 interview between Anno and Ikuhara where Ikuni talks briefly about Aum (cue the usual discussions about Eva and its connections to Aum's worldview and doctrine) and "revolutionizing the world", and his other interview from the Kaworu book where he talks about anpo toso and his feelings about being one of those youth that would pretty much "never amount to anything".

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Postby Xard » Sat Oct 19, 2013 5:17 pm

View Original PostNoriko is my wife wrote:I understand 1 koma to mean animation on ones. So more or less the opposite of it's literal meaning of one frame. Ikuhara did 8 episodes of SM's first season. I don't dare to try to help with anything else. Sorry.

Thanks for your work Xard.


View Original Postmeimi wrote:About the frames: Ikuhara was very famous during Sailormoon for using 24 frames per second for casual/comedic sequences. Usually you would only use that many frames for action-intense sequences, and this became something of a famous trademark of his style. The Utena staff also mentioned he was really committed to using an intense number of frames for the sequence of Utena climbing the stairs to the arena, and that they had enough key animation cels to literally fill boxes just for that sequence alone.


Duhhh, now it makes perfect sense. Thanks a lot you two, I was too caught up in literal meaning of words (a sign of inexperienced translator if any).

I've revised the translation and could even add comment about Ikuhara's frame rate strangeness to his entry. ^_^

View Original Postath wrote:I don't remember where I read about it, but I'm sure I've heard that back when they were in the planning phase for Penguindrum Ikuhara didn't even own a mobile phone. The staff bought him a "traditional" ("flip") phone, but he couldn't get used to it. They bought then a smartphone, and he found that much easier to learn and use. That's the reason why the entire cast of Penguindrum has a touchscreen smartphone - something almost unheard for an anime series in 2011.



Ahhhhhh, so it makes (sort of) sense after all. This wasn't translation issue, I was just baffled what the hell Ikuni could mean with being out of reach even when/because he has cell phone and that had me suspecting I was making mistake. Only explanation that occured to me was if

a) he refused to answer phone calls in principle aka be asshole
b) he couldn't use phone

but who can't use phone these days?

Apparently answer is Ikuhara :lol:

Thanks a lot, ath.

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Postby Dream » Wed Oct 23, 2013 6:25 pm

Amazing work, Xard. Haven't seen a thread as awesome and valuable as this one in a really long time.
"Every line is a joy" -Kaworu Nagisa.

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." - Ralph Waldo Emerson.

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Postby 1731298478 » Sun Nov 10, 2013 6:55 am

View Original PostXard wrote: This wasn't translation issue, I was just baffled what the hell Ikuni could mean with being out of reach even when/because he has cell phone

Ah, I think that part was just a very small misreading.
当時幾原さんはケータイをってなくて、ってるときもそのせいで連絡が取れないと言われ、「絶対気難しい人だ!”僕は時間に縛られるのはキライなんだよね”とか言う人だ!」って思ったんですけど(笑)。

First 持, the second 待, so she was told she couldn't reach him while she was waiting because he didn't have a mobile phone.


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