Akio Satsukawa Love & Pop Theatrical Booklet Interview

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Akio Satsukawa Love & Pop Theatrical Booklet Interview

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Postby FelipeFritschF » Wed May 04, 2022 9:33 pm

This is an interview with Akio Satsukawa, one of the lesser known Eva staffers, but a very important one, he co-wrote no less than eleven Eva episodes (3-6, 9-10, 12-13, 15, 19, 21 and 24)for Anno's eventual reviewing, and one more, Ep 4, alone, the only one that Anno isn't credited in. Love & Pop is a 1998 live-action film directed by Anno soon after End of Evangelion. This surprisingly long interview with Satsukawa, who was also a screenwriter for this film, is in fact mostly about Eva, and reveals a bunch of fascinating details.

Satsukawa also served as an editor for Nadia and is credited as "screenplay cooperation" (consultating, I imagine) for 1.0 and 2.0, but did not return for Q or Shin. I give thanks to a Korean friend who goes by Die-Silent, who translated the Korean version from this Korean Eva forum. This also republished later on Quick Japan no. 17, the same magazine that featured interview excerpts such as those from Schizo and Parano. Please enjoy.

SPOILER: Show
Interviewer: Mr. Satsukawa, have you been working on movies all the time?

Satsukawa: No, before I became a scriptwriter, I was a freeter [Japanese ''Wasei-eigo'' term, someone who lives on a part-time job]. My last job as a part-timer was animation editing.

Interviewer: Writing a script was your goal from the start?

Satsukawa: No, I wanted to be a director, but to become a director, you usually become an assistant director or a scriptwriter. I chose the latter. So I submitted my script to a scenario contest, the judge must have been stupid. So I thought, I need to find someone who'd recognize me, so I sent the script to Mr. Jissoji. That's how I was acknowledged by Mr. Jissoji and started scriptwriting work.

I feel that things started to work for me only in the 90s. In the '80s, nothing went the way I liked. I started to see the way to scriptwriter only then. Before that, I kept myself as far away from movie-related work as I could. If everything you know in life is just a filming set, you'll get insulated, you'll fall into self imitation. So I worked as a construction site overseer, a waiter.. To be honest, I want to start a part time job even at this moment.

Interviewer: Seeing the movies, I feel like you really get along well with Mr. Jissoji.

Satsukawa: No, more like I'm compromising with him. I'm also compromising a lot with Mr. Anno. We are very different people personality-wise. It's just that I had a previous relationship with Mr. Anno when I worked on animation editing, so (when working on Evangelion) things went smooth. If this (Evangelion) was our first encounter as scriptwriter and director we would have had a major fight.

Meeting Hideaki Anno

Interviewer: So, your first meeting with Mr. Anno was when you participated in "Nadia: the secret of Blue Water" as an editor, right?

Satsukawa: That's right. The editing of Nadia was originally planned to be done by Mr. Furukawa from Group Tack and Mr. Ogata who once worked at Mushi Production, but both of them were unable to do it due to their schedules, so other editor got the job. But there was trouble between Mr. Anno and the said editor. That's how the office I worked in got the job after the 10th episode. He looks like a troublesome person to deal with, so you try it Satuskawa, was the gist of it when they gave me the job. Since I am an aspiring director, they hoped I could communicate with directors in a more candid manner. But, I knew about Royal Space Force, but I didn't know about Gainax, since I wasn't really interested in such a field.

Interviewer: So, how was it like to actually work with him?

Satsukawa: After 10 minutes of editing together, I thought, "This is a very talented person." He knows the feel of a film cut. Many people know about two cuts, but not many people know about a cut. (note: this must be some very specific animation-director-lingo) Apparently, Mr. Anno also liked me enough, he started to make suggestions.

I haven't watched many animations, I was studying the editing of live-action movies. So while we're working together, since we're in the same generation age-wise and for that, we watched the same movies, so there was a time I pointed out a certain line's motoneta (元ネタ, もとネタ, an original source of parody, plagiarism, or homage), Mr. Anno blushed like a girl and asked 'We're not supposed to do this?" I said, "No, it's okay." Well, we're more like-minded than I thought. Sort of.

Interviewer: Later, at the beginning of Eva, you made your screenplay debut as a scriptwriter with Mr. Jissoji's "The Watcher in the Attic," Did Mr. Anno saw it?

Satsukawa: No, he didn't watch "Attic".

Interviewer: So he asked you (to be his writer) out of the blue?

Satsukawa: Right. He probably never read what I wrote. At the first meeting, I said I've never seen a robot anime and I can't write it, he said I could write a drama. Then it's okay, I replied.

Interviewer: So, what was your first job (as a writer of Evangelion)?

Satsukawa: Episode three, 'A phone that doesn't ring.' Episode 4 ("Rain, After Running Away") is also me. As for the fourth episode, I just couldn't accept that Shinji and Toji were on good terms at the end of the third episode in Mr. Anno's original draft, so I told him this kind of anime-like development must be spat out. I told Mr. Anno, that it would be natural for any boy to run away if you're told 'get in the robot' out of blue, and like that, I wrote episode four.

Episodes 5 and 6 were relatively simple. The final product wasn't much different from my draft. For example, the only description of Ayanami's room in Mr. Anno's memo was simple 'bleak room.' So I wrote down her room based on my experience of seeing such a room when I was working part-time.

Interviewer: You actually saw a room like that?

Satsukawa: Yes. That was when I worked as a part-time plumber. I went to exchange packing, and I remember going to an apartment that looked exactly like Ayanami's room.

Interviewer: Come to think of it, I talked to Mr. Hiroyuki Yamaga (one of the founding members of Gainax) before, and he said that Eva's psychological play was largely due to Mr. Satsukawa, you.

Satsukawa: Psychology. It was me who first brought up the term "hedgehog dilemma" in episode 3. And I think the addition of episode 4 gave Mr. Anno an opportunity to explore the inner world of the characters. And maybe it's because my interpretation of the characters didn't follow the established convention of anime.

Interviewer: There are a lot of internal monologues in the second half of the show, was that your job, too?

Satsukawa: No, what we've seen in the second half is Mr. Anno's inner world. Normally, you don't do internal monologues in live-action movies, right? Even if you try, it doesn't work well. Famous "Eva" lines are almost without exception, belong to Mr. Anno.

'''''Continuity with Eva'''''

Interviewer: So, back then when everyone was like, Is Eva going to be really completed this spring or not? I met Mr. Anno at the end of last year (1996), and he already told me a little bit about Love & Pop. It was such chaos back then and he was talking about the movie, and even then I never thought he would get to it this quick. (laughs)

Satsukawa: That's understandable. It was November last year when I was asked to write the screenplay for DEATH. I also heard from Mr. Anno back then that he wanted to do "Love & Pop" during the meeting (related to DEATH). I thought he was running away from Eva to say such a thing. (laughs). One time, he spent an hour talking about Jumborg Ace during the meeting session. (laughs) Although, in the case of Love & Pop he also talked to Mr. Nanli, a producer, so I thought maybe he could be serious about it. Even then, it was going to be a 10 million yen independent movie or a quiet late-night TV Tokyo movie.

Interviewer: And it became like this.

Satsukawa: Yes. He got investors, several companies, so we have a budget of 100 million yen.

Interviewer: Can we say that, to some degree, it was, for want of a better word, an escape for Mr. Anno, to end Eva quickly and do something more joyous to him?

Satsukawa: That would be fair. I think he was able to bear through Eva because he was seeing Love & Pop as his next project. Without it, Mr. Anno would have been defunct for two years at least.

Interviewer: Well, I was surprised to see him starting the next project this quickly. If you think about it, making your magnum opus like Eva and taking a long time for your next project could be ruinous. The expectations would soar, and you'll be pressured by it. Was it Mr. Anno's intention to avoid such things?

Satsukawa: I think played some part, and I think he simply liked the original source. He kept saying he was attracted to the main character.

Interviewer: There's something about Love & Pop, that feels like it's a sequel to Eva. This is my personal opinion, of course, but to me it seems both works share the common theme of 'communicating with other people'. Did Mr. Anno mention such an idea?

Satsukawa: We didn't talk about communicating with other people and such, but I did feel it was going somewhat similar way with Eva.

Interviewer: The shooting script also starts with the line, "Disgusting."

Satsukawa: The script says that trashes are floating in the ocean at the first cut. I thought, then it'd be good to start with "Disgusting", so I put the line in. And the starting date of it is July 19, 1997, the release date of "THE END OF EVANGELION".

Interviewer: In the released film, "Disgusting" was edited out. Did you think it's a little too much to have a clear continuity?

Satsukawa: Well, since the line was kept until the shooting script, it was a last moment decision (to leave it out).

Interviewer: The script (of Love & Pop) is very faithful to the original novel. Would be rude to say it's a rip-off, though.

Satsukawa: Mr. Anno wanted to make a documentary of some sort in the first place. I wrote a draft where Mr. Anno himself stars and filming a girl, in a format of documentary.

Interviewer: That could have been fun in its own way, I guess.

Satsukawa: With the budget of 10 million yen that was more appropriate, I think. I think one of the reasons why Mr. Anno changed the course was because he saw Mr. Hirano Katsuyuki's work named Yumika and thought, shocked, that he could never present himself like that. And since he got a 100 million yen, he must have thought he should make a real movie.

Interviewer: After seeing the movie, I feel like one could still feel that this movie was aiming for a documentary at one point. Wouldn't it have been better if you stuck to that idea?

Satsukawa: Maybe. (laughs)

Interviewer: Well, uh, Mr. Anno is, he says it is a private film, but he's the kind of person who's not really good at presenting himself in his work. In the case of Eva, I think it was possible because it was filtered through anime format, but to come out as your raw self in live action movie... would be a totally different story. Am I getting it right?

Satsukawa: Maybe.

Interviewer: I'm totally being intrusive I guess (laughs)

Satsukawa: In the first draft, there was also an element of hamedori. (point of view pornography) Mr. Anno himself and the girl.

Interviewer: Hamedori? To be honest, *Love & Pop* has the feeling that Mr. Anno is standing at the end of Eva's last point, taking half a step forward, and looking around hesitantly. Of course, it still feels inspired, and it's a good movie, befitting Mr. Anno's fame.

Satsukawa: I like the movie. This is my favorite work I've ever done with Mr. Anno, including Eva. I just like it when the girls are filmed prettily (laughs).

Interviewer: But the way you filmed the girls, I'm pretty certain about this, by the way, you really weren't aiming to set up each characters.

Satsukawa: Right. It was I who wrote that four girls are actually one person's split identities. In conventional drama three other girls would have been redundant. It would have been more dramatic to make a story out of Hiromi's relationship with the men she prostitutes herself, but Mr. Anno asked me to show all four of them properly.

Interviewer: True to the original novel.

Satsukawa: Yes. But even when they merge as one in the latter half (of the movie), four personalities continue to exist. …So, Mr. Anno said he should see the girl first or the story could go anywhere. That's why, from mid-July, after the girl was casted, I started writing the actual screenplay.

Interviewer: A pretty normal girl was picked.

Satsukawa: That's right. Mr. Anno insisted it from the start. That he wasn't interested in the so-called kogal's prostitution story. She's more normal than the original.

Interviewer: What's your favorite part of the movie, Mr. Satsukawa?

Satsukawa: Hiromi waving her hand, parting with her friend. And how should I put it. Parts where Mr. Anno's germaphobia is projected?

Interviewer: Obviously, there are a lot of scenes where you're looking at a girl's underwear in an up-skirt angle, but it's not sexy at all. Mr. Anno is pretty perverted it seems. (laughs)

Satsukawa: No, isn't it a germaphobe? Even in Eva, we see many nude scenes but they're not sexy at all.

Interviewer: One might say the direction of perversion is different.

Satsukawa: He's different from me in that regard. I felt that ever since Nadia. During the production of Death, when Mr. Anno introduced me to someone from the production company, he said "I don't get along with this person very well."

Interviewer: But maybe Mr. Anno likes that part of you, Mr. Satsukawa. Since you have something he does not. …By the way, in the movie we saw a guy goes to the video room (note: a cheap motel where minors go to have sex) with Hiromi and he looked suspiciously like Mr. Anno (laughs)

Satsukawa: The same look (laughs)

Interviewer: Was it Mr. Anno's intention?

Satsukawa: On the day of the costume selection, they had Mr. Tezuka Toru wear a Peking Man t-shirt. So I said, if you'd do that, why not put a pink towel around his neck and let him carry a bottle, too.

Interviewer: But that's totally Mr. Anno's fashion! (laughs)

Satsukawa: Complete with sandals, too. The costume meeting was around the time when the shooting began and the whole scene began working.

Interviewer: That part really caught my eyes. …So, the final scene of the published movie, is completely different from the original script.

Satsukawa: They went all the way to the shooting location with the script, so I guess they intended to follow the script, they just had some various reasons that prevented it, I heard.

Interviewer: So that's how it ended up with the scene where the girl is walking through the gutter in Shibuya. (laughs) I really love that last scene, by the way.

Satsukawa: Yes, I like it too. So you see, Mr. Anno has a way of surprising you when he's faced with unexpected adversity.

Interviewer: When he can't follow the script, he pops up the most ridiculous idea on spot. That's the strength of Mr. Anno.

Satsukawa: Precisely.

Interviewer: Mr. Satsukawa, it seems you only work with directors like Mr. Anno or Mr. Jissoji.

Satsukawa: Bunch of cult classics (laughs). Funnily enough, personally, I am not like that. In Eva, for example, I think the part where my personality was truly projected wasn't this Kaworu part, but episode 15.

Interviewer: It's the episode of Misato and Kaji's love drama, where we don't see any Angels, right?

Satsukawa: No Angels, only a single cut of Eva. Well, I am a fervent fan of David Lynn and Akira Kurosawa. Naruse Mikio, too.

Interviewer: So you're not actually talented at cult movies?

Satsukawa: I'm afraid I don't have such quality. I didn't send the script to Mr. Jissoji because I was a fan of Ultra Seven. I read Edogawa Ranpo only after starting to work with Mr. Jissoji.

When the script is mostly completed, Mr. Jissoji and I usually talk about music choices. The alien from the episode "Flower" of "Ultraman Tiga" was brought from Puccini's opera "Manon Lescaut", that's why he's named "Alien Manon of the Riskaut Nebula." The music was "Scuoti Quella Fronda Di Ciliegio" from "Madama Butterfly". Three characters also got their motifs from Butterfly, Suzuki, and Goro.

Interviewer: You're very well versed in such things, I see. Then, Mr. Satsukawa, is the classics used in Eva your job, too?

Satsukawa: I picked the cello piece that Shinji plays in episode 15. If I knew that "DEATH"s OST would win first place in Oricon, I would have cared more about the movie, too.

Interviewer: "Love & Pop" also used one of the most famous classical music.

Satsukawa: Mr. Anno asked me to pick for him again, so I ran away. (laughs) I'm not involved in the selection of songs in the movie (Love & Pop).

Interviewer: I've been interested in the relationship between Mr. Satsukawa and Mr. Anno for a long time, and it was fun to hear the story. I'm also looking forward to a work directed by Mr. Satsukawa yourself.

Satsukawa: I'm thinking of stopping screenwriting after next year. I will definitely become a director before the Second Impact hits.

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Re: Akio Satsukawa Love & Pop Theatrical Booklet Interview

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Postby C.A.P. » Fri May 20, 2022 8:03 am

Well days like this make me glad I decide to check up the site again after so long. Excellent work Felipe, reminds me of how exciting it was to get an interview translated here in the old days.

Lot to take in, but what stuck out was the comment about writing making you a director. A curious reveal, but it makes sense. A lot of directors seem to go down that path: just look at Mari Okada. Seems like as a writer you have to look at elements of film and TV in a way you don't if you're an art director or animator. There's a debate within some circles if having such a position is important to animation, and I think Satsukawa makes a good argument why it's needed: perspective and other voices are needed to make the vision come more alive.
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