Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund, Part IV

Film Talk with Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund
Dortmunder U, September 11, 2011

Part I: Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund

Part II: Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund

Part III: Masaaki Yuasa on Kaiba and working for Madhouse

Part IV: Morimoto, Mind Game and more

Noiseman Sound Insect (音響生命体ノイズマン, Kōji Morimoto, 1998)

This 16-minute animated short was the first time that Masaaki Yuasa collaborated with Kōji Morimoto whom Yuasa calls a “free thinking director.” He was called by Morimoto himself – which shocked Yuasa because he is such a star in the animation world [having worked on such animated classics as Tomorrow’s Joe 2 (あしたのジョー2, Toshio Takeuchi, 1980-81) and  Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira (アキラ, 1988) before directing his own films].

Morimoto told Yuasa that  he wanted to work with him. Yuasa laughingly said that Morimoto later realized that he had had something quite different in mind than what Yuasa ended up giving him – though that was not  necessarily bad thing. It was during the making of Noiseman that Morimoto showed Yuasa Robin Nishi’s manga Mind Game. Yuasa said that through working together Morimoto and Yuasa realized that they are very different from each other. He again laughed and said that it really wasn’t until they went out drinking together that they realized that they had a few things in common. Though they may have artistic differences, Yuasa spoke earnestly of his deep admiration for Morimoto.

Mind Game

It took a long time to complete Mind Game. The storyboards themselves took at least 8 months and animating it took about 2 years. The project started off small with only 3 to 4 people involved. Yuasa did all the storyboards himself. As production for the film got under way, more and more people joined the team.

The beginning and ending of Mind Game appear to be very similar, but the viewer should notice small differences. If they do, then Yuasa feels that he has succeeded as a director. Many criticized the film for not having a clear story, but he disagrees with this view. In contrast to TV series, which have certain story constraints, everything is allowed in films.

On commercial pressures:

Especially for TV, there is a lot of pressure for the characters to be kawaii and for the story to be easily understood. He has been criticized by financial backers for having difficult to understand storylines. At one point while making Tatami Galaxy, the financial backers wanted him to change everything and Yuasa said that he refused. When asked what effect his refusal had, he replied that they just stopped bothering him after that and they didn't fire him.

Yuasa has noticed that he often does the opposite of what others expect of him. When people ask him for something soft, he gives them something hard. When they say something should be complicated, he makes it simple. He likes for people to see his work on a big screen – they should enjoy it like a trip to Disneyland. The story should be simple but powerful.

Does Yuasa see himself as an artist?

“I am an anime person,” responded Yuasa, “I don’t really know what art is, but I find it interesting.”

TV Series vs. Films

As a kid he loved TV series, but film is different. There is more attention to detail. You watch it in the dark on the big screen. A lot of talented people come together to make an anime series and this is something Yuasa enjoys. He thinks that most people enjoy working freely and on their own. He would like to make another film at some point because he thinks he can go deeper into subject matter and be more individualistic in that medium.

As a freelancer, where does he like to do his storyboards? At the studio or at home?

Yuasa likes to go into the studio so that he can feel like he’s going to work. That being said, he actually draws everywhere: on the train, on the shinkansen, in cafés.

Is he still considered a freelancer?

He is still a freelancer and has never been anything else. There are not many permanent jobs in the anime industry; most people are freelancing from job to job. Yuasa enjoys the freedom that freelancing allows him.

What are Yuasa’s future plans?

He wants to make another film. He’s seen some scripts but he would really like to do his own original idea. Failing that, he’s quite happy to do an advertising campaign or music videos until the right project comes along.

How did the March 11th earthquake affect Yuasa and did he notice any effects on the animation industry in Tokyo?

The severity of the quake was such a shock and Yuasa thought that it would mean the studio he was working at would have to close for a short time – but all the meetings went on as usual as if nothing had happened. His producer said to him: “Even if there has been a disaster, our deadline hasn’t changed”

This event was recorded on video by a Japanese crew, so there is the possibility of it turning up online at some point. This is not a transcript of the Film Talk with Masaaki Yuasa but a writing-up of the notes that I took during the event. There are a few points that I know I missed because occasionally the simultaneous translation from Japanese into German occasionally caused my brain to go into melt down. As the conversation between Stefan Riekeles and Masaaaki Yuasa did not follow a chronological order, I have for clarity’s sake assembled my notes on Yuasa’s responses in thematically.

To see photos from this event, see my Google Plus profile or the Nishikata Eiga Facebook page.

Order works by Masaaki Yuasa:

MIND GAME (English Subtitles)

Kaiba 1 [DVD+CD]

The Tatami Galaxy Vol.1

Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund, Part III

Film Talk with Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund
Dortmunder U, September 11, 2011

Read  Part I: Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund

and Part II: Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund

Part III: Masaaki Yuasa on Kaiba and working for Madhouse

As we had watched the first three episodes of Kaiba (カイバ, 2008) just before the film talk began with Masaaki Yuasa, host Stefan Riekeles brought it up in conversation before Mind Game (マインド・ゲーム, 2003). Kaiba is one of several projects including Kemonozume (ケモノヅメ, 2006) and Tatami Galaxy (四畳半神話大系, 2010) that Yuasa has done in collaboration with Madhouse.

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Masao Maruyama, the main producer and studio head at Madhouse, was the one to make contact with Yuasa and suggest that he direct something for them. Yuasa could hardly even believe it when Maruyama called him personally. Despite his respect and admiration for Maruyama, Yuasa didn’t just jump on board with the ideas Maruyama initially brought to him. The audience at Dortmunder U laughed when Yuasa described saying “No… no… no, that’s boring…” to one after another of Maruyama’s suggestions. I did not have the impression that Yuasa was being arrogant; rather, I think he has a very firm idea of who he is as an artist (more on that later) and that he only wants to work on projects that he really cares about.

Yuasa found Maruyama very tolerant of his quirks. In fact, he was very surprised that once they had decided on a project that Maruyama was willing to give Yuasa free reign to do what he wanted with it. The same could be said of Eiko Tanaaka at Studio 4°C (where he did Mind Game) who also gave him lots of freedom as a director. Yuasa had heard stories that Maruyama could be very strict with directors but that was not his own personal experience.

On Kaiba, Yuasa got to wear a lot of different hats: not only did he come up with the concept for the series and act as the series director but he wrote screenplays, did storyboards, and directed. Because it was for television, the deadlines were a lot stricter than they are with feature films like Mind Game. Yuasa was given only one year to complete Kaiba. He personally directed episodes 1, 10, and 11 and allowed others to take the reins on the other episodes. Because time management what of the utmost importance, Yuasa said that it was necessary to delegate the work load to other directors.

Yuasa mentioned in particular Akitoshi Yokoyama who directed episodes 2-3, 7, and 9. Speaking specifically of episodes 2 and 3, which we had just screened, Yuasa explained that he had allowed Yokoyama to incorporate his own ideas into the screenplay and storyboards for those episodes. Yokoyama was given a great amount of freedom in this respect because episodes 2-4 did not really affect the main story-line of the series too much. Thus the themes of the mother-child dynamic, the idea of the mother passing away and asking her sister to care for her daughter, and the piano as a metaphor were all ideas that Yokoyama came up with.

As Yuasa freelances at a lot of different studios, he has noticed that they each seem to have their own language. At some studios they understand what he is trying to communicate to them as a director and at other ones they don’t. When he starts at a new studio it can sometimes take a while to understand the “language” that they speak.  He did not specifically talk about which studios he had problems communicating with though, he only generally inferred that he sometimes encounters problems when working with people unfamiliar with his style and methods.  

Later in the evening, during the question and answer time, an elderly gentleman whose viewing of Kaiba was his first contact with Yuasa’s work said that he found the landscapes in Kaiba depressing and wanted to know what kind of message Yuasa intended to relay with the setting. Yuasa responded that he always tries to keep a glimmer of hope in his work – even when depicting something that is difficult; he likes to keep hope alive. Yuasa described himself as a person with doubts, and he finds that the older he gets, the more misgivings he seems to have about the world. The one place where he sees hope is in children. He knows that viewers want to see something cheerful when they watch TV anime, but he wants to show them something deeper with his work.

Another question relating to Kaiba came from an audience member who recognized the familiar anime theme in Kaiba of a futuristic world in which humanity is threatened, but it was the first time he had encountered the idea of a person’s inner psyche being bought and sold like material goods. He wondered if Yuasa had come up with the concept on his own or if he had borrowed it from somewhere.

Yuasa responded by mentioning a title of some kind which I am afraid I didn’t quite catch and I believe he mentioned that the author/director was called Oshima. If any of my readers know what work he might have been referring to, do let me know in the comments. He went on the explain that he had been fascinated with the way in which the brain sends signals to the body via neurons that transmit information via electrical and chemical signalling. He wondered what if there are only such signals instead of a soul, but this notion did not appeal to him. It was certainly a possibility, but it couldn’t be everything.

Yuasa also said that he had been thinking about mortality and fear of death and he wondered when a person was considered dead. People from past centuries no longer live, but many of them have left pieces of themselves behind for us to enjoy – via legacies of music, writing, and so on – ensuring that in spirit they are in a certain sense still alive and with us. He is also interested in how so many people’s experiences of life are so different from one another yet also have points of similarity. These were some of the ideas Yuasa had been grappling with when planning Kaiba.

Part IV: Morimoto, Mind Game and more

To see photos from this event, see my Google Plus profile or the Nishikata Eiga Facebook page.

Order works by Masaaki Yuasa:

MIND GAME (English Subtitles)

Kaiba 1 [DVD+CD]

The Tatami Galaxy Vol.1

Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund, Part II

Film Talk with Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund
Dortmunder U, September 11, 2011

Read  Part I: Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund

Part II: Masaaka Yuasa’s Early Career in Animation

Immediately upon graduation, Masaaki Yuasa sought a job drawing for Asia-dō (亜細亜堂) in Saitama because he was a great admirer of their work. In the 1980s, Asia-dō worked on a number of great series including Doraemon and Manga Nippon Mukashi-Banashi. He was not paid an hourly rate but by the drawing and was expected to complete about 20 drawings a day. Freelance animators just starting out get paid rather poorly for long hours of tedious work and his parents were concerned about his low income. Yuasa was undeterred however, and he moved up the ranks at Asia-dō fairly quickly and he felt that they treated him rather well.

During the talk, Yuasa heaped praise upon Mitsuru Hongo, director of the Crayon Shin-chan TV series – the second series that Yuasa worked on after Chibi Maruko-chan – for his generosity in allowing Yuasa to draw want he wanted. Yuasa spoke very critically of his own work during these early years. He just never felt that his work was good enough. The speed at which he was expected to work meant that did not have the time to produce his best quality work. He found it very stressful at times and wished that he had more time at his disposal in order to produce higher quality work.

At some point, Hongo asked Yuasa if he wanted to try his hand at drawing backgrounds. This gave Yuasa a great deal more satisfaction with his work. He enjoyed researching the landscapes and architecture needed for each scene. This work allowed him to experiment with different techniques and he found that his education in oil painting helped him a lot in designing the backgrounds.

When Hongo gave him the opportunity to do storyboards, Yuasa had a real “a-ha moment”. During this part of the interview with Stefan Riekeles, Yuasa became very animated when he described the pleasure he got from drawing storyboards. His excitement and passion for his craft was really palpable and he talked about how “sugoku tanoshii” (super-fun) the experience of drawing storyboards was for him. For the first time as an animator, he was really enjoying himself and others were sharing in his enthusiasm. He got to do storyboards for episodes of Crayon Shin-chan. In addition, he started drawing designs and storyboards in his spare time, but this was just for his own fun and not really with the intention of becoming a director himself.

Yuasa often mentioned in the discussion how lucky he had been in his career to have people like Hongo as his mentors.  Hongo gave him the unique opportunity to try out many hats in their animation studios. Traditionally in the Japanese anime industry people stay in one role – as a background designer, key animator, inbetweener, etc. – for a really long time or throughout the entirety of their career. Not all studios were willing to let freelancers do storyboards, but as he was not tied down to any one studio, Yuasa could pick and choose work and he began to seek out jobs where the studio would let him do storyboards.

Eventually he was allowed to make shorts and storyboards for a pilot project. In making the designs he would have to make much more than was really necessary in order to try out new ideas. Eventually, Masao Maruyama of Madhouse approached him about directing a project and that was the moment that started him on the path to directing Mind Game and a part of Genius Party for Studio 4°C and Kemonozume, Kaiba, and Tatami Galaxy for Madhouse.

Next read: Part III: Masaaki Yuasa on Kaiba and working at Madhouse

To see more photos from this event, see my Google Plus profile or the Nishikata Eiga Facebook page.

Order works by Masaaki Yuasa:

MIND GAME (English Subtitles)

Kaiba 1 [DVD+CD]

The Tatami Galaxy Vol.1