November 2016 Interview 18

-”Shojo Tsubaki” was an independent production, wasn't it?
In the 80s, a lot of OVAs were produced.
What kind of influence did they have?
I once heard someone say, "OVAs created a new market, which allowed us to take a step forward."

H: The OVA boom wasn't that spectacular.　*1
I don't know about the profitability, but they were released and then disappeared, then released and then disappeared again.
There are hardly any left now.
Both my friend and my mentor, Koizumi, have directed OVAs, and while they may have been able to express themselves more freely within the scope of their works than they could on TV, I didn't feel the overall excitement in them.

Nowadays, advertising agency producers have a say even in the small details of the drawings. I can't believe it.
The people on the ground who have a weakness held by agencies and other big companies follow their lead.

I was in charge of planning for the remake of Yokai Ningen Bem for three years.
Subcontractors want work from larger companies to stay in business.
I submitted many proposals, but the producers at the agencies all said "NO".

The producers at those advertising agency were not veterans or experienced people who had worked their way up from the old days. They were the kind of people who had just joined a large company recently, without knowing anything about animation.

Even though "Bem" had many old, enthusiastic fans, the producers at the advertising agency would say things like, "Make the characters like the popular "Shonen Jump" manga," or, "We're going to sell it overseas, so even the bad guys have to wear their seatbelts."
And even though I gave them the script, scenario, and storyboard, they didn't read them.
After all the footage was completed, the advertising agency's producer would ask me for retakes.
I tell the producers at the advertising agency, "I'm sure I gave you the script and storyboard in advance so you could check it in advance," but they remain silent about anything that is inconvenient.

It's hard work to fix something that's already been completed. And there's no payment for the revisions.

There were retakes from Nintendo for "Kirby of the Stars" as well.
But the producer (*2) on the production of "Kirby of the Stars" was a pretty strong-willed guy, and he was involved in the Security Treaty protests (as a New Left winger).
In a way, people like that have a militant side, and they negotiated with big companies, got them to raise production costs, and in the end, got the sponsors to pay for retakes.
The production cost for one episode of Kirby was initially 20 million yen, but the producer on-site later negotiated with the sponsor and increased the amount to 20.5 million yen. That 500,000 yen was the cost for retakes.
"Kirby" was a show with a huge budget.
It was an anime that used both CG and cels.

From that time on, the advertising agency started nagging us to "use CG, use CG." The advertising agency's producer told us, "If we don't use CG, it'll look old!" So we said, "Then pay for the CG," and they said, "We can't do that."
But the managers of the small companies that actually make the anime want work, so they do whatever the agency or production committee tells them.
If the subcontracting company invests a small amount and joins the production committee, they can receive a return of royalties.
However, if the investment is small, the amount returned is also small.
It's pretty much the domain of large corporations.

-I've heard that if you join the production committee, the rights remain with the production site, but if the amount is that small, a small company is no different from a subcontracting company on the production committee.

H: It depends on the allocation of the investment amount.
For example, in the case of "Bem," if Sony Pictures invested half of the production costs, that amount was returned (royalties such as secondary usage fees).
But for small companies, it was like an exchange of tiny pocket money.



*1　OVA...Original video animation. VHS video was mainstream at the time.

*2 There are two types of producers in anime production: producers from large companies that hold the copyright, such as production committees, and producers who actually manage the production on-site. In Japanese credits, both are written as "producers."