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A candid interview (continued)
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EX: Now that you're involved in producing anime, do you still watch
it? SF: Now that I am doing more creative planning work I try to watch as much as I can. When I was doing cels and inbetweens, I had no time to watch--and not much money to rent either. When you are making anime, it gets really hard to watch it because the errors and bad work really stand out. I think that at a certain point you have to decide that you either hate it and get out of the business or find the good things in it and stay. Where I used to think, "Look how many corners they cut - this is lame!" I now think, "That's a good way around that problem. These guys really thought it out," and I can enjoy it again. I don't have the time to watch much TV so I wait until it comes out collected on video and rent the first tape to see what it is like. I watch 80% of the OVAs and almost all the movies that come out.
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EX: What are your favorite shows? SF: "Favorite" meaning the ones I enjoy most rather than the ones that I think are technically or artistically the best, yes? (There are some shows that I like that are, how shall we say, "less than perfect" and others that I don't particularly like that were technically brilliant.) Currently or recently running: About
the only recent shows, TV-wise, that stood out enough for me and that I
liked are EVANGELION and ST.
TAIL. OVAs that I liked recently would be
ARMITAGE III, FAM &
IRI, KEY THE
METAL IDOL, and
MACROSS PLUS. Movies -
GHOST IN
THE SHELL.Shows that I still like from the
past are:TV: ZETA
GUNDAM, MOTHER
IS A 4TH
GRADER, SSX, FIST
OF THE NORTH
STAR (the first part), ASHITA
NO JOE,
AKANUKE ICHIBAN,
SPACE COBRA,
URUSEI YATSURA,
MAISON IKKOKU,
OVA: NAKI
NO RYU (1),
YOJUUTOSHI (Wicked City), SEMISHIGURE,
WINDARIA, NINJA
SCROLL, HI NO
TORI (1), 3X3 EYES,
TWILLIGHT Q (1), GOKUU,
PROJECT A-KO (1),
NINETEEN.Movies: PATLABOR
1 & 2, URUSEI
YATSURA 1 - 4 (especially 2), MOBILE
SUIT GUNDAM I - III,
CRUSHER JOE,
TOTORO, ANO HI
NI KAERITAI (Orange Road movie),
MACROSS: DO YOU
REMEMBER LOVE,
ANGEL'S EGG, FIST
OF THE NORTH
STAR, GRAVE OF
THE FIREFLIES.My all-time favorite work of Japanese
animation is BOBBY NI
KUBITTAKE (Bobby's Girl).
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EX: Okay, since you brought it up, which do you think are
technically well done? SF: I feel that the majority of the shows in the preceeding paragraph were pretty well made. I think that most everything Studio Ghibli does is very high quality. Likewise, all of Otomo's works are very well done. WINGS OF HONNEAMISE was a lovely film and had the most incredible atmosphere. There was a lot of high quality animation in the SILENT MOEBIUS movies.
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EX: Naysayers have been bemoaning the 'end of Japanese animation'
for some time now, especially when the recession hit Japan. Do you think
that animation is on a 'downward slump'? SF: Naysayers have said that anime was dying since the OVA boom. I don't think it is overall though. I think that TV production is on a downward slump, due to economic reasons, and that there are producers and sponsors who are scared that they will lose everything on one title so they stick with formula shows, remakes of old shows, continuations of popular (or once popular) series and "sure things." TV will not swing all the way back up, but the decline will be stopped by computer-assisted animation systems. As long as there are a good number of companies producing new, exciting stuff--and there are--Japanese animation will not crash. The games industry has recently drawn off a
lot of talent and energy from the anime industry, which has slowed down
animation production overall. A lot of anime studios are setting up or
spinning off games sections or companies and available talent is being
spread thinner so it is harder to meet schedules and focus funding on
the anime shows. Once equilibrium is reached then both the games and
anime will get better. Hard to say what will happen when the games boom
ends.
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