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Translator's Note: Tatsumi Publishing's Sunrise Anime Complete History (サンライズ アニメ大全史) is a catalog of every TV series, OVA, and theatrical anime work released by the Sunrise studio as of the time of publication. It was published in two editions, first in July 1997 with the English title Sunrise Anime Super Data File, and then an updated version in June 2000 with the English title Sunrise Animation 2001. Each edition had a different selection of creator and staff interviews. The second edition included an interview with veteran director Ryosuke Takahashi, which I've translated here. The following text is copyright © Tatsumi Publishing Co., Ltd. |
Profile
Born January 11, 1943 in Tokyo Metropolis. In 1963, he left the company at which he'd been working, and the following year he joined Mushi Production. He expected to be assigned to the animation department, but instead he became a production assistant on Mighty Atom. He then debuted as an episode director on W3. Becoming a freelancer in 1969, he formed Group Dirt with some friends in 1970. He first served as a series director on 0-Tester, one of Soeisha's launch works. After this he established Studio Akabanten.
Major Works
Mighty Atom (production assistant), W3 (episode director), Dororo (episode director), Goku no Daibouken (episode director), Animal 1 (episode director), 0-Tester (series director), Manga Nippon Mukashi Banashi (episode director), Dougram (series director), Votoms (series director), The Silent Service (series director), Akuma to Himegimi (series and episode director), Mama Is Just a Fourth Grade Pupil (script), Konpeki no Kantai (script), Nurse Angel Ririka SOS (directorial cooperation), Kodomo no Omocha (directorial cooperation), Rurouni Kenshin (directorial cooperation), The Silent Service 2 (series director), The King of Braves GaoGaiGar (producer), Gasaraki (series director)
The founders had been my seniors at Mushi Pro. The year after the company was founded (1973), Hazedon ended and all their production staff left, so they didn't have anyone at the production site. Then a senior I was close friends with got in touch with me. I hadn't yet decided whether I wanted to keep working in anime at that point, but they didn't have any other candidates for a director, and I didn't have anyone else to look after me. That's why I signed up for 0-Tester.
I really wasn't part of it. Sunrise is basically a company that specializes in robot shows, with Gundam of course at the apex. I'd already left by the time of their first robot show, Reideen, so I don't feel like I led Sunrise in any particular direction. I parted ways with Sunrise after 0-Tester ended, and Studio Akabanten became my base of operations. (1) I helped with a few episodes of Mr. Nagahama's works, so there's an emotional connection there, but I was far removed in terms of the work.
I get asked that a lot these days. (wry laughter) But it wasn't anything to do with 0-Tester. When I joined Mushi Pro, I was assigned to the directing department... At the time, I didn't yet know what directing was, but I felt strongly that my seniors and colleagues wre overflowing with talent. So even after 0-Tester, I wasn't confident I'd be able to make it as a director. Thinking that there might be an art form or an industry out there that suited me a little better, I parted ways with Sunrise, and went on to do commercials as well as Group TAC's Manga Nippon Mukashi Banashi and Manga Ijin Monogatari. (2) Meanwhile, I was also directing live-action documentary programs.
Just like with 0-Tester, it was due to the situation at Sunrise. At the time, they were responsible for five regular programs, so they called me in because they naturally didn't have enough people. But I intended to leave again when it was over, since I didn't feel like directing another TV series. In the middle of this, Gundam started, and it really shocked me. "So you can do things like this in a TV series?!" It wasn't a successful work when it originally aired, but by the time my own 009 ended, Gundam was starting to show some signs of becoming a hit... (3) And when it became a smash hit, that led to my third job with Sunrise. (laughs)
This isn't necessarily a fully developed theory, just something I've tried to piece together... The success of Gundam was somewhat abnormal, so subsequent Sunrise works started leaning towards something like Gundam. The same was true of the personnel. Given the kind of person Mr. Tomino is, once he gets going, he can't be stopped. Sunrise had to keep making other works, but at the same time, it also needed other people.
Mr. Tomino and I worked together at Mushi Pro, and after that he helped me a lot with 0-Tester, so at the time they couldn't find anyone else who'd be able to make another distinctive work without being knocked aside by Mr. Tomino. Back then, they didn't know Gundam was going to become such a big deal, so Sunrise needed a steady supply of new works if they were going to use its success as a springboard to become a more stable production company. I think I was also singled out because they wanted someone with a different aura.
I started on Dougram with the idea that we couldn't make something just like Gundam, and it had to have a different tone. Along the way, I began to feel that I might be in a position to create an original TV series. That was the first time I'd deliberately involved myself in a TV series, in the sense of creating an original story for TV.
On Dougram, I was co-directing with the late Mr. Takeyuki Kanda. He was the same age as me, and a colleague at Mushi Pro. Since I was responsible for the original work, I stepped aside after episode 30 and entrusted the direction entirely to Mr. Kanda, so I could focus on the original work—that is, on creating scripts.
This work was a turning point for me, and it's the reason I've stayed in the world of TV animation up until now. I entered the anime world at the age of 21, and I wasn't sure I was going to make it until I was 38 or 39, when Dougram was over. What was worrying me in the meantime was that I had so little knowledge of manga and anime. I felt very strongly that I couldn't compete with the people around me who had a greater store of knowledge, and it was only through Dougram that I came to believe I could do it.
Since I'm translating things from the real world, or from the worlds of film and literature, into TV anime, I can't make that many of them. I'm skipping ahead, but I wanted to make Galient in an easygoing fashion, by mashing up robots with swords and sorcery in a world based on Toei period dramas from my elementary-school days such as Shinshokoku Monogatari Beni Kujaku and Fuefuki Douji, but with Western-style armor. (4) Mr. Shioyama's drawing style was perfect for Galient, so that gave me no trouble. The only trouble I had was with the ratings. (wry laughter)
Takara's Dougram toys had sold well, and TV Tokyo's ratings were also good, so it was easy for me to get my own way. And since the person who'd dragged me over to Sunrise for 0-Tester had now become a manager at Takara, we'd established a certain relationship of mutual trust. (5) I was able to create the work freely, with no outside interference. On Dougram, the robot itself had already been completed in Mr. Okawara's mind, but on Votoms we discussed it between ourselves as he worked.
The setting for Dougram was that they were eight to ten meters, but I was concerned that was a drawback for bipedal robots. How could they be effective as weapons?! It was created to be a commercial product, so there was no point in arguing with it, but it bothered me. If they were existing weapons, they'd be positioned as tanks, but in Votoms I envisioned them as jeeps or armored vehicles. That's because in Gundam, they're about eighteen meters. Whether the robots are eighteen meters, less than ten meters, or fifty meters, their depiction ends up being the same. Even if there were slight differences in the story, given the directorial techniques of the time, I had no choice but to rely on shooting from angles that emphasized how big they were. Thus I decided to make them about four meters, which I thought was the minimum size at which robots could exist.
After the war, you often saw the Allied occupation forces driving around town in jeeps. I'd heard these were tougher and more functional than wartime Japanese trucks and fighting vehicles. They were released as mass-produced goods after the war, and in Japan, these were still used for civil engineering work for a very long time. In the past, races using customized jeeps were also popular. A situation in which something originally intended for military use was released to civilians came to mind without my having to thing about it. So in Votoms, there's the idea that some people earn money from robot pro wrestling, using robots that are no longer needed now the war is over.
Of course I can't endorse or glorify it, but in the end, war does produce a lot of drama. My strongest image of war is the Vietnam War. So there had to be jungles and marshes... or in terms of movies, going up a river like in Apocalypse Now. In Votoms there's even an episode (episode 21) titled "Upriver," which projects a comprehensive image of the Vietnam War.
That's right. A lot of movies were set in French colonies, too. It was a colonial power that didn't recognize independence so easily, so in that sense, Africa was a rich reservoir of wars... I didn't directly participate at all in the student movement or the Anpo protests. There were a lot of people who were taking it lightly, as if it were just a fad, so I reacted against that a little. I felt that you shouldn't trifle with politics like you were going crazy over a rock band. Although maybe I'm trifling with it by using in TV series and robot shows. (wry laughter) But everybody has their own ideas about that.
This is true for anything, but it's hard to create fiction without knowing anything about reality. I actually asked a few Self-Defense Forces members about how they talk and what kinds of lives they lead, and I think the advantage of not starting from zero is that it helped me make up my mind.
Actually, I created Gasaraki with the idea of doing Dougram again more than a decade later. Back then, I was directing a robot show for the first time, in the shadow of the huge hit called Gundam, so I was fumbling my way along as I made it. I felt I'd given it all I had, but I hadn't figured out what I wanted to do. This time, I wanted to include a variety of elements and see for myself which would be the most expansive and interesting. Votoms was made to be cohesive, but not to allow for expansion.
Though Gasaraki had legendary elements, I also wanted to incorporate Self-Defense Forces members who had a lot of realism and everyday sensibilities. Japanese views and American views... That's a personal theme I've carried over from The Silent Service, but now I've added the aspect of "What do Japanese people think of Americans?" I worry that I spread myself too thin, and I regret that I didn't let the robots do enough. (wry laughter) There were only about three episodes where they worked properly.
The truth is, after doing three or four original works, I was exhausted as a creator. It was also a time when Sunrise was thinking about swapping out its creators, so I thought I'd take a little break. And then, before I knew it, more than a decade had passed. (laughs)
I wanted to make something where you wouldn't feel the sharpness of digital compositing. I also made use of my experience doing more than a dozen episodes of Mukashi Banashi. Even I could do a drawing like that, but I suppose the best thing about Sunrise's production environment is that it can also integrate multiple talents in its robot shows to create richer works.
Well, it was the first time I was credited for it. But I've been working in the same kind of position ever since Layzner, performing the job of producer at a different distance than when I'm creating a work entirely by myself. I'm basically just there to help out... Also, in April, I opened a "Ryosuke prep school" on the Sunrise homepage, where I'm involved in scouting new talents to serve as external brains.
I have a novel coming out from Shueisha in July, set in the same world as Gasaraki with a photojournalist as the protagonist. (7) I'll keep on writing until it can eventually be filmed, so please do read it.
(1) I'm translating 離れる (hanareru) as "part ways" here, rather than "leave," because Takahashi was a freelance contractor rather than a company employee.
(2) Group TAC was another animation studio formed by former Mushi Pro staff.
(3) Takahashi's Cyborg 009 series ended in late March 1980.
(4) The Toei films Takahashi mentions here are the Shinshokoku Monogatari Beni Kujaku (新諸国物語・紅孔雀) or "Crimson Peacock" series and Shinshokoku Monogatari Fuefuki Douji (新諸国物語・笛吹童子) or "Flute-Playing Boy," both from 1954.
(5) This person would be Kiyomi Numoto, one of the original founders of Sunrise.
(6) 学生闘争 (gakusei tōsō) refers to the protests that took place in Japanese universities in the late 1960s. These continued into 1970, when Yoshikazu Yasuhiko was forced to leave school because of his involvement in the protests.
(7) Titled Dead Point, this novel was published in two volumes in the summer of 2000.
Mobile Suit Gundam is copyright © Sotsu • Sunrise. Everything else on this site, and all original text and pictures, are copyright Mark Simmons.
