Production Reference:Translator's Note: Though the animation studio Sunrise officially ceased to exist in April 2022, when it was reorganized into Bandai Namco Filmworks, the Sunrise World website remains in operation and continues to present lots of interesting interviews and historical material. Here, I've translated some selections from the site's ongoing series of creator interviews that shed light on the history of the studio and its major works.
The following text is copyright © Sunrise • Bandai Namco Filmworks Inc.
Translator's Note: The original Japanese text of this interview was posted in two parts. See Part 1 and Part 2.
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In these creator interviews, we ask the staff members who played key roles in Sunrise works about their memories of the works they were involved with. Our 15th guest is Mr. Ryosuke Takahashi, the director and original story creator of the Armored Trooper Votoms series, which is now celebrating the 40th anniversary of its original broadcast. In the first part, he recalls how he was involved with Sunrise since its founding, and describes the progression from his initial 0-Tester to the hit real robot work Fang of the Sun Dougram. In the second part, he discusses the birth of his masterpiece Armored Trooper Votoms and its development as a series, as well as the novel Armored Trooper Votoms Child ~ Child of God Arc, which has just been released as the latest story in this series. (1) |
Takahashi: That's right. I'd known the Sunrise founders ever since we were all at Mushi Production. The only one who was senior to me at Mushi Pro was Mr. (Kiyomi) Numoto, and all the other people involved in founding the company joined after I did. I guess that made me their senior, but only by a few months. Of the Sunrise founders, I was closest to Mr. (Eiji) Yamaura. Anyway, even though though they were my juniors, they were all older than me because they'd joined Mushi Pro in mid-career. It was something like that, but my memories of the time are pretty fuzzy.
Takahashi: I joined Mushi Pro in 1964, so that's more than half a century. Eventually they'd all left Mushi Pro, and I was doing various different things on the fringes of the animation industry. Rather than working on anime full-time, I'd been wandering around on the fringes of the anime world drawing manga, hanging around with people doing plays, and shooting commercials. Then, when they were producing 0-Tester, which was to be Sunrise's second work, they called me in to direct it.
Takahashi: Sunrise's first work was something called Hazedon, directed by Osamu Dezaki. Madhouse was formed at roughly the same time as Sunrise, and it was another company created by people who'd left Mushi Pro, but it was somewhat different from Sunrise. In a normal company, the people who started Sunrise would be equivalent to department heads. They knew exactly what had brought down Mushi Pro, but they were in a position where they didn't have to take the blame for it. These people got together and made a company with the clear idea that "If we create an organization that lets us make a living from animation, we won't make the same mistakes Mushi Pro did. We'll do the things that Mushi Pro didn't do."
Madhouse wasn't like that. It was a company launched by people lower down in the hierarchy, who got together and said "As of tomorrow, we don't have a livelihood, so we've gotta find work." Thus, Sunrise was a group that could negotiate deftly with Tohokushinsha and get money out of them. Madhouse, meanwhile, started out as a subcontractor assisting other anime production companies. I guess there aren't many people left who could put that atmosphere into words.
Takahashi: Sunrise decided not to put the creators at the center of the company. They were people who'd seen from Master Osamu Tezuka that creators can run wild when they're making things. Madhouse was a company centered on creators like Mr. Dezaki and Mr. Masami Hata. But Sunrise's approach was that when there was a job to do, they'd contract the creators individually for each work.
Takahashi: Unlike today, it was an era when there wasn't any money to create works. So it's a question of how you feel about having no money. Since Mr. Dezaki was a creator, he went in the direction of "I want to make it like this" and "I want to do that." But Soeisha's priorities were schedules and budgets. As a result, Mr. Dezaki lost interest along the way, saying "This isn't a production company I can stay with," and he left in the middle. Though Mr. Dezaki had been sent over from Madhouse to Soeisha, he ended up going back. I'm not sure how Hazedon was made after that, but its broadcast had been decided even if they didn't have a series director, so the production probably continued under the guidance of the directors of each individual episode.
As a result, they had no idea who to turn to as the director of their next work. If you ask "Who comes next after Osamu Dezaki?" then there's nobody. I happened to be wavering between things at that point, and I was friendly with Mr. Yamaura and Mr. Numoto, so they ended up saying "How about that guy?" Then they called me in.
I wasn't yet established as a director back then, and I hadn't even been going in to other people's studios to direct episodes. My directing experience was all the level of individual episodes, and I wasn't a lead player. Though I worked on things like Wonder 3, Dororo, and Goku no Daibōken, I'd only been doing episode direction while surrounded by ace-class people, and I wasn't even sure whether I was going to make a living in anime. That was my situation when I was asked to do the job, so I said "I'll give it a try anyhow." In that sense, 0-Tester was like a fresh start for me in anime. Fortunately, the products did well commercially, and the broadcast run was extended.
Takahashi: That's right. I hadn't participated in the planning. 0-Tester was created by analyzing the structure of Thunderbirds, which had been a big hit as a special effects program, and reconstructing it for Japanese animation. By the time I joined in, the design of the mecha had been decided as well. Then I was called in at the stage where they were creating the scripts for each episode. It was an enjoyable job, and I was still young, so I pretty much never went home and just hung around the studio while I was working on it.
Just as I was starting to feel I'd created a fairly successful work, Space Battleship Yamato started. This was still in 1974, but our broadcast started in April, and theirs in October. (2) Watching it, I was devastated as a creator. Space Battleship Yamato was leaps and bounds ahead of the animation I was making. So I asked to be excused from directing Sunrise's next work, saying "I'm going to go back and retrain for a while." Mr. (Yoshiyuki) Tomino ended up doing the following Reideen the Brave, and I parted ways with Sunrise for the first time.
Takahashi: After leaving Sunrise, I started my own Studio Akabanten. I made animated commercials and short corporate promotion films, and supported myself by working on Manga Nippon Mukashi Banashi. I was going about my daily life with no thought of returning to the world of TV series animation where I'd once been defeated.
At that point, Sunrise was on an upward trend as a company. Five of the TV series plans they'd submitted to the stations had been approved. As a latecomer studio, it was really a stroke of luck for Sunrise to be doing five TV series at once. But they couldn't pull it off because they didn't have enough directors.
Takahashi: They called for me because they thought "When we're in trouble, that guy will do as we ask." So I was doing Cyborg 009 in 1979, and that was also pretty well received. But just as I was feeling good about it, the broadcast of Mobile Suit Gundam started. (3) I was in the sound studio when it went on the air, and we said "Gundam is airing today, so let's watch it." When we did, I was devastated all over again. (laughs) Once again, I fretted that it was leaps and bounds ahead of what I was doing.
Just as before, I had the feeling that I should go and retrain. But given the situation at Sunrise, I had to keep right on working. The next plan had already been decided, and they told me I was going to be doing it. In the meantime, I was insisting I didn't want to do it anymore, but Mr. Yamaura wouldn't give up. He brought me every episode of Gundam on video, saying "I want you to watch all of it anyway. We can now make things like this, which aren't based on manga but on our own studio's ideas. So I want you to create a work from the same standpoint."
Takahashi: Little by little, their ambitions to be more than just a subcontractor for Toei and Tohokushinsha were solidifying. That was the direction established by Super Machine Zambot 3 and Gundam. From that point on, a fan base with what we'd now call an "otaku" sensibility started to emerge, and Sunrise had become confident that it could keep turning out hits as long as this held up. But Mr. Tomino couldn't carry that burden all by himself, so they called me back in, as someone familiar and reliable who'd work hard alongside them. That's how I ended up doing Sun of the Fang Dougram.
Takahashi: The design of the Dougram itself was already completed by the time I joined in. At that point Mr. Numoto, whose name came up before, had quit Sunrise and was working on the sponsor side at Takara. What Sunrise had presented aligned nicely with the order he'd given, so they decided to go ahead with Dougram. They already had a storyline at the planning stage, but when I looked at it, I didn't really feel like making it. I said "I'll do it, but would it be okay if I recreated the story from scratch?" They replied, "Do as you like." Everything would be fine as long as we were moving Dougram merchandise, so I started out with that as my only constraint.
Takahashi: The most important factor in persuading me was that I'd be in the position of original story creator as well as director. I think the reason I was able to do that was the success of Gundam, or rather, seeing Mr. Tomino do it gave me the determination and motivation to do the same afterwards. I'm grateful to Mr. Tomino for that.
Takahashi: I wasn't really interested in doing robot shows, but the studio wouldn't survive unless the robots sold. As long as they were selling, though, I could do anything I wanted, so I put my own inner feelings into it.
Of course, given my age, there was the student movement. And there'd always been a kind of revolutionary mood among young people in postwar Japan, which reached its peak in the sixties. For young people born in that era, in that kind of atmosphere, naturally they had left-wing and revolutionary inclinations. I grew up breathing that atmosphere, and there were wars all around the world as well. In the fifties there was the Korean War, and then you had the Vietnam War at the end of the sixties. I was still in grade school during the Korean War, so I didn't know anything about it. But by the time of the Vietnam War, I was about eighteen or twenty, so I gradually began to understand what was going on.
Takahashi: I didn't actually participate in any left-wing movements. That's because I was a weak-willed type who wavered in between left and right. But since I'd seen those sorts of things in my youth, I thought I could use things like revolution and resistance movements in a story. So I made Dougram a story about whether or not an oppressed colony planet should launch a war of independence against Earth. And in the middle of this, there's a parent-child conflict between the protagonist and his father, who's like a representative of all the Earth people.
I wanted to express the atmosphere of the days when Japan still had that kind of political climate, and the growth of the boy named Crinn as he's contrasted with his father. Mr. Hiroyuki Hoshiyama, the main writer, had been immersed in the atmosphere of the student movement, so I wrote the overall plot and had him script it accordingly.
Takahashi: With Gundam, it's made so that after seeing the first five minutes, you know "We're rooting for this side." That shows a certain maturity as entertainment. But I was still inexperienced, so there was no way I could create those kinds of distinctions. I had to sell this robot, and the story I wanted to make had to be stuffed into it. That's where I started with Dougram, and I haven't been able to get away from it since.
Takahashi: That's right. I had no feeling for the military, for SF, or for robots. I had absolutely nothing. They'd asked me to do it, but I couldn't do it alone, and since I'd been friends with Mr. Kanda since the Mushi Pro days, I asked him if he'd do it with me. He was always there as a director, leading the production site for me, while I was creating the story.
Takahashi: When I joined Dougram, although Gundam had been canceled, there was already a sense that it would be successful and even be turned into a movie. But I think they saw a danger that the company would decline if it depended on a single hit work.
I'd said I didn't want to do a robot show because I was no good at it, but they told me "Don't worry, give it a try!" and I gave in to pressure. Meanwhile, Mr. Tomino was also changing his style and trying various other things after Gundam, like Blue Gale Xabungle and Aura Battler Dunbine. Back then, he wasn't yet relying on Gundam, and Dougram was a work that began at a similar point in time.
Takahashi: No, I didn't think about Votoms until my work on Dougram was over. Every time Mr. Tomino takes on a new work, he makes something dramatically different, so I thought I should probably do likewise. I asked myself what I hadn't been able to do with Dougram, and the conclusion I arrived at was "a sense of speed." A sense of speed is typically represented by flight, but since Mr. Tomino had already been doing that in his other works, it would be too similar. To avoid doing the same thing, I reduced the size of the robots, with the idea of creating a sense of speed on the ground. And that was Votoms.
Takahashi: Mr. Okawara had already designed it before we started planning, and I guess his proposal accidentally matched what I'd been thinking about. So it seemed like there was no friction when we started on Votoms.
Before I saw Mr. Okawara's design, I'd been imagining something about the size of the Robonoid drawn by Mr. Hayao Miyazaki which appeared in Future Boy Conan. (4) But that wasn't a Sunrise-like robot design, so from the outset we had to do something about that. Mr. Okawara had come at it from a modeling direction, rather than a narrative standpoint, so it felt like we were both inspiring each other.
Takahashi: That's true. I don't have that kind of energy anymore, but of course I was thinking of myself as a creator. So I felt very strongly that I should make something new, rather than just doing the same thing I did last year. Still, it's hard to create so many different things.
In my own career, Votoms was close to the peak in terms of my energy, the work itself, and my characteristics as a director. That's because I was about forty years old at the time. I feel my abilities were at their highest when I was forty, and then they've gradually diminished again over the course of the following forty years.
Takahashi: It didn't really exist in Japan, but there was a mood like that among young people in America, which was directly involved, and that's reflected in a lot of movies. For example, Rambo influenced me when I was creating the character of Chirico, and there were other movies like Taxi Driver about returning Vietnam veterans.
Takahashi: Yes, it was. I'd never heard of Mr. Shioyama before that. When I was wondering what to do for Dougram's character designs, I had several people draw roughs, but the one I liked best was no longer available. At that point, Mr. Masami Iwasaki from production said "I know someone who's really good," and introduced me to Mr. Shioyama. He was stationed in Taiwan at the time for a job, so we had to call him back, which was a lot of trouble. But when I saw what he'd done, it was better than anything I'd previously seen.
Takahashi: Mr. Shioyama hadn't done a lot of character design work before. So first I had Mr. Soji Yoshikawa, who was once a superstar animator, draw something like rough drafts of the characters based on what I told him, in order to get the overall image of the work. (5) I also used his drawings as a basis for deciding on the general structure of the story. Mr. Yoshikawa had done a drawing of the Donan family that resembled a family photo, and as I looked at it, I gradually decided on their roles within the story. That's how I solidified the narrative.
After that, Mr. Yoshikawa drew rough drafts of the characters to help Mr. Shioyama understand the worldview, then Mr. Shioyama cleaned them up for animation. It seemed like Mr. Shioyama didn't really approve of Mr. Yoshikawa's drawings at first, but along the way he started to say "Wow, these drawings are great." In short, he'd come to understand that they were being drawn with the character roles in mind. After that, I think Mr. Shioyama started getting excited about the job as well.
Takahashi: Votoms was definitely a blessed work. On Dougram, although I was the original story creator and series director, I was creating the story in consultation with the scriptwriters. But this time, my orders from producer Mr. Yamaura were "On Votoms, you'll write the entire plot, then have the scriptwriters create scripts based on it." It was tough having to send a plot to the scriptwriter each and every week, but it was fun as well. When I started writing, it turned out a lot of things had been building up inside me, and I was able to vent them all of them through Votoms.
Takahashi: At the beginning, I was impudently scribbling my own roughs to convey the atmosphere. I gave them to Mr. Shioyama and asked him for images like that, and then he'd rearrange them and bring thing them into his own world. That back-and-forth worked really well. The worlds Mr. Shioyama and I shared in common were very similar. So when we were creating characters, we could explain them very quickly by saying something like "this role in that movie." It was nice that the person describing what's in their head and the person doing the actual drawings could communicate with no misunderstandings.
Takahashi: Mr. Shioyama loves Westerns and World War II movies. Meanwhile, I really wanted to bring out the atmosphere of the battlefield, and the people living their lives alongside it, that's depicted in Apocalypse Now.
Speaking of the Vietnam War, the news coverage was amazing. At the time, America allowed news media from all over the world to enter the battlefield almost unconditionally. So naturally, there was competition for coverage, and about seventy cameramen were killed. As I was researching this, I became very interested in these war photographers and journalists, and that led to my later work FLAG.
Translator's Note: The interview goes on to discuss the enduring popularity of the Votoms series, Takahashi's feelings about the later sequels and his recent novels, his mixed feelings about Gasarakai and Intrigue in the Bakumatsu—Irohanihoheto, and some parting advice for aspiring creators. I've omitted this here because it doesn't really relate to my current area of research.
Profile
Born in Tokyo on January 11, 1943. Animation series director, episode director, scriptwriter, producer. An instructor in the Character Creative Arts Department at Osaka University of Arts.
In 1964, he joined Mushi Production, Co. Ltd., where his main works included W3 (Wonder 3), Dororo, and Princess Knight. After leaving Mushi Production, he worked on 0-Tester (series director, 1973) in the early days after Sunrise was founded. He went on to direct Fang of the Sun Dougram, Armored Trooper Votoms, Panzer World Galient, Blue Comet SPT Layzner, Gasaraki, and Intrigue in the Bakumatsu—Irohanihoheto. His new novel Armored Trooper Votoms Child ~ Child of God Arc, which depicts the aftermath of Armored Trooper Votoms Genei ~ Phantom Arc, is now available from Kadokawa.
(1) Both volumes of Armored Trooper Votoms Child were published on February 10, 2023, the same day the first part of this interview was released.
(2) Takahashi may be misremembering the dates here. 0-Tester's broadcast began in October 1973, and Yamato debuted in October 1974, almost exactly a year later. Their broadcast runs overlapped for the final three months of 1974.
(3) In the Japanese text, Takahashi says the broadcast of Gundam began half a year late, but I don't know what he means by that.
(4) The Robonoid seems to be about 2.5 meters tall, or 3 meters including the human operator riding in its open cockpit.
(5) By this point, Yoshikawa was better known as a scriptwriter, in which capacity he'd worked on Takahashi's 0-Tester and Cyborg 009.
Translator's Note: The original Japanese text of this interview is available here. I'd also like to thank Nina of the Mobile Suit Breakdown podcast for calligraphy jargon support!
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In these creator interviews, we ask the staff members who played key roles in Sunrise works about their memories of the works they were involved with. Continuing on from last time, our 19th installment features another main staff member of Aura Battler Dunbine, which is now celebrating its 40th anniversary. This time we're speaking with the mechanical designer Mr. Kazutaka Miyatake. |
Miyatake: I see. Well, in that case, it might be best to go back to my starting point as a designer. I began doing this job with the ending illustration for Mazinger Z, when I was still a student.
Miyatake: Mr. Go Nagai had requested "Something that would look cool even in the eyes of children." The design of the Mazinger Z itself was created by Go-chan, and I had to cram it full of mechanisms that would look convincing to children. In other words, drawing it so it looked like technology that kids could easily understand.
Miyatake: The Mazinger Z's engine runs on photonic energy, but to children, that's nothing more than a vague "wonder gadget" that feels closer to fantasy than SF. So which other parts would they be able to understand?
When it comes to the feet, even kids know the sensation of the impact being absorbed between the toes and the heel when they're walking, so they're aware you need to have a working suspension. Kids were also used to seeing coil springs in things like bikes. So I thought the best approach was to draw the feet with links and coil springs.
Miyatake: And 1972 was also the year in which Soeisha, the predecessor to Sunrise, started up. Naoyuki Kato of Nue had a senior art-school classmate there who told him they were looking for designers, so I went over there with two hundred of my design drawings. And there I met Mr. Kiyomi Numoto.
Miyatake: Mr. Numoto had very keen eyes. One by one, he looked at the designs I'd brought, and after taking in the whole picture his eyes would move as he scrutinized the key points. His gaze was very sharp. He finished looking at all two hundred of them in about thirty minutes, then gave me the order "We want distinctive mecha for the three protagonists. Please do that." He had no other requests at all. So I went home and finished up the designs.
Miyatake: That was it. So when I designed them, I added the quirk that the aircraft piloted by the three characters combined to form a single mecha. But aircraft have broad wings and a flat shape, so I had a hard time giving them the sense of volume that kids would want when they were turned into toys. After all, it was my first professional design job.
Miyatake: That's right, and Mr. Numoto said "We'll take it." Then he went on to say "We'll take it, but I'm keeping this to myself. I can't show such an inept drawing to the other staff."
Miyatake: "You have no idea how to draw," Mr. Numoto said. "You have to start by knowing how to draw. You do calligraphy, don't you?" And indeed, I'd reached the fifth dan. (1) He told me that when working as a designer in the animation world, calligraphy techniques were actually a hindrance, so I should get rid of them.
Miyatake: For example, when you look at this cup sitting here, or a car parked in front of you, you ask yourself where the buttsuke is in the shape and whether it has any hane. (2) Buttsuke and hane are techniques for writing text characters, not for designing. That had become a habit for me, so I wasn't even conscious of it.
Miyatake: Mr. Numoto had been the head of Mushi Pro's animator training school, so I guess he couldn't tolerate the idea of abruptly putting down the point of the pencil and then pulling on it with a flick. Real objects aren't like that. The point of the pencil gently descends onto the paper, moves, and then gently rises into the air again. That's how you draw perfectly parallel lines, he said. And the human hand is designed to pivot at the wrist and at the elbow so you can draw big curves. It's no good if you just draw by following the strokes, he told me, and you have to consciously control the pencil yourself. I still remember every word Mr. Numoto said.
Miyatake: Right. I drew parallel lines on straw paper until it turned pitch black, and then after I'd done my parallel line training, I'd practice radial lines. First I'd draw them from the outside into the center, and then from the center to the outside. I kept that up for about two weeks, and then he said "That's enough" and told me to draw my original design over again.
Miyatake: But when I took in my redrawn designs to show Mr. Numoto, he'd already left Soeisha. (laughs) He'd gone to join Takara, so I visited him there, and he offered me work for Takara as well. That's how I got involved with Microman. So to me, animation design and toy design ended up being equally weighted. Even when I'm drawing designs for anime, I'm also thinking about how they could be turned into decent toys.
Miyatake: That's right. During Reideen, we had Mr. (Yoshiyuki) Tomino who directed the first half, Mr. Katsushi Murakami from the sponsor Popy, and Mr. Yoshikazu Yasuhiko the character designer. Since we were starting from scratch, I felt like I could come up with lots of gimmicks and ideas alongside Mr. Yasuhiko.
On Reideen, we were aiming for a perfect transformation, but in reality it wasn't quite that rational. I made use of that experience in Super Electromagnetic Robo Com-Battler V and Super Electromagnetic Machine Voltes V, and the combination gimmicks became more logical along the way.
Miyatake: Those forty years went by in the blink of an eye, didn't they? I think Mr. Tomino called me in for Dunbine because he liked the various ideas I suggested during Reideen. He was hoping I'd come up with something weird.
At the very beginning, Mr. Tomino told me "Even with transforming robots or combining robots, the more you tinker with them, the less individual personality and presence they have." This time, instead of transformation and combination, he wanted something with a distinct personality and the strongest possible character.
Then there was the size. He said it should be sized so that it could be placed alongside the pilot figure when it was made into a toy. Then the figure could be sculpted with enough detail that you could tell who it was.
Miyatake: At first I was deliberately trying to be told "no" and have things rejected, so I submitted roughs that were like a stone idol clad in armor. And of course he said "No, we're not going in that direction." After that I did various new drawings, and among them was one where it's riding on the back of a cicada, holding reins. We settled on that one, and decided we'd go in the direction of a robot with an insect motif. I don't think the name "Byston Well" had been decided for the setting at the point when I started designing.
Miyatake: First I did the setting for the Drumlo used by ordinary soldiers, which was based on a flower beetle. (3) Then I designed the Dunbine, based on the Japanese rhinoceros beetle, as the protagonist's machine. To make the Dana O'Shee's face look more scary, I combined the head of a longhorn beetle with a goat skull. I also designed the Zelerna and the Fow.
Miyatake: I think character means "something that symbolizes the world of the story." So I have that in mind not only when I'm designing robots, but with giant space battleships like the Yamato and Arcadia as well. Even with the Reideen, I was thinking about it in terms of establishing the character, including the idea that it appears from an undersea pyramid.
Miyatake: Right. It's a painting 2.59 meters high and 5.82 meters wide, bigger than anything I've ever done before. (4) Due to its size, I used up an astonishing number of pencils just doing the underdrawing. (laughs) Since I'm a designer rather than an illustrator, when I was finishing it, I decided it was okay to unapologetically depart from standard practice by using all kinds of art supplies, including sign pens and correction fluid.
For the shock waves of the Mazinger Z's rocket punch, and the light produced by interference from the Reideen's barrier, I also used special model paints whose color changes based on the viewing angle thanks to structural color. I figured that was fine since the painting was meant to be seen in real life rather than in printed materials.
Miyatake: There's an eighteen-meter moving Gundam in Yokohama, right? Only Japan could make something like that. This exhibition was also made possible because we have that kind of culture, and I hope it will show the essence of that culture. It's rare to make a painting that pushes you to your physical limits, so I hope you'll enjoy my giant painting of these six robots as well.
Profile
Mechanical designer, illustrator, and concept designer. Born in 1949 in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture. A founding member of Studio Nue alongside Kenichi Matsuzaki, Naoyuki Kato, and Haruka Takachiho. He was a trailblazer in establishing the profession of mechanical designer in Japan, and pioneered the field of internal cutaway diagrams. His major works include Psalms of Planets Eureka seveN (conceptual design) and Macross F (conceptual design).
(1) As with karate, advanced students of Japanese calligraphy are evaluated via a system of 段 (dan) ranks. Fifth dan is one step short of the very top.
(2) The second term Miyatake uses here, ハネ (hane), is an upward flick that ends a calligraphic brushstroke. ブッツケ (buttsuke) means diving straight in without a preliminary sketch, so I'd interpret this as some kind of starting point.
(3) The Japanese name クロカナブン (korokanabun) refers to Rhomborrhina polita, a species of flower beetle in the scarab family. They resemble the familiar cockchafer, or June beetle, found in Europe and the Americas.
(4) Or, if you prefer, 8.5 by 19 feet.
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