Okada Mari and Anime ‘Writing’

Aka: a response to The Canipa Effect’s recent video on Okada Mari.

Less than a week ago, Canipa messaged me to ask if I’d be able to check a script he’d written “on Mari Okada/Anime Writing.” However, he recorded the script before he even sent it to me. As such, the largest changes that I recommended weren’t reflected in the finished video, and his line of argument is something that I do not agree with. I’d go so far as to say that it undermines the work I’ve been doing in the fandom. This post is my attempt to explain what my feedback was focused on, and thus, why I disagree with Canipa’s argument, and the related suggestion that “maybe we can introduce the idea of the showrunner, a screenwriter in charge of their own vision, into the anime industry.” It focuses on two issues—his definition of “showrunner” and how that is related to the “director,” and the question of how “authorship” is related to “writing.”

Code Geass’s writer takes a trip down memory lane 6!!

Now that I’m back home from a certain convention I was prepping for, here’s Okouchi’s latest round on tweets on Code Geass. He hasn’t tweeted anything new since then, so I’m not sure if this will be the last time — perhaps he’ll be back when The Rebellion Path has reached Japanese screens… Though I should be back before then, doing something else Geass-related. Not entirely sure how it’ll go down, given that this will be the first time I’m discussing the show with other fans! But it should be ‘interesting’, at the very least, so do look forward to it!

Code Geass’s writer takes a trip down memory lane 5!!

Against my expectations, Okouchi tweeted another 10 or so tweets late last night, and that reminded me that I’d actually forgotten to post the last three or so tweets he posted at the last minute before the first film landed last week. So here they are! (Along with the last one from last week, which is related.) I’ll try to get to the new ones later this weekend, in between all the figure skating, perhaps (^^;).

Code Geass’s writer takes a trip down memory lane 4!!

And here we are at the end! This time, at least. Code Geass Lelouch of the Rebellion: The Awakening Path is the first of the three films in this retelling of the show, and Ōkouchi may have some more memories to share when the next two films are released. But that first film opens today, and in celebration, Ōkouchi talks about the relationships that sit at the centre of the entire story.

Code Geass’s writer takes a trip down memory lane 3!

I kind of wish Ōkouchi had given me another 1 day break! In any case, this set reveals some broad world-level decisions that have interesting implications for story decisions that writers might make. Quite obvious once you think about it, but really does show the importance of worldbuilding!

Code Geass’s writer takes a trip down memory lane 2…

As I suspected, Ōkouchi has a few more snippets to share about Geass 11 years ago. This time, though:

** WARNING ** SPOILERS AHEAD **

Please click only if you have already seen the first season!!

Code Geass’s main writer takes a trip down memory lane

With just one week until the first of the Code Geass recap films hits Japanese cinemas, Series Composer and main writer Ōkouchi Ichirō took to Twitter yesterday to reveal some early production soundbites about this decade-old anime behemoth. Some of these might already be known—I do remember hearing rumours about timeslot changes and how they affected the plot, especially when R2 was moved back to the Sunday 5pm slot. Going by the wikipedia entry, Ōkouchi apparently talked about it in his BD/DVD interviews. It’s something I’ve been meaning to verify, but I simply haven’t gotten around to it. Well, perhaps this 10th year anniversary revival might finally galvanise me into creating another series masterpost! For the moment though, here’s what Okouchi had to share.

Kubo Mitsurou on Yuri!!! on ICE: an early interview

And here’s my ‘Anime Writing’ post for this week! This interview, from Spoon.2Di vol.18 (published September 30, 2016) is one of the earliest interviews that Kubo Mitsurou did for Yuri!!! on ICE. If I’m not mistaken, it’s her second magazine interview, after the short one in the October edition of Pash!¹ In it, Kubo expands on the way all the stars lined up such that, in the summer of 2014, she embarked on a journey to help Director Yamamoto Sayo create the figure skating anime that the latter had long been dreaming about. If you prefer to read the Japanese original for yourself, aliasanonyme has shared the scans here.

This is the full translation of the interview that I discussed in this editorial. As I mentioned there, I originally intended to post it back in January, until frog-kun advised me to write a more in-depth piece about the mistranslations and misinterpretations we found. I only addressed one of them in the editorial, but if you’re curious about the other major mistakes, you can take a look at them here.

But if you’re only interested in what Kubo herself said about Yuri!!! on ICE just before it started its broadcast, you can find it right here, just under the cut.

A little update on where I’ve been…

If you’re wondering where I’ve been the last few weeks…well, the picture above just about sums up how I’m feeling at the moment. I usually take a one or two week break from posting after finishing up my 12 Days of Anime posts…but the start to this year has been crazy. The immediate reason, of course, was the Rakugo Shinjuu interview that I translated—and in some ways, it’s kind of fitting that I’m talking about it again this week, given what happened in episode 5.

I had been looking forward to having a rest after that, to recoup and catch up on a long backlog of anime and translations. But then Lauren Orsini published a piece arguing that screenwriter Okada Mari’s work on the latest Gundam is entirely in keeping with what we’ve seen in the franchise so far. And that’s how my 15th post on Anime ‘Writing’ came to be. I had to do a fair amount of research for the piece—Iron-Blooded Orphans is NOT “Mari Okada’s Gundam”—but it worked out, since I was long overdue for another editorial on screenwriting in this medium!

But putting aside the Okada interruption, I’d actually planned to have the Ishida x Hayashibara interview translated before starting on my 12 Days posts. So why did I find myself still wrestling with it on the night before the second season started? Well, if you follow me on twitter, you’d know the answer to that. For those of you that don’t, however, here’s what else I’ve been doing over the last few months:

Kawamori Shōji: The Making of Macross F the Movie

“When I’m in the studio, I find myself coming up with new ideas.”

Macross Frontier the Movie: The False Songstress was released in Japan on November 21, 2009, just over a year after the controversial ending of the TV series aired on broadcast television. This interview with Kawamori Shōji, who is credited as director, screenwriter and for the original story, comes from the film’s Perfect Triangle guidebook, which was published on December 18, 2009. In it, he talks about the changes and adjustments the film’s staff made and had to make to bring the story of the Vajra war to the screen in this shorter but more elaborate format.