(From Newtype USA, July 2003, Volume 2, Number 7, Pages 8-19)
[inside]
GAINAX
At the studio's new premises, Hiroyuki Yamaga discusses taking on the establishment during the early years, giving the company a new focus and creating anime on a massive scale in the future.
In Otaku no Video, protagonist Kubo is drawn into the world of anime, cosplay and fanzines by school buddy Tanaka. Participating in activities generally shunned by the mainstream, the anime convert abandons job-hunting pursuits and defiantly states that he will instead become the king of the otaku. The pair establishes a company with their sights set on conquering the world via the manufacture and direct sales of custom 'garage kit' models of popular characters. A store opening ensues; the scheme later evolves into producing garage animation (which scores big with the fans) and culminates with the construction of Otaku Land, the anime and manga fan's ultimate fun park paradise. The parody is fittingly described as a fictionalized history of GAINAX, a company renowned among anime fans as the ultimate maverick studio, responsible for classics including Ouritsu Uchugun Honneamise no Tsubasa ("The Wings of Honneamise"). Top O Nerae! ("Gunbuster") and Neon Genesis Evangelion.
With a laugh, president Hiroyuki Yamaga says it would take 20 years to describe the real-life GAINAX experience blow by blow. "The very first thing that got my friends and I together was this convention every year," he recalls. Held across Japan, the sci-fi event that focuses on authors is currently in its 42nd year. It's slated for Tochigi prefecture in July under the name of T-con. The founding members of GAINAX (which include Hideaki Anno and Toshio Okada, who's no longer with the company) produced the opening animation for DaiCon III and IV, the event held in their hometown of Osaka in 1981 and 1983, respectively.
"At those conventions of course there were tons of sci-fi novel fans, but I wasn't anything like that at all," Yamaga notes about his personal background. "So it's funny that what actually drew us together was when we worked on the staff. It's certainly not always the case that people [get into this industry] because they've watched sci-fi works and say 'I'm going to do that!'"
The entire group were amateurs to begin with, most of them college students doing things just for the fun of it. "We did everything we're doing now, including running a shop," he explains. "At the time, toy stores didn't really carry things like spaceships and stuff from anime, sci-fi films or whatnot. There were some cheap things for kids, but absolutely nothing for hardcore fans. What we did was build them ourselves from the prototypes on up and sell them."
Then school ended, and they were faced with the prospect of finding jobs; the possibility of a less than creatively stimulating career weighed on their minds. "We all thought that was such a huge waste, you know. I certainly didn't want to get a job, so we thought if that's the case, then why don't we just make our own company? That way there'd be no need to look for work anymore. So we formed GAINAX."
Thematically sophisticated, technically accomplished and beautifully realized, 1987's Wings of Honneamise is lauded among fans and critics alike. Funded by Bandai, who was impressed with the group's amateur works, the theatrical feature boasted a score by Ryuichi Sakamoto and a generous production budget for its time. As GAINAX's professional debut, it's nothing short of extraordinary. "It was what it was, and I do think the end result was good," reflects Yamaga, who directed the feature, but he's quick to downplay the work's public perception. "I certainly don't think we made it under the best possible conditions, not by a long shot," he states. "The budget was insufficient, and of course it was great being able to get Ryuichi Sakamoto to do that for us, but it wasn't like that was the be-all and end-all of our existence. For us at that time, it was something we made using the bare minimum required. I wanted to make it so much better than we did, to tell you the truth."
According to Yamaga, the film almost marked the beginning and the end of the fledgling studio. "Everyone had been saying we should stop [running the company]. I mean, it was a pain to keep it going, and the basic idea was if you could just land that first job and make that first movie, then your career would be pretty much in the bag, so after that, who needs a company, right?" Yet someone eventually stepped in to direct a follow-up project: Hideaki Anno with Gunbuster in 1988, and then Takeshi Mori with Fushigi no Umi no Nadia ("Nadia, Secret of Blue Water"), released three years later. "In the beginning, it was like that: doing it one project at a time. It lasted as far as Evangelion. So it wasn't like we had this great plan for where we were going to take the company and then got to Evangelion on the strength of that. We just somehow kept going, you know."
Battle Royale
"I couldn't do anything unless I was always on the offensive; that's the one and only secret," says Yamaga of the most important aspect of running an animation studio. "If you're starting up a company when you're 20 years old, no one takes you seriously. Everyone tells you 'That's just how it is'--if all you do is smile at that point, it's like you've accepted it, right? There has to be [someone who says] 'No, it's NOT like that. Just hold on there.' I was constantly fighting in that sense." So did things progress smoothly after the confrontations? Yamaga smiles. "You have to do the work, even if you are fighting; that's what a job is; there certainly wasn't much reconciliation though, that's for sure."
Needless to say, everything changed with the powers that be once GAINAX became famous. Just a mention of the name, and people listened; as he puts it, "Even if you bring the project plans to their door in person, all you have to say is 'I'm from GAINAX, and I brought some plans with me,' and they'll meet with you, whereas usually you wouldn't even be able to make it past the front entrance." It wasn't until reaching his late 30's that Yamaga truly acknowledged the benefits of having a company.
The main difference in the GAINAX of today compared to the past is stability in animation production. "For a dozen years or so, we just kept going without much planning," says Yamaga--it's the 'without much planning' part he wants to drop. "I guess we didn't really start thinking about how to run the company more effectively, like a company should be run, until maybe two or three years ago. Seriously." It's a matter of taking on work, defining the goals and checking to see if they're being fulfilled. "I mean, none of this is anything new," he remarks. "I guess normal people do it that way from the start."
Not that he's going to suddenly set up a multitude of departments to handle things more systematically. "If we get too uptight about things, we'll end up losing what's made us so great up to now. I think we're much more flexible than other companies."
Evangelion: before and after
Of his thoughts regarding Evangelion, Yamaga replies, "Before then, we were aware that this thing called 'anime' was making waves, but it wasn't the kind of thing where famous personalities would get up on TV and say, 'I watch anime'--I doubt KimuTaku [Takuya Kimura of the group SMAP] would just suddenly go 'Evangelion!' you know." Yet he found the series was continually being mentioned and incorporated into TV drama material at the time. "From that point on, the distinction between 'someone who likes anime' and 'a normal person' began rapidly disappearing. That's the thing that impressed me the most."
The series was not only a landmark in the industry and for GAINX; financially speaking, it was the first anime production to actually make money for the company. "Not making money is one thing, but that doesn't mean they weren't hits," stresses Yamaga of their pre-Eva works. "The others were certainly hits, but the contracts were at fault."
"We never had very good contracts," he admits. "In fact, we didn't have a very good contract for Evangelion, either, but it was just so popular. So basically we made money on the products we put out ourselves. They said on the news how Evangelion had passed the 30 billion yen mark, so even if the contract only gave us 1% of that, it's still be 300 million yen!"
Until then, the games division kept GAINAX running. Yamaga recalls that Takami Akai, who'd been with the group since their college days, suddenly bought a computer and announced, "Let's do games! If we do games, we can make money."
"According to him, at that time with Japanese computer games, the art was done by the programmers, so it totally sucked," Yamaga explains. Since Akai was a painter, he'd be able to create decent images, even with the limit of 16 displayable colors at the time. "He was like, 'If we do this, there's no way we can go wrong!"
Akai's concept was literally on the money. "Princess Maker (1991) was a big hit, and that paid our salaries for quite a while," Yamaga says on the princess raising simulation. "Unlike the anime and films, we make the games all in-house and sell some of them ourselves, so it's not just that we have the rights; we get to keep the take in those cases, so hit or no hit, the amount of money coming in is totally different."
Princess Maker's art caused quite a stir in the industry; other developers took its graphic cue and incorporated lush art into the presentation. The long-running series, originally for PCs, later spread onto consoles including the Super Famicon and is the basis of the studio's latest anime work Puchi Puri Yucie. "We're still making games, but compared to then, we're taking it a little easier," Yamaga says. "What we decided instead was to take the animation we have the rights to and put them out ourselves; if the people making it are close by, then you're able to make something that's much closer to your heart, so to speak."
"We did make several games for the PlayStation," but he exclaims that it was almost prohibitively costly. Considering the economic downturn in the Japanese game industry, Yamaga opines that unless you're a large company, you can't create a decent game on platforms like the PlayStation 2 anymore. "That's why we're thinking of a somewhat smallish market. Making anime is our number one priority, but we are still considering putting out games as a kind of service to our customers.
Wheels and deals
Alongside original anime works of late including Abenobashi Maho Shotengai ("Magical Shopping Street Abenobashi") and the spectacularly nonsensical action-mecha-comedy mélange of Furi Kuri ("FLCL"), the studio has also adapted Oruchuban Ebichu, Kareshi Kanojo no Jijo ("His and Her Circumstances") and Mahoromatic from manga to animation. "Basically, we take whatever, as far as projects coming in from the outside," says Yamaga. "It doesn't matter whether it was based on a manga or not—if we can do it, we'll do it; we're an anime company." Whether or not the right staff can be assembled, production timeline and budgets are all aspects that are scrutinized. "Sometimes we line it all up and we're like, 'Nah, maybe not,' and other times we actually start doing it and then realize we can't really do it after all."
He offers an example of the former, when a company brandishing a famous manga approached GAINAX (names and title have been left out for obvious reasons). "Even though we thought we could do it and it was interesting and everything, I read it and said, 'OK, it'll definitely cost 100 million yen; it'll be 100 million for 40 minutes,'" he explains. "They told me, 'Do it for 20 million yen.' I said there's no way we can do it for 20 million, but if we had 100 million, we'd do it. They were all, 'What do [sic]you[sic] think, we're made of money? We can't pay that!' And then they left, taking their manga with them." He pauses. "OK, so they did it somewhere else, and sure enough, it cost 100 million yen."
Asked how his writing and directorial skills have developed from Honneamise to Mahoromatic, Yamaga replies that he doesn't know whether they've evolved at all. However, he observes a change in trends. "We've gotten to the point where we're always conscious of the distance between [the anime] and reality. Before, it was like anime was making fairy tales. That's what used to be popular, and that's what everyone thought anime was. But gradually, everyone has started thinking about how close the fictitious worlds we've created will be to the real world."
Epic scale anime
Highly anticipated by GAINAX fans is Yamaga's grand project, Aoki Uru, which some say is a sequel to Honneamise. Yamaga says there's nothing he can impart on its development just yet, though he assures us that the project is maturing and moving forward. It's tied in with how GAINAX will evolve, their position with respect to the industry and the position animation occupies within Japan.
"Now that someone like Miyazaki has won an Oscar, where does that leave us?" he asks. "The point I'm thinking of here is somewhat different from the usual idea of doing business. To put it in more concrete terms, my thinking for that project is to produce an anime on a massive scale, something on the order of two billion yen. But in Japan, there are only about three people in the position (to do something like that)--Miyazaki, Otomo, and Oshii. So I have to pay close attention to what the situation looks like for those three. It takes time to get a project like this in."
Also blipping wildly on the GAINAX fan radar in Japan and abroad is a sequel to Gunbuster. "There's a lot happening, but I can't reveal anything," Yamaga apologizes, also hinting at other projects in the works. A friendly tease, he smiles and points at the table. "See these eraser bits right here?" We look at the shavings. "They're the remnants of yesterday's meeting. We were discussing things at length right here."
A regular US convention guest, he observes that compared to Japanese fans, overseas fans--especially the ones also studying Japanese--tend to approach anime intellectually, akin to how Japanese study European film or foreign literature. As an example, Yamaga mentions the dictionaries and reference books created by fans. "It's such an academic atmosphere."
Looking ahead
Yamaga opines that one of the benefits that may result from anime's increasing globalization is big budgeted theatrical works. "I mentioned a film that would cost two billion yen. That's more money than you can possibly recover if you only consider the people who watch Japanese movies inside Japan." To make the production viable, he estimates one would have to recoup around four billion yen when factoring in the marketing costs. It's not impossible, he says, considering the popularity of titles like Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi ("Spirited Away").
"But it's damn tough. And there's no way you can have something on the level of Sen to Chihiro every year, no matter how hard you try. If you stop to think about that, finally you see investors in Japan start to wake up to the fact that there's a huge market overseas, so money starts to flow a little easier." He doesn't however believe that the shift will have any impact on the stories that will be given the green light.
"That debate's been going on for a long time, but we've gone along ignoring it, making things that target Japan, and they're still very popular overseas. Sen to Chihiro was an extremely 'Japanese' film, wasn't it? There were parts that even Japanese viewers couldn't understand without some research." He stresses the point with an analogy: "I really like French wine from Bordeaux, so do I want something that the businessmen over there have whipped up especially for Japanese? No--give me the stuff the French people like."
On the other end of the budgetary spectrum, he doesn't believe that advances in technology resulting in works such as Makoto Shinkai's Hoshi no Koe ("Voices of a Distant Star") will revolutionize the anime industry. "First off, I personally really like that title," he says enthusiastically. "I like what it's about. I remember how beautiful the sky looked, and I like small stories like that, but I definitely disagree with the way the mass media in the Japanese anime industry is making such a huge stir about it."
"It isn't the case that you have someone who's made an anime all by himself," he elaborates. "What you have is a manga that someone created that's now moving like an anime and has music stuck onto it. In fact, it's because he made it all by himself that he was able to create a world of such substance. You can't create a world like that if you have a hundred people working on it. Whether it's novels or paintings or manga, there've always been works that a single person creates. And of course there've always been works done by a hundred people, too."
"So while I do believe we can look forward to seeing many more things like that in the future, in the final analysis, if you haven't got the talent, it's meaningless. Shinkai had the talent, but I certainly don't believe that just because you can use a computer, you're suddenly able to make anime. When you're doing it with a hundred people, there's a certain kind of 'talent' that you get from having a hundred people working on it. And there's something interesting about that, too."
Regarding GAINAX's future developments, Yamaga is thinking live-action works. "We want to become a movie company. We can take on a theatrical project, and make it an anime if it seems suited to anime. But if it's more suited to live action, then we can make it live-action. In that sense, we're striving to become a movie company with a lot of freedom."
He dismisses the traditional image of a huge studio hiring outside directors to helm live-action films. "I think if you want to have a movie company right now in Japan, then it has to be based on animated works." Thus he believes GAINAX is in a pretty good position, considering that the increased use of CG in films has blurred the line separating live-action and animation. "I think that probably even the sense of wondering which you should work in as a company will fade away as time passes."
o o o
Hideaki Anno
Life after Evangelion
Evangelion's director discusses the series' renewal, helming live-action films and learning from anime veterans.
Among the production materials on Hideaki Anno's desk is an area occupied by various toys from Thunderbirds, UFO, and Space: 1999. Anno is a big tokusatsu (special effects film) fan--he shot a live-action Ultraman parody on 8mm film during his student days--so it's not surprising to also spot a collection of the ultra heroes standing in formation, as well as a set of similarly arranged Kamen Rider figures. Although he hasn't been getting into recent movies and music, tokusatsu hero shows remain a favorite viewing of his. "I've been watching Kamen Rider 555 and AbaRanger," he says. When asked about the long-running Kamen Rider series' evolution over the years, Anno replies, "I haven't seen them all, but I think change is a good thing."
The acclaimed director of anime has shifted gears in recent years, with credits that include two live-action films, Love and Pop and Shikijitsu, adaptations of novels by Ryu Murakami and Ayako Fujitani, respectively. While tight-lipped regarding details of a new live-action work he's currently directing, Anno says it's an action movie, due to wrap toward the end of the year. In the meantime, Shikijitsu is slated for DVD release this summer in Japan. "It's the story of a man and a woman meeting, and what happens during their one month together." Author Fujitani also stars as the lead, and director Shunji Iwai (of Swallowtail Butterfly fame) is also cast in the film.
Anno believes that his first feature, Love and Pop, was visually very light in comparison. Shot on digital video with experimental camerwork and a documentary-like presentation, it depicts schoolgirl Hiromi's foray into the world of subsidized dating to acquire the funds for a much coveted ring. "It didn't have any tricky elements to it or have a heavy feel," he states. "Following that up with something with the exact same feel would be boring. That's why on Shikijitsu, I tried to liven things up by using 35mm film and cinescope, and by threading the images together in a visually appealing way. I wanted to shoot some really good-looking images."
"The novels were interesting, but there was also the more realistic aspect of it: that I could do this," Anno says of the factors that drew him to develop the novels for the screen. He didn't know how much money he'd be able to round up, but believed the projects could be realized with relatively small budgets. "I assembled a staff of very talented individuals, from one person who did a couple of films out of his own pocket when he was at university, to another who's an incredibly gifted producer. I think that's why, even though I was heading into uncharted territory, I was able to make the transition from anime director to live-action, and make movies with a minimum of problems."
Comparing the two mediums, he remarks that live action offers more freedom. "Anime is an altogether different story; you have to create the visuals in order to move ahead. With live-action, you can end up with visuals that you hadn't expected, or that are different from those you'd imagined. Actually, the part about live-action that I liked was that it didn't turn out as I'd planned." We comment that Love and Pop seems to exude spontaneity from the cast's performance to the camera work, freed from the rigidity of anime once the storyboards have been set. Anno agrees. "It was all about that."
He suggests that budding live-action filmmakers should reference both anime and live-action works and incorporate the best of both worlds. Indeed, anime-inspired shot compositions lend a unique feel to Love and Pop's visuals.
Early days
"I was an animator on Hayao Miyazaki's Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa ("Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind"), and before that I had an anime-related job in Tokyo," recalls Anno of his early days in the anime industry. Besides contributing to Nausicaa's climactic showdown between the revived God Soldier and the rampaging Ohmu, he also worked on the TV series Chojiku Yosai Macross ("Super Dimension Fortress Macross") and its theatrical release Chojiku Yosai Macross--Ai, Oboete imasu ka?.
He cites Ichiro Itano, the animator responsible for Macross' seminal action sequences, as the person he was most indebted to on the production, adding that both Miyazaki and Itano taught him not only about the craft, but also about the mental aspects of what it means to actually make anime. Contributions to Urusei Yatsura 3: Remember My Love and Megazone 23 followed.
When university friends Hiroyuki Yamaga and Toshio Okada moved to Tokyo from Osaka with the goal of producing feature length anime, they approached Anno about whether he'd like to help out. Naturally, he accepted. "After that, we founded GAINAX so that we could make Ouritsu Uchugun Honneamise no Tsubasa ("The Wings of Honneamise")." Post-Honneamise, he regards his professional directorial debut, Top o Nerae! ("Gunbuster"), as a turning point in the studio's history. "If I hadn't made Top o Nerae!, this company might not be here today," he says of the six-part OVA. "You've got to make products, or the staff won't stick around. The company isn't the one that makes these works--it's the staff that makes them. If you don't have a staff, you can't make a product."
Regarding his other early works, we mention a 1991 Japanese interview with manga artist Kazuhiko Shimamoto, in which Anno remarked that when he saw Nadia in its entirety, he was sad because he felt it was too geared toward children.
I don't think it was 'sad'" he clarifies. "The nuance was a little different when translated into English. NHK's vision for Nadia was very, very strong. I was able to do what I wanted within that vision, but I couldn't change the basic parts. I was able to do a lot of the things I wanted to do, but I couldn't do everything that I'd really wanted to do. Which, I think, gave it the nuance of being a more child-oriented work. And that's why, even though I did everything I possibly could, Nadia is a work that I still have regrets about. I wonder if that's the nuance that came across in English."
In any case, it's all in the past. "Once the work has been finished on a project, there's nothing left to see, and I don't dwell on it. Nadia was playing on TV the other day, and I took a little peek at it. It had been 12 years since I'd seen it and around six years since I'd even thought about it. I've forgotten all the details about each episode."
Evangelion and beyond
It might be a while before he takes the director's chair again to helm an animated project, but Anno doesn't rule it out completely. "I'd like to continue making live-action a little while longer. It's not as if I hate anime or anything," he points out. Indeed, since Neon Genesis Evangelion, he's helped out with the art on Furi Kuri ("FLCL"), worked on the storyboards and art for Abenobashi Maho Shotengai ("Magical Shopping Street Abenobashi"), as well as storyboarded the opening for Mahoromatic. "I also worked as a kind of pseudo-director on Anime Tencho, which was a short promotional video for an anime shop called Animate. It was the anime version of a promotional manga originally done by Kazuhiko Shimamoto. We were able to bang that one out pretty quickly. But more than me, a guy named Imaishi (art director) was the one running things." Due for imminent release is Submarine 707R, for which Anno was in charge of the opening presentation.
Then there's Oruchuban Ebichu, a hilariously perverted series brimming with dialogue (mostly from its diminutive star) and containing situations unprintable in this publication, There's a misconception that Kotono Mitsuishi (Misato's voice actress) originally brought the manga to Anno's attention during the production of Evangelion, which led to him planning the anime adaptation--it was actually another friend who introduced him to the work. "It was really, really funny," he remarks; it simply had to be made into anime. Mitsuishi was also a fan of the manga. "If you do an Ebichu anime, I want to work on it too!" he recalls her saying. Needless to say, when the anime went into production, she was chosen to be Ebichu. "Her voice was really cute; she did a great job."
The same friend introduced Anno to the Kareshi Kanojo no Jijo ("His and Her Circumstances") manga. When we comment on its deft balance between comedy, personal struggle and drama, he replies, "I didn't really care much about the underlying struggle; the comedy was what was interesting. The story relied on comedy as its base, and it was very east to turn the atmosphere of the original into the anime."
His intensely personal anime magnum opus, and other career turning point, Evangelion, has returned to the spotlight with a hotly anticipated renewal version which has taken over half a year to remaster--the same amount of time he says they spent working on the original production back in 1995. "I guess that I was pretty lucky," he reflects with a laugh about the success of Eva.
"Now, seven years later, the show has been a hit, so they gave us a bit of money and time. Both the picture and sound are radically different. Different, but also the same as was present in the original." The extra audio channels courtesy of Dolby Digital 5.1 opened up new sonic avenues. "It's a remix, with us fixing parts where the sound wasn't good enough before," he comments. "We fixed over 100 parts of the picture." The remaster boasts sharper, jitter-free visuals with intensified colors; the enhanced audio is palpable as soon as the opening song fires up, when percussion elements and back-up vocals are introduced via the surround speakers in an enveloping effect. Action scenes give subwoofers a noticeably increased workout.
Creating anime
When asked if he has any advice for those wanting to make anime, he replies, "I recommend that you watch a lot of things besides anime. You can't watch just anime. It could be from Japan, or some other country. There's a tendency for anime fans to watch nothing but anime. But there's plenty of other stuff in the world besides just anime. There are plenty of [other kinds of] visuals."
o o o
Eva Lives
Get your first look at the live-action Evangelion movie.
In a huge announcement at May's Cannes Film Festival, ADV Films announced that they have acquired the rights to, and begun production on, a live-action feature film based upon the legendary GAINAX title Neon Genesis Evangelion. Visual design will be by Weta Workshop, Ltd., the New Zealand-based special effects studio whose work on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy has won three Academy Awards--and that's only on the first two movies!
One of the most influential titles in history, the 1995 series Neon Genesis Evangelion is a masterstroke of the genre, with its influence continuing to reverberate years after its original release. ADV Films' live action project hopes to bring the riveting story of a reluctant hero to Neon Genesis Evangelion fans new and old. In ADV Films' official press release, ADV President John Ledford described the ADV Films/Weta/GAINAX collaboration as "truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
Neon Genesis Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno is enthused about the project. "Evangelion was created with a very Japanese sensibility," said Anno. "In the live-action version, though, I suggested that the creators let their imaginations roam, unconstrained by the framework of the existing anime. There are some very surprising ideas in the new design plans--things I'd never even thought of before. I was amazed to encounter such different ways of thinking about the project. I'm very much looking forward to seeing the re-creation of the title."
Artists at Weta are deep into 2-D design concepts on the project; the accompanying images are the very first look!