Sitting Down with a Japanese Anime Producer | Trash Taste #152
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- Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Trash Taste Podcast. I'm your host for today, Joey. And as always, I'm with the boys. - Hello. - And rejoice anime fans because this is an anime episode. - Oh yeah, baby. - Because of the gentleman sitting next to me. Introduce yourself. - Hi, I am Yoshihiro Watanabe. I am one of the producer for "Trigon Stampede."

- Hell yeah. - Yeah. - It's so hype. - It's been a while since we had like an anime industry kind of guest on. - Oh really? - Yeah, I think the last one was like Kevin Penkin, right? - Yeah. - He's amazing. - Yeah, so we've had a animator on, we've had a composer on and now we have like an anime producer on as well. I hope I'm not missing anyone. Have I missed?

- Have I missed any other industries? - I think that's about it. - Anime. - Voice actor. - Voice actor, yeah. - We're like Thanos collecting. - Collecting all the industry people in anime. - The reason why you might be wondering, Trash Chase, why did it take so long for you guys to finally get a producer on the show? Well, it's because a lot of them don't speak English. - Yes, yes. - It's kind of an English show, but luckily Watanabe-san, you were, were you born?

Or you just raised an L? - I was born in Tokyo, but I grew up in LA. - Okay. - Okay, okay. - And you mentioned that you produced the new "Chai Gun" anime, "Chai Gun Stampede," but you've done a lot more than that. You're also the producer for "Beastars," right? - Yes, yes. - So high. - So how many shows have you worked on? Just like lay out your resume. - Like spit, yeah. - List it down, list it down. - I'm genuinely curious. - I mean, as a producer, well, I work for a studio, Orange. It's a CG-based company.

But from there it's my producer career started sort of. So Beastars, I worked on the Godzilla singular point. - Oh, okay. - Dragon stampede. I worked on some shorts. Before Orange I worked on some League of Legends commercials. - Oh, really? - Yeah, let's go. - Connor's like, now you're talking. - With like the really like intense 3D animated ones? - Yeah, there's one that really great, the hand drawn animated ones.

- Oh, okay, okay. - Those were so sick and they stopped doing them. - Yeah, before Arcane, that was like one of the best parts of League of Legends, I think. - It was really fun working on it. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Fuck yeah. - Yeah. So how long have you been in the industry? - The industry, that's been 2006 when I graduated from college, I've been since then, yeah. - Oh, damn. - Damn, so what's up? - I actually started from like a US studio

of US branch of Madhouse. - Okay. - They're working with Hollywood to adapt into live action at the time. - I didn't even know there was a US branch of Madhouse. - I'm learning that now as well. - Yeah, wow. - So, okay. So like, I've always been curious, right? You know, even as someone who,

you know, talks about a lot of anime. I've never truly understood what exactly the role of an anime producer is. So especially for our audience, do you want to explain what an anime producer does? Okay. So it gets really extensive. So I'm going to make it simple. It's anime producer is if you don't have anyone, you're the only one to do everything.

- Yeah, that's kind of what I figured. 'Cause it's like that, it would like, you know, the producer is the kind of the guy who just ends up having to do- - Fill in all the gaps. - Yeah. - The director obviously has his role and the actors are theirs and producers are like kind of everything in between, you gotta fall under doing. - So if I don't have a production assistant, I'm the one who's cleaning after everyone else's food trash and stuff. - Oh, okay. Wow, okay. - But yeah, my part of the job is finding the budget to hire people to do that. So basically creating a team.

- Finding the budget? - Yes. - What is that? That sounds like ominous. - I'm finding the budget. - I'm finding the budget.

- I mean, every two people to work. - Right, right, right, right. So like you work with Studio Orange right now, which I would say, I think it's like the premier studio for 3D animation. I mean, Studio Orange has made shows like "Beastars", "Trigun", "Hoseki no Kuni" as well, I believe as well. And I feel like Studio Orange is like leading the charge

to like make sure that 3D animation gets a good rep, especially from anime. - Definitely. - How much exposure do you get from the fan base in terms of their preconceptions with 3D anime? - I know, I mean, it's a very great honor that a lot of fans consider us that. From our perspective, we actually feel a little bit more different. We're just using it as a tool to, because all our CEO is animator. - Right.

And he wants to just fully express whatever he wants to. So we're just using that as a tool. - Okay, okay. - So was there ever like a conscious choice of like, this is why we're using 3D? Or was it just kind of like, it just kind of made sense? - So to be...

as a studio was found about one animator. Yeah. He was working for a jump among artists as an assistant back then. He found Pixar, he found toy story and he's only got this, what do you call it? Clarity. Yes. It's CG animation from that. Right.

- Oh, that's interesting because I know like a lot of, well, a lot of Japanese anime and the animation industry is based around 2D anime. So I think it's cool that there's been a lot of experimentation done with 3D animation in the past industry. And I feel like Studio Orange just ends up doing things a little bit differently. - Yeah, you guys kind of just like figured it out.

I guess is like the best way to put it. Like, cause you know, there's been like, even if you go back to like early 2000s, right? There were not full 3D anime, but you know, definitely like a lot of 3D artists working on like backgrounds or like, you know, action sequences and stuff like that. But there were so many shows in my opinion, where it's just, it was very obvious that there was, this is 3D and then everything else is in 2D, right? But there's something about the work of Studio Orange where it almost,

to the point where sometimes I'm watching it and I almost forget that it's actually 3D. - Yeah. - If that makes sense. So it was like, do you think there's like some kind of a- - What's your secret? - Yeah, what's the secret? - Tell us. - Like what makes Studio Orange just like stand out so much in the field of 3D animation? - Actually to any business partner, what I explained is that we're actually the hentai of anime industry. So-

- I need you to elaborate. - Please. - So hentai as in sense of Japanese term hentai. So not the adult hentai anime. - Like the weirdos, right? Yeah. - Okay. - So we're the psychopath, we're the maniacs. - Right. So like what, okay, that's, there's so much I wanna ask, but in terms of like, can you like elaborate on that? What do you do differently?

in terms of like everyone else right now in the industry, in your minds that makes CD Orange work stand out? - I mean, nowadays there's so many actually CD studios actually starting to rise. I mean, Dragon Ball Super amazing. Slam Dunk, that's blow my mind. - I haven't seen that. Have you seen that? - I saw bits and pieces of it but I haven't actually seen the full movie. It looks, yeah. I've only heard amazing things about it.

- Okay, 'cause yeah, every time I see like 3D, like anime, I'm not gonna lie, part of my brain is like, oh no. - Bro, I had that exact same reaction when I saw that Beastars was getting an anime, right? Because like compared to the manga, which is like, it's like Ipparu style is very sketchy and like very rough, like clearly just like, you know, rough around the edges, but in the best way possible.

And then when I heard that, oh, Beastars is getting anime and as a manga fan, I was like, this is great. I fucking love Beastars. And then the moment I saw the trailer, I was like, there was a part of me that was like, oh no, it's in 3D. But then when I saw the Studio Orange name, I was like, okay, you know what? There's a chance that it'll be good. And thankfully, fucking amazing. - Thank you. - Yeah, absolutely incredible.

I think it is really that we're literally focused on what is the essence of that. So Beastars, the drawing is really fantastic. But to recreate that in CG, it's possible. But in CG, there's a lot of tools that you need. So it's going to cost a lot of money to recreate that. So what is the essence? What can we pick out to the essence and whatever that's possible within our realm right now to adapt it? I think that's what we're really great at.

I'm curious, do you think in your opinion is 3D animation harder than 2D animation or is it just that they have different strengths rather than one being harder than the other? They definitely have different strengths. Right. Hand drawing, I mean, if you have a pencil and paper, you just start with whatever skill you have and imagination. 3D, you have to have a tool.

So it's all based on formulas and numbers and stuff. - Right, 'cause I feel like a lot of the preconception, especially with a lot of people who watch anime is that, we've seen, I guess the evolution of the use of 3D in anime. And a lot of the times they always felt like 3D was used maybe as like a tool

that meant you had to put less work in rather than- - To cut costs, right? - Yeah, to cut costs and to cut production time and stuff like that. But I think one thing that really sets Stewie Orange apart is that instead of using it as like kind of like a cost cutting technique, you kind of like,

use the tool to its fullest potential, which we see with a lot of your work. And I was wondering, did that philosophy like come right at the get-go or was it just, you know, your CEO being like, I wanna do 3D, this is the way forward. - I mean, it started out with that, I wanna do 3D. So his professional work, I don't know a lot of people who watches this, but there's a show called Zoids.

- Oh, I remember that. - Banger, banger show. - Oh my God. - Banger show. - Yeah. - Hell yeah. - I've never seen Zoids. - It's awesome. - It's one of the first commercials. So basically it's reboot of Japan, Japanese anime. You know the reboot show?

- No, it was on British TV at a point like ITV. - Oh, with that one? - Yeah. - With anime? - Yeah. - No, no, no. I mean, in US cartoon, we had reboot as existence. In Japan, Zoids was equivalent to a reboot. - Oh, okay. - Yeah. So what, like, I'm curious, what is your opinion of the evolution of like the use of 3D in anime from like the past like decade or so? Because we see it quite a lot more often now.

evolution that's a hard question yeah um i think really what japan needed was the budget time to really grow i mean hollywood had twice or not twice i mean digits different a budget yeah yeah and everything was english so cg software was all primarily english right right oh yeah japan needed to adapt to that

So we started off later than the- - You gotta learn the English first before you can even start modeling, right? Yeah. - Yeah, I mean, our CEO bought this 30K software back then and his manual was all English. So he's like doing dictionary and stuff. - Oh shit. - Oh my God.

- Okay, yeah, that'll take a while. - Yeah, 'cause I remember like growing back, going back to like growing up in anime in like the mid 2000s, I remember like, was it like Studio Gonzo or something that used a lot of 3D? - Also Go Hands as well. - Oh, Go Hands as well. Gonzo did like Gantz. They did Gankutsu as well. And they had like the 3D back then was let's say very different

from what it looks like now and just seeing the progression of 3D. People will still always complain about 3D, but I feel like now is getting to the point where it's becoming a lot less noticeable, which I think is the big thing.

Would you say a lot of that is just the industry kind of like learning the software properly and seeing how it's like, knowing how to use it properly? - Yeah, I think overall and throughout the entire industry, it's starting to reach that point, the breaking point. - Right. - Everything is starting to evolve. - Right, what do you think is like the secret, like to making something that, to integrating 3D into anime?

because I feel like Studio Orange do the best. - Yeah, like again, it was that, like as I was saying with Beastars, it's like, it's almost, you know it's 3D, but there's a feeling and I don't know if it's like the movement or the coloring, the shading, whatever it might be that just makes it,

it makes you forget it's 3D. And I think that's the best 3D in anime where it's like, it doesn't, there isn't this like weird thought in the back of your head of I'm watching a 3D anime. I'm just watching a good anime, right? - 60 FPS, isn't it? - 60 FPS anime. Who would have thought? - Better get a bro graphics card. - Yeah, right?

I'm curious, how did you, 'cause you mentioned the madhouse thing, but how did you even get started in getting to anything? 'Cause I, we're coming out here to talk about 3D, but I don't even know anything about, I guess your background or how- - Yeah, how do you get started in the anime industry to the point where you can rise to produce a little?

Actually, I started in a weird position. So I was just fooling around in LA and I actually volunteered for an expo as an interpreter. Oh, wow. Seriously? Okay. I met the producer, Mario Masao, the founder of Madhouse then. Oh, my God. I was actually supposed to, after college, go to Sega. Yeah. But he's like, we're starting a studio here. You should join us. I'm like, wait, wait, how did that happen? Wait, hold on. Hold on.

- I feel like you're glossing over still a lot of, no one's just like, "Hey man, cool that interpreting you did." - We get people at conventions being like, "Yeah, I really wanna work for Trash Taste." We're not just gonna be like, "Well, come on in." It's not that easy, right? So it's like- - Or was it that easy? - Or was it that easy? - No, no, I mean,

- He, Maruyama has a really keen eye on like looking at people. - Right. - Like he grew up his entire career after his Go-Samo and that level mastery creates a lot of crazy people. And they really, really have keen eyes. - Yeah. How long did you live in LA? - I mean, I grew up in LA. So from six to yeah, after college. - Oh, damn. - Oh, wow. - Okay. - So he's like, "Hey, come work for me."

moved to Tokyo and you're just like, all right. - Well, it was actually the first to come to the LA office. - Oh, right, of course. - So I started working at the LA office. A month later, he calls me up. "You should move to Tokyo." I'm like, "Okay, that sounds really exciting. When do I do this?" "Next week." I'm like, "No." - He gave you one week? - Oh my God. - Jesus Christ. - Why was there like a project that desperately needed you? - No, no, no, no. - He's just like, "I'm just gonna fuck with this kid right now." - He won't do it.

- He's testing my determination. - The real ones will do it. - This only happens in Japan. This is like a Japanese mindset of like, we have to test the determination. We have to test their willingness. - He's like Yoda, but I mean.

- Oh, okay. - He founded a studio Mapper as well. - Well Mapper seems to just do everything now. - Yeah, Mapper seems to be getting every IP under the sun. - Okay, well then that's pretty good. - So what job were you doing at Madhouse? - So I started out as assistant producer for the live action part of the,

- Okay. - Process. - Right, right. - So then there was a project that we're working with Japan. The Bochowskis were actually producers at the time. - Matrix? - Yeah. - Oh wow. - So they're doing, wanted to show with Madhouse. So that's why. - I thought I heard about this. - Damn, okay.

- I didn't know this. - We're not talking about "Animatrix", right? - No, no. - Something else. - After that, yeah. There's a comic they do, they produce called "Sharlin Cowboy" by Jeff Darrow. And they wanted to adapt that into anime. - Oh, wow. - Then I flew over to Japan. - Did I ever get released? - Nah. - I was like, I feel like I would have heard of this. - That would have been amazing.

- I'm curious then, like how many projects end up getting canceled then? Because that's obviously like one that- - What's the ratio to- - Yeah.

There wasn't, in the anime industry, there's not too many projects that get cancelled after it launches. Right, okay. But yeah, mine was a rare case. It was an international production, Hollywood's involved, and a lot of the, what do you call it, the bank wasn't uneasy at the time. Right, right, right. I'm curious, so you said you just turned up in Japan. Did he tell you what you were going to do a week later in Japan, or was it just like, we'll figure it out?

- So you just turned up? - He wanted me to be the line producer for this show. I'm like, how am I gonna be a line producer without any kind of experience? - What does a line producer have curiosity? - So line producer is you manage entire production under a producer to make everything work. - So basically you're the producer. - Yeah. - Jesus Christ. - So the producer tells you what to do and then you guys should, you do it. Man, this other guy sounds like he's got the way better job. - And then, I mean, he says that, but it's not that he means it.

- I swear every industry guest we've had on has had like the weirdest journey. - You're talking about it so nonchalantly. - Yeah. - That's why I'm confused. So you get here and he's like, "Be a line producer." Are you like, "Sure?" Or is it kind of like, "Oh, I mean, okay." - No, I mean, I have no fucking clue how am I gonna do that.

- But you still said yes? - Yes. - I mean, I'm giving you a chance. - You have to say yes. Obviously I know that, but you're like, all right, oh, okay. And then I guess I assumed that they must've been happy with your work 'cause they kept giving you work? - No, so actually my career at Math House was a wreck 'cause I actually didn't know, understand what really, what kind of termination was required to be in anime production.

- Right, right, right. - So I actually call myself as a piece of shit back then. - And now look where you are. Started from the bottom, now we're here. - I mean, all the team, the friends that made back then, that's actually now at Orange. So my fellow producer is originally from Madhouse, two of them. - So what's the timeline looking like? So you moved to Japan. How long is it then from being involved with this show and being a line producer to then

kind of getting the opportunity to work with Studio Orange. Like what's that timeline? - So I graduated college 2006. I went into Madhouse then. So 2012, I left Madhouse. I actually kind of got depressed with the state of the industry and I kind of left the industry and went into venture companies and that was a whole new mistake.

I experienced two venture companies and two of them exploded. I'm tired of these crappy businesses. I'm going to go venture capital. And then you went from venture capital back into anime, I guess. Someone who I knew at PA Works was very kind enough to say that my perspective is very interesting, so why don't you work for us?

So I spent a couple of days, a couple of years there and then went to Orange. - Okay. - PA works, what have they produced? - That's a studio. They've produced- - "Sherabako", "Hanasaku Iroha". - "Essential Family". - "Naginoshikara". - Yeah, sorry. Yeah, I don't know shit. - Studios don't mean anything to me. I'm like boneless. I don't know what you're talking about.

- So I'm curious, what anime did you grow up with? What are some of your favorite anime that I guess- - Yeah, what was the anime that I guess inspired you to go into that field? - I mean, definitely Slayers. - Oh, wow. - Banger. - Trigun, definitely. - Oh, hell yeah, hell yeah. - Hellsing. - Hellsing was great.

- Oh, those are some old- - That's three bangers right there. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - So you said you were a fan of Trigun. How was it getting the job to readapt Trigun? - So I was actually never expecting to work on Trigun. So I was actually, I came in later into the project. So my friend, my partner and friend, Producer Waki was the one who founded the project and started.

But first when I opened the book, I mean, I was like everyone else. I'm like, what the fuck are you guys doing? - It's like don't touch a classic, please. - There must've been some kind of trepidation there where you hear like you're readapting it. Like the anime was pretty good. Kind of like a bit of like, I don't know if this is gonna work.

i mean when i've i mean the more information i knew about the entire picture um i was more comfortable with it right right yeah right i mean as a um as a first um project that how it started was that it was the producers went naito the original creator tried himself and saying that we want to make trigon yeah but naito was like well

I would love you guys to expand on it, not adapt it again. Right. Yeah. It's already been adapted. Yeah. Yeah. What was like the philosophy when it came to readapting a show that a lot of people held dear to their hearts? Because there must've been a lot of pressure on you guys to get this right. I mean, we're all from, I mean, even the director himself, we have kind of linked, you know,

Link lineage to Trigon. So the director's master was the Trigon's director. The original Trigon. Oh, wow. Okay. So all of us have very special feelings to the 98 Trigon. Yeah. It's like, I will overpass you, master. Look at me. Yes. As an ambition, we definitely had that. Oh, yeah, for sure. But as a work, we never intentionally rewrite everyone's precious work.

but to work along with it. - Oh, I mean, it was very different from the original as well in a lot of aspects, I think. So I think it was really good. - It was very different, but I feel like it was in a good way because I've seen enough remakes that just try to redo everything like step by step.

in like modern animation. And I really appreciated that you guys went a completely different direction while I think keeping the core of Trigon. - Yeah. - You kept the vibe. - I think anime has had a bit more success with remakes in general than other mediums. I mean like Hunter x Hunter and Fullmetal Alchemist, but I mean, when you compare it to like how then recently they announced that they're remaking Moana in live action. - Oh yeah. - Do you ever think, man,

- As a producer or a creator, is there ever a concern where you're like, "Is there ever gonna be too many remakes? "Or are we gonna be making too many of these?" I always just wonder about that when you're working on a remake. You're like, "Is this a good idea?" I don't know. - Yeah, I feel anime doesn't have as much of a problem that Hollywood remakes have been going through, especially Disney remakes and stuff like that. Just because I think we've learned from the past that, you know,

sometimes the remakes aren't really worth it. And I feel like the most successful remakes are the ones where, at least in the anime world, are the ones where it took the original vibe and the concept and just gave us something completely different. Like the reason why like the Fruits Basket remake was so successful is because it did exactly that. It took kind of an incomplete story from the anime

and just kind of took all of the parts that were wrong with it and just improved upon it without changing the vibe. And it ended up being an amazing remake. - I feel like Full Metal Brother, Full Metal Brother? - Full Metal Brotherhood? - Full Metal... - Full Metal Alchemist. - I've watched Full Metal Alchemist. - Yeah, clearly.

- I've seen "Fullmetal Brotherhood." - "Fullmetal Brother Alchemist." - I feel like after that, just like there was a whole wave of just like- - Hunter was like, the remake is so good. - Oh yeah. - "JoJo" is technically a remake. - Yeah, I guess so, I guess so, yeah. - Okay, I want to know, without obviously spoiling anything that you're working on now, what goes into the decision making of what gets a season two and what doesn't get a season two? As an anime producer, you probably have the most

about this. - I mean, we get a lot of requests to make season two, of course. - Yeah. - But I mean, first we have to give in the choice to make season two. - Okay. - I mean, we have clients. - Yeah. - So is the client gonna give us a choice to make season two? - Right, right, right. - I mean, so far, once we're given a choice, we always said yes so far.

- Yeah. - Okay. - But other projects we haven't done is that we don't have the choice to say it yet. - Right. - I mean, maybe one day it'll come by, but. - Yeah, 'cause it's always so weird as an anime viewer, you see some of the things that are on like their fifth season and then some fan favorite shows never go past like season one. And I'm like, this makes no sense to me. - AKA date alive and no game no life. - This episode is sponsored by ExpressVPN. Going online without ExpressVPN is like not having a case on your phone.

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the business model is a very similar way but people involved are all different so it's really hard to say what's happening I mean it could be the original creator it could be how the business producers are or it could be the studio or there's completely other reasons

- So the anime studio only gets involved after everything else has already been approved or does Studio Orange get to be at the seat when shows are being pitched for like, not even like a season two, but just to be made in the first place. - Do you guys get to like negotiate being like, we personally really wanna see a season two of this, what do you think kind of thing?

It depends on project to project. Orange, because we're CG based, we have a lot of limitations. So like shows involves a hundred characters. We can't do it because that means equals a lot of budget. Right. The business model currently doesn't support that kind of budget. So there's no way we can get that budget. So why does increasing the characters increase the budget? So to make one character involves making a CG model. Yeah. Which costs a lot of money. So making hundreds of that is equals times that. Oh.

- Oh, okay. - And that's why you end up with the CG crowds where all the characters just are the same model because it's a lot cheaper, right?

And same movement as well. Yeah, same movement. Yeah, exactly. But by that logic, when we see some 3D in anime, in 2D anime, surely it would be more expensive than to produce a model and then animate that model just for like one scene in anime. Or is there some kind of cost-cutting method that makes more sense for that? So in our case, I can't speak for others. But in Orange's case, that's why we use still hand-drawn

So in V-Stars, if you notice, there's a lot of hand-drawn characters. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - One scene only characters. - Okay. - That's, yeah, I mean, how much do you put into like,

let's say you, let's say you're given a series, right? And you still want to like hand draw some scenes. How do you choose which scenes you want to like hand draw versus which scenes you want to like keep completely in 3d? It's totally depends on what can we do in 3d, right? So if the 3d is going to explode into 3000 pieces, um,

Then in that case, our VFX team is very excellent. So they'll say they could do it. Okay. But if it's going to, let's say, split into 100 characters, then our animation team says that we can't do that. Oh, okay. So how big is your team in terms of like your, let's say, 2D animation kind of like specialty? We currently have about over 100 employees. So every year we have about...

20 employees trying to extend the studio. We think that's the limit of how we could train people. - Right, okay, okay. And I guess like you, I guess I'd like to know more about, you know, you have your own like journey into the anime industry, but

- If say someone's watching this right now and they were interested into getting into the anime industry, maybe as like a producer or any other kind of role, what is like, now that you've been here for like 10 odd years, what's your like advice to people who actually want to get into the animation industry?

- Yeah, it totally depends what you want to do in this industry. If you want to be an animator, then just start drawing and then if you haven't drawn, start drawing and just apply to any studio. We have a lot of shortages in this industry. So I can't say speak for other studios, so I can't say for their working condition.

but I mean, please find a good working condition partner to work with. - Okay, okay. I guess I wanna bring things back to Trigon because that was, I just finished watching that like two, no, like three weeks ago. - I finished watching it yesterday. - Thank you. - Hands up. - That's fresh in my mind. - Oh, it was insane. You mentioned,

that the author had a big hand in the production of this. Is that normal for like anime adaptations? Not normally. I mean, normally the author is focused on drawing their manga. So people involved, everyone involved want to have that author keep on doing that. Yeah. So they might just review certain key points of the production. Right.

And even in Dragon's Den Beat, actually, Naito didn't review every single details. Right. But he reviewed the core part that really mattered. Right. Right. What is that core part? So to drink and party hard, to understand each other as much as possible at the start of starting, even before starting anything. You have to go out drinking and eating together? Yeah. So basically talking about what movies do you like.

What kind of designs do you like? - Oh wow. - Basically the whole entire question was, who are you? And what did you mean to design this? Was the entire question of having- - So kind of getting into the psyche of the author, right? - Yes. - Yeah. Okay. That's a pretty cool method actually. Rather than like doing a boring business meeting of being like, all right, so can you check to make sure that Vash's character design and everything and the things he says is cool. Then rather than just being like, there,

- Yeah, that character likes beer as well. You know, when I was drunk as shit and I was writing this character. - This is how I felt, yeah. I think that's a great way of doing it because it's like, obviously you wanna be able to get into the head of the original creator as much as possible to make sure that you don't have to keep like going back and forth with them, right? To be like, is this correct? Is this correct? So.

I mean, like how long is that process usually? Like when the ball gets rolling, it's like, okay, we're doing new Trigon. We wanna make sure it's to the likeness of what the author envisioned. So like how long is that, I guess, just like incubation process of making sure that everyone's on the same wavelength?

- Yeah, Trigon actually took five years too. - Holy fuck. - Five years? - Okay, I was expecting like couple of months or a year at most. - Wait, wait, can you break down what those five years are? - So that first year was definitely the intensive part. Talking to Naito, how do we understand you? - Drinking. - Yeah, drinking.

One year of drinks before we're happy to proceed to the next. I mean, it's not all drinks. Just hanging out and chatting. But yeah, from there it started. Then how do we create this world? So Naito's world is in the manga frame itself. We can't ask him to just draw the entire what's not in the manga. Yeah. Because he's working on Kekaisensen. I mean, that's precious to him as well. Yeah, right, right. So then...

how can we make something precious as equivalent or try to at least match the preciousness of what he created. So we hired a actual sci-fi author to write down the entire history for 150 years of history

from this before the crash to right after the crash oh wow so you you just have the entire timeline of the world just laid out oh wow okay and like from there you kind of like built up from that like one timeline so from there um we decided what to keep what not to keep what can we describe what can we not describe okay yeah how much of this timeline

was not in the show i'm curious in terms of like percentage percentage is difficult but i mean was it like the majority there's a lot of hundreds of pages before the crash so a lot of it that's not included there i don't know what the crash is should i know what that is so in 98 dragon it's been so long since i watched it yeah yeah um so it is okay how

- How do we explain without spoiling? - Okay, wait. - Don't spoil me. - Yeah, okay. - Even though I've already seen the original "Trigun." - Yeah. - Well, it was in the original "Trigun" anime. - Yeah, I forgot. It's been so long. - So in the original "Trigun," even though it's kind of like a Western, right? It's obviously not set on earth, right? And so humanity has found a way there. And basically it turns into kind of like a sci-fi aspect. - Yeah, I remember that part. I remember aliens and I don't remember why.

- Because I feel it's not until like the last, like four or five episodes. - I was like, what? I was like, okay, but cool cross go. - And then Vasco super saiyan. - 'Cause I feel like a lot of the sci-fi aspects in the original Trigon, that was almost not like,

one of the core aspects of the show. It definitely came in like halfway through, but I feel like "Trigun Stampede", the first big difference I noticed was you were like from episode one, this is a sci-fi show. - Way more sci-fi. - We are leaning into that right now. Was it part of the creative decision to kind of like focus more on the sci-fi aspects and focus on like the world building? - Yeah, the director, one of his specialties is his question,

in designing everything. It's where are you from? Where are you going? So in Trigon, they had to know where these characters are coming from and what their objective is and where they're going to the end. Oh, okay. So going back to the timeline, how much...

how much didn't you put in the show? How much did you actually show out of everything that you, all this work that you did before in terms of building this world? - Well, my partner says that we could make like five more shows. - Oh my God. - I feel like you could release that sci-fi book as like an episode zero, you know, like a light novel or some kind. 'Cause like you could definitely feel

- You know, there were definitely in the way that the story was structured when you get to know more about the crash and the history behind the crash, there's definitely a lot of vital information there that is important to the present day of whatever episode you're watching, which, you know, obviously is great because it gets you way more invested into the storytelling. But there were also a lot of details where I'm like, okay, but I kind of want to know a little bit more about this.

'cause that would just get me even further invested. But obviously there's a 12 episode time limit, right? So you can't fucking go all out with it. Like, you know, the "Dune" movie did the exact same thing where it's like, I'll give you, we'll sprinkle in some like hints of backstory. - Why is it always 12 or 24 episodes? - That's how the TV structured.

broadcasts in Japan. - Oh, damn it. Okay, I was like, damn, there's gotta be a cool reason. Just TV contracts, okay. - All right. - But some of them are good direct to streaming and don't even air on TV in Japan. But they still keep that 24 or 12. - No, Netflix doesn't.

- You think about "Edge Runners", that was 10 episodes. - I guess so, yeah. But then even on Netflix, a lot of the anime do still go at 12 or- - And then, you know, if you go to like OVA, stuff like that, like "Fully Coolie" was only six episodes. - "Castlevania" started off as four episodes, but then eight episodes. So, I mean, I feel like it's a difference between like, let's say a Netflix original produced anime and something that Netflix just bought out, which- - That's like a big-

- It's a big chunk though to decide in one go. Like what if you have like 16 episodes where it's like, ah yeah. Do we just trim it down or do we try and find stuff to fluff it up? - I mean, that's the entire dilemma every single anime producer feels. - It's either too quick or way too slow. - Yeah, so if it's based on manga, it could be...

Ideally 16 episodes, but they can only use 12. So what do they do? - Yeah, okay. So like, I have so many questions, but I guess go into the manga thing. So you have a manga you have to adapt. Like let's say "Trigun" or "Beastars".

how do you position it so that the season ends on like a banger? On like what feels like a season ending? And what if there's no like natural breaking point? What's the creative process around condensing everything into 12 episodes?

So in case of Beastars and even Trigon, what we do is the same. We actually take everything apart first. Right. And we look at what is the tempo of the film? What is the tempo of the story? Right. And how can we keep everything but still...

some part we had to cut it out. - Right, right. So basically everything is kind of like you, everything has to be planned around like kind of like a self-contained story arc is what I'm getting. All right, so going back to Trigon, you have your timeline. What comes next after the timeline?

So timeline, as we're developing timeline, we're developing concept arts. So then it comes into what ideas can emerge from the storyline visually. So, I mean, we hired, we were working with Tajima Koji. He's the guy behind like who designed the new Venom and the live action Venom. Okay. And so he's excellent. He's amazing. So each day he draws dozens of images and,

And he drew 400 images for Trident. - Just concept art. - Yeah, concept art.

- I mean, I've seen a lot of bookstores in Japan where they just sell straight up books filled with these concept arts. And it's literally like big enough for a lot of series to just fill an entire book. And you know, some of these images you never see in the show. It's just like to get a vibe or a feel of this is what the world and story and characters is gonna be like, yeah. - Okay, so 400, we used it some for promotion, but most of the design is entirely different.

because the idea is what really matters there. - So at this point, how many years into production are you in? - So this is still the first year. - Still the first year. Has the script been written yet? - No. - Okay, okay, okay. So you have your concept art and then I guess you kind of like

narrow down what kind of vibe. - Yeah, so we made the entire foundation into the year. Then from the foundation, we started writing the script. - Okay, okay, okay. At this point was character design like a thing or? - No, design has a purpose. - Right, right, right. - Like industrial design always has a purpose, was the concept for Trident. So it's not that I like the style and design, I don't like the design.

why are you designed that way? - Like does it work in the world that it's set in? - So it's like, can you break down what concept art kind of like is? What is it that is being drawn and what kind of like thing is being built on? - So for example, like create, it's really hard to describe without the concept art in front of me. Like a feeling. - Yeah, like a feeling? - Yeah, I mean,

What inspired me? It's something definitely, that concept art, how much can we inspire the script writer, the director, the designer? Right. To give more of a picture of the world. Yes. Kind of flesh it out.

- Yeah, I mean, I'm fucking stupid. If I don't see a picture of something, I'm like, I can't imagine that. Like to me, that doesn't mean anything. - I'm a visual learner. - Like I'm just straight up dumb. I'm not a visual learner. Like if I don't get a picture, I'm like, what am I reading here? - So it sounds like the concept art is like, for more of the better terms, is like a vibe check, right? To just be like, here is the general overarching idea

feel and vibe of the world. And then from there you kind of start honing into the details as you go into like character design and all that kind of stuff. - Is that concept art? - Yeah, that's concept art. - Oh, okay. - So in the original "Trigun" anime, it was designed as Western. So there's, it's Western inspired. So there's what made, things made out of wood. But if we're taking a sci-fi approach,

This is a desert planet. There's no plants. There's no kind of plants. So if civilization, human civilization brought in a crashed ship, there's no wood used on the ship. So where does wood come? So it doesn't come from anywhere.

- I've never thought about that. - So in this new Trigon Stampede, we don't have any wood architecture unless it's this one origin called plants. It's not same as plants of the trees, but. - Right. I never thought about that in checkmate Trigon. - Oh my God. - 'Cause when you see like the towns and cities in Trigon, it just,

I can't explain it. It just feels like, yeah, that could be real. - Sometimes you just watch a show where the world just makes sense on a subconscious level. Do you know what I mean? Where sometimes you watch a show or play a game and you're like, I don't know why this world operates this way. And you can't really,

you can't really say why it doesn't make sense. Just something just feels wrong. But one thing I got from watching "Trigun Stampede" is that it feels like a world that just exists. - Yeah, like you don't stop to question it. - You don't stop to question it. It's not like every detail with spelled out, but it feels like your brain just accepts it on a subconscious level. And I guess I'm like kind of figuring out why that is now. - I mean, we figured out, we thought about,

how's the population ratio of these craft ship? Where did they focus on? So the Asian population focuses on here, other population focus here. How did these people communicate? So the trade route should be focused like that. So those are all things we thought about. - How deeply did you go into like these little details in the book? - Macroeconomics. - Yeah, macroeconomics. - I mean, the book is like this big. - Oh my God.

- Oh my God. - Yeah, you're basically like recreating a civilization from scratch. - Yeah. - That's wild. - I thought that probably game creators are probably doing like this. - Oh yeah, for sure. - Yeah, you play Destiny and you're like, go online to download the 19 page PDF to find out why there's rockets blowing. You're like, what the fuck? I don't wanna do that. - It's like some Lord of the Rings shit. - Why don't you guys explain stuff to me? What the hell am I?

- So this was all done within like the first year. - I mean, that took, I mean, we're starting to go into the later years too as well. - Okay. - So everything is going in parallels. - Right, so everything is going in parallel. So at which point did like the script start being written and like, let's say the character designs start being like finalized? - After the first year we started going to designs and the script writing. - Right. - But to finalize that we took three years, so.

Oh shit. Okay. Is it, is in your experience, is this like normal for an anime production or was this just, okay. I mean, orange itself, um, is, uh,

for anime production. We take three years where industry standards like two. - Yeah, that's what I thought as well. - Isn't that crazy to think like you say three years very casually, but that's the time that Trash Taste has been around. Isn't that wild to think about? - You guys could have a Trash Taste anime. - If we started working on episode one, it would be done right about now.

- That's crazy. - Oh my God. Yeah, it's interesting that you had so much concept art done because I kind of just assumed that because there was like preexisting material, like manga, like a manga there, that there wouldn't be, there wouldn't need to be this much work to be done in pre-production. - I mean, there's also a previous anime as well, right? - And a previous anime as well. But I guess,

I guess this is like the work that you don't really think about or you don't really see. - I'm curious 'cause you mentioned earlier as, you know, do your job to find the money to fuel the anime. Surely when the show takes five years, that's a lot more money that we gotta get a hold of. How do you kind of, I mean, how do you convince people to be like, "It'll make enough money, trust me, it'll work." What's that whole, 'cause I'm just so interested about the financials of it all.

it seems like such a kind of an industry that doesn't have a lot of money but somehow it always just turns up and it's like we'll figure it out so a lot of Japan is not really legal culture so it's a lot about trust yeah yeah

So, I mean, Orange luckily had a track record of making amazing shows. Yeah, right. Animation, at least. So we basically were building on that trust, working on that trust. Right. Constantly just saying that it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. But me at home... Just take a word for it. Don't worry about it. And so as a... Because I don't know how any of this works. You know, as a studio that actually makes the show, how is it the studio actually makes money from these shows? You know, what kind of...

revenue, ways of getting revenue is that for the studios? It depends on from, it really depends on widely on how each show is. For Orange, the primary is we're work for hire. So we get hired by a client to do one show. Okay, okay.

That makes way more sense. I thought it was like, okay, we guys, we gotta sell this many REM figures or we're going broke this year. - All right, crack open the savings account, boys. - Everyone pitching $1,000. - All right, boys, we're making a REM spinoff. We gotta get those figure sales up, guys. - I always wondered how, 'cause it seemed like it was a lot of different rights holders and a lot of different parties at play. And it seemed like a really complicated mess of,

of who gets what money and why there's so many different things and wait, why is Rem on a Pachinko machine? What the hell? It's like a bunch of different things going on. It always seems...

Just kind of like a, yeah, trust me. Trust me, it'll be fine. That approach a lot of the time. So how long does it take to produce a single episode of anime? Let's say like a single 20 minute episode of anime. In your experience, how long does that take to make? So a normal production would say like three months, but that's not for Orange normal production. In Orange's case, we actually make about three episodes at once. And then find what's the quality line

And then based off of there, make the rest other episodes. Right. So that first three episodes is a benchmark maker. What do you mean by the quality line? I mean, so like this is the quality benchmark that we're trying to set.

- Well, you set yourself a really high bar. - I've seen that first episode of "Try Again". - So you go like a- - You should hear me talking to my boss. - I get it, I get it. - I'm like, please don't set it so high. Please don't set it so high. - Oh, so you could be like, guys, pop the brakes on this one. Let's make this shittier. We gotta make 50 goddamn episodes of this. We gotta slow down. - I just like to think like- - You don't know how many times for every single project I say,

We are doing better than any other show.

- So your job is to be like, guys, make it worse. Please stop this. - I just like to imagine like episode one just like airs for everyone in the studio to watch. Everyone's just sweating. They're like, oh fuck, we gotta top this. - Yeah, it does feel like when your older brother is like smart, you're like, fuck sake, man, really? - Stop. - Now I look worse. - Be dumb. - I remember like "Trigon Stampede" episode one, it opens on a scene where it's like,

It's like the spaceship is like exploding and you see Vash and Nize like flying out. - Oh, just like whizzing. - Yeah, like whizzing around. And I remember watching that, I was like, "God damn." I suppose you've watched that and you're like, "We got 12 episodes of this? "That we gotta keep up to?" - That was okay. That was okay. When I saw the 12 episode, when they were doing it, I'm like,

I messaged everyone in the company. I'm like, how are we doing this?

It's like, we're fucked boys. - I've noticed now because there is so much anime being made, it's like more competitive than ever in terms of like shows that you got to compete with. There's a lot more pressure to make like episode one, a standout episode to get people's attention. Do you have that thought mindset going into like producing an anime that you have to make episode one stick or land as soon as possible? Or is that something that it's not really thought about?

I mean, definitely. It's a weekly show, so the first episode really matters. Right. Also, in our mind, based on our successful experience with Land Illustrious, is that first three episodes really matter. The three-episode rule! Oh, my God! It's coming! They use it in the industry, boys! It's coming! Oh, my God!

- Oh my God. - For three episode role. - Oh my God. - There's actually a reason for that as well. The "Tragon Stampede" was based on a movie, the three part movie, I don't know the English name. - Trilogy? - No, no, no. How it's act one, act two, act three. - Oh yeah, three acts, three act role. - So it was based on three act roles. So the first three episodes was the first act. - Right, right, right. - So from there it changes the tone again. - Right.

Would you say that Trigon was the hardest production you've been involved with? - Yes, every single production is always hard, but it just updates whatever. - Just gets harder and harder and harder, yeah. - How was working on Beastars compared to Trigon? - Say no more. - So Beastars, our animator took one week to do one shot. And Dragon Stampede took three weeks to do one shot.

- God damn. - Well, I mean, I guess, you know, if you have to animate clothes on characters in "Trigun" versus not many clothes. - Oh, the face. - Yeah, because like I noticed, I'm not sure if this was always the case, but I definitely noticed in "Trigun" that you guys lip synced.

the audio, which I'm like, you're not using like the three frames of the mouth like that, which I'm used to. You're actually like going frame by frame and animating the facial expressions as well, which is one thing that like really stood out to me. - Yeah. - So going to Beastars then, how was that pre-production? Was there as much time put into, let's say the world building and the vibe?

going into that production? - Beastars case, we never, I mean, the original intention for our producing is that we love Beastars. And the whole producing team was that the first page was that let's adapt this as it is to animation. So it wasn't that as hard as that. - Okay. - So was Itagaki sensei like involved as much as like Naito sensei was with Beastars or? - In different ways. So in her case,

She wasn't actually used to anime. She wasn't really familiar first about anime. Right. So she was a lot more familiar with experience of film. Oh. So for us, our challenge was can we...

to her and it's something passable to her. - That explains so much. - That's crazy to think that you would just, like the whole way the show is made is like just to kind of, I guess, please one person essentially. That's so odd to think. - It's also odd to think that she was never into anime considering she's the daughter of fucking the creator of Baki. - Yeah. - You'd think you'd be into it, but- - Because Baki wasn't really an anime for a long time, right? - I guess so.

- That was the 90s Scrapplebucky anime, but. - Yeah. Well, I think that's part of the big reason why like, you know, Beastars just,

I don't know, something about the vibe just didn't feel like an anime. - It's very odd. - It makes so much sense because I feel unlike a lot of manga stories out there, the flow of Beastars definitely feels more like a live action film than a standard manga. - I'm just gonna say it's very weird. - Yeah. - It is weird. Is there ever a point where you guys are anime and then you're like, "What the fuck is this?"

You're like, "Oh my God, what are we animating?" - It's like, "Okay boys, I don't know how you tell you this, but we're gonna have to animate a rabbit having sex with a deer." - Is it like- - They're just like, "Okay." - You just go to the zoo, you're like, "All right, let's just watch the rabbits." Or you're like, "All right, boys, we're going to the strip club.

- We're going to research. We're gonna go on location research. - Now, we did go to a strip club. - I knew it, I knew it. - Guys, sorry. To be accurate, we went to a pole dancing club, not a strip club. - Okay. - You guys taking notes? - It's reference material. - It's research purposes. - It's because there's a pole dancing character. - I know, I know. I watched it and I was like, what am I watching? Season one, I could get away with saying I wasn't a furry, but season two,

It's just getting harder and harder to argue this. - Oh no, I went into the anime already a furry. Like I was already converted. - I just need to ask, why did you have to make Juno so hot? - Yeah, honestly? - Wait, what does that look? What does that look like? - Why did you have to make her so hot? - Every single character in that show is hot. - Oh no, okay. - Wait, wait, wait. - Okay, I will admit, "Legacy," also hot. But Juno...

- I don't know what it is about Juno that awoke something in me. 'Cause she, I think single handedly turned me into a furry. - I think there's something wrong with my brain. I can only envision the deer is called Stanley. I don't know why. - It's Louie. - Louie. I always think of him as Stanley in my head. - It would have been such a different anime if his name was Stanley. - Louie is also hot. - I just like, I remember that scene. I think it was like end of season one. - It was like gone, right?

- Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. - I'm just like, okay. - Why don't these just do that in real life? - Tell me you were raised by the man who made back you without challenging you. - It was just that scene where it was like Juno and Louis together.

Like she's just on top of him. I'm just like, I could feel neurons just firing at that ball. - This sounds weird to anyone who hasn't seen Beast. - I can only get so wrecked. - It could be a lot of less. What we do is that it's mo-capped. - Oh yeah. I was gonna go into that actually. So I assume that most 3D studios don't do mo-capped?

A lot of 3D studios do mocap, but they use it totally different way from us. So how do you guys use it as opposed to other 3D studios? So for us, it's only a reference. So for example, you know how Pixar animators, they act on camera and make their scene? Basically, we're just doing that in mocap. So all our animators are doing the motion capture. Oh, okay. How extensively is that used? Is that like every...

every scene or just uh every physically doable scene so it's just regular just talking like this right um our animators do it but if it's like dancing fighting martial art and stuff yeah we have higher professional people to do you have to hire like professional martial artists oh wow oh that's cool or professional motion capture yeah oh wow well how does that work so you they come into the studio one day and you kind of like okay this is

- Do you come up with the choreography or do you get them to come up with the fight choreography? - Usually we hire someone to come up with the choreography. - Right, right. So how does that read in a script versus how like what? - Seeing why this took five years. - Yeah, yeah. - Adding these steps on more than I, I thought it was just some dude just playing around with a model. - Just wiggling it around.

- What the hell is this? We hired people to act it out? - Yeah, so I'm super curious. So like, let's say in the script, there's a scene in "Trigun". Vash fights a baddie or something. How much detail is in the script that the choreographer has to work with to, I guess, make the action scene? - Action scene actually relies heavily more on storyboard.

So in the script, it could be just like one line at times. - Okay, okay. - I feel like, 'cause like, yeah, Vash is kind of, I feel a little bit different because a lot of his movements are just very animated, like to the point where it's almost like,

it's the kind of comedic like animated where it's like, oh, that's clearly the movements of a cartoon character or like an anime character, right? It's like a lot of movements where it's like a human couldn't possibly do that kind of movement, but it's believable because it's not a real actor you're looking at. - Yeah. - Kind of thing. So I feel that kind of movement would be super hard for like a mocap.

- Yeah, I mean, I feel like especially watching Vash's, a lot of his character is in his animation, especially when he's like pirouetting round bullets and all that kind of stuff.

So in terms of like storyboarding, I guess, going back to the timeline of like an anime being made. So you have the script and then does the storyboard come after that? And then- - Yeah, when the script's finalized, we start doing storyboard. - Right, right. - So in our case, we do something called pre-scoring after that.

So instead of recording, most anime in Japan record after when they start doing animation. But for us, we do recording before we start doing animation because we want to make all the pacing of the film before our anime is going. - Okay, I guess that explains the perfect lip syncing then. 'Cause I was like, that would have been hard as fuck to do. - Do you make a film to make a film? - Yes.

It's weird how to get better animation usually bring more human involvement in the animation. - Yeah. Basically our concept is that how can we use the experience, but instead of relying solely on people experience, how do we make that as a system? So if we could adapt that experience into a system first, then

next project, we could use that system as a foundation to gain more experience. - Right, right, okay. How many shows do you end up working on simultaneously? Is it only one at a time or do you have multiple shows that you're being worked on? - It depends on time to time, but usually two shows at a time for animation. For planning as a producer, I'm working five, six different shows right now. - Oh, wow. How do you just...

- I mean, I have some assistant producers or some projects I'm more emotionally involved in. - Right, right. - Investing in. - Is there... - It's like, I don't give a shit about this show too much, give it to the assistant. - No, every show to "Orange" matters. - Of course, of course. - We can't miss.

- That's why they're the goat. - I agree actually. - I agree. - It takes three years for us to develop a show. - Have you ever said no? To be like, I don't think we could do this or I don't know. - No, I mean, there's a lot of times where you say that. - Okay, okay. - Is it due to like personal reasoning or like more like a technical like limit

I mean, it's mostly technical. Right. So, I mean, if they were giving this certain manga and there's like a hundred, as I said, there are a hundred characters. Right. Right. We simply can't do this. Is there any like dream shows that you want to work on? Oh,

or that you would love for Orange to advance? - Is there a show where it's like, if Orange did this show, it would be a banger. - I'm working on this so I can't say it. - Oh, damn. - You can tell us after the show, man. We all know. - Damn. No, I'm excited because, yeah. - So when is the show ending? I just wanna know right now. - A question that is often asked nowadays is, you know, 'cause you do a lot of 3D animation,

And right now there's a massive conversation around like AI and all that stuff. Do you feel that there's any possibility in the future where it somehow helps make anime or helps the production aspect in any form? Or could it be seen as perhaps a detriment to the current model that 3D studios might have?

- I mean, there's many issues that revolve in AI. There's the morale issue, there's the legal issue, and I can't even specify which issue they have right now. - Yeah, it's a lot. - Many issues. - I mean, unless we're able to feel comfortable with that, we're not gonna utilize it as a tool. I mean, everything eventually is a tool for us. But without that issue solved, we can't really use it. - Yeah, 'cause like, what is the general vibe

around AI in like the Japanese animation industry right now. Cause we have a vibe from Twitter. - Twitter's vibe is always bad. - Yeah, that's the only thing I actually know because I don't interact with the rest of the industry anymore. - Oh, okay. - Cause to us it's about how can we make ourselves better? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - So, I mean, using other part of the industry is not really a reference. - Don't have enough time to care about the rest of the industry. It's like, we just need to make bangers, damn it.

It sounds selfish, but I mean, it's our problems that we're facing right now. Of course, yeah. How do I solve our problems, not other people's problems? No, definitely. Has this conversation cropped up in Studio Orange at all? Like the conversation of AI? We always have the conversation, but right now is not yet. Okay. Maybe in the future if things settle, but not yet.

- Yeah, I guess 'cause there's always like, you know, softwares that have like smart tools, right? Like there's some things that'll, you know, you can tell it, hey, I mean like in a weird way, I guess like fill on paint, right? - Yeah. - Fill the whole thing. It's like in between all, it's like, I guess there's always that line that's kind of difficult with some tools that make doing certain kinds of things and animation or whatever easier that would technically be Clash's AI, but on, I say it's morally using the whole take everyone's fucking input and then

- Blur something out. It's kind of like getting that balance of tools that are useful and made ethically between the whole, let's make an anime for me. - Yeah, it's like, to what point are you, is it morally right to automate the process? Where it's like, if it's too automated, then is it even,

- It's not a person making it. - It's also like how is that automation being done? What is it learning from? What is it maybe even stealing from, right? I guess that's the moral quandary of it all.

- I mean, right now, I mean, we develop our own tools. - Oh wow, really? - So I mean, not AI tools, just tools. - Yeah, absolutely. - So I mean, we have experience of 10, then we make them tool, then that will create us a equivalent of experience of three. So we haven't done off to our new grads, then use that, then they instantly start out from three. So that's our way of thinking. - Do you mind elaborating what tools that you have? - So I mean, one would be the Automorph Face.

So one thing is that CG and hand-drawn, the major difference is that CG is three-dimensional. Hand-drawn is not. It might look three-dimensional, but the comfort level doesn't have to be three-dimensional to create comfort. So a lot of manga is actually not three-dimensional. It looks realistic, but it's not three-dimensional. Yeah. Because I guess there's always the challenge of...

you know, having a 3D model is great, but making sure that it looks good on camera, I guess, which is a whole. - Two dimensional. - Which is a two dimensional thing. And you have to create a specific tool just for that. - So we have a tool called Automorph where we point the camera to a character and that model would just automatically warp. So it could just this side just completely warp this way to make sure that on the camera it looks really natural. So like sideways,

Manga characters will have two eyes where physically it's impossible because they're 90 degrees. Yeah. But in our automo, it automatically warped it so that. Oh.

- Oh shit, okay, okay. - So you're kind of playing around with, so you're morphing the face to play around with perspective to make it look more naturally, like I guess two dimensional, right? - You guys developed that in house? - In house. - Oh wow. - That's cool. - 'Cause as experience, we know how to do it by hand, but we're physically changing the model every single shot. - So it's like kind of like almost like presets a little bit. It's like, okay, if camera here,

- And warp the face around. - Yeah. - Have you seen the behind the scenes of like some of the JoJo openings? - I haven't actually, no. - Oh, because like there are some shots. - Those are 3D as well. - Yeah, those are 3D and there are some shots with some of like the poses and there's like been some screenshots of like what it looks like out of like the camera perspective. And like, I remember seeing one where I think it's like Joseph's hand was like just like warped like ridiculously when it was doing like one of the pose.

It looks so ridiculous when you just change the perspective just a little bit, but on camera, it looks really cool. - Yeah, I guess that's one thing I wanted to ask is like when you guys wanted to, obviously, you know, the main goal with Orange is to be like, all right, how do we make the 3D animation look as pristine and as comfortable for people who are more used to just watching 2D animation as possible?

When it came to that, like obviously there's been like past and different studios who have done 3D animation.

with varying success. Have you ever like gone to like look at some of the maybe the older shows that have used maybe a little more like primitive 3D to kind of like get a hint of like, okay, maybe if we work on this, then it won't end up like this show or like, do you use it as a reference to be like, okay, this is what not to do. So let's not do what they did in this show and instead try and fix that in our show.

- It's most case, like it's actually trial and error on their own thing. So we try it, start making it and it doesn't work, then we keep go back to the scratch board, do it again. - So you never look back at like old shows to be like, "That 3D sucks." - Not really. - Okay, that's good to know. - I mean, there's actually a lot of things to focus on. I mean, if other people are doing better, then it's more time, it's more better to use on analyzing that. - Right, right. - I find it really interesting you used the word comfort.

when watching animation. That seems, it kind of makes sense why you would say the word comfort, but it seems very unusual to describe animation as being comfortable, right? But I suppose when we talk about 3D where

often the major complaint is that it looks weird. - The uncanniness, yeah. - Yeah. - So what is it that, like why do some shows just not get that right? Like what is the main thing that is the common mistake that happens when we're talking about 3D animation? - 'Cause it's 3D. - Yeah. - Yeah, it's 3D. - Wait, why is that bad? I don't know. - I mean, they're trying to make it look something that's really not 3D. So that causes an uncomfortable.

So it's kind of like an uncanny valley effect. So it's a little bit different from the uncanny valley that Pixar and stuff ran into first. But since we're trying toon shade, then we run into a different uncanniness. What's toon shade? Toon shade is basically the cell look, the hand-drawn type of look that we do in 3D. Okay, so...

Do you specifically try to, I guess, emulate the anime style? Do you want your shows to be seen like a 2D show or kind of like something a bit different from...

- You like your typical 2D anime. - We start out, I mean, when we started doing animation, it's just whatever we able to do at the time. - Yeah, yeah. - We started as a work for hire for other hand-drawn studios. - Right. - So we're required to look something, create something that blends into their art style. So that's where we started out. - Yeah, because you guys worked, like co-worked on Black Bullet, right? - Mm-hmm. - Yeah, so like what was the main role of Studio Orange in that show?

I can't really remember. Was it like backgrounds and stuff? There should be some enemies, I think, that appear in Black Bullet that were CG. That was CG. Oh, okay. That was before my time, so sorry. Right. No, no. Okay. Okay.

Do you do less of that work, that kind of work now in terms of like working on other shows in terms of like 3D CG elements? And now do you mostly focus on your own stuff? Yeah. I mean, focusing on our own stuff was our dream. Okay. So we made it into that. But I mean, sometimes we have some open time. So in that time, we work for hire for other studios still. Was Hoseki Nakuni your first like fully Studio Orange producer? Okay.

Okay. How did that come about? Was that when you were working there? It was actually how the project started was before any producer existed at Orange. Oh, okay. It was the producer for Beastars and Trigun who wanted to do Land Lustrous at Orange. Right, right. And then my partner, Waki, was called in from Tsuruchizu who did

did like Hosoda Mamoru's movie. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yes. He's the first producer to exist in orange. Oh, okay. Okay. And I kind of like, it must've been, I guess daunting to be like, yeah, we're just going to do a 3d produce anime. Now we've never, never,

- Especially when like Hoseki no Kuni came out and I think it was at like the peak of the 3D anime equals bad stigma, right? And then all of a sudden you have a fully 3D anime Land of the Lustrous, which, you know, at the time had a very dedicated like manga fan base as well, right? - Yeah. - I'm sure like, did you guys like get any initial backlash when it first came out or were people like pleasantly surprised about it? - I don't think no one really expected anything until it came out. - Right.

- How did you convince the producers to be like, yeah, okay, trust us, trust us. We don't want anything to prove ourselves, but trust us. - Our resume is practically empty, but we can do it. - Actually, we did some character animation before "Land of the Lustrous", but not as a non-work for hire. - Did you have to like,

'Cause I guess like my, the first thing comes to mind is I remember like I saw a documentary of when Jurassic Park was being made. There was a conversation about whether we should do these dinosaurs in a stop motion or in 3D and the VFX company had to make like just a showcase of what they could do. Did Studio Orange need to do something similar as well going into it? - No, I mean, the firm start was that it was already decided that they wanted to do in 3D. They wanted to do "Landlustrious."

at Orange. So the producer's job is like figure it out. - We have this daunting task for you, figure your shit out. - Compared to, I mean, I guess 2D anime has something kind of similar where I imagine that with technology improving it makes it easier. Was there like big leaps at all in the past like since Land of the Lustrous that have kind of made it easier or?

made production smoother? - What we've done in the past is a lot easier because we put it into tools.

But because of that time that we have, we're challenging new stuff. It's never easy for any shows. - Right, yeah. I've noticed, it feels like to me at least, from every show you guys have produced, you've always stepped up in some different ways. So even if you made a banger show already, you're like, how do we do this better? How do we do this better? - Yeah, 'cause I didn't think you guys could top B stars and you did.

- Thank you. - It was nuts. - Oh God, yeah. Episode, I don't even wanna know how long episode 12- - Oh my God. - Try gun took to produce because- - I haven't seen it. - That last fight scene, episode 12 is nuts. - Yeah. - I'll go watch it. - Actually insane. - For Beastars, how did you go about animating like animal characters and giving them like the same animalistic characters that each, I guess animal has?

So Beastars, we start out from, I mean, they have human traits as animals. Yeah. So what's the balance between that? So we started looking at what they call the anatomy. Yeah. So how does animal muscle facial structure happen? Why do animals not smile?

So how can we make these creatures smile? - Right, right. - Was the first starting point. - So you literally went, you literally had to break down each animal's anatomy. Did that go into like the modeling of all of the characters as well? - Yeah. - Oh my God. - So I mean, like animals don't have this muscle and this muscle. - Right. - So they can't make the rich expression as humans. It's impossible for them. - Right.

- Yeah, 'cause I guess that must've been like an uncanny valley that would have been difficult to overcome because it's like, if you just added those muscles in to the model, then I'm sure like the first couple of like prototypes must've looked like super janky, right? - Yeah. - Yeah. - How much research did you have to do on each animal before even like modeling? - I mean, that's the why, reason three years.

- We drank at the zoo for three years and I talked to the animals. - We broke into the zoo. - Smile, damn it. - We'll have a real challenge. - Studio animal too. - That was the real challenge. - I'm sorry. - Yeah, so you had three years of research. - I mean two years of research. - Two years of research. - Jesus.

I mean, research is just in books or photos or videos, but also research of actually putting it into model and if it's working or not. Is this three years after like, hey, we've signed a contract being like, let's make the show. We've been brought in to do this.

You know, how do you then explain, I assume to like a client, it's got to be kind of tough to be like, hey, just give them a little while. They're just figuring things out. Like how does that whole conversation go? I mean, that's the conversation we have to have for Trigon. Yeah. You're just like, hey, just trust me. We're going to figure it out.

Oh, I mean, Trigon, um, we, since a producer for a Trigon on our client side is a producer who worked for an industrialist and he starts, we knew each other. So we had a lot of mutual trust and we're not going to hide stuff. We're showing him. Yeah. This is the process we're doing right now. Yeah. How much do you kind of like need to network as an anime producer in terms of meeting other people in the industry? Um,

As of, I used to be a hand-drawn side. Right. But hand-drawn side was immense because I had to collect every single animator myself too. Jeez. Not every single, but a lot of the key figures. Yeah, yeah. But for Orange production, all of our animators are in-house. Okay. So I don't have to do that on that side. It's to me, who am I going to find for the key staff? So the script writer, director, director,

episode director and such. - So is that in-house as well? - No, those are outside. - Okay, so you literally have to like go out to the industry and see who is available to work on this one show for these specific roles. - Yes. - Why wouldn't you have those people in-house? Like what's the benefit to having them like picking writers and stuff outside? - Some people we have in-house, but each project is so different. I mean, what's required is so different. Art style is different. Storytelling is different. - That makes sense.

Okay. How...

- How accurate is Shirobako? I've always wanted this because like as an anime viewer, when we talk about anime production, there is a lot more resources out right now. But to like, I say someone who's not too deep into the field, a lot of people look at Shirobako as being like, this is a documentary basically. - Yeah, yeah. I've had so many instances of someone like giving me like a tidbit on like, oh, this is how the anime production works. And I'm like, what's your source? And they're like, Shirobako episode seven. And I'm like,

Okay, but maybe some of it is like dramatize. - Yeah.

- I mean, papers, I mean, he's using a shuriken, of course it's a fiction. - I heard some. - I was never involved in the shuriken itself. But I mean, a lot of it is real. So when we're driving to pick up animation from animators, we see other studios, rival studios, we do stare at each other like this and like start revving the engine. I mean, we all make sure that we are not caught.

- I just love to imagine. - When you see each other at the strip club, it's like, "No, we're working on that, not you." - It's like that Zoolander meme. - Yeah. - I don't know, producers, when they're picking up the animation, they just look past each other. - Luigi death stare each other. - "Shiro Bako" feels so exciting and real because that is based on a lot of people's experience. - Yeah.

Is it normal for like an episode to be finished just before it like airs on TV? For our case, I mean, that's not the style we choose anymore. Yeah. But I mean, in my past career, I have had that kind of situation as well. Was it like pretty often or was it like kind of like a one-off situation?

- I could call it often. - Who's got the good PC to render this out? - I had a time where I thought how I comfortably sleep at the studio was an amazing thing, but I'm really glad now that I don't have to sleep at a studio at all. - That's good. Did you have to sleep like at your previous roles? Did you have to sleep there? How often did you have to sleep at the studio?

- Cardboard is comfortable. - Oh no. - Sleeping bag on the cardboard is even more comfortable. - Oh my God. - Sleeping under a meeting desk is really comfortable because there's no light coming on you. - Oh no. - It's like, "Get this episode out. I haven't seen my wife in three days." - How much of the office would, obviously in the past, how much of the office percentage-wise would end up just sleeping at the office?

- Percentage is difficult because I mean, everyone's doing different jobs. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - But like, it must feel like a giant sleepover if everyone's just kind of, everyone's at the office. - I mean, there's certain, a couple of couches that's in the studio. - Okay, okay. - Sometimes there was a fight to get that couch too. - I recently filmed something at a different anime studio and I turned up at like 3:00 PM to film something and it was people, people were coming in just from waking up and I was like, what?

- They just woke up, it's 3:00 PM. - I mean, that could be, that might not necessarily be overworking. I mean, the whole- - Just like living- - I didn't get that impression, but I got the impression of like,

- Oh, it's animators, they work on their own time. The sleep schedule is a suggestion. When it gets done, it gets done. - Well, you don't have to be awake while everyone else is awake. As long as you get your work done. - As long as you get those eight hours and you get those animations done, who cares? - I mean, now there's things that are becoming digital. So you'll have assistants going in cars. But back then cars was a thing. So if there's traffic, that means we have to spend more time outside of the studio. - So like, I guess,

you don't have to like name any names or anything like that. But like when an anime production does go wrong, when you see the final product and it's not like not necessarily studio art, just in general with the anime industry, what goes into, what mistakes go into like an anime production that might not have the final products that the people working on it want to have?

Because it seems like a lot of it is from the planning stages. And I'm curious what actually goes wrong in that sense. I mean, there's thousands array of things that needs to be careful about instant production. So honestly, as a production management, the amount of information that you have to manage is very, very intense. So I think even missing one of them can be led to that.

- Can you give some examples of what kind of information? - It's like scheduling or? - It's been a while, so I tried to remember my memory. - Yeah, 'cause it's, as an anime producer, I'm sure you have to manage a lot of different things.

- How long has it been since you joined Orange again? - It's been five years for me. - Okay, five years. - Enough to make one show. - I mean, COVID did special thing to me. It kind of wiped a lot of my memory before COVID. - That's humanity. - That's just humanity. - The symptoms of long COVID, your memory gets worse. - Is it? - Your memory can get worse.

- I met someone who was like, yeah, my memory's been crap since I got COVID. I'm like, wait, is this real? I looked it up. Yeah, apparently you can, some people got memory issues from COVID. - Jesus. - If you caught it. If you got long COVID. - Holy fuck. - I was just always done. So like it actually just didn't do anything. - Yeah, let me rephrase the question. What are some things to avoid to have a successful anime production in your opinion? - To have a well communication.

- Everything. - Everything. - I mean, you have to communicate. You can't refuse to communicate. I mean, you constantly have to be keep on up on everything. - I feel that applies to just most businesses, right? It's like one miscommunication and just shit goes array. - Yeah, yeah. I remember like growing up,

I remember growing up like in university or something like that. Every job would be picking up the communication skills. And I remember always thinking as a teenager, I'm like, "What fucking skills is there to do? Just talk, bro, just talk." - Yeah, at every job interview, it's, "How good are your communication skills?" I'm like, "I know English."

- I guess. - I should appear. - But like, yeah, especially working in like, I worked as like a project management and I realized, oh, communication is definitely a skill and there are some people that suck.

And you have no idea how much your projects can go wrong, whether it be an animation or any kind of other project you're managing, just because people don't feel like talking about it. Or people just don't talk about everything. And I can only imagine with how many moving parts there are in the animation industry. 'Cause like on,

On a general project, how many people are involved? So when I was doing production assistant, I was in charge of 20 animators. So I had to look over the progress of 20 different animators for three months to six months. Right, right. And that in itself is intensive because they're not necessarily in the studio. They could be working somewhere else. And I had to call them. They might not pick up. Then I'll call them again. They don't pick up. Then I'll call them again.

So if they call and pick up and communicate, that's just an amazing animator just to me at the time. I'd be a great actor. But nowadays, I mean, if you look at the credits, there's like hundreds of animators. Right, right. I mean, back then, my...

What I experience and things people experience now is totally different. I can't even imagine what people are going through right now because I've been away from that side. Yeah. Because it seems like a lot of the time, especially talking to, you know, Ken Ato, the other animator we had on, is that it becomes common, I guess. I'm not sure how common it actually is, but it seems like it's common for a lot of

anime projects to be, let's say behind schedule, right? And I guess I wonder how, is it because the estimation is wrong or is it a different thing every time that so many anime projects always seem to be behind schedule and there seems to be a lot of crunch in like the animation industry?

I think every situation is different, but a lot of times, a lot of people are trying to make it better. Right. Their ambition is very big. Ah, okay. It could be from individual level to a production level. Right. I feel that's, yeah, because especially recently, I feel there's just been so many more news articles coming out about,

this anime has been delayed, this anime has been delayed. And I feel like, I'm sure there's been delays over the entire history of anime production, but like it's something about just recently, have you noticed this as well? So many shows are getting delayed. - I mean, I feel like it's one- - Probably a good thing. - Yeah, maybe. - People are taking more time. - I hope so. - And I feel like that's just kind of like a symptom with many more anime shows being made. So a lot of them are going to be delayed

I guess. - I just hope that it is because of a quality issue and not like say like, oh, the guy creating the schedule just fucked up and overestimated everything, right? - Well, it seems like, it sounds like from you, a lot of people in the anime industry are just

- Yeah, I mean, I understand. If they wait a day longer, they might get something better before one day. - I mean, if I was working on one project for five years, I'd probably be a perfectionist too. I'm not gonna be like, "Yeah, it's done, it's good enough, whatever." - Orange, it's totally done differently. We actually simulate the entire production because we don't do that.

there's gonna be a piece that's missing. We're gonna be fucked. We can't actually get past that piece. 'Cause if it's hand-drawn, they'll just say, "You can just draw it." If it's CG, tools can't do that. We can't do that. We can't get over that. We can't say, "Oh, we need this tool by tomorrow." That doesn't happen. - Right, right. - Okay. - Damn. - So, sorry. - No, I'm just thinking about how, I guess Japan is kind of notorious having a pretty

pretty brutal work-life balance and anime even, even more so. Like you mentioned, sometimes you sleep on the floor, you know, but it sounds like Studio Orange is also a lot more forward thinking and kind of modern when it comes to the approach of that. I'm just wondering, like, what are you, do you have any thoughts on Crunch or,

- There's a difference between crunch and just normal Japanese fork life balance, which it sounds like everyone is in crunch all the time in Japan. - I think it's because our way of thinking is different is because that we're not,

technically anime studio or CG studio. And that, first of all, because the workforce comes from a workforce that we share with gaming. So, I mean, when people get out of college or whatever, the school or they train themselves, we're constantly competing with the gaming industry to get people. So their starting point is their expectation in what they look for work is completely different. Right.

You're like, hey, we think you'd be great for this. So yeah, that's the starting point for us. So that's why it's so different. What we do is very anime-like, but how people come into the industry is totally different.

- Right, you kind of set the standards to that more akin to like the gaming industry than the standard anime industry, right? - So in our case, like it's 90% employee. So they're all our employees instead of hand drawn, it's 90% hand drawn. - Right. - Right. - I freelance, sorry. - Yeah, right. - In your like experience, you know, before Orange, how much,

if there's an anime production there, how much would be like in-house workers versus let's say freelance animators or animators outside of the studio? - Before Orange, before Orange was all just industry standard. So mostly freelancers. - Mostly freelancers. - I mean, at Orange, I mean, I'm not sure if this is something we intended to grow it this way, but I mean, now it is so we like to keep it it is. We don't want to go into like 90% freelancers.

- Yeah, because I've noticed even now, like there's a lot, like it didn't used to be this way, but I've noticed there are a lot more people who, you know, maybe I followed on Twitter.

just for like, I like the artwork or something. And then I follow them for like long enough time and they get picked up by an anime studio. They end up working on an anime project. I'm like, when did this start to happen? What did they do before Twitter? - Yeah, exactly. - Yeah, I mean, I can only imagine because I'm not in that site anymore. - I'm curious how,

How much do you pay attention to like fan reaction in terms of like Studio Orange's works? In that case, a lot. Oh, really? Yeah. I'm constantly on Twitter to look at responses. Sorry. So sorry you have to do that. But I mean, positive or negative, it's all part of the responses that we need. There's got to be one though you're like, shut up.

What are you? You don't know shit. I mean, there's always a season two, please. You're being too nice. I can't say anything because it's not my position to say anything. I'd be like, no, I got you. I got you. You're a piece of it. I totally understand. I would love to have it.

- I can't see. - It's like "Beastars" season three wins. Shut up. - I mean, I would love to talk about it, but not yet. - Yeah, right. - What is like...

- This is gonna sound so weird because it's Twitter, but what is some useful like responses? - Trick question. - I don't really focus on individual responses. It's really the amount of energy. Where's the energy? Where's the expectation as a whole? - I think honestly we do the same thing.

I don't read individual YouTube comments. I'm just like, what's the vibe? - Yeah. - The general comments. Like what people feel, you know, 'cause you can kind of get the general kind of sentiment, which I find is more useful than just one guy's maybe annoyed that you didn't draw Legoshi with a bigger bulge or something. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? Like it's so helpful. Like getting the general, like you said, energy is so much more helpful. - Yeah, sure. Yeah. Do you ever like incorporate that into,

what feedback goes into your future works? Or is it more just to get the vibe of, okay, this show is doing well right now. People like it. - I mean, I think I really see anime as something really fantastic. When I first discovered "Perfect Blue", it was amazing.

I didn't know anime could do this kind of sensation to me. Yeah, yeah. So I want to create that sensation to as much people as possible. Oh, fuck yeah. And this means that I want to create people to be communicating via anime. Yeah. So I mean, like you guys invited me for Trigon Stampede. Yeah. And having a conversation. This is what I wanted to do with anime. Oh, hell yeah.

So how can I do this with more people is what I focus on. So using that, what I learned from how people are reacting, try to implement on the creative and the business side as well. I have to watch it.

- Probably you gotta maybe watch anime. - 'Cause okay, I'm curious 'cause there is something very specific about "Trigun" 'cause I was almost planning to do a video on it and I didn't have the time unfortunately, but it felt like- - You can talk about it now. - Yeah, yeah, no, no, because

- My gauge as just a viewer going through comments and everything like that, a big complaint when the series was airing, at least not when it was finished, was people just like OG fans of the original "Trigun" being like, "This isn't like the original "Trigun." "This feels totally different." "Vash's design is so different." "What are you doing?" And it seemed like reading from like some of the, I guess, interviews that,

that the creative team had done before it's released. It was almost like you were maybe expecting it in a way. 'Cause I remember a big message was just like, "Hey, this isn't the original "Try Gun, just leave your judgment until the series ends." Was that something that you expected? That kind of like reaction?

I mean, I got the same reaction as I told you earlier when I first look at the show, the concept arts and stuff. Oh, okay. So based on that, I knew that, I mean, it's a preface to that.

Precious thing to everyone. So how can we make something precious and create something, another precious thing? Right, right. So it's not to overwrite that preciousness. Yeah. It's create something even more precious on the side of it. Okay. So we were very closely doing meetings with the marketing team for the try-on. Right.

And we couldn't do it for global messaging, but for whatever we had hands-on, we tried to be very specific about what language to use, what words to use, what tone to use. I know a lot of things were under wide interpretation, but we tried to make sure to limit that interpretation as much as possible. So that you wouldn't step on the toes of the original, in a sense. I was going to ask a question, actually, where you kind of just touched on it a little bit, which is the messaging aspect.

between the global and Japanese audience, how do you normally kind of navigate the worldwide audience versus the Japanese market? Is there like, what kind of conscious differences or any slight changes do you do depending on the cultures?

- That's really hard. I never really put it into words myself. I use my senses to really navigate. - Yeah, obviously you have a very unique background being able to speak fluent English and Japanese. So you're probably a bit more in tune with both sides. Whereas I imagine a lot of Japan, it's kind of like they're very much focused on Japan and worry about the rest of the world. They'll get it when they get it. - I don't see race. - You mentioned that you would read Twitter.

Is it English Twitter or Japanese Twitter or both? Both, yeah. Is there a big difference in vibe or response to Trigon? First of all, Twitter culture between languages is different. Yeah, of course, of course. So, I mean, depending on how fans enjoy it. So, are you a cosplayer? Are you a fan artist? Hmm.

I mean, just by that, people, how they enjoy it is different. So I really want to be careful about how I face each group of communities. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you think is the biggest vibe difference between, let's say, the Japanese Twitter side of

the response on the Western, international side. - Japan has a culture, I mean, if you go to movie theaters, people don't clap at the movies. Where in America, where we clap at movies, I mean, though there's not directors or anything. I enjoyed that movie, I want to clap. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. - But Japan, they enjoyed it, but they just quietly walk out. So that kind of culture is also reflected on Twitter. So not necessarily people, people like and retweet, but they won't comment.

So I really want people to comment because I see how more exact the reaction is instead of just that liking. How did you like it? Is what really matters to me. - Yeah, I'm the opposite. I wish they would comment last. - I'm like, "Don't, you said that, delete that." I'm kidding, I'm kidding. - Be careful what you wish for. - I'm kidding, I'm kidding. - It's like, "Go back, go back, fuck around and find out."

- Yeah, 'cause I guess that is another thing I noticed as well is that like a very common like cinema trait in Japan as opposed to the West is that in Japan, they stay until the end of the credits. - Oh my God, yeah. I'm always that awkward guy who's like, "All right, I'm leaving."

- I'm not staying for this. - But I guess that's like, that also shows that like, I guess like in general, maybe this is a stereotype, I don't know. But like, I guess like the Japanese audience cares about like the people that like went into like working behind and they're like, oh, okay, I love this show so much. I wanna know who was responsible for it all. Whereas maybe in the West, of course there are people who are interested in that, but maybe not, it's not the general consensus perhaps. - There's a higher intensity, I think, from what I've seen.

- What do you mean? - Good and bad. - Yeah, right, right. - When they love something, they love saying it. And when they aren't happy about it, especially in the anonymous forums, they love to complain. - Two chain goes off. - Yeah. - 'Cause do you do a lot of like Japanese events at all in like terms of promotions? Because I know you go to like a lot of American conventions. You were at AX last year, right?

- Yeah, do you do the same kind of like promotion on the Japanese side of things as well? - Yes, I'm responsible for all that, for Orange side. So we work with the production committee side to get that done. - I've always wondered when anime studios go to like an anime convention, is it purely just for promotion? Like what are they normally kind of like, what is the point of it?

- Research actually. Thank you very much. - 'Cause I'm always curious, if you're a voice writer, so you go to it, you can sign, sign, you guys make some money. But like I assume for studios, there's gotta be something else 'cause conventions aren't that profitable, I imagine. - So my objective is actually,

Oh, okay. Because, so for meeting their fans, there's not, I mean, Japan, there's not too many events that you can meet your fans. That's true. Right. So, I mean, if you're a director, you might meet it. If you're a character designer, you might meet it. But if you're an animator, you don't mind not meeting your fans. Right. So I want people to more meet their fans. And who are they? Right. So where do they come from? Where are they going? Is the question I always ask too. Yeah. So are you from this area? Are you from other areas? Did you travel here? Right.

Those kind of things really matter to Then also the culture So by going to that location I mean feel that culture Yeah

- Yeah. - I mean, that really matters. We're, anime is a global medium. So it really matters that you get inspired by so many things. - Do you feel like there's been more of a spotlight put on like the international audience in the time you've been working in the anime industry? - Yeah, well, I mean, the business has heavily skewed to the international audience. - Oh really?

I wish more companies will focus a lot more on the global strategy. - Do you feel like that's only gonna grow? Like the focus on the international side? - I feel like it has to. - Well, 'cause I remember you did an interview

- Yeah. - And the guy was like, I don't even know we had an international audience. - I think he was also joking. - Was he really? He was like, I don't know. - Yeah, in a rare display of Japanese facetiousness. He was actually just being facetious. - I've never heard a Japanese man be sarcastic. - It was funny because- - He should've killed her. - No, it was funny you say that because so many people in the comments of that video said the same thing. They thought he was being 100% serious, but no, he was just joking.

- Yeah, I think they're fully aware that yes, a big majority of their audience is international and they're not gonna necessarily pertain to that audience 100% obviously, right? Because domestic is first priority. But I think at this point with how much anime has grown, I think it's pretty hard to avoid. - Well, yeah, there's always that conversation that goes on online about how people are like, "No, they only make anime for Japan. They don't care about..."

other countries and when they're making it. But I suppose if it's heavily skewed for a international market, then I mean that argument doesn't really hold any water. - Yeah, I think there's still like, I don't know, you can confirm on this, but like, I guess like they still, they do care about the international audience, but I guess it's not like first priority for a lot of studios, right? - I mean, I think it's more that,

A lot of the workforce won't understand. Of course, yeah. I mean, they could say they understand. They could look at marketing data and say, oh, we understand it. But they don't understand because they're never from there. Right.

- Right. - I spent decades on both sides. But everyone just maybe to have a tour to America for California. - So I guess that's like a reason why you send these like stuff to like LA and- - Be more experienced, more inspired. - I never thought about it. - I'm trying to get away from, I feel like I'm in America all the time. I need to stop listening to magic.

But I guess, yeah, from a Japanese perspective, right, you wouldn't inherently get a lot of experience with foreign countries. And I suppose getting more in tune with the global world is...

- It's extremely fresh. - Some people might not even travel on our team. - We have a lot of people in Japan that don't have schools. - They always like other Japanese staff members always shocked or surprised when they see like the international fan reaction when they go to a convention like Anime Expo or you just went to Sakuracon as well, right? - So we just started sending people to

Because COVID We couldn't do it Yeah And I joined five years ago So I want That's the goal I want to do But now that we have Trigun Stampede We're doing the tour So I mean Director and My partner producer Was Akebal Experience So next month I'm taking my animators To another con Right So I want to keep on doing this To make sure that Our team are more rich In experience Oh

- Oh, okay. - That's such a cool way of looking at it. - Yeah, very cool. - Just get back to animating. What are you doing? You don't get to see sunlight. - It's like, all right, we've taken you to the strip club, back to animating, come on. - Are you telling me the secret to Studio Orange is-- - If that's what they want, I might consider.

- I'm not comfortable in there. - I'm just imagining a team of Japanese animators in like the dingiest, grossest strip club in like Ohio. - Okay, so in Vancouver, my director wanted to go to this street that's very, it looks, I'm like, I cannot walk in that street.

I look like a tourist. I have my jacket by my side, back fast. I'm like, well, both of my hands are tied up. I can't walk in that street. Okay, give me a moment. I put my back on, zip it up, zip it up. I'm like, put my hands. I'm like, okay. Hands ready.

- So you're saying the secret to Studio Orange is your staff members touch grass. - That is- - Going outside is the secret this entire time. - God damn, basement dwellers who were like hoping to join the anime community are like, "No, not like this. This is not what I wanted." - I have to have a holistic world? - No, this is not what I wanted. - I have to travel?

- Where'd you take your staff members if you wanna show them your like American international culture? - Oh yeah, that's a good question. - Where'd you take them? Where'd you take them? - I mean, every city is different. So I mean, I would love to take every single city. - What's your favorite city? - My favorite city? Well, I mean, I grew up in LA so I was seeing LA until I went to Seattle.

- Oh, Seattle's sick. - I was so amazed at Seattle. - Do you want them to have like a quintessential American experience? You're like, let's go to the gun range. Let's go to Denny's, a real Denny's. Let's go to IHOP. Let's just have like, let's just go full American. - Yeah. - Oh my God. - If that is the culture shock experience for them, they should do it. - You just like see the calories getting on here. - I mean, if it creates culture shock, they should go to Yoshinoya in America.

- It's totally different. - That's so bad. - Only time I say no is if they want to say, "I want to eat McDonald's." I'm like, "McDonald's is not that much of a culture shock, so go somewhere else."

- It was a culture shock to my system. I think my body fought back when I had the McDonald's in America. I was like, this can't be it. Wow, how? - I just love to imagine Japanese people going to McDonald's in the US being like, wait, it's gross. - Actually, you know what was the biggest culture shock in terms of like when I came to Japan was that the KFC didn't have gravy. I was like, that just doesn't seem right. That feels like a fundamental mess up on them. - And the coleslaw is not sweet. - Yeah, yeah. It's like lettuce and carrots. And I'm like, what the fuck is that?

- KFC in Japan doesn't have gravy. I feel like that's everything. That's like McDonald's don't have buns. You know what I mean? It's like, what, this is the court, sorry. You know what I mean? - No, no, no. - Makes sense. - I agree. - I agree with everything you say. - It's wrong. - I agree, I agree. Which is rare for me in Japan. It's very rare. - What is some of like the biggest culture shocks that your staff members have gone through? - I mean, going to that shady place was one thing last weekend. - That was last weekend?

- They just come back scarred. - I think one thing that a lot of Japanese people I spoke to when they've been to California is like the homelessness, they're always like, "Oh my God, this is insane." - The Vancouver's part was really more than that. - Oh, Vancouver's pretty bad too. - Hey, there was a guy with butt naked right there.

- I mean, yesterday he was a bit man naked too. - Oh God. - Oh no. - I think when I was there, it was too cold to do that. Extremities would have been frozen off if you did that. - I recognize those cheeks. It's the same guy. It's the same butt naked guy every day.

- So since you're from LA, where do you normally take people to show them LA? - Oh. - Skid Row? - No, In-N-Out. - I can't remember In-N-Out. - It's gotta be right. - I mean, when I used to staff at AMA Expo, our radio turned on once and like the one volunteer was Japanese. He wasn't from local. He was like, "I'm in a place called Compton."

- Compton is in California. - Is it? - Yeah. - Oh my God, really? - I mean, back then, I don't know how it is right now, because I haven't been there, but don't stop that stoplight, it was the thing. - Oh, right.

- Can you imagine a Japanese guy in Compton? - Oh my God. He was like, "You shouldn't be here." - You're in the wrong neighborhood. - Wrong neighborhood. - Oh my God.

- It's a long way from Tokyo. - I can't believe that. - It's unfortunate that I think now in LA, like Skid Row is right next to Tokyo, Little Tokyo. And so it's like, a lot of the times during the convention, people end up around that part. It's like, no, don't go there. Make sure you go there. But right away and don't walk around too much. - And it's next to the art district as well. - Yeah. - Sandwich between. - Very sketchy.

I mean, Naito loves American toys. So we went to Frankincense. There's a place called Frankincense where all these toy sellers gather in this place.

- Like a flea market type of thing? - Yeah. - Oh, okay. - I wanna see storage walls Japan version now. That's on my mind. I just thought about that. - I mean, that won't happen 'cause no one owns a storage unit. - There's loads of storage units in Japan, but I don't think they auction them off there when they- - Nah. - People just keep them, man. - Yeah, or they just demolish everything when they don't pay the bills or something like that.

- Repo man comes in and takes everything. - So what's like the final goal of City Orange?

what are you guys working towards in terms of your studio? - I mean, world domination. - Oh, hell yeah, man. That's what I like to hear. - You mentioned how a lot of the animators initially wanted to get into gaming. Is there a potential we see Studio Orange game or something along those lines? - I mean, for Triangle, I definitely want to do some kind of game. - Talking to a couple companies.

So we'll see what comes through. That'd be so sick. - What about video game adaptations? - That's definitely something, I mean, one of the projects that we always talk about too. - Oh, hell yeah. - Is there like one video game you really want to see being turned into an anime, regardless of if it's like done by Orange or not? - Yeah. - That you think would be like- - Unless you're working on it now. - Unless you're working on it now. - It could be like a personal pick as well, but.

It's been so long since I played a lot of video games. I always say I want Doom to be turned into an anime somehow. No, no, no. I don't want to work on Doom. Yeah, because you know that one second- Doom is great as it is. But I want it to be crazy. God and bloods every- I don't know if I- I think like a Dark Souls.

I mean, it's already inspired from the likes of berserk anyway, right? So it already has that kind of, it passes the vibe check of potential anime. - Yeah. I mean, when I always think about adapting anime, what kind of new values can bring to that community? So like my recent game, I was really gone into othering, spent 300 hours in that world, just mesmerized by every single detail. I'm jumping against the walls.

- These guys still haven't played it yet. - You should. - Yeah, I know. - You're only the 5,000th person who's told us that. - Elven Ring is amazing. - I'm just not prepared to give up two weeks of my life. - It's one month. - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's 300 hours here. That's on the low end of Elven Ring. - You streamed it, okay? You got your mileage out of that. I'm probably not gonna stream it. So I'm like, it's a month out of my life. - There's no other game

has allowed you to have the experience of like hearing operatic music with a giant sword slamming down on some monster and seeing it buckle. That's so cool. Everything's so cool. - Do you think Guilty Gear would be a good anime even though that's already kind of like anime-esque? - I mean, they make their own anime too, so. - Yeah.

- I mean, those are things I never imagined really. - So you think that because it's so close to anime already that there's no, let's say value in getting like an anime adaptation? - I mean, it's more my own imagination. So if I can imagine there's a new value to that. So I just don't have that piece to consider. So if their team is like, oh, this will be amazing combination. I'm like, oh, I mean, like I could be amazed by that. - I'm curious, did you watch "Arcane"?

- Yes. - What did you think of that as an industry, you know, an industry veteran that works in 3D animation? 'Cause watching arcades, that blew my mind away in terms of what they were doing with their animation. Like, do you think,

Do you think Studio Orange is or could get to that level? So, as of the creativeness of our CEO, we can, I believe. Right. But we are not ready to. Yeah.

That could be money or system or the amount of people we have. We are not ready. But one day I'm going to get to that magnitude. It's definitely something I swore when I saw Arcane. It's such amazing. It's so good. Such a catchy song too. It's in my head all the time. Get out. And season two, I think got announced recently. Yeah, season two got announced. In 2019,

In terms of like animation outside of Japanese anime, is there any other shows or movies like Arcane that you guys get inspired by? Because I'm curious, because aside from Arcane, there was like Into the Spider-Verse recently, which was very, very impressive. And then there's the upcoming Scott Pilgrim anime.

- Yeah, yeah. And Puss in Boots 2, which I've heard- - Puss in Boots 2 was so good. - Which I've heard was incredible. Do you guys ever draw reference from like American animation at all? - As a studio level, we not really. In the visual level, definitely everyone's watching so many things. Like for example, our CEO wants to, if even possible, he wants to do Tom and Jerry one day. So that's something completely different style from what we do right now. But we see that if he's to do it, we are able to do something amazing.

- Because I think like one thing is like technology is always evolving as we've already discussed. And I was wondering how much you guys put focus in just the general technology of like what other studios are using and doing in terms of just the animation process in general? Or is it all kind of like in-house kind of thing?

I mean, a lot of the technology we develop is in-house. Whenever the technology is available on the market, we try to test it and see how we can implement it as our own. Right, right. But in a sense, a lot of the advancement is done outside of Japan. So that's why we refer a lot to the other studios outside of Japan. Right, right. Okay, okay. Do you guys ever think you're going to do a mecca? I want to see Studio Orange tackle a mecca show. I mean, we came from a mecca. And our animators love mecca.

So look forward to it. - Is there a single animator that doesn't like mecha? I feel like that's the baseline criteria to be an animator. It's like, do you like giant robots fighting? You can be an animator. - Yeah. - We haven't had, I mean, Gundam is going on right now, but other mechas been absent for a while. So it's amazing to have a- - I mean, I feel like Gundam has always been like the strong IP that will,

go through the end of anime. - Yeah, it's kind of like the evergreen Mecha, right? Where it's just like, no matter what period there's always gonna be a fan base for it. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. No, I would love to see Studio Orange tackle Mecha. - Oh, that's insane. - Hopefully in the future. - Well, I guess, do you have any final words from Studio Orange that you'd like to let the audience know or get them excited for?

I mean, definitely Trigun, Stampede, we're working on the final phase now. What that entails will be revealed as we move on to a more comfortable time to announce. Right. And right now we're working on Idolish 7, which is an idol anime. But this actually, even if you don't watch idol anime, it's going to be something amazing.

So I do not watch Adelanam. - But if it's made by Orange, I am awake. - You guys do something new every time. I don't think you've tackled the same type of show. - No. - Yeah.

But thank you very much for coming on. - Thank you very much for having me. - A lot more introspective. - Yeah, we like so much. - More importantly on anime and how it's made. - You guys were my first podcast. - Yeah, let's go. - Hell yeah. - Is there anything you wanna shout out? - You have social media or anything? - Yeah, social media or anything like that. - Maybe Orange Twitter? - Yeah, I mean, Orange and myself have a Twitter account. Orange is CG_PW.

- Orange underscore Ian. - We gotta reword that name. We gotta reword this. - We'll leave it in the description. We'll leave it in the description, don't worry. - But yeah, for myself, it's Krazynave. - Hell yeah. - Thank you so much for coming on. - Really appreciate it. - Hey, look at all these patrons though.

These are all the people who support the show. Hopefully they're orange supporters as well. And who's your favorite patron? Point to which one. - Point somewhere on the screen. - They're on the screen right now. - Oh really? - Yeah, yeah. You see all of them? - This guy. - Oh, hell yeah. Lucky you. And hey, if you'd like to support the show, then go to our Patreon, patreon.com/trashtaste. Also follow us on Twitter, send us some memes on the subreddit. And if you hate our face, listen to us on Spotify. And thank you once again for coming on the show. - Thank you very much. - Thanks guys for watching and we'll see you next week.

Buenos dias, world, from the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. I'm Marco Wendt. And I'm Rick Schwartz.

And we're your hosts for season three of Amazing Wildlife, a show from iHeartRadio Ruby Studio and the global conservation organization behind the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. Listen as we dive into the efforts here in San Diego and spotlight the heroes working worldwide to care for the species you know and love. Listen to Amazing Wildlife on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.