The man, the legend, the circus, Ichiro Itano

[Einherjar]

http://ghostlightning.wordpress.com/2010/12/27/moments-of-2010-genesis-of-gundam-chapter-19-the-genesis-of-ichiro-itano/

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http://ghostlightning.wordpress.com/2010/12/27/moments-of-2010-genesis-of-gundam-chapter-19-the-genesis-of-ichiro-itano/

That's why!

[Renato]

I think not only is Itano Ichiro a living legend, he's like pure rage contained in a human body.

Did you know that he only became an animator after seeing a classified ad in a newspaper on the street in Ueno, as he was walking around in Tokyo looking to buy a motorcycle, while his parents thought he was at after-school activities, even though he was actually suspended from school?

He turned up at the studio, they asked him "Do you have a CV?" And he says "No. I just saw the ad. I actually don't know the first thing about TV manga". He sat down, did some drawings, and they told him "yeah, not bad, but could better". He then asked if he could stay till the evening and keep working on his drawing, saying "I want to be satisfied with my drawing". Hours and many drawings later, he left. He then got a phone call inviting him to do some training sessions at the studio. When he asked why, they answered "Nobody ever stayed and just drew 'until they were satisfied' with their drawing"!

The man EMBODIES THE SPIRIT OF ANIME!!

I was wondering when someone was going to make an anime/manga of his life and I see it's already been done. But why stop there, the potential is there for a big-budget Hollywood epic.

I think there are already a couple of threads on him, but if enough people are interested I can post some translations of interviews with him since I have accumulated quite a few by now. Hopefully most of it will be new material for some.

[Gui]

[...]

I think there are already a couple of threads on him, but if enough people are interested I can post some translations of interviews with him since I have accumulated quite a few by now. Hopefully most of it will be new material for some.

Fire at will

With sauces preferably: I may need them one day for an essay on the guy or on one of the many animes he worked on...

[Tobi54]

I think not only is Itano Ichiro a living legend, he's like pure rage contained in a human body.

Did you know that he only became an animator after seeing a classified ad in a newspaper on the street in Ueno, as he was walking around in Tokyo looking to buy a motorcycle, while his parents thought he was at after-school activities, even though he was actually suspended from school?

He turned up at the studio, they asked him "Do you have a CV?" And he says "No. I just saw the ad. I actually don't know the first thing about TV manga". He sat down, did some drawings, and they told him "yeah, not bad, but could better". He then asked if he could stay till the evening and keep working on his drawing, saying "I want to be satisfied with my drawing". Hours and many drawings later, he left. He then got a phone call inviting him to do some training sessions at the studio. When he asked why, they answered "Nobody ever stayed and just drew 'until they were satisfied' with their drawing"!

The man EMBODIES THE SPIRIT OF ANIME!!

I was wondering when someone was going to make an anime/manga of his life and I see it's already been done. But why stop there, the potential is there for a big-budget Hollywood epic.

I think there are already a couple of threads on him, but if enough people are interested I can post some translations of interviews with him since I have accumulated quite a few by now. Hopefully most of it will be new material for some.

Please do, I personaly cant get enough of that stuff, interviews, behind the scene looks, production anecdotes, share all you have!

[Renato]

Since I had a bit of free time due to this earthquake/tsunami business forcing life to temporarily grind to a halt, I thought I would, as a rare treat, keep one of my promises of translating stuff for this site. It's been a real loooong time since I did this!

Anyway, enjoy!

EDIT -- Argh. all the formatting is screwed up. Never mind, I'll fix it later, gonna go for a drink now.

Interview with Ichiro Itano (Animator, enshutsu-ka) from Great Mechanics DX #7, by Keisuke Hirota, translation by Renato Rivera Rusca

“Those that have nothing but money on their minds are the ones ruining animation.”

-- Itano-san, you are involved in both anime and tokusatsu [*i]. What do you think of the current trends in project planning?

Itano: There’s been a huge increase in people who have money but are clueless about anime and tokusatsu, screwing around with the project plans and designs. For example, in the case of robot toys, they say that heavy-looking robot designs sell well, whereas spindly, weak-looking robots break easily, and don’t sell. It was (Hideaki) Anno’s Neon Genesis Evangelion that challenged that. Even though they were designs that at, that time, went completely against the notion of robots that “sell well”, the show was good and became a hit, and as a result the toys sold well.

In tokusatsu, too, the toy companies generally just design the mecha and planes with toys in mind, while missing the point of the show. I had this confidence, like “In the old days, we used to draw cool versions of Goggs and Zugocks, so we can make any design fly and make it look cool”, so I strongly voiced my opinions to the toy company. As a result, the designs improved significantly.

During the 70s anime boom, Heidi, Girl of the Alps was running against Space Battleship Yamato. But you would never hear Heidi say “Calpis tastes better than milk”, right? I think Heidi’s sponsor was proud just to have invested in such a good show. Their philosophy was to invest in a show that is positive for children, and then hope that when the children grow up, they would look back at the show and somehow reciprocate towards the company. Now it’s more like, they invest to “avoid going into the red this season”, and they don’t think twice about copying whatever other show is currently successful.

 Itano-san, your most recently directed show, Blassreiter (2008), is totally the opposite, isn’t it?

Blassreiter is a project that from the very start I decided to get off the ground with the main condition that I be allowed to do everything my way. I overlooked and cleared the designs, scripts, everything. I didn’t want to face the situation where once everything has been completed and was ready to go, the sponsor would say “this is too horrible, we can’t air this”, so I decided to air the show only on local channels.

 You mean because otherwise the content gets censored. On the other hand, the action scenes are really energetic.

Itano: Yeah, I really use the “Itano Circus” the way a panda attracts the crowds to a zoo [laughs]. What’s more, since the designs have no involvement from a toy company, we animated everything from heroes in suits, to robots and planes in CG.

 So you intended to use the “Itano” name-value from the start?

Itano: Of course. After all, it’s the 30th anniversary of the Itano Circus, plus I made it so that the viewers come into the show wanting to see that first, and then also realize that the human drama parts are interesting too. I wanted to show a true experience of “how to live in a world where nothing goes the way you want”. I couldn’t present that kind of theme using anything other than a “dark hero” motif show like Blassreiter. If we’re surrounded by bright, light-hearted anime in the J-Pop flair, then Blassreiter has to go down the Doji Morita, Hako Yamazaki and Miyuki Nakajima road [*ii] (laughs). If there’s no show like that around, then how are people who are depressed supposed to relieve themselves? There are people who can’t be saved just by anime with only panties and boobs in it, you know.

That’s why those people with money but no sense should not dictate what content goes into anime and tokusatsu.

My days of skipping school and drawing douga at the studio

 Itano-san, why were you so wild during your time as an animator in the 80s?

That’s because I could get away with doing what I wanted. It didn’t matter what the toy companies said, or let’s say (Yoshiyuki) Tomino-san showed me a deer-like rough design [*1], I always had the freedom to say “yeah, that’s lame”. Even reputable directors would come up to us lowly but passionate workers and ask for advice or leave decisions to us.

 How old were you at the time?

At the time of the first Gundam, I was about 20. Because I was using so many sakuga frames that you wouldn’t think that this was a show for TV, I got a lot of complaints. I was told by the enshutsu [*iii] that there are always three douga [*iv] frames between any two genga [*v], but I was like, “Who set that system in stone? The number of frames should be different depending on the action!” So we never agreed. Then after the enshutsu guy does the satsudashi [*2], he would go out for a drink, during which I would sneak in and take out the superfluous frames. Then when the rushes came out, Tomino-san would be beaming.

-- What particular scene in Gundam was that?

The scene in which the “Bit” flies out from the Elmeth. Also near the series finale, when Sayla shoots the Zeon soldiers. If we’re supposed to use three frames anyway, we might as well make it more effective and draw the recoil motion from the gunfire, right? At that time (Yoshikazu) Yasuhiko-san was sick, so it was total chaos. The drawings that the animation director had corrected were being re-corrected by me, a genga guy (laughs).

I didn’t graduate from some animation academy, I didn’t even know what a “tap” [*3] meant. I just thought the holes for the “tap” were for hanging up the drawings on those hooks on the walls to make them easier to view.

-- So why did you decide to become an animator in the first place?

When I was in high school, I went to a shop in Ueno to look for a motorbike. At that time I spotted a recruitment flyer in Ueno station that read “Wanted: TV Manga animators at Studio Musashi”. I went over just to check the place out, and ended up taking the recruiting exam there. But because I had skipped school to go over there, I didn’t want to go back home just yet. So I asked, “Can I just use this desk for a while and draw until I’m satisfied?” and it seems they were impressed by that. And because I was an engineering high school student, I was drawing blueprint layouts, so I could draw mecha fairly well.

-- So you were employed straight away?

I was told to come after I finished high school. But because I was getting suspended and stuff, I ended up going there as training. At that time, Yuji Moriyama [*4] used to come in in his school uniform. After the second month in Studio Musashi, we started getting douga work for Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato: Warriors of Love / Arrivederci Yamato (1978) and when we were asked “who wants to do this one?”, only Moriyama and I raised our hands. That’s because there were so many lines to draw in Yamato and it was tough work. Though the pay was cheap, we put so much effort into it that Moriyama and I started being referred to by name, and we started being allowed to do work almost at the genga level.

After working freelance, I got a job with a company called Studio Cockpit. Actually, that was the toughest period for me, mentally. This was because I had to do work I had no interest in, just to make a living. It really felt like I was just a cog at Planet Maetel.

At that time, NHK was airing Future Boy Conan (1978), and when I saw that, I exclaimed, “This is the kind of anime I want to make!” That set me free from the spell, and just around that time, Mamoru Hamatsu [*5], who had left Studio Musashi just before me, called me up to join him at Sunrise’s Studio 1 where they were producing Gundam.

 It was during Gundam that you shifted from douga to genga, correct?

Yes. When I worked at Sunrise Studio 1 and I put vernier thrusts on the space fighters or add missiles and stuff nobody told me “that’s no good,” and I was allowed to grow. When I took Yasuhiko-san’s layouts and added details nobody complained. Since I was able to do things the way I wanted when I was younger, now as a director, I like to give the young guys room to do things their way, too. In terms of scripts and designs, I want to create an environment where people can express their individual creativity.

What are the ways of nurturing and being nurtured that should be passed along from person to person?

Itano: I think the people at around the time of Gundam were “pure” as creators. After reading the script for the Miharu episode, Tomino-san began to cry, and that made Yasuhiko-san cry as well. We at the bottom of the ladder had to be careful, but then after they left, we too burst into tears. I observed all sides of how they worked.

When they had sakuga meetings, I would note down all the jargon I didn’t know and would look it up in a book later.

 That’s how you studied?

Itano: Yes, ever since I was a douga-man. It was a place where emotions, passion and motivation got recycled, in a positive sense. I mean, I was even fixing Space Runaway Ideon’s (1980) (Tomonori) Kogawa-san’s doodles, even though they had nothing to do with the show (laughs).

 So that was the work environment you were in (laughs). But in any case, Ideon’s battle scenes were intense.

Itano: The scene where the Adigo keeps dodging all the missiles until they finally hit, that was never in the storyboard, nor was it ordered by the enshutsu, I just decided to animate it that way. By around that point Tomino-san was just drawing rough storyboards, saying “Itano-kun will flesh them out in his own way”. I managed to participate just around the time that Tomino-san was breaking the mold for robot shows.

 Did Super Dimension Fortress Macross (1982) come right after this?

Itano: Yes, I was asked by (Shoji) Kawamori. While working on the genga for Crusher Joe (1983), Kawamori was coming into the studio once a week to check over designs with Yasuhiko-san. While Kawamori was being made to do the genga, I was next to him doing clean-up, and he was telling me about the Macross project.

 It was from that point on that your name came to be recognized, yes?

Itano: Yes, but Yasuhiko-san apparently wanted me to become some almighty illustrator. That intention really rubbed off on me, and so I was able to avoid limiting myself to mecha, and also work as animation director on Fist of the North Star (1985).

 Do the young people these days dislike being pressured to have such a sense of balance?

Itano: Yeah, they hate it. I just tend to tell them, “If you’re gonna scowl about it, then just get out of the animation business.” That goes for the seisaku shinkou [*6], too: it’s not enough to just be carrying things from one place to another, I tell them, you have to reserve a good douga studio, you have to get on well with your genga people – that’s all part of the job. So that’s how I try to raise the motivation in the production studio.

 The young CG staff from Gonzo are involved in Blassreiter, correct?

Itano: That’ right. The first thing I said to them was, “Gonzo’s CG staff are the worst!” So I got them pissed on purpose, then I chose the ones that wanted to stay on to work with me even after that, because I wanted to teach them how to work. You mustn’t feel discouraged, even when you’re being kicked and beaten. We were few but exceptionally skilled, like The Seven Samurai.

 Why did you shift from hand-drawn animation to CG in the first place?

Itano: Firstly, it’s because there are no genga people being raised now. Secondly, because I want to keep a high level of quality within the framework of television. Anime these days has been split up into all these different jobs, right? And since we missed the opportunity to raise new talent, the Japanese animation workers are deteriorating in skill.

If all you had was a sakuga [*vi] team who poured their hearts and souls into their drawings, then that would be enough. However, these days if you want to make mecha move on TV, then CG is essential.

 Whenever we interview Satelight’s Hiroshi Yagishita-san [*7], he always mentions your name.

Itano: Yeah, because he is a pupil of the Itano School. Man, I beat the hell outta that guy (laughs). The quiet, hard-working guy may be pulled up from above to eventually fulfill his potential, but once he reaches a high level he cannot talk back to a director or enshutsu. That’s why I showed Blassreiter to Yagishita-kun, to which he responded that he would work as hard as he could on episode 7 of Macross Frontier. I even gave him a handicap and told him, “Oh, and we’re gonna have robots and fighter jets from episode 12 onwards, just so you know!”

 So you were competing, and thus mutually spurring each other on.

Itano: Yagishita has been saying he wants to come over and hang out, but he’s been told not to until Macross F is wrapped up. Now they’re working on the Macross F movie, so he’s actually my enemy. So I’ve warned him not to come spy on us (laughs). I think it’s good to just compete with each other to make good shows and have sparring bouts, and as a result, animation as a whole should grow, right?

Ideally, I would have wanted the guys in their 30s to stand in front and lead the way, though. When Tomino-san and Yasuhiko-san were in their 30s [*8], I was just a greenhorn. Kinda like Bright on White Base (laughs). I was able to go wild to my heart’s content thanks to those amazing guys at the top.

You can’t make a good show just by being hard-working, carefree and talented. Nowadays you don’t have any mold-breakers. And the adults giving the training have dwindled. When you’re young, it’s OK to be misunderstood. Failures are, after all, mere stepping stones to success.

Caption 1:

The Adigo flees from missiles in Space Runaway Ideon (1980). After dodging missiles left and right, and firing some of its own, it is eventually destroyed. This is the genesis of the Itano Circus, which broke down all preconceptions of mecha action choreography.

Caption 2:

Max and Millia’s dogfight from episode 18 of Super Dimension Fortress Macross (1982). Whilst maintaining an “in-flight” camerawork style, we can spot highlights reflected on the mecha with every shot fired, thus bringing home the “beauty” and “feel-good” quality that has been employed in these scenes.

Caption 3:

In the Valkyrie’s missile attack scene from Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love? (1984), you can see Budweiser and Chu-hai cans mixed in as a half-joke. In Mobile Suit Gundam (1979), too, it was Itano who added robots from other shows into the backgrounds.

Caption 4:

Itano’s directorial debut feature, Megazone 23 Part II: Please Give Me a Secret (1986). Shogo Yahagi’s outburst on how adults “are all selfish, doing whatever they please for their own personal gain, deceiving people, sometimes even killing” comes across as a reflection of Itano’s own rebellious nature.

[Footnotes by the author]

*1: Referring to the “Zeong”. Most of the Mobile Suits that appear in the latter half of Mobile Suit Gundam (1979) had their rough designs penned by director Yoshiyuki Tomino.

*2: The final checking process of cels and backgrounds before they are sent off to be photographed. In this digital age, this has become a lost stage in production.

*3: A tool to ensure that groups of genga, douga, cels or backgrounds remain aligned.

*4: A veteran animator, known for his role as Animation Director on Urusei Yatsura (1981). Recently he was animation director on Evangelion 1.0: You are (Not) Alone (2007).

*5: At the time he worked on douga, but later he became an enshutsu-ka. Works include Lupin III: Return of Pycal (2002).

*6: A general administrative position including duties such as organizing schedules, carrying and ordering douga, etc. It is a job that, while not particularly exciting, is extremely important.

*7: Deputy head of the digital department at Satelight Co., Ltd. During Macross Zero (2002), Mr. Itano was credited as Special Technical Director, while Mr. Yagishita was Chief Animator.

*6: At the time of Gundam, Yoshiyuki Tomino was 38, and Yoshikazu Yasuhiko was 32 years old.

Ichiro Itano

Born 1959. After working at Studio Musashi, Studio Cockpit, Studio Be-Bo and Artland, he is now the head of DAST. Credited as genga artist on Mobile Suit Gundam (1979), Space Runaway Ideon (1980), Super Dimension Fortress Macross (1982) and many more. He has worked on the CGI and monster designs for the Heisei era Ultra series, beginning with Ultraman Nexus (2004). Directed works include Megazone 23 Part II (1985) [*vii], Gantz (2004) and Blassreiter (2008). Special Technical Director on Linebarrels of Iron (2008).

Footnotes by the translator:

*i: Tokusatsu: Live-action special-effects shows, like Ultraman and Kamen Rider.

*ii: These are all considered “proper” musicians, as opposed to J-pop fluff.

*iii: Enshutsu: One of the most essential stages of the animation production process, which determines the overall visual representation of the characters’ performances, or the action of the objects, almost as important as the director’s job.

*iv: Douga: An in-between frame.

*v: Genga: A keyframe.

*vi: sakuga: The actual hand-drawing of frames used in animation.

*vii: This is a typographical error by the editor, Megazone 23 Part II came out in 1986, not 85.

Edited March 24, 2011 by Renato

[Gui]

That's pure gold: many thanks, Renato

By the way, when was this interview published?

[TheLoneWolf]

Thanks for the translation, I love reading interviews and production stories. Especially when the person being interviewed is as candid as Itano.

[Tochiro]

Excellent translation mate. Great job and thanks for taking the time out to do this!

[Tobi54]

Thanks alot for this, the hard work and time spent is very much appreciated!

[Bri]

Thank you very much for the translation Renato, its great to read an interview about one of the truly creative people in the business.

[Renato]

OK, I fixed the last and most important line, for some reason a portion was omitted. It makes sense now.

Thanks for all the comments, I'm glad I am able to make pieces like these reach a wider audience, or rather, readership.

And this is from issue 7 of GREAT MECHANICS DX, a magazine all about giant robots and the people who make them. This particular one was published in December 2008, so Frontier had just finished its TV run, just to give people an idea of the time frame.

By the way, the writer, Keisuke Hirota, is like the last lone survivor of the anime journalism crowd -- very few people know the industry inside and out now like he does. Unfortunately, he no longer works for Great Mechanics, but don't despair, his name appears in lots of places, sometimes where you least expect them. For example, he wrote most of the stuff in the packaging for the Aquarion Chogokin toy, etc.

[sketchley]

And this is from issue 7 of GREAT MECHANICS DX, a magazine all about giant robots and the people who make them.

This magazine cannot be plugged enough. Even if you don't read Japanese, it's chock full of awesome pictures from a plethora of anime (old school, new school, moe school, sometimes even overseas school (T3/4 robots, BSG, to name a few).

Awesome publication. Not too hard on the wallet, and released quarterly.

[Marzan]

OK, I fixed the last and most important line, for some reason a portion was omitted. It makes sense now.

Thanks for all the comments, I'm glad I am able to make pieces like these reach a wider audience, or rather, readership.

Thanks for taking the time to translate this and posting it. For those of us that cannot understand more than very basic japanese, it's a great to be able to read background stuff like this.

I love Itano, man. He's so full of energy! And he's just participated in so much stuff that I like.

[Gui]

[...]

And this is from issue 7 of GREAT MECHANICS DX, a magazine all about giant robots and the people who make them. This particular one was published in December 2008, so Frontier had just finished its TV run, just to give people an idea of the time frame.

[...]

Thanks for this precision

[RogueTrooper]

Thank you for the translation, really enjoyed reading that.