Countdown to DYRL on BD -- A look back at 2005's "BS Anime Yaw

[SCOOPUDA!]

As we count down the days to the release of the greatest animated movie ever, "Macross: Do You Remember Love" on Blu-Ray Disc, I thought I would give people a bunch of homework to do in preparation for the big party.

"BS Anime Yawa" ("BS Anime Night Talk") is a series of TV specials hosted by Gainax/General Products founder Toshio "Otaking" Okada on the NHK BS-2 satellite broadcasting service.  The programmes focus on classic and/or famous anime shows and act as retrospectives to contextualize these shows within the bigger picture of the evolution of Japanese animation, as well as providing some insight into the behind-the-scenes goings-on of the productions.

This particular episode, airing on June 29th, 2005, focused on "Macross: Do You Remember Love", and featured Ichiro Itano, anime director Hiroyuki Kitakubo (keyframe artist on the original "Macross" TV series and movie), movie director Tomoyuki Furumaya and voice actress Rica Fukami (Myung in "Macross Plus") as guest panelists.

Details and image gallery follows.

Topics covered included people's memories of working on/watching "Macross" on television, co-director Shoji Kawamori's virginity smearing the entire work with a "virginal scent", Kazutaka Miyatake's pioneering concept (for the medium of anime) of "production design", the concept behind the "Itano Circus" and Itano's youthful adventures playing with home-made rocket launchers strapped to motorcycles, from which he noticed that missiles never fly in a straight line.

The show concludes on the note that "Macross" was the first generation of anime made by fans who ended up working within the industry.  The young staff, Kawamori and company, were doing what they liked, and the show is a culmination of their passion and energy, yet a fleeting spark of youth, which could/would never again be replicated.  "Macross" and by extension, "DYRL", was a boys' club, and an adolescent one as such -- thus a lot of aspects may have been inaccessible to women.  In fact, "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind", released in the same year, was probably where the female animation fans flocked to.  The show posits that we can see now that this marked the beginning of the split between male- and female-oriented anime.

However, looking back from the viewpoint of 2012 now, seven years after the original airing of this special, we can certainly see that "Macross Frontier" is helping to bring in a new generation of both male and female fans to the property, and many are discovering "DYRL" for the first time -- finally opening up the "boys-only club" to all.

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Unfortunately the show was never released on DVD, and it has long since taken down from the online streaming video sites, but luckily for all who missed it, a series of books was published of the more interesting episodes of the show.  Volume 4 of these books is the "DYRL" special.  Within this book you can find not only the entire transcript of the show, but also plenty of dialogue which was cut from the original recording.  The pages conveniently feature text with different colours to indicate which parts of the discussion were deleted from the broadcast.  It also goes one step further and includes a new interview with Shoji Kawamori which was not in the programme.

Click here to see the book on Amazon JP

Read the full story here

[Fortress_Maximus]

Nice! Would like to know if anyone on MW has obtained the book or even seen the show? Thoughts? Please share. Thanks!

[boinger]

I have that book as a part of my Macross book collection. I thought it was a DYRL scriptbook. Now we just need someone to make a translation.

[Tochiro]

Picked this up from a bookstore in my office building a couple of years back. Have since put it into storage but was fairly impressed by it from memory.

[valkyriechild]

"the concept behind the "Itano Circus" and Itano's youthful adventures playing with home-made rocket launchers strapped to motorcycles, from which he noticed that missiles never fly in a straight line."

Interesting and probably a dangerous hobby, but i'm glad he did that.

[ff95gj]

The perfect soluton is to include both the original version and the edited version (if it is not just re-mastered).

I remember there were the Star Wars Trilogy DVDs released with the theature versions included. Only if they have a blu-ray version...

[antibiotictab]

I miss Manga Yawa and Anime Yawa.

I found the title in NICONICO Douga today, but the movie itself has already deleted.

[UN Spacy]

Will this special be included in the upcoming BD/DVD?

I have the file...without subs. It runs 55 minutes....at 463MB's.

[Renato]

Will this special be included in the upcoming BD/DVD?

I'm not sure. Apparently there is a making-of documentary in the set, but it is unclear if it is the same one. I seem to recall it being advertised as being more about "the music of Macross", and going into depth regarding the new 5.1 sound mix, so it probably will be something else.

[Xard]

"virginal scent"? Wait, was that about his inexperience as a director or is that ment to be literal statement?

[Renato]

"virginal scent"? Wait, was that about his inexperience as a director or is that ment to be literal statement?

Literal. He was being pretty much berated as having no experience with women, and so the behaviour of Misa and Minmay in the movie are overly melodramatic because it's all his pure fabricated fantasy running wild. Not my words!

[Xard]

Literal. He was being pretty much berated as having no experience with women, and so the behaviour of Misa and Minmay in the movie are overly melodramatic because it's all his pure fabricated fantasy running wild. Not my words!

BWHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAH :lol: :lol:

That is just hilarious and I'm not surprised at all. Y'know, that explains my one criticism/issue with DYRL's narrative (how Hikaru-Misa relationship develops so quickly with so little build-up on Earth always felt a bit artificial to me) perfectly.

All in all I can't say I'm too surprised by the revelation. Just comparing the difference in how the DYRL relationships are depicted vs the very realistic, real teenage relationship in Arjuna is telling....

Speaking of which, while Kawamori being a virgin during DYRL doesn't surprise me in the least I had a huge shock recently when I learned Kawamori is a father of two children (or at least there was only two around late 90s/early 00s). Idea of his Eyebrowness as a father is just.... bizarre beyond belief for me.

Would you mind enlightening me a bit about Miyatake's revolutionary "production design" concept? I don't really get it, surely concept art and such had been basis for animators for as long as animation has existed. He must mean something else than what I envisage with "production design"...

edit: oh boy, as funny as that was it doesn't quite top Hideaki Anno's once quip about if he just had had sex during his middle/high school years he might've never ended up in state he'd have to create Eva

Edited July 28, 2012 by Xard

[VF5SS]

Literal. He was being pretty much berated as having no experience with women, and so the behaviour of Misa and Minmay in the movie are overly melodramatic because it's all his pure fabricated fantasy running wild. Not my words!

i don't want to imagine was DYRL would have been like in smell-o-vision

[VF-18S Hornet]

"the concept behind the "Itano Circus" and Itano's youthful adventures playing with home-made rocket launchers strapped to motorcycles, from which he noticed that missiles never fly in a straight line."

Interesting and probably a dangerous hobby, but i'm glad he did that.

Never flew in a straight line, hmmm how many windows and houses he hurm "accidently" destroyed before he came up with that Idea. hmmmm. Okay I'll stop

Edited August 3, 2012 by VF-18S Hornet