Forbes interviews Shinichiro Watanabe about his career, including "Macross Plus"

[kajnrig]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2023/01/26/shinichiro-watanabe-on-making-cowboy-bebop-and-what-he-thinks-of-the-live-action-adaptation/

The interview covers the entirety of his career, but a good few paragraphs are dedicated to his M+ days.

Quote

“The first anime I worked on where I was in charge of the overall direction was Macross Plus. However, in reality, the director for that was Shoji Kawamori and I was more like a co-director. In the credits though, Kawamori is listed as something like supervising director, but he really was the director. It was also totally different from working as an episode director; I was much more responsible for a wider variety of things including the story. I was in charge of the entire direction and I gained experience in how to look at the overall aspect of production.

“For Macross Plus, the overall setting and world setup were done by Kawamori, so in that sense, I was there more to support all of that. The end result was an anime that was a mixture of my tastes and Kawamori’s tastes. I didn’t plan to work on Macross Plus either, the offer just came up and I took it. In addition, at that time, Sunrise didn’t hire directors as employees. That meant when I became an episode director, I was effectively released from my contract with Sunrise. That meant I became freelance after that.

“With Takahashi [Ryosuke], he doesn’t do tasks on his own, but he is instead very good at delegating tasks to other people and maximizing their abilities for the benefit of the overall production. He’s a very good manager of people. However, with Kawamori, it is completely the opposite. He wants to do everything on his own. That meant working with Kawamori was very different from working with someone like Takahashi. Takahashi was always very gentle though, but by contrast, Kawamori was quite eccentric. He was very calm but eccentric. He was very pure with eyes sparkling with fascination. Kawamori is a very interesting person.”

....

“Even though I was a director on Macross Plus, Kawamori was really the main director. That meant the situation didn't allow me to do everything I wanted. That frustration turned into a huge amount of energy inside of me. It made me want to do my own original things. So Cowboy Bebop ended up being the first anime where I could do whatever I wanted. That means you don't really need to pay attention to what I worked on before Cowboy Bebop.

[MKT]

Just read this today as well, I found the whole interview enjoyable & insightful.

[Bolt]

That's a good read. Thanks for sharing!

[Seto Kaiba]

A good read indeed.

Nothing particularly unexpected among the subject matter, except for how surprisingly blunt he was about finding Netflix's adaptation of Cowboy Bebop distasteful.  I figured it would come up, but I figured he'd be diplomatic about it and either sidestep the issue, give a noncommittal answer, or damn it by faint praise.  For him to come right out and say he found it so unpleasant that he'd failed to get past the first scene and that it was not Cowboy Bebop and never would be was far more direct, unreserved, and openly negative than I'd expected.

[Bolt]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

A good read indeed.

Nothing particularly unexpected among the subject matter, except for how surprisingly blunt he was about finding Netflix's adaptation of Cowboy Bebop distasteful.  I figured it would come up, but I figured he'd be diplomatic about it and either sidestep the issue, give a noncommittal answer, or damn it by faint praise.  For him to come right out and say he found it so unpleasant that he'd failed to get past the first scene and that it was not Cowboy Bebop and never would be was far more direct, unreserved, and openly negative than I'd expected.

Watanabe strikes me as someone who has learned not to pull punches. Hollywood has left it's mark. He also names the producer he hated working with and would've punched, working on the Animatrix. 

[TehPW]

Not at surprised about his view on the LA CB. He seemed very polite about working on Macross + with The Floating Head. Too Polite, IMHO (because that's the only mention of SK in SW's interview). I am looking for dirt that doesn't exist?

[Bolt]

He does mention that the floating head is very eccentric a few times. You can read between the lines, but i think there is respect there. 

[kajnrig]

I think it was just a very matter-of-fact assessment. The big things I took were 1) M+ is a mixture of their visions and styles, and 2) Kawamori can be very particular and eccentric. On the first, that statement tracks with, well, what's already on screen. And on the second, that seems to jive with the impression I'd worked up about Kawamori over the years.

So I don't get the impression that there exists any "dirt" beyond the usual workplace politics, nor that they have any strong lingering resentments towards each other.

[JB0]

On 1/31/2023 at 1:41 AM, TehPW said:

Not at surprised about his view on the LA CB. He seemed very polite about working on Macross + with The Floating Head. Too Polite, IMHO (because that's the only mention of SK in SW's interview). I am looking for dirt that doesn't exist?

It didn't read as any sort of disgruntlement, perhaps aside from "yes, I was director on Macross Plus, but really Kawamori was". And even that was tempered, with it being clear it wasn't because Kawamori was particularly antagonistic, just very enthusiastic and involved.

I suspect it would be hard for one anime director to begrudge another for just wanting to make cartoons instead of overseeing them.

[Rhubarbarian]

On 1/27/2023 at 5:25 PM, Bolt said:

Watanabe strikes me as someone who has learned not to pull punches. Hollywood has left it's mark. He also names the producer he hated working with and would've punched, working on the Animatrix. 

I was pretty surprised by that, it's not common in America and even less common in Japan. But then, the guy he named and shamed has only a few Matrix credits to his name, and is currently out of the entertainment business entirely it seems, so Watanabe probably knew there'd be few consequences.

It was a very insightful interview and it was kind of a shame to see most of the pull quotes just be in regards to the live-action CB adaptation, which comprised only a small part of the interview. Personally I found his comments about being powerless as an episodic director pretty fascinating; this is something that surprises a lot of people.

[sketchley]

1 hour ago, Rhubarbarian said:

(...) Personally I found his comments about being powerless as an episodic director pretty fascinating; this is something that surprises a lot of people.

It's fascinating to see behind the curtain at the inner working of TV/movie/etc. productions, isn't it?

Alas, powerless episodic directors seems to be par for the course.  How many directors was it that the MCU replaced because of 'conflicting' visions?  I'm sure one could find other examples, but that's what comes to mind first.