Knights of Sidonia, Ajin, BLAME! ......An Interview with Shuzo Shiota, President and CEO of Polygon Pictures, on the Past and Future of the company Interview with Shuzo Shiota, President of Polygon Pictures

Polygon Pictures is an animation studio that has produced many anime-style 3DCG animated films, including the animated film "Ajin - Impulse", which opened in theaters until October 13, 2016. The company first became widely known to anime fans with the 2013 TV anime "Knights of Sidonia.

However, "Knights of Sidonia" was produced to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the founding of Polygon Pictures, which is actually a company with a long history. So, it would be interesting for any anime fan to find out what kind of work they were doing before "Knights of Sidonia".

Akiba Research Institute asked Shuzo Shiota, president of Polygon Pictures, about the company's history and future prospects.

History of Polygon Pictures: 30 Years Leading Up to "Knights of Sidonia

─ First of all, please tell us about Polygon Pictures.

ShiotaPolygon Pictures was established in 1983. At that time, computers were still very expensive, so it wasn't until around 1988 that we began working on CG in earnest. At the time, CG was still an immature tool, so Polygon Pictures in its early days focused on research and development on how to mature CG. As part of this effort, we developed applications that would serve as the foundation of CG, and produced short films and other works to test their performance. Through exhibiting these works at SIGGRAPH (a conference held annually in the U.S. on cutting-edge CG technology and imaging), we became a well-known name in the CG industry.

─ ─ At the time of your establishment, your main focus was on research and development, wasn't it? What was the impetus for the company to become an animation studio?

Shiota: In the first half of 1993 , we released a work called "Michael the Dinosaur" as a result of our previous research. It is a film featuring a dinosaur character in the image of Michael Jackson. ...... Then the movie "Jurassic Park" came out that same year. I thought, "This is amazing. Of course, we thought we had created the best CG of the time, but there was one dinosaur in this movie and many dinosaurs in the other movie. Japan was also a reasonably advanced country in the field of CG in the 1980s, but we realized at that time the difference between Japan and the U.S., which began to focus on CG in the 1990s. That is what prompted us to shift our focus from technological development to character and story creation.

Shiota: It was under such circumstances that "Rocky X Hopper" was born in 1995. At the time, the commercial for Shiseido's hair styling products was very popular, and including merchandising, sales in the market were around 14 billion yen. It was Polygon Pictures' first hit.

Around 1995 was a very important time for the CG industry. For one thing, it was the year that Pixar's "Toy Story" was released in the United States. This proved that it was possible to make a blockbuster with full CG animation. The other was the advent of the PlayStation. The video game industry was booming at the time, and Japanese video game makers were doing very well, and there was a CG boom that showed how many things could be done with CG.

It was during this time that we established Dream Pictures Studios with Namco and Sony Computer Entertainment (both at the time) and embarked on film production. It ended up taking shape after only about two years. ...... Later, by bringing its state-of-the-art facilities and staff into Polygon Pictures, we were able to produce films on a large scale. The first order we received there was for "Digital Tokoro-san" in 2000, which produced nearly 250 episodes at 3 minutes per episode. This was Polygon Pictures' first TV series.

───That means that by 2000, the groundwork had been laid for the creation of an animated TV series, right?

Shiota ...... However, the CG boom in Japan had ended by then, and people were becoming more and more critical of CG, so there were not many projects to make CG animated films. So we decided to go overseas, and in 2005 we received an order for "Pooh and Pooh" from Disney. This led to the production of large-scale works such as "Transformers Prime," "Tron: Rising," and "Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

─ That was around the time when Japanese animation fans began to hear the name of Polygon Pictures as an animation studio.

Shiota : I think it was a time when we were in the midst of a major trend that continues to this day . Transformers" is still going on today. One of the most influential was "Tron: Rising. The designers of this movie are all unique individuals, and we went through a lot of trial and error and invested a lot of development resources in order to recreate their personalities in computer graphics. Thanks to their efforts, the completed work became a hot topic of conversation within the CG industry.

We began to think that if we could do this, we could enter the Japanese animation industry as well. This led to "Knights of Sidonia.

─ I have the impression that the works of Tsutomu Nibe, the author of "Knights of Sidonia," are more popular overseas. Why did you choose "Knights of Sidonia" as your entry into the Japanese animation industry?

Shiota: As I have mentioned, we have not been in the Japanese animation industry for a long time, so we did not choose this work based on the "current trend" in the industry. We chose works purely because we liked them, and from the viewpoint that they would look good if depicted in CG.

Also, Japanese animation fans are very demanding and proud of hand-drawn animation. Considering this, it was very risky to use full CG. However, we are outsiders, so we had nothing to fear. We also had confidence in what we were creating, so we decided to take on this challenge.

───This is how "Knights of Sidonia," which was broadcast in 2014, became such a big hit that a sequel and a movie version were made. What do you think was the reason for such a great reception?

Shiota: There were some negative comments about " Knights of Sidonia" in the beginning, such as that it was "slimy" (laughs), but as it was broadcasted more and more, people began to appreciate it as "a work typical of Mr. Nibei's style.

At that time, full 3DCG works such as "Arpeggio Ars Nova" and, a little later, "Expelled from Paradise" appeared one after another, and both became hits. I don't think it was a matter of timing, but I think it was very fortunate that "Knights of Sidonia" was included in such a major trend in the animation industry.

───This work was also focused on overseas development, such as distribution on Netflix.

Shiota : Broadcasting on Netflix , in 40 countries at the time, was a big deal because we had an overwhelming reach. Robot animation has hard-core fans overseas as well, and the response from those fans was great. I was surprised at how well known "Knights of Sidonia" is. I recently had the opportunity to perform at an art event in Portugal called "Trojan Horse was a Unicorn," and many people asked me, "When is season 3 of Knights of Sidonia coming? I was asked by many people (laughs). (Laughs). Many people overseas also want Cydonia to be done until the end. I was also asked about "BLAME! I realized that Mr. Nibei is overwhelmingly popular among European creators.

(C) POLYGON PICTURES
(C) Tsutomu Nibei, Kodansha/ Toa Heavy Industries Animation Production Department
(C) Sakurai Gamon, Kodansha / Ajin Management Committee