Dennou Bokenki Web Diver", Hiroshi Negishi x Shin Matsuo x Hideyuki Kachi x Yoshihiro Takagi Roundtable Discussion! A limited time WEBCM with narration by the filmmakers is also available!

Celebrating the 20th anniversary of its broadcast, "Dennou Bokenki Web Diver" will be released as a BD-BOX this winter. The video of a round-table talk session in which they talk about the behind-the-scenes making of the series is now on view.

⇒ " Dennou Bokenki Web Diver" 20th anniversary of broadcast! Gladion" and "Dark Gladion" are now available as plastic models for the first time on MODEROID!

The storyline was developed with a strong focus on running as a one-year work, and the ingenuity and playfulness that went into it.

Celebrating its 20th anniversary year since its broadcast, "Dennou Bokenki Web Diver" will be released in a BD-BOX this winter. A WEBCM with narration by Yumiko Kobayashi and Tomokazu Sugita is currently being shown on the Frontier Works YouTube channel.

In addition, we have received the second part of the round-table discussion in which the filmmakers talk about the making of the film.

The main story of "Web Diver" is divided into two parts: the Magical Gate Arc (up to episode 32) and the Delitros Gate Arc (starting from episode 33).

The Magical Gate Arc depicted the hero Kent's journey to rescue his brother who was left behind in the Magical Gate and his battle with his friends who were brainwashed and became his enemies. After the resolution of the Magical Gate Arc, the Delitros Gate Arc begins, in which Kent and his friends are again transported by the enemy's power into the cyber world (this time with their bodies), and the story revolves around their survival life as children alone and their battle against a new strong enemy, Ryuto of Delitros.

The second part of the roundtable discussion continues the rare topics discussed in the first part, including the story structure and drama of the series as a whole, the birth story of Dark Gladion, a popular enemy mecha that appears toward the end of the series, and the OP, which was highly acclaimed at the time of its broadcast.

Kent's starting point is to take action for his younger brother

───The Magical Gate version is formatted in the way that Kent goes from one invaded world to another to free them and rescue the children, with the main goal of saving his younger brother.

Negishi: Who is the closest "thing to protect" for a boy of about 10 years old? When I thought about it, I chose my younger brother out of a sense of "wanting to protect little lives. My little brother, who I was playing with, has gone missing. I really want to save him! That's what I wanted to do. But I don't dig any deeper than that. Because he is not a "brave man who saves the world. First of all, he is a member of his own family. The starting point is to take action for his brother, who needs to be saved.

Takagi: It was shocking that the Magical Gate was invaded in the first episode, and the children were left behind in that situation. From the development of the product, I imagined that it would be a story about gradually gathering friends and getting to know each other, but it was surprising to see the story start with quite a crisis.

─ In the Magical Gate section, Kent's friends and Gladion's fellow Web knights stand in the way as enemies.

Negishi: In showing the toys in action, it is most effective to have them start out as enemies and then become allies, in keeping with the order in which the products are released (laughs). (Laughs) When you win against a tough opponent, he joins your group, which is also a royal pattern. And if Kent's friends go to the cyber world and have their consciousness altered (brainwashed), they can become web divers on the enemy side and attack with the web knights, even if they have dozens of friends.

Negishi: In episode 1, Gladion comes to Kent for help, doesn't he?

Negishi: At the stage when he is called upon, Gladion is an existence that Kent has no connection to. But he concludes in the first episode that he must fight with him, including the part where he wants to help his brother whom he left behind. In other words, if we don't involve each other, our categories of action are limited in this world. That is why our "positions" coincided in that respect. And, oddly enough, in chess, the reversal of the game starts when there are only the king and the pawns. The opponent starts to play his pieces in the form of "Ou-te! In such a situation, the player's pawns are not in the same position as the king's. In such a situation, the player takes the opponent's pieces one by one in order to protect the king by making a step into gold. That is how the game is played.

──You just used the game of Shogi as a metaphor, and you tweeted something to the effect that "Delitros is the centerpiece of the game because it is meant to look down at the game board.

Negishi: It would be a little bit unexciting if a human face appeared in a different space. I think the most impactful part of a human face is the eyeball. It is the same with yokai (monsters) and the like. It would be a little eerie to have only eyeballs, wouldn't it? It's a simple idea like that (laughs). (laughs). It also gives the impression that they are being watched.

Two rivals of different types, Galyun and Drag-On

─ In the Magical Gate version, there are two rivals of different types: the solitary Galyung, who values fairness and honesty, and Drag-ons, who are more open to any means.

Negishi: That also has to do with the product development. Drag-On is the second leading product, so we have to make him look like a tough opponent. But Galyun is cool, too, isn't he? If Galyung is just beaten and becomes a friend, it would give the impression that he is not very strong. I wanted him to be a friend or foe. ...... "I recognize your strength, but I'm not going to join either side," I thought. The sailing ship was also the image of a pirate ship, so in other words, it's a pirate fighting for ...... justice. In the case of Drag-On, Naoki also appears as a buddy, so I wanted Naoki to say from the very first episode, "Kent is my eternal rival," and then he says, "I've never liked you! and then he puts up the biggest fight of his life. That's how you match Drag-On's character.

─ ─ Naoki and the others in the brainwashed state are quite creepy with their delitros eyes on their foreheads.

Negishi: I wanted them to be easily recognizable as being in a brainwashed state. I also left out the eye highlights as an expression, but it could be considered a drawing error, right? So it's a symbol that you can instantly see that it's being influenced by Delitros. It's not like it's implanted with something, it's kind of like a seal. Thanks to this, Ryut in the final battle could be shown in an easy-to-understand way by using the same eyeballs.

─ It is interesting to note that the brainwashed children are not puppets whose memories have been erased, but rather they have their previous memories and their negative feelings have been intensified.

Negishi: Each one of them has some kind of complex. For example, Naoki is aware that he will never be able to beat Kent. This is the dark side of Naoki's complex, which is exacerbated by Delitros. So they are consumed by feelings of hatred. ......

Shaw, who was a sentinel of Delitros from episode 20, was wearing a mask.

Negishi: See, cool enemies have to wear masks (laughs).

Kachi: There is no very clear reason (laughs).

Negishi: This is the same with the posing of Kent and the others in the later OP. I don't really know why, but I just thought, "It looks cool, so it's OK!

─ ─ It was also interesting to see them come to the real world in a state of being brainwashed by Delitros.

Negishi: I also wanted to change the perspective, including the pattern of the story. Naoki has a family structure similar to Kent's, but Shaw has an older sister and a younger brother. ...... The older sister is always concerned about her younger brother, and Shaw himself feels he has to be an honor student because he doesn't want to cause his sister any trouble. He has a bit of a dark side to him, and I wanted to show a backbone that is different from that of a normal child and make him a character with a lot of mystery.

─ Naoki's younger sister, Yukari, makes an appearance in episode 22, but did you want her to be completely symmetrical with Kent's family?

Negishi: Yes, that's part of it, and it would be annoying if she was just a hot-blooded character who yells and screams at Kent. But at home, he has a sisterly side, which is why I chose ....... And if he were a younger brother, he would be exactly the same as Kent, so I had to be conscious of that as well. Shaw also has an older sister, so Kent, Naoki, and Shaw are more like siblings.

The reason why the climax of the Magical Gate Arc is two-staged

Negishi: The climax of the Magical Gate Arc comes right after the dramatic confrontation with the Naoki-Dragon duo, when the Daitarion appears.

Negishi: In terms of the setting, Daitarion has the ability to manipulate time, and there is no other way to tell the story, which is why I placed it at the very end of the Magical Gate Arc. Drag-ons fighting in front of the strongest Daitarion had to be a forceful opponent for that reason. That story is in episode 23, and the last main toy, Daitarion, appears in episode 25, and the last episode of the Magical Gate Arc is in episode 32, because of product development reasons.

Kachi: The structure is completely in line with the toy release schedule, so it is not in cool units.

Negishi: So, in the fourth episode, when the product development was finished, we were allowed to do whatever we wanted on the animation side, so we were allowed to do whatever we wanted (laughs).

Matsuo: You also took part in the animation of the main story as part of your rotation, didn't you?

Matsuo: Around the time of "Web Diver," we had a contract with Radix as a studio called "A Team," but I was more involved in helping out than in making the full cut. Most of the action scenes were done by Fujio Suzuki, who was also on the A-team. He also liked action scenes, so I asked him to do as much of that as possible. I did a lot of effects work and not so much on the characters.

Negishi: Ha-ha-ha (laughs).

Matsuo: Besides the effects, what left an impression on me was the dog in episode 22 (the large dog barking at Yukari). He was able to draw the dog so well that I thought, "Ah, drawing a dog is more difficult than drawing a character. But you draw dogs that well! (everyone laughed).

─ You are also credited in episodes 6 and 12, where Galyun appears.

Matsuo: No, I think that is probably not the case at all (everyone laughs). I received "Web Diver" as the A-team through Mr. Sora Nomura of Radix, and everyone at the studio worked separately on the cuts for the episodes I was in charge of.

Negishi: At the time, Radix was not doing many mechanical works, so Matsuo and his team (A team) were in charge of copyrighted works. In a way, they were like a super handyman. Matsuo and Yoshikazu Samura were such splendid members who drew package jackets and copyright illustrations for anime magazines, and they did a lot of illustrations for children's picture books.

Matsuo: I liked copyrighted illustrations a lot, so much so that I wanted to draw more of them.

─ Did you order the design of the Magical Station to be a space ship as well?

Negishi: What I asked for in the design order was the setup for Gladion's sortie, and I told Yasuhiro Moriki, "I want it to look like the shoot-in from Grendizer. I thought it would be nice to have that feeling of the seat making a complete turn when moving from top to bottom (laughs).

Negishi: That's the sequence of the cockpit movement when the daiser separates from the spacer (laughs).

Negishi: Yes, yes (laughs). The sortie scene is always played as a bank, isn't it? In special effects, it is called a "wandaba," so we wanted to include a mechanism that would be a solid showcase for the repetitive scenes. Also, the image of the locomotive being ejected saying "Shoot! and then the locomotive is ejected, we came up with a spaceship shape. It is a cool design, isn't it? When the writers saw the Magical Station design, they started saying crazy things like, "We can travel around the world with this, can't we?

I could go on and on, but you can read the rest of the story on the interview page of the "Dennou Boukenki Web Diver" anniversary BD-BOX special site!

URL: #

[Interview/Porori Haruso]

[Product Information
Dennou Bokenki Web Diver" Anniversary BD-BOX
Price: 29,700 yen (including tax)
Included bonus: Scenario book (completely new episode "Return of the Web Knight" [scenario: Masashi Kubota])
Specifications: 2 BDs (BD50G) containing all 52 episodes of the TV series (the final episode includes both an on-air version and a long version)
Part number: FFXA-9021
Minutes: Approx. 1,196 min.
Screen size: 4:3 (480i)
Year of production: 2021
Country of Origin: Japan
Country of Origin: Japan / Publisher/Distributor: Frontier Works
Reservations: #

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(C) 2001 Web Diver Production Committee, TV Tokyo, NAS