Sunrise Festival 2021] The production site was truly a battlefield. ...... Report on the screening event of "Document: Fang of the Sun Dougram," "ChoroQ Dougram," and "Zabungle Graffiti," where director Ryosuke Takahashi talked about the episodes from those days!

The screening event of the theater version anime "Document: Fang Douglas of the Sun," "ChoroQ Douglas," and "Zabungle Graffiti" was held on October 23, 2021 at Grand Cinema Sunshine Ikebukuro, Tokyo, where the director Ryosuke Takahashi, who worked on the two "Douglas" films, and former Sunrise staff member Koichi Inoue, who was involved in the planning, literature, and settings of both "Douglas" and "Zabungle," took the stage to talk before the screening. Koichi Inoue, a former Sunrise staff member who was involved in the planning, literature and settings of both "Dougram" and "ZABUNGLE," took the stage to talk about his memories of those days. They reminisced about those days.

This event was held as part of the "Sunrise Festival 2021 REGENERATION," a screening event held from October 1 to 31, 2021. Kunio Okawara, a mechanical designer, was originally scheduled to appear on the stage with Director Takahashi, but he was not able to attend due to health concerns on the day of the event. Instead, Mr. Inoue was chosen by Mr. Okawara to take the podium.

This screening event was planned in the same package as the 1983 theatrical release. Director Takahashi began his talk with an episode from the stage greeting at the time of the film's release.

The first stage greeting was at a theater in Shinjuku, where he happened to meet Yoshiyuki Tomino, the director of "Zabungle Graffiti" when he got off at Shinjuku station. At that time, Director Tomino was dressed as usual with a suitcase, but when it came time to take the stage, he changed into a white suit. Seeing his appearance, Director Takahashi felt that "he was used to greeting people on stage," as it was his first time to do so.

When the opening theme of "ZABUNGLE" was played, the theater was filled with excitement, but when the opening theme of "DOUGRAM" was played, the scene was filled with a heavy atmosphere. He recounts how he felt that he was not like Tomino.

On the other hand, Mr. Inoue was in charge of advertising when the movie version was released, and since the poster for "ZABUNGLE GRAFFITTI" was about twice the size of the poster for the "Dougram" side, he thought, "Are we going to display these side by side .......

Incidentally, when the audience was asked to raise their hands if they had seen the movie in theaters at the time, it turned out that most of them were of the real-time generation! The talk stage was full of behind-the-scenes episodes from those days, which must have been irresistible to the fans.

In such a reunion mood, the two looked back on the staff who worked with them on the productions back then.

It's a pity we can't see Mr. Okawara today. (Screenwriter) Hiroyuki Hoshiyama is also gone, as is Takeyuki Kanda, who directed most of the second half of the film.

That's what 40 years means" (Inoue).

Inoue said, "That's what 40 years means to me,

When I went to Mr. Okawara for orders from Mr. Kanda, he would get angry at me for not understanding (the instructions). ...... Kanda-san liked military, didn't he?

I was weak in that area, so I had to rely on him" (Takahashi).

(Takahashi) "I'm weak in that area, so I had to rely on him.

Director Ryosuke Takahashi

Of particular interest is how the fascinating weapons were designed.

The Ironfoot was a rough sketch drawn by the director of that episode, and then Mr. Okawara made it up as he went along," said Kanda. Kanda-san asked him to design a two-seater blockhead so that the captain would ride on top, and Okawara-san responded to his request.

Director Takahashi, on the other hand, said that he watched the interaction between the staff with a feeling of "I'll leave the rest to you! Takahashi, on the other hand, said that he watched the interactions between the staff with a feeling of "I'll leave the rest to you!

I left the rest to them, or rather, I felt 98% of the work was done. I thought that if I created the initial image and conveyed it to the staff, they would probably devise something more along those lines," he said.

This was because he had been away from the animation production scene for a while before directing "Cyborg 009" (1979), which he had worked on one year earlier, and he was still feeling uneasy about working in animation. Therefore, he was helped by Takeyuki Kanda, who served as co-director.

Director Takahashi has worked with Kunio Okawara on four consecutive works, beginning with this film and continuing with "Armored Trooper Votoms," "Galian," and "Aoki Ryusei SPT Reisner.

Director Takahashi said, "I am four years older than Mr. Okawara, but being four years older than him back then means that our experiences are similar. Mr. Okawara likes things made of "iron," and I can more easily imagine things made of "iron. We shared the same sense of existence of the weapons used by the U.S. military stationed in the United States after the war, which we saw on a daily basis - mainly jeeps. I could share the fundamentals with Mr. Okawara without having to talk about them, so it was always easy to work with him," he said about working with Mr. Okawara.

Koichi Inoue

Next, Mr. Inoue talked about the design of the main mecha, Dougram.

The design of Dougram took a very long time, starting in the summer or fall of the previous year and taking about nine months," he said, adding that it took less than a year for the design to be finalized.

This situation continued even after the production of the anime started, and it was revealed that the decaying Dougram in the first episode "did not initially have a missile pod on the side of its head (it was added later)" and that although a linear gun had been set up, the setting for attaching it to its arm had not been made. (If you watch the first episode, the linear gun is left on the ground, but it had not been decided whether it would be attached to the arm or held in the hand.)

In addition, the pilot had to descend with one leg because the elevator to the cockpit could not be used if there was a turbo sack attached to the back of the plane, etc. Kunio Okawara was the one who finalized these changes in the settings, and Mr. Inoue said, "Mr. Okawara has made me work hard. Mr. Inoue said, "Mr. Okawara has been giving me a hard time.

Director Takahashi said, "I have the impression that he did not say anything about Douglas (the design). When the offer came, the design was almost finished".

When Director Takahashi received the offer, Eiji Yamaura (the third president of Sunrise, and the general manager of the planning department at the time) first told him, "I'm not sure what you want me to do. The first thing he was told by Eiji Yamaura (Sunrise's third president and head of the Planning Department at the time) was, "Just watch 'Gundam' every day," and "This is the era in which we can create something like this. He then thought, "I have learned firsthand how wonderful Mr. Tomino's 'Gundam' is, and I cannot do the same thing.

Gundam" was set on a battleship, so it had a naval element. And with "Ikimasu! has an air force element. And I think Yoshikazu Yasuhiko's element, the uniforms, were also cool. Gundam" expressed the coolness of the air force and navy, so we decided to do the army and directed the muddy atmosphere. Mr. Hoshiyama is from the Zenkyoto generation, so he infused that element into Deloitte Seven.

Sunrise's only request was that the robot sell. While sketching the robot, he wondered if he could incorporate elements of Leiji Matsumoto's work, and came up with the decaying Dougram, which he recalls as "the first step toward making 'Dougram' work.

There was another reason behind the creation of this "rotting Dougram," and that was when director Takahashi bowed down and said, "I wasn't confident enough to sell the robot, and I wanted to make an episode like a trailer before the first episode. This request popped up at a time when production had already begun, and he was told by the site that they would wait until this time and that he would take responsibility for the project, which he agreed to.

However, all that was ready by the due date meeting was a rough sketch of a decaying Douglas. Director Kanda saw this and thought, "This is a storyboard that's not ready! Director Kanda, seeing this, thought, "This is a storyboard that is not ready!" He broke up the original picture man, who was green-streaked, and finished the storyboard at a rapid pace, but in the end, the start of the broadcast was delayed three weeks from the schedule. ......, a rather spectacular back story was revealed.

Takahashi-san seemed a bit embarrassed, saying, "I asked Kanda-san to join the project, but I thought he might leave if he knew I hadn't even finished the storyboards. ......

So, when he heard that Sunrise Studio 1, where "Dougram" was being produced, was in trouble, Mr. Inoue was transferred to help out. Mr. Inoue, who was in charge of "Dougram," recalled that he was a "good staff member," despite all that had happened to him.

The "Fangs of the Sun Dougram" series has many episodes hidden within it, and to commemorate its 40th anniversary, Yasuo Otagaki is currently developing a comic book version of the series, "Get truth: Fangs of the Sun Dougram".

Director Takahashi spoke highly of the comic book version, saying, "Mr. Ohtagaki draws with such passion that every time I receive a draft, I wonder if it's all right for him to draw so much. In a word, he said, "I can't say anything about it.

In a word, he said, "I feel like I've been screwed over.

The first volume of the comic book, which includes a plastic kit of the "Get truth" version of Douglam, will be released in December, so if you are interested, please check it out.

Finally, Mr. Inoue answered "Choro-Q Dougram" as the highlight of the screening. The 75 episodes of the story have been condensed into 7 minutes! He said, "75 episodes of the story are condensed into 7 minutes!

Director Takahashi, on the other hand, said of the "Documentary: Douglas the Fang of the Sun," "I think it was a selfish re-editing of the film. I think it was a selfish re-editing, even after watching it again. One of the themes that Takahashi set forth when making "Dougram" has remained alive in his later works, and is the "journalistic viewpoint" that is also present in "Document: Fangs of the Sun Dougram.

This was the theme that would later be used in "FLAG" (released between 2006 and 2007. (released from 2006 to 2007, depicting a civil war in a small fictional Central Asian country through the first-person perspective of a female journalist), as well as his recent work with China (the project itself fell through, he says, but it was also a story about a cameraman).

Another theme is that of father and son. I think of "Douglas" as my debut film, and recently I've been thinking that the theme of my debut film is still relevant. In that sense, I am glad that 40 years have passed and I still have this kind of (event) opportunity," he concluded the talk stage.