Scriptwriter Chiaki Konaka's Experiences in Anime Production in the Late 90s and What He Tried to Do with "serial experiments lain" [Watching the Anime Industry Vol. 51

In 1995, "Neon Genesis Evangelion," which aired in the evenings, became a major breakthrough, and the animation industry suddenly came alive. Not only anime, but "Gamera," "Ultraman," and "Masked Rider" were revived, and Japanese visual culture greedily absorbed the new visual sense.
Serial experiments lain," for which Chiaki Konaka was in charge of the series composition and script for all episodes, is a unique psycho-suspense anime that quietly aired in the late-night slot in 1998, at a time when the animation industry was booming with vitality. This year, when "lain" celebrated its 20th anniversary and related events were held, we wondered what feelings came to Mr. Konaka's mind.　We spoke with him in Nishi-Shinjuku, Tokyo, in the middle of the summer season.

lain," which I started making just for myself, was a luxurious work of art.

─ ─ In July 2018, "Club Cyberia," an event to celebrate the 20th anniversary of "serial experiments lain" (1998), was held at Circus Tokyo in Shibuya, and in early December, a commemorative event for the game version of "lain" was held in Osaka. I heard that a commemorative event for the game version of "pain" was held in Osaka at the beginning of December.

Konaka Yes, the game version was released at the end of November, so the "Club Cyberia" event in Osaka was more focused on the game. For some reason, many of the people who support "Rain" today are young, as were the fans who organized the event. People who weren't even born at the time of the broadcast have been drawing fan art and uploading it to Twitter. I myself thought of visual works as something to be consumed at that time, and did not think of them as content that would survive 20 years later, nor did I consider "Lain" to be a special work. If you depict the trends of each era, they will eventually become obsolete, and in fact, I think the network world depicted in "pain" has become obsolete. Looking at it the other way around, the contrasting structure and relationship between the real and the network has not changed that much over the past 20 years; the viewing environment has changed over the past 20 years, and more and more people are watching "Lain" for the first time through online distribution.

─ ─ Back in 1998, the program was broadcast from midnight, and I thought "I must be the only one who watches this kind of anime.

Konaka Yes, when I read the feedback on Twitter, there are many tweets that assume that no one watches "lain" ....... A certain percentage of people recommend "lain" to me, but they do so in a slightly pessimistic way, saying "I'm sure no one will understand it. However, the fans who organized "Club Cyberia" are of a younger generation, who converge the esoteric and underground aspects of the work with the "cute characters" and continue to enjoy, or rather consume, it. From my point of view, this is an astonishing new way to enjoy anime.

─ ─ As an anime project for terrestrial broadcasting, to whom did you target "main"?

Konaka: We had already decided to release a game for the PlayStation, so we had the premise that the anime was a promotion to sell the game. Even so, we were not thinking about what kind of anime the core game users would like, so in the end we just let it go and made the anime we liked. As is the case with all works in a series, the motivation when starting a work and the state of mind when putting it together for the final episode shift quite a bit. In the beginning of "pain," I was just making it for myself. In the fifth episode, the main character Reine's sister has a mental breakdown, and I wanted to work up to that point first. The game version was a violent psycho-horror story, and I thought the anime would be like that, but director Ryutaro Nakamura shifted the direction to show more of a drama. The production team for "pain" was able to wait until the very last minute to prepare the scenario, so I was able to watch the recording of the first half of the game and then feed my impressions back into the scenario for the last half. I sometimes noticed that the father played by Ryunosuke Obayashi (now Ryusuke Obayashi) spoke in a surprisingly convincing way. Takahiro Kishida, the character designer, was a stickler for us on the set, and we had fights with producer Koyuki Ueda, and that's how serious we were about making the film. We didn't have much of a budget, but it was an extravagant work.