Commemorating the Publication of a Collection of Columns!　Director Ryosuke Takahashi Talks about "The World of Text and Language" [Watching the Animation Industry Vol. 52

Director Ryosuke Takahashi, known for "Fang of the Sun Dougram" (1981) and "Armored Trooper Votoms" (1983), will publish a collection of his columns, "Anime Director...is it OK? How to deal with mecha as read from Dougram and Votoms" (KADOKAWA) will be published on February 9, 2019.
In his columns, Takahashi goes behind the scenes of the planning and production of "Kikoukai Galian" (1984) and "Aoki Ryusei SPT Reisner" (1985), but he is also a talented director who uses his sharp sense of language to create a worldview filled with the smell of iron and smoke. In this interview, we asked him about the universe of director Ryosuke Takahashi's works, which are depicted through words rather than images.

The narration of the trailer for VOTOMS is "Don't look back.

─ When I think of the literary style of director Ryosuke Takahashi, the first thing that comes to mind is the narration of the next trailer for "Armored Trooper Votoms". You wrote all 52 episodes yourself, didn't you?

Takahashi: That's right. I wrote the next episode's preview in an hour before entering the studio. At the time, there was a coffee shop called Olive in Shibuya, and I would read newspapers and weekly magazines for 45 minutes, and then in the last 15 minutes, I would write it all at once, saying, "Oh, I have no more time. Otherwise, I would have been too embarrassed to write that narration. At the time, Soji Yoshikawa said to me, "How could you write something like that without embarrassment?
The condition of the "VOTOMS" project was that I had to write the plot myself. In other words, I had to come up with 52 stories. I would take the train from Tokorozawa Station and get off at Tanashi Station, where there was a coffee shop on the second floor of a pachinko parlor where I would write the plot. If I couldn't write in that store, I would walk from Tanashi to the next station and think while walking. I already knew all the coffee shops I would go to. In the end, I would walk to Kami-igusa and write at a coffee shop in front of a bath shop. At that coffee shop, Mr. Yamaura (Eiji Yamaura, Sunrise's 3rd president) had his morning meal and went to work at Sunrise, but I walk every station, so it is a little later. The trailer narration is a job of where to cut out the script that has already been created, isn't it? But plotting takes time because you have to think about what kind of story you want to tell in the first place.


─ ─ More than 10 years ago, I did an interview with Director Takahashi for a magazine called "Nikkei Characters! magazine, you mentioned that you liked Ken Kaiko, didn't you?

Takahashi: Yes, I seem to be personally influenced by Mr. Kaiko. I think his vocabulary is reflected in the dialogue, narration, titles, and subtitles.

─ ─ In "Douglas the Fang of the Sun," there is a middle-aged military reporter named Dick Lartuff, isn't there? It reminds me a little of Ken Kaiko, doesn't it?

Takahashi: Mr. Kaiko was in his 30s when he went to Vietnam, so his character is completely different. However, it is selfish of me to create a character with that kind of position in a robot film, and it has become one of my characteristics.

─ ─ In "FLAG" (2006), the main character was a female battlefield journalist, Saeko Shirasu, wasn't she?

Takahashi: Yes, "FLAG" was entirely about a military reporter. The work reflects Mr. Kaiko, or rather, the people around him and the times in which he lived.

─ Are there any other artists who have influenced your work?

Takahashi: This has nothing to do with animation, but Hitomi Yamaguchi, who was at Sun-Ad, the same company as Mr. Kaiko. Another artist who surprised me when he became an animator was Masashi Ikenami. I was surprised by Shotaro Ikenami.


─ ─ "Onihei" (an animated TV series based on Shotaro Ikenami's "Onihei Hankacho"; 2017).

Takahashi: I use Mr. Ikenami as my primary reference when I write. The reason is that he doesn't write in black and white. Compared to writing in black and white, it takes half of my effort. Ikenami's lines, sentences, and line breaks are unique, aren't they? I think, "Oh, this is easy and good. Well, it is an impure reason.