TAAF2019] Isao Takahata Memorial Special 1: An intense look back at the mastery of Takahata's "more realistic than realistic" direction from his early works

Tokyo Anime Awards Festival 2019 (TAAF2019) is being held in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, for four days from March 8 to 11, 2019. TAAF2019 will feature a "Isao Takahata Memorial Project" in honor of Isao Takahata, one of Japan's leading animation directors, who sadly passed away last year. Here we report on the screening of "Isao Takahata Memorial Project 1 - Thinking about the Real Isao Takahata: 'Heidi, Girl of the Alps,' 'Heidi, My Mother, and Anne of Green Gables'" on March 9 (Saturday), followed by a talk event.

The screening began at 11:00 a.m. at the Ikebukuro Cinema Rosa and was attended by many anime fans. Many old anime fans were seen in the audience, who were probably there to pay their respects to Isao Takahata, who sadly passed away last year.

The three animated films screened at the event were "Heidi, Girl of the Alps," (episode 2), "My Mother, the Third Thousand Miles" (episode 2), and "Anne of Green Gables" (episode 1), three animated TV series in which the young Mr. Takahata was deeply involved. Mr. Takahata was involved in the production of "Heidi" as director and producer, and in the other two as director, and all of them were truly "divine episodes" that conveyed the detailed emotional portrayal that is typical of Mr. Takahata. Hayao Miyazaki, who would later work with him at Studio Ghibli, participated in the scene setting and screen composition for all three films.

After the screening of the three films, a talk session was held. On stage were animator Yoichi Odabe, who served as character designer and animation director for "Heidi, Girl of the Alps" and animation director for "Heidi and Her Mother"; voice actress Yoshiko Sugiyama, who is known for her voice of Heidi; and TAAF2019 festival director and director of "Heidi and Her Mother. and Koji Takeuchi, who was also involved in the "Mother's Journey: 3,000 Miles Away". Animation historian Takashi Namiki took the stage as moderator for the talk.

The first topic of discussion was the story behind the audition of Ms. Kazuko Sugiyama for the role of "Haiji. According to Ms. Sugiyama, a high, beautiful voice was the norm for child actors at the time, but she did not have a very high voice and went into the audition with a slightly husky, low voice. However, Ms. Sugiyama was chosen for the role because she sounded like a normal girl who might live next door. Moreover, at the recording studio at that time, there was no "character list" to write down the character settings, and the backgrounds of the characters were not explained, so the role of Heidi was created by the students' imagination on the spot. Even at the stage of the second episode, which was screened on the day of the screening, the pictures were not yet almost complete, and when a red line appeared on the motionless line drawing, it was Heidi, and when a blue line appeared, it was Peter, and the recording was done accordingly. This meant that Sugiyama and the other voice actors had no idea what the actual scene would look like, and were often surprised when they saw the finished video.

However, Mr. Sugiyama's comment was disputed by Mr. Odabe and Mr. Takeuchi, who were part of the production team for the animation at the time, who said, "No, there should have been pictures at that time. According to Mr. Odabe, up to four episodes had to be made before the start of airing, and there was no way that only line drawings were used during postrecording. However, the fact that the finished product does not look out of place even when viewed today reminds us of the high level of the production team at that time.

Ms. Takeuchi also pointed out that in the scene in the second episode of Heidi where Heidi and her grandfather cover themselves with sheets when making a hay bed, Heidi's body floats up in the air. In the real world, a human body would never float up just by covering it with a sheet, but the fact that Heidi's body floated up in the scene did not seem strange to the viewer, in other words, the emotional realism, not the realism, was naturally expressed in the animation work, which is exactly what was so great about the director and producer, Isao Takahata. This is the great thing about Isao Takahata, who was directing and supervising the animation. Mr. Odabe, who was the animation director at the time, commented, "It was Mr. Takahata who decided everything from storyboards to scene compositions. And Mr. Miyazaki was the animator who decided exactly how the pictures should be drawn. Therefore, everything had already been created by the Takahata/Miyazaki duo," he said.

Mr. Odabe also pointed out the importance of location scouting. When producing "Heidi," Takahata, Miyazaki, Odabe, and others actually went to Switzerland for location scouting. This was at a time when overseas travel was not yet common. According to Mr. Sugiyama, the alpine plants depicted in "Heidi" were not depicted in a haphazard manner, but were all flowers that actually existed. When Mr. Sugiyama visited Switzerland later that year, a local driver insisted that "Heidi was made in Switzerland," to which Mr. Sugiyama replied that it was made in Japan. He said, "That can't be true. He said, "That can't be true, because the crests of the houses in the work are real. Only Swiss people can draw them. Sugiyama said he was really surprised to learn this.

However, Mr. Odabe had an even more surprising episode to share. Mr. Odabe, when on location scouting in Switzerland, was running a pencil through his sketchbook, trying to record the Swiss-like scenery and people, but Mr. Miyazaki, who accompanied him, did not make a single sketch. He simply looked at them. He said that Mr. Miyazaki, who accompanied him, did not make any sketches, but only watched. He did not think at all about drawing realistically and faithfully what he saw. The audience burst into laughter when Namiki interjected, "Mr. Miyazaki is a genius at 'drawing as if he were drawing.

Mr. Takeuchi also pointed out the depiction of food in "Heidi. Heidi's cheese" is often mentioned, but at the time, most Japanese had never heard of "cheese fondue," and the production staff was even surprised to learn that cheese melts when they first learned about it during location scouting. However, Mr. Odabe said that Mr. Miyazaki's ability to imagine and draw a picture that the viewers would surely find delicious is what was so amazing about him. In that sense, Mr. Takeuchi said, the animated cartoons of that time were not backed up and probably lied about. In fact, there was a program that later verified what Heidi's cheese was, and they tried using various kinds of cheese, but none of them melted and stretched like that, he said. That is how Hayao Miyazaki is able to imagine and depict food that "looks like" and "tastes like" even though it does not actually exist.

Although it is much easier nowadays to access a wide variety of data on the Internet and other sources, Mr. Takeuchi points out that even so, the details of today's animations are much sloppier than those of the past. He said that although there was far less information available at the time, there was a strong sense of personalizing the information and conveying it to the public.

The same attention to detail and realism can also be seen in the production of "My Mother's Journey of Three Thousand Leagues" and "Anne of Green Gables. According to Namiki, the same is true of the store signs in the streets of Genoa in "Three Thousand Miles," as well as the character design of "Anne of Green Gables" in which Anne's forehead is well-developed. In "Anne of Green Gables," Yoshifumi Kondo, who designed the character, initially drew a cute Anne, but Mr. Takahata did not like her face. He told her to "draw a more decotchy, freckled face." However, this led to the creation of that character in "Anne of Green Gables," and in fact, when "Anne of Green Gables" was made into a live-action film in Canada later that year, the character was reproduced almost exactly as it was.

Mr. Odabe, who worked as a character designer for "Heidi," also had an idea about this episode. Mr. Odabe said that he initially showed his cute Heidi character design to Mr. Takahata, but he did not receive a good response. When he asked what he should do, Mr. Takahata said, "I want you to draw Heidi looking straight into her grandfather's face. With that one comment, Mr. Odabe understood Mr. Takahata's intention, and from then on, the work proceeded smoothly. Isao Takahata's belief that it is not enough to portray a child or a girl in a cute way, but rather to depict the ugly side of a character in order to create a character that is more human and more realistic than the real thing, was already germinating in his early works.

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