From "Excizer" to "Da Gaan" ...... Director Katsuyoshi Yatabe looks back on the beginnings of the "Yuusha Series" 30 years ago [Anime Industry Watching No. 62].
The "Yusha Series," an animated program produced by Takara (now Takara Tomy) as the main sponsor to promote its combined and transformable robot toys, grew to become one of Sunrise's most popular series throughout the 1990s. The first "Yusha Excizer" was broadcast in February 1990. Director Katsuyoshi Yatabe was responsible for directing the initial three "Brave Series" films until the following year's "Phibird, the Brave of the Sun" (1991) and "Da Gahn, the Legendary Brave" (1992) the year after that, thus solidifying the foundation of the series.
In the early 1990s, when children's interests and values were changing, how did Director Yatabe launch a new series for a younger audience? We asked him to look back 30 years.
The end of the 1980s, when robot animation for young children had dried up
───Director Yatabe, you participated extensively in Sunrise's robot animation in the 80s, up to "Kikou Senki Dragner" (1987), directed by Takeyuki Kanda.
Yatabe: I participated in "Cyborg 009" (1979) as a production assistant, and then I joined Yoshiyuki Tomino's "The Legendary God Ideon" (1980) as an assistant director. (1984), and "Aoki Ryusei SPT Reisner" (1985), for which I was in charge of storyboarding and direction. After that, I worked on the theatrical version of "Dirty Pair" (1987) as a director under Koichi Mashita. So, I have worked under Tomino-san, Ryosuke-san, Kanda-san, and Mashita-san (......).
─ ─ Compared to those 80s Sunrise works, the Yusha series has a younger age range.
Yatabe: Originally, robot animation was aimed at kindergarteners and early elementary school students who wanted toys. As those children grew older, the product format changed in the 1980s. With "Mobile Suit Gundam" (1979), the emphasis was on collectability, like buying lots of Zaku if they were Zaku, right? I noticed that there were no longer any programs for small children. Therefore, Takayuki Yoshii, who was the producer at that time, wanted to make an animation program for younger children. As a program for children, director Shuji Iuchi worked on "Wataru: The Legend of Heroes" (1988; Mr. Yatabe participated as storyboard artist and director), and by the time "The King of Magic King Granzort" (1989) and "Wataru: The Legend of Heroes" (1990) came along, Mr. Iuchi's desire to do "heroic fantasy" was a natural choice. I think this is probably due to Mr. Iuchi's desire to create "heroic fantasy," and the target age range for his works naturally rises. Before that, "Dougram" had a giant robot first, and then it was developed as a short movie version using SD characters. However, the concept of "Wataru" was to release a small robot with SD characters, a small toy, from the very beginning. This meant that there were no more proper giant robots and animations for young children.
Mr. Yoshii had intended to make a robot for children, but Eiji Yamaura, who was in charge of planning the project, said that realistic robots with weapons-like features were selling well now, so we should make a realistic robot for older children. Mr. Yamaura did not seem to be thinking of super-robot stories with robots with personalities and enemies who wanted to conquer the earth, such as ....... At that time, Takara (at that time) entrusted Hasbro with the rights to develop its products overseas, and the content, which was disparate in terms of world view and product size, was combined into "TRANSFORMERS," which sold well worldwide. Reimporting overseas "TRANSFORMERS" and selling them in Japan would not benefit Takara, since they were originally our own products. So, Takara approached Sunrise with the idea of starting a completely new title for a robot series, while maintaining our transforming and combining know-how. As I mentioned earlier, there had been a break in the giant robot series for the younger generation, so Mr. Yoshii accepted the offer with the intention of continuing the series for a number of years.
───That would mean that Takara brought the project to you, right?
Yatabe: No, it was not a project. All Takara brought was a toy that could transform into a combined form, and neither the title nor the content had been decided. Takara showed us a prototype that would serve as a prototype, saying, "We want to sell this kind of toy," and Sunrise told us to "come up with something to talk about. While consulting with Takara, I worked with my apprentice, Shinji Takamatsu, to come up with a story.
───Yasushi Hirano was the series director for "Exhauser the Brave" (1990), wasn't he?
Yatabe: Hirano-san was one of the scriptwriters for the TV version of "Dirty Pair" (1985). The producer was Mr. Yoshii, but apparently he did not like Mr. Hirano (laughs). Apart from the TV version, I directed a series of about 10 OVAs (1987) as a continuation of my participation in the film version of "Dirty Pair" as a director. I asked Hirano-san to participate in the OVA version. We decided to do five stories along the same lines as the TV version and five stories that deviated from the TV version. We asked Hirano-san to do the latter, the episodes that deviated from the basic line. Mr. Hirano is a scriptwriter who adds something extra to the story after fulfilling the order, and he and I got along well. Mr. Yoshii may not have liked Mr. Hirano, but he told me that he would "leave the Yusha series to Yatabe. That meant that I should not be able to refuse Mr. Hirano as the series director (laughs). As it turned out, Mr. Yoshii gave his approval to Mr. Hirano as soon as the scenario for the first episode was submitted.
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