Long interview with Nobuhiro Osawa, producer! (The 40th "Inside Man" of Anime and Game)

The 40th installment of writer crepuscular's interview series features Nobuhiro Osawa, producer and president of EGG FIRM Co. Mr. Osawa is one of the industry's most talented producers, having brought popular light novels such as "Sword Art Online" and "It's Wrong to Seek Encounters in Dungeons" to anime productions with great success. His works have been praised not only in Japan but also abroad, and he has expanded his activities from TV to Netflix distribution with "Saiki Kusuo no Ψ難" and other works. Early in his career, he was involved in the production of the legendary robot animation "Mobile Police Patlabor," and while working at Genco, he was involved in the production of "Onegai Teacher," "Hachimitsu to Clover," "Nodame Cantabile," "Toradora! and "Accel World. In this article, Mr. Osawa carefully unpacks his extensive work history and answers such questions as what are the essentials of content production, how to face the challenges facing the animation industry, and what challenges he intends to take on in the future. We also asked him about his thoughts on the newly established Studio BIND Inc. and the company's production "Unemployed Tensei: Isekai Iba Dekkitaku Genjidasu," so anime lovers, new and old, are encouraged to check out the interview.

Producers are "managers of their works

Please allow me to begin by saying thank you very much for joining us today. How long have you been in the animation industry, Mr. Osawa?

Nobuhiro Osawa (Osawa): My first job was the early OVA of "Mobile Police Patlabor" (1988-89) at my previous company, Tohoku Shinsha, where I was an assistant producer (AP) on the investor side, not on the production side. My first job after graduating was "Patlabor. That was my start, and I joined Taro Maki's Genco in 1998, and I have been a producer ever since. In terms of being an animation producer, I've been with Jenco for about 22 years now.

What do you think is the role of an animation producer?

Osawa: In an essential sense, I think they are "managers of the work. In the case of Japanese animation, the director is often in charge of the content, but there are more than 1,000 people involved, so the producer is in charge of coordinating all these people. The producer is in charge of planning, schedule management, financial management, and quality control, as if he were the president of the production.

What do you find most rewarding about your job?

Ohsawa: I am not a producer in a production company, so it is not so much when the film is completed, but rather when users and audiences see the film and give their reactions. I try to attend screening events as much as possible, and when I see that the audience is happy, I feel "Oh, it was worth it! I feel happy and sad whenever I see the pictures on site. I feel happy or sad every time a picture comes in, and there are many things that go into developing a scenario, but in the end, I think it is the reaction of the customer that makes me happy.

What works have influenced you?

Osawa: Kazunori Ito's script for "Mobile Police Patlabor" was truly wonderful. I still think it is one of the best anime scripts ever written. When Mr. Maki gave me the scenario, I read it over and over again because it was my first job. The scenario was text, of course, but the episode "The Longest Day in Section 2" I could see the conspiracy and the faces of the people who were being pushed around by it.

Before I started working, I watched "Space Battleship Yamato" (1974-75), "The Adventures of Gamba" (1975), "Mobile Suit Gundam" (1979-80), and at the last minute, "Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer" (1984) directed by Mamoru Oshii. I didn't feel like an anime geek. In fact, I watched more live-action films.

If I were to talk about it as a hobby, I like Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner," Terry Gilliam's "Future Century Brazil," Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight," and other science fiction films, but since these are just hobbies, I cannot say that they have influenced me in my work. I can't say that they have influenced my work.

There is nothing in the world that can't be animated.

You mentioned that you are not a producer on site, but how does your planning and production company, EGG FIRM, work?

Osawa: We prepare three types of proposals. In the case of an original work, we have to obtain the rights to animate it, so we first prepare a proposal to show to the original creator. Then, as soon as the animation rights are acquired, we also prepare a proposal to present to the investors. Finally, we prepare a proposal to determine the on-site composition, director, staff, and cast. We always include the "three pillars of planning," which are the content plan, business plan, and staff plan.

T: The TIFF works are all masterpieces, but how often are they adopted?

Ohsawa: We hold regular planning meetings with outside staff, and only 10% of the plans submitted to the internal meetings are accepted. However, we tend to write in a lot of planning documents, which delays our entry to obtain the rights to animate. This sometimes causes us to say, "The project has already been decided elsewhere," so it's a bit of a pain and an itch.

Do you have any projects that you are good at?

Osawa: This is something that the director, Akiyuki Shinbo, said, not me, but he says, "There is nothing in the world that cannot be made into animation. There are often things that are said to be "difficult to visualize" or "difficult to animate," but I don't think there is anything that can't be animated either. However, each individual has his or her own strengths and weaknesses, and I am surprisingly not very good at reading and understanding the subtleties of daily life and emotions. I'm more comfortable working on action and fantasy works that have flashy patterns and a big storyline.

I see from your filmography that you have done a lot of everyday films as well.

Osawa: Director Nagai Tatsuyuki is very good at dealing with the emotions and subtleties of the heart. His films such as "Toradora! (2008-09) and "Waiting in the Summer" (2012). I would love to work with a director who is good at that kind of thing, but I'm not so good at it myself.

Are you planning to market this project to the overseas market as well?　I hear that "Sword Art Online" (2012~) and "Is it Wrong to Ask to Meet in a Dungeon" (2015~) are popular not only in Japan but also overseas.

Ohsawa: We do not watch overseas markets, whether in Asia or North America, nor do we have staff stationed overseas, so we sometimes work with overseas partners to create joint projects. There have been times when we have worked on a double project, with us writing the proposal for the domestic market and our partner writing the proposal for the overseas market. Incidentally, "Saiki Kusuo no ΨDifficulty" (2016-) was also a work that caught fire overseas, but this was not at all what we had in mind (laughs).

Laughs] - "Ψ Difficulty of Kusuo Saiki" has a lot of local Japanese material, doesn't it?

Ohsawa That's right!　I thought it would be impossible to find it overseas, but surprisingly, I found it on ...... (laughs). We were surprised as well. Now I'm also doing "Ψ Difficulty of Kusuo Saiki: Ψ Launching Arc" on Netflix.

The "Seeds" Necessary for Original Content

What do you take into consideration when planning original content?　Endoro~!" (2019) was also an original work.

Osawa: There are several original works by EGG FIRM, and they are not limited to anime. We have done an app called "Triple Monsters" with Bushiroad, and "Endoro~! was done by Hobby Japan, King Record, and us.

An original requires a kind of "seed," and in the case of "Endoro! Before EGG FIRM was launched, Jenco had been working on gentleman's series such as "Ikkitousen" (2003-15) and "Queen's Blade" (2009-12), and we were working with Hobby Japan at that time. Through that relationship, "Endoro! Hobby Japan told me that they wanted to do the opposite of "Bon, Kyu Bon" this time, and that they wanted to make a figure of the Turupeta type, so that became the "seed" for the project. From that one "seed," we expanded our ideas to "Namori's drawings would look great in 3D," "Studio Gogumi would make a cute anime," and "King Records, who worked on AKB, is good at unit works.

How did you decide on the title?

Ohsawa: At first, I tentatively titled it "End Roll," as in "the world after the end roll of an RPG" or "the world after both the evil demon king and the dragon are defeated. But after discussing it with director Kaori and all the producers, we decided that it was too straightforward and decided to change it to "Endoro~! and we decided to change it to "Endoro~!

───"Kandagawa JET GIRLS" (2019-20) is credited to Kenichiro Takagi as the original idea, but can we consider it an original work?

Osawa This is an original project by four companies, KADOKAWA, Marvelous, T.N.K., and EGG FIRM. Takuro Hatakeyama is the producer of this work, not me, and he has chosen Hiraku Kaneko as the director and series composition, and Hanaharu Naruko as the original character designer.

Do you want to release more and more original works in the future?

Ohsawa: Original works have to be started from a place with zero name recognition, and they are very demanding in terms of time, effort, and spirit. So, I will not make everything original in the future. Of course, originality is fun, so if I can find a "seed" of some sort, I would love to try it.

Searching for new talent in storyboarding and dubbing

─ In recent years, you are often credited as "chief producer.

Osawa I am 55 years old and already a lothario physically and mentally, so now I only look at entrances and exits. I do marketing, proposal writing, staffing, formation of the production committee, media planning, and up to this point, I do a lot of work. Once the production is underway, I check the blueprint, or pre-production part, such as the script, character design, storyboards, and so on. This is the beginning. From there, I leave the management to the young producers. Finally, I also participate in the post-production process, which is part of the post-production process, including postrecording and dubbing.

I would like to ask you about staffing. For example, how were the creators of "Endoro! For example, how were the creators of "Endoro!

Osawa: Tomonori Shibata of Studio Gumi called on Kaori for the director and Haruko Iizuka for the character design, and both of them gladly accepted my offer. I called on Namori, the character designer, who is a very busy person. They are busy people, and they are all female authors.

Are you eager to discover new talent?　Do you use people from other industries?

Ohsawa: One of the biggest talents who came from other industries is, for example, Gen Urobuchi. We first worked together on "Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom" (2009), for which he himself wrote the original scenario. Yosuke Kuroda, the series director, asked Mr. Urobuchi, "Would you like to write the script? He said, "I would like you to write this episode. Then, we received his script, and it was wonderful!　So I am sure that there is new talent in the game industry and publishing industry as well.

In terms of how I search for new talent in the industry, I look for relatively young directors through storyboarding and dubbing. If I think "I like this person" in the director/container man for each episode, I sometimes take notes or exchange business cards. This was also how we decided on Tomohiko Ito as the director of "Sword Art Online. Sword" was initially planned by Atsuhiro Iwakami of Aniplex and myself, but when we were wondering which director to choose, Mr. Iwakami introduced us to Tomohiko Ito's storyboard for episode 11 of "Puella Magi Madoka Magica" (2011). Both the storyboard and the actual images were wonderful, so I made an offer to Mr. Ito to direct "Sword.