Bonds & Flying Dog President Discusses How "Carol & Tuesday" Came to Be　Shinichiro Watanabe talks about why his works are loved around the world

Carols & Tuesdays" is a new masterpiece of music animation, a fitting commemorative work for the 20th anniversary of Bonds and the 10th anniversary of Flying Dog. The foundation of this work was created by the triumvirate of Shinichiro Watanabe, general director, Masahiko Minami, president of Bonds, and Shiro Sasaki, president of Flying Dog, who have come together three times since "Cowboy Bebop". Alongside great creators are great producers. This film was produced by these two presidents, who have known Mr. Watanabe for more than a quarter of a century. For this special interview, we asked the two presidents to talk about their work and the production techniques of Shinichiro Watanabe, a creator with fans all over the world, which is not usually easy to find out.

Both producers analyze the roots of Shinichiro Watanabe's direction

─ I heard that the "Carol & Tuesday" project started when President Sasaki said, "I want to make a music animation with Bonds before I turn 60. Was this with an eye toward "retirement" in mind?

Shiro Sasaki (hereinafter referred to as "Sasaki"): Yes, that's right. It was 4 or 5 years ago that I said that, but I had told Mr. Minami that I wanted to make a music animation at BONES while I could still put my stamp of approval on it. I told Mr. Minami that I wanted to make a music animation with BONZ while I could put my stamp of approval on it.

Masahiko Minami (hereafter, Minami) No, I heard that before "Space☆Dandy" (2014), so it was already six or seven years ago. That means I was 53 or 4 years old. That's way too young to be doing "Dead Flowers" (laughs).

─ ─ What made you decide to work with Bonds?

Sasaki: We have worked with BONDS on a number of productions, and we have confidence in their quality. We have also worked on a number of music animations, but never with Bonds, so we thought it would be great if we could work with them once.


─ I understand that General Director Watanabe had proposed to President Minami a musical animation project that would serve as a prototype for "Carols & Tuesdays.

Minami: Even when we are not working together on a project, I have been in contact with General Director Watanabe, and we have had some unexpectedly serious discussions over drinks about what kind of animated films we should release to the world. Sometimes we don't (laughs). (Laughs.) So I asked them to come up with about 4 or 5 ideas, ranging from comedies to serious ones, and one of them was a musical story that became the prototype for "Carol & Tuesday". When I heard that, I remembered what Mr. Sasaki had told me about the "Dead Flowers Project," and that's how I came to talk to him about it.

─ ─ This is the first full-fledged music animation for BONES. For example, did you ever think of making a music animation with a director other than Mr. Watanabe?

Minami: No (quick answer). I think that Mr. Watanabe himself is the best director in terms of making the most of music. At least, I never thought of doing it as an original project. Carol & Tuesday" is different from previous music animations in that it depicts the process of making music and the birth of music. There have been works in the past that depicted singing (finished) songs, but this kind of animation had not been created in our sense, so we thought it would be a new challenge, and we decided to take on this project.


─ So, to summarize the process of the project, President Minami was approached by President Sasaki and General Director Watanabe, each of whom had a story that formed the prototype for the project, and President Minami then put them together into a plan for the work?

Minami: That is correct. I was working with the general director until we were able to present the project to the public as such. We had already decided on the main flow of the story, but we were discussing what kind of staff would be involved, who would be the character designers and scriptwriters, and so on.

─ Did President Minami give any advice to General Director Watanabe at that time?

Minami: For the design of "Carol & Tuesday," our priority was to create a universal design rather than a catchy form of the era. So I gathered drawings from various anime designers, illustrators, and manga artists and showed them to the general director. One of them was a drawing by Hidesaku Kubonouchi, and he liked it so much that he and I went to see him. We promised that if the project came to fruition, we would ask him to draft the characters for the actual production, so he read the text of the proposal and added his drawings to it.

─ ─ What you just said, I thought it was very producer-like of you to show various artists and painting trends to General Director Watanabe. Mr. Watanabe, are you a person who concentrates on your own work and does not pay much attention to what is popular or out of fashion in the world?

Minami: I probably intentionally try not to look at them too much.

Sasaki I do follow music trends, though (laughs).


Minami: Ever since I was working as a production manager at Sunrise, you have always had a clear idea of your own direction, or what you wanted to create. The job of a production manager is to control the production line, but I got the impression that he was showing those around him that he was going to be the director.

─ When you were at Sunrise, Mr. Minami and Mr. Watanabe were senior and junior partners, and later you became a producer and a director, respectively, and worked on productions. The first episode in the credits is one of the TV special "Obatarian" (1990), but I would like to ask you about the time of "Mobile Suit Gundam 0083 STARDUST MEMORY" (1991), in which you directed almost half of the episodes. Minami: I had no idea what kind of work I wanted to make.

Minami: I think he already had an established theory of what kind of work he wanted to make. He was a troubled guy who said he liked Ozu (Yasujiro) (laugh). (laugh). He said he could not do such detailed daily performances in an animated film (laugh). (Laughs.) In live-action films, a single actor is assigned to act, but in animated films, a single character is portrayed by various animators, so the same methodology cannot be used. However, he was very particular about his acting so that he could make each character look like the same person.

─ Who would you consider as your mentor?

Minami: Ryosuke Takahashi, Takeyuki Kanda, Takashi Imanishi, and others. ...... They are all very particular about bringing characters to life. For "0083," I was 28 or 9 and he was 25 or 6. It was a film that we were making with all our might, facing a production company that was determined to make an OVA that was different from the TV series.

─ On the other hand, President Sasaki and Mr. Watanabe first met in 1994 with "Macross Plus".

Sasaki: That's right. At first, we were discussing the grand design with the general director, Shoji Kawamori, and when it came time to decide how to use the finished music, I think Watanabe-san was under his supervision.

───What did you think of Watanabe-san's direction?

Sasaki: Mr. Kawamori is quite unique in his use of music, but Mr. Watanabe is even more unique (laughs). I have mentioned this before, but I think "like a DJ" is a perfect description. First of all, his CD collection is amazing. He listens to a lot of music, and his ability to select the most suitable songs for a given situation is like a DJ. He also has the sense to bring in songs that are unexpected. In "Samurai Champloo" (2004), there is a scene in which an Amami folk song is played when the main character Mugen hallucinates that he is dying. I asked him about it, and he told me that this was indeed the case. In this way, the key scenes were in his mind, including the music, and he connected them together. I thought the same thing when I was working on "Cowboy Bebop. Ms. Yoko Kanno would come up with songs one after another that I had not asked for (laughs). (Laughs.) It was like I was accumulating them in a folder in my head, thinking, "I'm going to frame this song here, or use it here. Also, the way I use songs is like a music clip director. He is very good at inserting dots that show the ordinary life of the world into the music scene.


─ ─ Are there many other directors of this type in the animation industry?

Minami: Yes, there are. He changes not only the music but also the number of episodes. In the case of "Bebop" and "Dandy," the overall structure of the series is established at the beginning, but then it is shuffled around. I think he has a way of making music that combines the big flow with the flow of each episode.