Transcription for this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnaAfXcaDJs
Transcribed by https://otter.ai and modified post-processing

Bobby Rubio 00:04
Well Hi everybody. Thanks for coming in.

Bobby Rubio 00:10
We have a treat today Masahiko Otsuka.

Bobby Rubio 00:20
Prior to that they were part of Gainax which was this awesome Japanese animation studio and they have done Evangelion, Gunbuster 2, Fooly Cooly, Gurren Lagann.

Bobby Rubio 00:33
Masahiko also worked at Studio Ghibli. He worked on Pompoko and Whisper of the Heart

Tatsuru Tatemoto 00:44
My name is Tatsuru Tatemoto, I'm an intepreter for my boss.

Tatsuru Tatemoto 00:48
As Bobby explains to you, Trigger was, uh, I guess made by the staff mainly by the Gurren Lagann staff for the Gainax studio.

Tatsuru Tatemoto 00:57
Built on 2011, August, August 22 and with the director of Gurren Lagann, Imaishi Hiroyuki and Otsuka Masahiko and producer Masumoto Kazuya, and we have about 40 or 50 staffs

Bobby Rubio 01:13
I will start now that's cool

Tatsuru Tatemoto 01:14
Yeah

Grant Alexander 02:01
Hey everybody, I'm Grant from the art department. I've been following Gainax for a long time, like I've been watching anime since I was in high school.

Grant Alexander 02:11
But I've been following Gainax in particular, it was one of my favorite studios.

Grant Alexander 02:16
And when Otsuka-san left, to Gainax with Imaishi he they took a lot of those same like creative talents and formed the studio.

Grant Alexander 02:26
And so now I'm going to be following Trigger.

Grant Alexander 02:29
I read an interview with Otsuka-san and he was talking about, uh, there was a change, he felt like there was a change in the anime industry, and he felt it was the right time to go out on his own and start a company and I was curious if he could explain, uh, what that changes and what, kind of what he's, what he sees Trigger, you know, as a company kind of becoming in the anime industry or

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 03:01
My previous work was Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, and after after they finished that series, they were debating whether to make their new series within Gainax again, or possibly a new studi-a different studio

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 03:16
We wanted to try something new and that just choosing which studio to work within was the first thing they, you know, decision to have to make.

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 03:26
After debating for a while you know which studio to work with, they just you know, they felt that it might be challenging and also interesting to us just why not start a studio ourselves

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 03:35
And that's where Trigger came from.

Grant Alexander 03:41
Little more creative freedom maybe.

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 03:45
So to be honest Gainax itself was very like, free. They allowed us do almost everything we wanted to.

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 03:51
We also felt like that the Gainax studio was protecting us, you know.

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 03:54
To truly test our abilities, we might have had to, you know, leave Gainax so we can start a new studio

Grant Alexander 04:06
This short, was actually sponsored by the Japanese government. It's called the Anima-Anime Mirai, right?

Tatsuru Tatemoto 04:13
Anime Mirai

Grant Alexander 04:14
Yeah, that's kind of what happened in the 70s in the US when Disney realized that all the nine old men and all this like, artistry, was kind of dying off, and they weren't passing it on.

Grant Alexander 04:25
So they started, you know, they started the school and Cal Arts kind of came out of that.

Grant Alexander 04:29
I think there's something similar happening in Japan and I think the government is trying to promote the Japanese animation and continuing that tradition because a lot of younger, you know, possible animators are either going into production or other more higher paying jobs.

Tatsuru Tatemoto 04:48
Alot of the younger animators like recently they, they don't have the like the motivation you know, to like go willing to learn so so the these kinds of projects are like I guess it's becoming more required.

Grant Alexander 05:00
Yeah.

Tatsuru Tatemoto 05:01
And they've been doing that for like, the past few years too, but it's getting more popular in recent years.

Grant Alexander 05:06
Yeah.

Bobby Rubio 05:06
So it's like a main, it's like a mentorship sorta is it like, you have a main animator and he takes on a few assistants? Is that how it works?

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 05:19
For our studio, it was just, it just happened to be all one person, Mr Yoshinario. But for other studios, you know, there might be like for character design, some so and so like, teach them for like, you know, other like action or something, someone else might, might take that.

Grant Alexander 05:34
I wonder if he could talk a little bit about the budget that they had to work within and sort of any of, any creative shortcuts they had to take and sort of where they've put the most money and time into day

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 05:48
For a budget we received from the government about like, twice the amount, compared to a usual television series for one episode does.

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 05:54
But on the other hand, when we make a television series, we usually get the budget for the whole series, if it's like one season, it will be for like, 13 episodes

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 06:04
We have, we have more freedom, you know, maybe we'll use like 10% on Episode One and 5% of the budget on episode two.

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 06:11
So in terms of that we made probably felt like maybe like 1.5 times more than like a decent normal episode.

Grant Alexander 06:18
I asked because the quality is a lot higher in terms of; I'm used to a lot of television and Japanese television animation, you know, there's a lot of stills, you know, talking heads.

Grant Alexander 06:31
And I know that's you know, budgetary and then they put a lot of money into like an action sequence or something that really has an impact.

Grant Alexander 06:38
This felt very consistent, like throughout, you know, the quality of the animation, the art direction, the color, everything felt like at a really high level.

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 06:51
So the usual animation, like a Television Series are like about, we in Japan, we use about 3000 to, on a minimum 3000 pictures.

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 07:01
On the more, like, you know, better episodes might use 6000.

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 07:06
so Gurren Lagann and the new Kill la Kill, we're using about 8000 but Little Witch Academia, we use 17,000. So, like three times more than usual episode.

Grant Alexander 07:17
so I'll open it up if anyone else has any questions.

Audience 07:22
Is this is a standalone piece? Or will this be a televison series? It seems quite strong and it could be.

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 07:29
So like the Anime Mirai project, which funded this episode, after it's shown, it goes air on the theater for three months, the studio gets the whole copyright.

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 07:38
And currently, we are trying to, you know, make it into a series or possibly another episode.

Grant Alexander 07:46
That's pretty unique. That's really cool that they, the government allows that to happen.

Grant Alexander 07:51
Like they don't maintain the copyright because, I don't know if that's standard in Japan, like who I think like the big studios, like whoever pays for the show, like do they retain the rights or the studios retain the right?

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 08:08
It's usually up to whoever pays funds, most money, but in Japan, usually television series, there's like a whole bunch of sponsors

Audience 08:16
What inspired the story for you guys like what made you want to make Little Witch Academia?

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 08:23
Initially, we have a little talk with the director of Little Witch Academia, there's there was two plots that we had one of them was like a more action heavy story. And the other one was this girl's going to school.

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 08:35
And the project's main point is to educate or to you know, give more experience to the animators, so the director and he thought that the an - the young animators might be able to, like, I guess relate to the characters of the stories more if they you know, since it's both, they're both learning and they're both both kind of go into a school.

Audience 08:57
Do you find in Japan, is it harder to make original ideas as opposed to ones that are based on from like a manga or something else?

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 09:08
The originals are a lot more difficult to do make in Japan, there's a lot of sponsors for animation series and as a sponsor date, they don't want to take that much you know, risks, play it safe animating like a manga.

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 09:21
It gets really like limited you know, and they need it needs to be like a really big studio in Japan to like do an original series like Jubilee or Sunrise.

Grant Alexander 09:32
It's I mean, it's pretty much like Hollywood. Like they want something that's like, already got an audience plus manga in Japan is, I think, much more prevalent than anime like, manga has a larger following than comics.

Tatsuru Tatemoto 09:47
I think so too, yeah.

Grant Alexander 09:48
and because anime has stills. I don't think a lot of people realize that it's a little more niche compared to that because a lot of different people read comics, but not that many people. Only a certain type of person watches that

Tatsuru Tatemoto 10:00
I think it's publicly still like, you know, understood that the animes are for little kids

Grant Alexander 10:06
Yeah, mhm

Tatsuru Tatemoto 10:06
mainly but manga there's like no, everyone reads manga comic books I think that

Bobby Rubio 10:12
so what's the target audience for like, uh, Little Witch?

Tatsuru Tatemoto 10:17
The producer said everyone

Bobby Rubio 10:19
okay

Audience 10:26
So because anime seems to be kind of more of a niche for a younger audience, is your studio going to try to do something different? Make it more for teens? Your TV series is a little bit more adult.

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 10:42
We're just making what we want to see

Grant Alexander 10:46
Well, and Imaishi's directing so it's probably going to be pretty adult.

Bobby Rubio 10:51
Yeah, he's pretty crazy

Masahiko Otsuka (Tatsuru Tatemoto) 10:54
Mr. Imaishi's a, basically an adult children

Grant Alexander 11:02
a little bit of Evangi-going the long way. Thanks for coming, guys.

Bobby Rubio 11:09
And thank you guys for coming by