Otakon 2019: Studio Trigger Interview
Patrick and Tom were fortunate enough to sit down with Hiromi Wakabayashi, Shigeto Koyama, and Hiroyuki Imaishi at Otakon this year to discuss PROMARE and our collective love of robots. As a heads up this interview was conducted before we had seen PROMARE
Patrick: Let’s start with something very simple – we like robots. I know you guys like robots. I’ve heard this about everyone from Trigger, when they come to America… have you guys done any toy shopping yet while you’ve been here? Have you been looking for anything fun?
WAKABAYASHI: Target. If you have any local suggestions, any toy stores, we’d be more than interested to hear your take.
Patrick: All the good toy stores keep disappearing. No more Toys ‘R’ Us.
WAKABAYASHI: Where can American nerds even get their toy fix anymore?
Patrick: Internet, conventions, <laughs> ...Target. Wal-Mart has been reissuing Transformers, so if you’re looking for that stuff, they’re all there.
WAKABAYASHI: That’s very helpful. I have high hopes for this interview.
Tom: PROMARE is, of course, a CG work, the first of its kind for Trigger really. SSSS.GRIDMAN also had a good amount of CG elements in it. How did work on Gridman help prepare Trigger for PROMARE?
IMAISHI: Gridman’s production team is separate from PROMARE, so we didn’t actually use Gridman for experimentation. The foundation or main concept of each project is completely different to begin with. For PROMARE, the idea was to incorporate both 2D and 3D animation. However, for Gridman, the idea was to replicate the tokusatsu feel. So what the Gridman team did was, any place a tokusatsu production would use miniatures they would instead create that with CG animation and models.
Tom: What do you find are the challenges and limitations of CG as opposed to 2D? Or do you find that the two are good enough at different things that it doesn’t really matter?
IMAISHI: I feel, in the Japanese CG industry at least, that there’s a limitation of expression with CG animation. This doesn’t just mean characters – both characters and mecha I feel there’s a limit to what we can express with CG animation. For example, let’s say there’s a very close-up scene of a particular character’s arm, and part of that arm gets damaged. We would have to make a completely new model for that damaged arm. If it’s 2D, we just draw a little bit over it and it’s done. There’s good and bad with both 2D and CG. CG animation has to be planned out very well prior to execution. I can’t just make a change or fix on a whim, where that would be easier with 2D animation.
Patrick: To follow up on that with both you and Mr. Koyama, how does using CG more heavily inform your approach to design – character design, world design, any of that? Does it change how you approach that or is it largely the same?
KOYAMA: It definitely feel it affects design, be it characters or any models in general. I knew PROMARE would be a project that heavily used CG animation, so I kept that in mind when designing characters in accordance with how it would be executed within the film.
Patrick: Do you feel like it was at all liberating to work knowing it would be animated in CG, or not?
KOYAMA: Knowing it would be in CG, I avoided designing things that would be hard to execute, but I didn’t feel like it held me back. More angular designs like the Rescue Gears are usually harder to animate when it’s hand-drawn, so I was able to incorporate that kind of design more freely for PROMARE. You can see the pilot in the chest portion of one of the Gears – that kind of thing would be hard to execute if it was hand-drawn. If there’s any kind of drawback to designing for CG animation, it’s that I have to make the designs very detailed. When it’s hand-drawn, the animators can help fill in the blanks on the angles the model sheets don’t show. That doesn’t happen when it’s CG.
Patrick: That’s interesting, since I feel like a lot of your design sensibility tends to be very rounded, with less hard angles. Seeing CG as an advantage for more angular design is an interesting shift.
KOYAMA: It’s actually harder in CG animation to show round objects, especially in terms of shading. It’s hard to make the shadows fall in a way that feels convincing. That’s a reason I avoided my more traditional, round design.
Tom: What do you feel it is about Studio Trigger’s work in particular that resonates so well with international audiences?
WAKABAYASHI: This isn’t me speaking for everyone at Trigger, but I personally feel that it resonates well with the international fans is because, at least in the projects I’m involved in, I don’t have a particular demographic in mind. I make a project or get involved in one with the mindset of executing an interesting idea that I wanted animated. I just put in what I think is interesting, that I want everyone to see. That’s my motivation. Maybe that’s why it resonates so well with the fans, the nerdy types across the globe.
IMAISHI: I feel similarly, where I don’t have a specific demographic in mind, but I do feel like I pay a little closer attention to make sure the Japanese audience understands what I’m trying to get across. The international fans seem to be more open-minded; I can get away with more.
KOYAMA: I also agree. I basically put a concentrated form of what I like into the work. It’s entertainment, and what I want out of entertainment is what I put into what I create. Hopefully the people watching my stuff are entertained by the same things.
Patrick: You’ve found an audience of people like yourself that want to see the same cool stuff.
KOYAMA: That’s probably it. We’re not too bright, and maybe our audience is similar. <laughter> That’s a compliment, by the way. We’re all family.
Tom: SSSS.GRIDMAN represented a different kind of work for Trigger in that it was based on a licensed property. What would be a character or IP that you’d personally want to work on given the chance?
WAKABAYASHI: Before we answer, I’d just like to note that although Gridman was an existing property we feel like it leans towards being original content as well. We only borrowed the idea, taking Gridman as a concept. Usually when we say “adaptation” it’s like a manga or comic being adapted to animation with the same or similar story and the same characters. I don’t feel like Gridman followed that method. Among us at Team Imaishi, we generally like doing original work. But if we had to choose, it would probably be along the lines of Transformers or Marvel.
KOYAMA: <laughing> I’d like to do Steamboat Willie.
WAKABAYASHI: Maybe the steamboat could transform into something.
Tom: Sounds like a good idea for a toy. For our last question, since we are a robot anime-themed podcast: I have to ask, what’s your favorite robot?
<Wakabayashi, Imaishi, and Koyama all agonize over their decision>
WAKABAYASHI: This changes quite often, but as of right now, July 27 at 11AM, it’s Hot Rod from Transformers: The Movie. Tomorrow it may be something else.
IMAISHI: I recently bought a soft vinyl toy of Zambot 3, so that’s my current favorite.
KOYAMA: I was just browsing through Twitter and I’m heavily influenced by my feed, so I don’t know if I can give a pure, honest, unbiased answer. Right now I feel like Tetsujin 28. I like Black Ox too – I can definitely say Tetsujin 28 isn’t my usual favorite as I’m very influenced by my feed.
WAKABAYASHI: What about you two? What’s your favorite?
Tom: Oh boy. Probably Gundam Mk. II.
WAKABAYASHI: Which one? AEUG or Titans?
Patrick: What? No! Titans colors
Patrick: My answer is super-basic, but it’s always Optimus Prime. I have about fifty Optimus figures.
WAKABAYASHI: I’m not too far behind with my own Optimus count.
Patrick: Who in the office has the most Transformers?
WAKABAYASHI: It’s either me or [Akira] Amemiya, the director of Gridman. It’s a close call. We’d have to actually count them up.
Patrick: Thank you all for taking the time to speak with us today and we hope you find some cool toys this weekend.
Thank you for reading and stay tuned for our discussion of PROMARE coming soon!