Translated (albeit amateurish) from Shin Obake no Q-Taro's Volume 2's Afterword, from the Fujiko F. Fujio Complete Works collection
Memory on the "Shin Obake no Q-Taro" Anime
by Yoshio Kabashima
In 1971, at the time of the production of the anime "Shin Obake no Q-Taro", I was enrolled in an animation production company called A Production, but I was transferred to Tokyo Movie and served as the general art director. I was 26 years old at time, so even when thinking about it, I felt young.
However, it wasn't a situation to be happy about. There were only about 3 months until the start of the broadcast, and I had to work with that. At that time, it was normal for a new program to have a production period of about half a year. Now there was a production with a shorter schedule, and it was common sense to know that it was unthinkable to start a production three months before the broadcast.
Moreover, While anime is now made in a system where each episode is independent in the style of the drawing director, At that time [of Shin Obake no Q-Taro's production], the general art director supervised all the drawings. The situation got more and more difficult. In the end, Eiichi Nakamura from A-Pro and Takeo Kitahara from Tokyo Movie served as assistants.
The anime "Shin Obake no Q-Taro" was broadcast in September, so it was probably around June when I remember that the three of us were working while arguing that "I can never do this" while sweating in the hot weather.
Then, [The director] Mr. Nagahama brang the lyrics to the theme song alongside with the person who wrote them. I said, "Who is it?" I was looking at it while wondering. I was humming the melody "Hunhunhuun♪" 3 or 4 times on the spot while looking at the lyrics, and said to the man accompanying him, "This will be fine. Make it [on sheet music]."
The man who was told to did not take notes, and left after a while. I realized later that it was Naozumi Yamamoto, a composer who appeared in a commercial called "Bigger is Better". I didn't know him at the time.
The tone of "Shin Obake no Q-Taro" was completely different from the black-and-white version of "Obake no Q-Taro". I think it was also important that the role of Q-Taro was replaced from Machiko Soga to Junko Hori, but overall, the tempo changed from the relaxed tone of the old work to a more upbeat one. So, when the opening storyboard came up, I honestly said, "What is this!!" I was surprised.
My favorite character in "Shin Oba-Q" is O-Jiro. He was a very compelling character, and he was very fun to draw. However, drawing pointy eyes on a character was very difficult, and the balance between the separation of the eyes and the size of the black eye would change the impression depending on the person who draws it. In fact, Q-Taro was also a difficult character to draw, and it was especially easy to make a difference in the way he drew his mouth. The excitement of the upper lip, the thickness of the lips, the height of the corners of the mouth, etc., were really different from person to person, and it was difficult to put it together.
I was doing it with Mr. Nagahama while discussing the character's acting outlines, but he left most of "Shin Oba-Q" to me. It can be said for the entire animation production site, but in the past, animators had a higher degree of freedom, and the part where they were entrusted with discretion was greater. Therefore, the animator's style is expressed via the movement of the character.
