Madeleine Rosca's International Manga Award Trip: Part Dos
Time for part two of my trip to Japan - strap yourselves in, people!
I got to have a wee sleep-in on Tuesday morning, after the award night, which was great because both myself and my feet (see last entry for podiatric damage report) were feeling pretty bushed. Along with the other three winners (Kai, Ben and Li), I was told to make my way back to the Japan Foundation HQ shortly before lunchtime for a series of interviews with NHK broadcasting. They interviewed us separately. The session dragged on a bit for the other three, but I lucked out - the Japanese woman interviewing me spoke perfect English, and my translator wasn't needed (you quickly learn that this more than halves the time it takes to perform any speech-based task in Japan, logically).
After that, it was a trip to the next publisher - Shogakukan. And - bonus! I wasn't feeling ill!
A slightly worrying sight was waiting for me at Shogakukan HQ, however. Turns out NHK had some broadcasting time to burn, and they wanted to spend it by following around the most foreign of the award winners (i.e, me) to get my wide-eyed first-time impression of Japan. The foundation had given them permission to film me at Shogakukan as well as a thumbs-up to follow me to our next location later that afternoon, which was to be Studio Pierrot in Mitaka.
Anyhoo - Shogakukan. I forgot my camera for this bit, so please use the power of imagination to pretend I am entering a huge, steely complex not unlike Azkaban, complete with Dementor door guards ready to fly at you in a rage should you attempt to steal any editorial secrets... Shogakukan is one of the most successful publishing companies in Japan, with a huge catalogue of successful manga (Doraemon, 20th Century Boys, anything by Rumiko Takahashi) and editors with big hair. We got to sit with five of the editorial staff and discuss the state of manga in both Japan and overseas. This was where I discovered that most people were laboring under the belief that because I am Australian, Seven Seas Entertainment is an Australian publishing company. They also think Australians license and translate manga directly from Japan ourselves, rather than buying the American versions which translate Japanese slang into American colloquialisms, thus making us Aussies feel like we are reading dialogue only after it has been dragged through two foreign cultures (grrr!). Cutest question - "I know you are speaking English right now for our benefit, but do Australians have their own separate language?"
Shogakukan were generous with the gifts - we each got TWO showbags off them full of goodies, perhaps to bribe us away from stealing the signed artwork off the walls in the magazine department. This, along with the 5kg trophy, made my luggage near-unbearable to transport back to Australia. But when freebies are involved - I manage!
After having NHK zoom in and out on the profile of my nose a couple of times for some 'establishing shots' of me talking to one of Shogakukan editors, we enter the second phase of day three - the trip to Studio Pierrot.
Right outside the Mitaka station is a big building with - a big building-sized poster for Evangelion! How cool is that - you just don't get them here in Australia (unless it's depicting a footballer or a beer ad). Here's Ben, striking a pose in front of it. Yes I did have a photo of myself taken in front of it, but as you hopefully won't see due to my selective uploading of travel pictures, my translator was not great at handling the camera. So enjoy Ben instead.
What's that? Why - yes! That IS an angel in the background, ready to attack Mitaka station at any second! Yeah, shut up. I don't have many pictures for this entry, and I can't think of any speech bubble to draw on Ben that wouldn't be rude. And he's a nice guy, and doesn't deserve it. Except when he started trying to convince me he could see 'The Grudge' (more on that in the Kyoto arc, later).
We took quite a long walk through Mitaka to discover that, unfortunately for me, the NHK camera crew had not gotten lost and were waiting for us at Studio Pierrot. Drat- I mean, what a great opportunity for the world to see me in my full color glory. Anyway, we set about a little guided tour around Studio Pierrot.
The corridors of the animation studio are not as dark as they appear here, this is just another example of my budget Sony Cybershot deciding it knew exaaaaactly which lighting profile to use in this picture, and choosing the wrong one. Anyway, I wanted to show you this poster, because this is what the busy-bee animators were working on - Naruto Shippuuden. I can't be bothered to wiki the spelling on that right now, so purists, stop commenting on my journal. Schmeck.
Anyway, we got to see the Naruto character sheets, as well as enter the animation studio and check out some scenes. The animators we visited were currently working on the fight scene between Sakura and that puppet-guy-member of Akatsuki (is that them? With the black capes and red clouds? It's been ages since I've read it).
One of the many things I have discovered on this trip is that being the one person in a group with your own camera crew trailing you makes you an instant social pariah in most work settings, and whenever I entered an animation room with camera in tow the workers tended to dive behind their desks and refuse to resurface until I left. Never has the phrase "you are cramping my style" taken on so much importance with me...
After the tour, we got to chat with Studio Pierrot's boss, a lovely guy who also loaded us down with freebies (most of them in the form of Naruto merchandise). I asked him how he chooses which properties to animate, and he mentioned that animating a non-Japanese property is never out of the question, if it's good enough. So there you go, OEL folks.
Afterward, my translator remarked that the NHK people were pleased with their footage, and that I was going to be on Japanese TV.
TRANSLATOR: That's right! You're going to be a star!
MAD: (chuffed) Oh yeah! What time will this program be on?
TRANSLATOR: Oh, they say around...4:15am in the morning.
MAD: *insert sound of rapidly deflating object here*
After a long hard day, there's nothing better than - sushi!! I'd show you a photo of the awesome sushi spread we got at a sushi bar close to the hotel, but I figure all this talk of freebies is taunting people enough. (The sushi was not free.)
So then, onto day four!
We had a bit less on day four - just one major engagement, and that was a trip to the Kawasaki City Museum to check out an exhibition by renowned retro-style manga artist Yasuhiko Yoshikazu.
Sadly, photography was not allowed, except in the meeting room where we met the museum's manga curator. I do have some photos of the meeting but I don't look good in any of them, so I'm too shallow to post them here. It's my journal, dammit. MY journal!!
I was surprised to see that amongst the huge back catalogue of Yoshikazu's art, there was quite a bit of Dirty Pair promotional work, which featured Kei and Yuri and...something a bit like a Dungeon's n' Dragons-style displacer beast? Obviously this tentacled ride-on panther thingie was something Adam Warren wisely decided to drop from the US version of the title (I'm assuming he did anyway, I've only read Sim Hell and there aren't any tentacled-panther-steeds in that book).
Aside from Dirty Pair, the collection of art for just this one lone artist was pretty darned huge, easily taking us more than an hour to check out the entire thing. Yasuhiko Yoshikazu featured a career working on such titles as Gundam, Future Boy Conan, and a heck of a lot of things involving space women in lycra and knee-length boots. While we were there, we also took a look at the historical area of the museum, to take in some history lessons about medieval Japan.
Finally, it was back outside into the rain and heat to find our way home. The foundation was giving us an early night for one good reason - the next day we'd be waking up super-early to catch the bullet train to Kyoto. Egad! Stay tuned!
