Otakon - Madhouse

By Andrew Tei     August 08, 2003

Hello everyone, I am Masao Maruyama the president of Madhouse and I
have with me Satoshi Nishimura, the director of Trigun and Hajime no
Ippo. Tomorrow you can also see Rica Matsumoto at her panel, who?s done
a lot of voice work on Madhouse shows.

Mad House is working on a lot of shows now, including a Shueshia work
called Tenjou Tenyei. In colaboration with Media Works, we?re working
on Gunslinger Girls. Slated for broadcast in October is an anime based
on a video game called Gungrave by Nightow. We?re also working on
Monster (by the mangaka of Master Keaton) and Gauksen. We also just had
Ninja Scroll the TV series conclude its broadcast in Japan. The second
Ninja Scroll movie should be done in the next two years.



Question: What could you do with $100 million on a single movie?

Maruyuma: We could make 100 movies.



Question: What draws the Japanese to draw on Western type cowboy
culture when making a show?

Maruyama: Japanese anime draws upon a whole range of different types.
The director of Vampire Hunter D grew up watching American Westerns,
and that was the same type of spirit he wanted to incorporate into his
anime.

Nishimura: I like Westerns myself. Nightow, when he was younger, had a
home stay in the United States. As for myself, I watched a lot of
Westerns. I was fond of ?Once Upon a Time in the West?. I borrowed a
lot from this during the Trigun anime.  When we make anime in
Japan, we like to do something that is different than everyday life.



Q: For Hajime no Ippo, how were able to distinguish it from Ashita no
Joe?

Nishimura: I knew people would compare them. If you look at the manga,
you can see the differences. I hope to have made it similar to the
manga.

Maruyama: Hajime no Ippo was always a popular manga, and people said it
would be impossible to animate. People said it was impossible, since it
was a very long manga. A lot of shows in Japan are now either 13 or 26
episodes. Even 52 is rare. The mangaka for Hajime no Ippo made it a
requirement that the story could not be digested. Since there is no
naked women, it would be a hard sell. There was little in it you could
market to children, and TV stations didn?t want to fund it. Due to a
recent phenomenon, there are a lot of shows that air after 11:00 PM
now, and that?s where I wanted it to air. A lot of the shows at that
time, use naked women and gratuitous violence for the sale, but I
believed there would a mature audience for the show. The reason for the
mangaka finally gave his go ahead, he found out that we were the
producer for Ashita no Joe, which he was also a fan of growing up.



Question: What do you think about the open end that Trigun had?

Nishimura: I think it?s always a difficult proposition to end an anime
when the original manga isn?t finished yet. I believe the theme for
Trgun has always been love and peace. My own personal feelings for the
ending has been properly executed if you saw some personal growth in
Vash. Violence solves nothing.



Question: How does Madhouse like to differentiate themselves from other
animation studios?

Maruyama: We don?t try to differentiate ourselves, but it the end it
seems that we do. I?m at a loss at how the result occurs. If there is
one thing possibly, it?s because we have a diverse range of outputs.
Metropolis, Vampire Hunter D, Hajime no Ippo, Digi Charat, and Card
Captor Sakura are a wide range of shows.



Question: I really like the Vampire Hunter D style, will we see anymore
Vampire Hunter D movies?

Maruyama: As you know, Vampire Hunter D is based on a series of novels.
The author and the director for Vampire Hunter D are good friends,
going all the way back to Wicked City. They would like to work together
again, but the director is working on Ninja Scroll 2 now.



Question: Do you each like your roles as a producer or director, or
would you ever like to switch roles?



Maruyama: Well, I?m a producer and I don?t think I could ever be a
director. My job is to scream at a director to tell them to hurry up,
and revise a storyboard. I could never do that, because I could never
meet the schedules I give directors. In fact, the director of VHD often
gets angry, saying ?if you have so many things you want to get done,
you should do it yourself.? I tell him I?m older than him, so I can
make you do it.

Nishimura: As for myself, as a director I have to take on some aspects
of a producer. I wouldn?t want to type on a job as a complete producer.
As a director working on Madhouse, I often do agree with the other
director?s comments.

Maruyama: The reason why Nishimura could never match up to me anyway.
No one has as man shows under my belt as I do.



Question: How many frames per second do you use?

Maruyama: Currently 24, but we are making a transition to 30 frames per
second.

Nishimura: It?s like film, so for TV we have to go through a conversion
process.



Question: Are there any pet projects either of you have dreamed of
working on?

Nishimura:  I have two idea I would like to animate. It would
involve a scientist and be a Right Stuff type story. I also have on
that would be just like a high school type story.

Maruyama: For myself, I have five projects in the pipeline, but I hope
to give information piece meal perhaps each time I come back to Otakon.
Last year I inadvertently admitted I was working in the Animatrix, and
the Washshosky brothers were very angry with me.



Marayama: Thank you everyone for coming