 It's fashionable
among some anime fans to complain when changes are made to a Japanese series
when it's translated into English. But what happens when the Japanese series
makes major changes in its source material? That was the case with the
Irresponsible Captain Tylor series when it was adapted from the original
novels to the animated version released in North America by The Right Stuf.
Tomohiro Hirata, the character designer for the Tylor series, spoke about
those changes when he appeared at an Ohayocon panel on Saturday. |
 The Tylor
series, about a spaceship captain who seems clueless but always wins, is
loosely based on a series of Japanese novels. The animated series uses
the novels only as a general framework and makes major changes in the original.
For example,. Tylor is 40 years old in the novels. "We didn't think that
could make an interesting anime character, so we made him 20 or 22," said
Hirata. "Basically, we rebuilt the show from scratch." And there's more
to Tylor's character than seems obvious at first. The series is the writers'
response to the problem of bullying in Japanese schools, where children
often feel helpless to fight back against their aggressors. "If you have
ten adults and one child with contrary opinions, sometimes the child is
right," Hirata said. "Of course, the child in this series is Tylor." |
 So what
happened when the Tylor TV series was broadcast? Did viewers complain that
the integrity of the original novels was violated? Exactly the opposite
happened, according to Hirata. "Since that show changed so much from the
novel, the novelist had to change Tylor's world view - and I had to create
the cover art for all of the novels." The writer incorporated the TV series
version of his original character in a subsequent series of books that
told the stories of Tylor's son, grandson and great-grandson. No one could
tell in those books if Tylor survived those adventures, Hirata said. |
