Nan Desu Kan - Hisashi Abe and Shin
Itagaki - 2007
This site last encountered animator Hisashi Abe at Anime
Expo in 2001, when he was speaking about his work on the Vampire Hunter
D; Bloodlust film. His big project since then has been the anime Devil
May Cry series, where he was the animation director and character
designer. Abe noted that Devil May Cry was animated with an American
audience in mind, and its sales fate in the U.S. market could decide if
a second series would be produced. At the time of Nan Desu Kan, ADV
films was expected to start working on a dub of Devil May cry after
announcing three months earlier that they had acquired the series. The
key to that sales success could be decided by the number of people who
already had found ways to download the series as it was broadcast in
Japan, something that clearly concerned Abe when he spoke on Nan Desu
Kan's final day. He noted that anime piracy takes money out of the
hands of the people who work on the series and makes it harder to
produce new series.
Shin Itagaki, director of the Devil May Cry anime and the
Black Cat series, had some observations on the story ideas that
distinguish anime series from American storytelling. "In America,
people want to be like Superman. In Japan, people are satisfied with a
little bit of happiness," Itagaki said. "In Japan, if you're 20 years
old and say 'I'm going to be a hero" you're going to have trouble with
a a lot of other things." Living with what Itagaki called "small homes
and small dreams" in Japan goes a long way toward explaining the
frequent anime theme of ordinary people doing extraordinary things (and
we wonder if that theme was "borrowed" for U.S. TV's Heroes).
Itagaki also had an observation about females in anime, saying that "In
Japan, there are girls who want to be Sailor Moon, but even they want
to be saved by men." He also said there's some truth in the
personalities we see in high school anime, noting that students to
manage to overcome the attempts to impose conformity through school
uniforms.
This site last encountered animator Hisashi Abe at Anime
Expo in 2001, when he was speaking about his work on the Vampire Hunter
D; Bloodlust film. His big project since then has been the anime Devil
May Cry series, where he was the animation director and character
designer. Abe noted that Devil May Cry was animated with an American
audience in mind, and its sales fate in the U.S. market could decide if
a second series would be produced. At the time of Nan Desu Kan, ADV
films was expected to start working on a dub of Devil May cry after
announcing three months earlier that they had acquired the series. The
key to that sales success could be decided by the number of people who
already had found ways to download the series as it was broadcast in
Japan, something that clearly concerned Abe when he spoke on Nan Desu
Kan's final day. He noted that anime piracy takes money out of the
hands of the people who work on the series and makes it harder to
produce new series.
Shin Itagaki, director of the Devil May Cry anime and the
Black Cat series, had some observations on the story ideas that
distinguish anime series from American storytelling. "In America,
people want to be like Superman. In Japan, people are satisfied with a
little bit of happiness," Itagaki said. "In Japan, if you're 20 years
old and say 'I'm going to be a hero" you're going to have trouble with
a a lot of other things." Living with what Itagaki called "small homes
and small dreams" in Japan goes a long way toward explaining the
frequent anime theme of ordinary people doing extraordinary things (and
we wonder if that theme was "borrowed" for U.S. TV's Heroes).
Itagaki also had an observation about females in anime, saying that "In
Japan, there are girls who want to be Sailor Moon, but even they want
to be saved by men." He also said there's some truth in the
personalities we see in high school anime, noting that students to
manage to overcome the attempts to impose conformity through school
uniforms.
