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 Unedited Feed from the Yamamoto Yutaka panel at NanDeusKan 2011. Transcription: bayoab
Note: ( ) is usually commenting on the panel and was not said.

18:01:50 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> (previous panel is running over)
18:06:26 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> Thank you for coming to the panel
18:06:27 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> We'll start
18:06:52 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> Hi, i'm yutaka yamamoto, i'm happy to see you today.
18:07:05 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> Is that going up on youtube? I won't stop you.
18:07:36 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> I've been invited to speak at campuses, and ended up speaking too much and not leaving enough time for Q&A
18:07:49 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> I'm very interested in hearing what you say to me.
18:08:03 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> So perhaps we can do all Q&A today.
18:08:12 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> You can just toss me a subject, and I'll talk about that.
18:08:40 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> If you can walk up to the microphone.
18:09:10 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> This might reverse your positions, but i'm intersted in hearing your positions about anime in general or my works.
18:09:18 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> Q: Hello, thank you for coming.
18:09:24 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> Maybe you can tell you about your new projects that you are working on.
18:10:23 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> A: There is a lot I can't talk about. What I can say and mention is there was the earthquake in japan 6 months ago, so I'd like to give my feedback as a work
18:11:16 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> And this was a question at the press interview previous to this panel, and a lot of you are interested to know how the anime industry was affected by the earthquake in Japan. there was no small consequence to the anime industry
18:11:28 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> (audio time stamp)
18:12:43 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> And I talked to a lot of staff members, a lot of have their nervers rattled. A lot of them have the feeling Japan has faced a large criss since world war 2 and a lot ar easking if they are doing the right thing by working on a work of entertainment which can be seen as escapist.
18:12:58 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> There are some creators and some writers who haven't been able to write anything since the earthquake
18:14:09 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> And my own thoughts for the half year since the earthquake has past is we still need th preserve the culture of anime as entertainment that we've worked on. And at the same time, anime needs to face a genre that it's been avoiding all this time.
18:14:30 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> And the one path that anime has been avoiding is to look at reality face on
18:15:16 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> For example, in the live action genre, this genre has been bold in confronting reality. There have been plenty of movies about vietman and i'm sure there will be lots of about 9/11
18:16:07 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> And for japanese live action, there was a lot of live action movies about (missed)
18:16:11 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> (zenkyoto?)
18:17:05 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> And you can say that anime may have been avoiding confrontation with reality, but for something that's supposed to be representative of popculuture, it's lacking
18:19:00 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> And this would be a long story to tell, but if you look at the history of japanese animtion, it's not that long, it's a relatively young genre, and if you look at the oldest one.. but it only goes back to 100 years ago(missed?), and the first feature length is the legend of the white snake which was made 50 years ago
18:18:47 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> so you can say the history of japanes animation goes back 50 years
18:19:48 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> And the history of japanese animation only started after the war in the pacific, after it was after, and it's post dated after the zenkyoto student movement, sothe japanese animation hasn't been in existsence with a large social movement, it's always been a peaceful existence.
18:20:15 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> So as a result. It's been nuturing an enviroment where it's been free to be diverse (para)
18:21:16 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> But just as all other forms of art, such as music have done, confronting reality, i think it's time for the genre for japanese animation has come to a turning point, and i think it has to do that, i think just as it was coming to that point to maturity, the great earthquake happened this year.
18:22:06 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> So that's the great motivation for my next work. And I don't exactly have a story or a form, but I can promise that in the next few years, i look forward to delivering it to all of you including you
18:22:57 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> Q: In lucky star and other places, anime is blamed for leading to crime and abduction, so how do you consider that when creating anime.
18:24:13 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> A: To return that with a reply with a serious answer, I have read a lot of reports of criminology and the census and research seems to be that visual (things do not motivates crimes)
18:24:33 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> Actually there is an often ceited hypothesis that when acts of violence are depicted, it tends to supress it's appearnce in real society
18:25:19 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> And this might be my japanse nature showing, but I believe that all of us were godly saints and gentelmen, there would be no cirme, but i believe all of us have a little evil inside
18:25:21 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> (para)
18:25:57 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> And I think what's most important for all of us and what i consider important is for us to learn how to supress and keep in check that evil (lost part?)
18:27:03 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> There is a depiction of violence, the grotesue, the eros, the H, but that's something that's in basic human nature and a lot of anime creators know that and struggle with how that is to be tamed. (lost?)
18:27:56 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> So that's what i think. In japan, currently, there is a man named shintaro ishihara (mayor of tokyo) who stands has a great obstacle to (this existence lost)
18:28:18 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> Q: Thoughts about Fractale? It's a little strange but I'm enjoying it.
18:28:37 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> When you are developing a project, and working on a new series, how much do you think about the difference audiences that will see.
18:28:42 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> You have the audiences in Japan, in america and in the world
18:28:55 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> So I'm wondering how much that affects your thinking while you are working on a project.
18:30:56 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> A: Regarding the first question, Fractale... this ...we were in the last phase of production when the earthquake...when 3.11 happened, and we now call it 3.11.... so this sumarizes my view of what the world is like and what the world would be in the show. (lost?)
18:32:57 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> and a lot of viewers in japan have said that fractale is hard to grasp as a show, and i get why because the show does not say wwhat the world is about. i think there are a lot of inconsistencies, things that are unknown that can be put in one world and explained, and if you look at philophers like marx or niche (lost) they also encompass these inconsistencies, and that's probably what's confusing the audience.
18:33:40 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> But there are precedents to this kind of incomplete depictions of the world, such as miyazaki's princess mononoke and the graphic novel of naussica
18:34:10 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> and i think myself to be one of the worshippers of him, so in his style, i wanted to do a 21st centry present tense interpretation of the world
18:35:04 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> if there are hard to grasp aspects, i can only apologize, but it's not just the result or the conclusion that's given in the show but the actual process of conflict and the soul searching that is the existencfe of the show and that's what i'd like you to enjoy
18:36:10 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> and to answer the second part of the question, i am jpaanese myself and i come from a regional city, so i might contract myselff by saying i would explain the world but my primary audience is the otaku audience and how they will accept my works (lost?)
18:36:43 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> but recently, i've started to use the internet to gain fan reaction overseas, and i've come to see that the reactions that japanese fans show and overseas fans show tend to be similar
18:37:01 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> so my thought today, is by keepingthe japanese otaku fans in mind as the primary audience, it directly appeals to a world audience.
18:37:50 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> Q: Another Fractale question.. the slot that it ran in is famous for running only 11 episodes, which is fairly short even by modern stands, was that time constraint something that caused you to re-examine how you tell your story.
18:38:36 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> A: In terms of the number of episodes alotted, to the time slot, please ask Koji Yamamoto, the producer of the noitamina time slot
18:38:46 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> it's his personal decision, not something we can negotiate
18:39:42 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> I've also worked on a live action film (watashi no yasashii senpai blah) , and it's a 100 minute film, so i have prior experience of having to tell a tale within 100 minutes
18:40:10 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> if you look at noitamina, you are given 11 episodes, and one episode is 20 minutes, so you are given 220 minutes, so that's over 3 hours of story telling time
18:40:32 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> So what's really important is to be able to tell your tale within the frame you are given
18:40:45 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> but should i have felt that 1 quarter isn't sufficient, that would be a shortcoming of my own storytelling skill
18:40:56 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> but actually, at the studio, we did say we could've used 2 more episodes
18:41:21 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> I did plead to koji yamamoto, but that was for naught, but that wasn't really negotiable
18:41:44 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> Q: You've spoken how that anime hasn't gone into is reality, and you've talked about fractale and miyazaki talking about real world issues in fantasy settings
18:42:02 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> are you seeing anime going into more realistic works or more addressing real world issues in worlds that the fans are already familar with
18:43:27 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> A: There is a preamble to what i'm going to say, is that the fantasy genre is becoming hard to do in japan, and that's because the audience is having a harder time grasping what's being made in fantasy
18:44:01 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> This is really prominent, in the world of novels, especially in light novels, the written word is struggling to depict a fantasy context
18:44:34 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> So if you look at examples of show that i've been involved in, haruhi, lucky star, k-on, anohana, none are in fantasy context
18:44:27 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> they are all in real world context
18:45:36 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> And against this, i think the element, or a setting of fantasy, and that's what I did with fractale, because anime, to start off, is make believe media, you have to make everything from scratch and draw it
18:46:00 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> that's different from live action where you have to make something (lost large part) and you can bring real world issues to it as a theme and that's what i did with fractale
18:46:56 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> But since the fantasy genre, if you liimit it to the japanese audience is struggling for acceptances, if you want to bring something that (lost part...... ) conceeding that you have to do it in a slice of life genre
18:47:49 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> But personally, i believe in the genre of fantasy, in the making the world of making believe in that context, so you can be more explicit in depicting theme that (-) to human drama
18:48:42 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> Q: Question about the fractale manga.. I've heard the mangaka said some rude things.. how did you feel about that... maybe you could clarify, things
18:48:49 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> A: I don't remember it anymore
18:49:12 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> The first thing I asked to the manga artist is to forget about the anime, and do the manga as its own work
18:50:18 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> And at the same time, on the anime staff, we also wanted to separate ourself from the manga, but this is something that is always an issue when making a manga version or novelization or making an anime on the pre-existing work, if you just trace out the existing work, that's not a creative effort
18:50:31 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> So because of that philosophy, I actually haven't read a single chapter of the manga version.
18:50:54 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> And since the manga serial is still going on, i'd like to start reading the manga when it's finished, then i'll give my own critiques about it
18:51:52 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> Q: The relationship between the audience and the creators has become closer thanks to the internet. What do you think are the effects of this and it's effects on the industry.
18:52:37 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> A: Because of the closer relationship with the audience and the creator, the creators have been strongly effected
18:53:04 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> And I've seen this as a big issue in the past few issues..and to put it bluntly, i've seen the creators become slaves to the audience
18:53:54 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> and this is one conviction that i strongly have, and that's creators are not slaves of the audience and the creative products are not there to satisfy the lust of the audience 100%
18:54:26 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> And one thing that I recently tweeted about and this is something that hayao miyazaki once said, and i go back to him, and he once said that anime has become instrument in the sex industry
18:54:42 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> (yamamoto kinda wonders about the use of "sex industry")
18:56:11 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> what i'm feeling today is that it's important for anime to entertain the audience, but it cannot be a slave to only that, but then you lose the theme and you lose the messages you want to incorporate into your works
18:56:44 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> right now the voice of the audience is too overbearing on the internet to the point that creators fear and obey
18:56:38 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> and that kind of servitude really takes the (lost) out of anijme
18:57:07 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> but i also conclude that creators cannot only do a one way imposition either, i think one way communication is an outdate concept in the modern world
18:58:07 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> and that's why i think that's it's not proper to consider the audience to be better or the creators to be better, and i think there needs to be adialog, that's why i tweet, that's why i go to conventions (paraphrase)
18:58:33 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> and i think people in the american industry take this as a given but it isn't something that's seeped into the japanese public so that's when i do this i get to be the odd one out
18:58:42 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> and i think this is a situation that needs correction
18:58:45 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> (partially lost at end)
18:59:40 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> Q: (the question was a mess....)
18:59:54 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> Are you asking how yamamoto how he came up with the differences between the versions
18:59:57 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> I only saw the anime
19:00:08 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> Did it not appeal to you?
19:00:17 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> No, I liked it....
19:00:37 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> (She never realized that it was based on a manga)
19:00:44 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> So how about you talk about some of the differences. (other person)
19:01:45 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> A: Well then, let's talk about what was different in the anime compared to the manga
19:01:58 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> I think it's important to be faithful, to the manga in this case
19:02:30 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> (op, ed karoke sequence mentioned as different)
19:02:26 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> one thing when i work on a pre-existing work, you can't work on a dead copy, but you can't make too many changes (heavy paraphrase)
19:03:10 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> So one thing... my philosophy is you can never subtract or change the existing work or change something that was in there, but you can add new elements that are not in conflict.
19:03:27 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> (Time was called)
19:04:17 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> Well, and so that's a wrap, and i think everyone for having a dialog, and i wish w ehad more time...
19:05:02 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> I love coming to anime conventions so we can talk, but it doesn't have to be a convention, we can continue this on the internet on various forms, i just ask you not to be confrontational and constructive criticism is always welcome
19:05:03 <bay|NDK|Yamakan> thank you very much
Notes: None