Forum - View topicInterview: Seiji Kishi
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Saffire
Posts: 1256 Location: Iowa, USA |
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killjoy_the
Posts: 2468 |
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Very interesting interview. I wish he could've gone a bit further on the change of times and what that means to characters facing conflict becoming unpopular, since I don't really see it happening. But I think citing examples could be taken the wrong way, so he had to play it a bit safe.
His talk about heroism and the sacrifices it demands takes me back to the fun I had watching and discussing Yuki Yuna in communities, with all the edits and parallels drawn to other stories. It's also pretty interesting seeing how the characters were polished, thrown into the already-created draft of the story line, which then changed the story line, since they didn't want the characters to behave arbitrarily. |
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Blackiris_
Posts: 536 |
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I think he means that nowadays the hero-type characters are very popular. Those that are cool, always do the right things and don't have many personality flaws. When they have conflicting feelings, those usually resolve very fast, and are usually related to problems from the outside.
Let's take Shinji from Eva for example. He is, in many ways, a pretty realistic character. Not exactly likeable for much of the time, but he acts like many real people would act in his situation. Many modern anime fans complain about the "whining", they don't want characters that are, in some ways, uncool. That's why those emotionless characters like Levi from Attack on Titan so popular; they are ALWAYS cool, and even if they are not, it's just for a very brief moment. I guess that's because anime grows to be escapism entertainment more and more. It's probably more important for many anime fans to see characters they just find "cool" or "awesome", not characters in which they find themselves. That makes them kinda "flat" – they just lack much of the imperfection of real human beings. I'm not saying that "back then" characters were not idealized – they sure were –, but it was often that they had to go a long way to reach this point, whereas nowadays this phase is often either very short or skipped entirely; we have self-insert escapism harm leads without much personality, or powerful heroes – often both combined. But it's rare to see characters REALLY struggle with themselves. And yes, it was a very interesting interview. I hope Seiji Kishi gets to do more original stuff, his game adaptions were rather lacking, if you ask me. (And game adaptions are almost always rather lacking.) |
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ChrissyC
Posts: 547 |
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I Agree many main characters are flat and uninteresting. That`s about almost every harem also I see it in "Angel Beats" and suddenly in "Charlotte" even though the first episode he had depth.
Not that I disliked "Charlotte" or "Angel Beats", they are a really good series. Harems on the other hand tend to have flat protagonist. Now though I'm starting to see people are less interested in these characters, however I can`t say for every series. It`s still an abundant theme. |
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Kimiko_0
Posts: 1796 Location: Leiden, NL, EU |
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Some of Kishi's answers are very interesting, but make me curious what his exact words in Japanese were. Any chance we could see the Japanese original of this interview? Or Q/As 7 and 9 in particular?
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MajinAkuma
Posts: 1199 |
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Yeah, in many cases it's true, but there are also some exceptions. For example, Issei Hyoudou from High School DxD, who is a lovable, hilarious pervert and a badass fighter. He has a good dynamic with both females and male characters. Or Ryouta Murakami from Gokukoku no Brynhildr, who is risking his life for girls with "magical" powers, but he's much more competent than them because his brilliant intelligence keep all of them alive. (The weird part is that most male characters in this series are more badass than most of the female characters, despite those males don't have any power). |
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John Thacker
Posts: 1008 |
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Interesting take. I actually feel that the main character had less depth and self-reflection in the first episode of Charlotte than subsequently. Being a jerk or arrogant does not seem to me to be the kind of depth that Director Kishi is referring to; characters can be iconoclastic or fail to conform without pondering their motivations or changing throughout the story. |
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ChrissyC
Posts: 547 |
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Yes, I did mention "many" however not all. Thank you MajinAkuma for your couple of examples of characters, though I appreciate it. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ah, yes that makes sense. Infact my brother and many others agree with war you are saying. I've noticed that "Charlotte" overall isn't a very well received series this time around for Jun Maeda and his associates. The protagonist expressed much more character and interesting decisions within the first episode. As it went along he has turned more into a straight-man protagonist. That is what I meant to express. It's my mistake John. {Combined posts. ~nobahn} |
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DontmesswithKarma
Posts: 491 |
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Amazing interview. Kishi is one of my favourite directors and i look up to him alot so reading this interview was amazing. Hope he forever continues making anime. Hopefully one day he'll be able to make a psychological anime again.
Keep on creating great shows Kishi! |
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chito895
Posts: 512 Location: Lima, Peru |
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His explanation about the end of Yuki Yunna and how spoiler[Yuki came back from "the grave"] was very fulfilling to me. Now I can imagine what she did and felt in those moments. It was indeed a great series, and I'm also surprised when he said that Yuki's VA collapsed during work.
Interesting how he talked about the main characters. The first character that came to my mind when he said "main characters of that time really think and get into conflicts with himself" was Shinji. And it's pretty much the truth, as MC nowadays are there to give us their perspectives, but aren't actually that developed and depth. Not that it means that they're bad characters, though. Great interview! |
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Jajanken
Posts: 680 |
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"other notable works like Danganronpa and Persona 4" NOTABLE AHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA what a joke
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bassgs435
Posts: 344 |
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At least they didn't mention the disaster that was Devil Survivor 2 the Animation. I love the game, but the anime was just bad What kind of anime adapring a videogame skips the final boss fight? |
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Hyperdrve
Posts: 276 |
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I disagree with the way you're wording things here because for one not everyone lacks a spine. The way I see it, conflicted (and angsty) characters such as Shinji are just instruments that writers use as a cop out to writing a good plot or that animators use when they don't feel like animating and instead push for a "deep" conflicted monologue. Also like with real people, you can disagree with a fictional character's perception of things and that might reduce the likability of the character. Of course there are likable conflicted characters but these have to be done in a competent manner. The example that I have in mind is Kyon's iconic monologue in The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. I think the recent trend of people from the anime industry complaining is because consumers these days care more about the product than they do for the artist. |
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ChibiKangaroo
Posts: 2941 |
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I was happy to see his explanation for why they did the Mimori character in the way they did. I suppose it kind of helped me understand their thought process although I do disagree with their conclusion. I think the fact that they minimized her disability was a wasted opportunity, precisely because it is such a unique thing and was really uncharted waters. In that sense, perhaps they were actually playing it safe rather than taking a risk. But again, I get his thought process.
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kotomikun
Posts: 1205 |
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That does happen, often for the sake of imitating Eva, but anything can be done badly. The thing about Shinji is that he's literally, clinically depressed, and pretty much the whole show revolves around that condition. And, well, most people who haven't had that sort of experience are profoundly incapable of understanding what it's really like--they usually confuse it with temporary sadness about something tangible--and think Shinji is just "whiny" or lazy and has only himself to blame (not coincidentally, people say exactly the same things about real people with depression). If someone's in a wheelchair, it's obvious why they might struggle with some things; but if someone has mental issues, you can't immediately see what's wrong with them, so the natural assumption is that nothing is wrong with them and they're just making it up for attention or whatever. Society has never been very accepting of mental problems, but it seems like it's gotten worse recently; as stated in the interview, people have kinda soured on internal conflict entirely, to say nothing of mental illnesses. It's great that Yuki Yuna has some representation for the physically disabled... but mental ones seem nonexistent, the characters are as ridiculously self-assured as in the majority of other superhero stories these days, breaking down rarely and very briefly before one of their friends picks them up again. spoiler[Despite having damn good reasons to lose composure. Togo gets suicidal, but for pretty rational reasons, and she's cured with a punch and a quick pep talk.] Maybe it's a reduced attention span thing, or a desire for characters to look up to rather than to relate to. It kinda bothers me, though, because people don't seem to want to confront their own problems very much these days, only other people's problems, which is kind of narcissistic... |
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