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Interview: Dai Sato




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Blackiris_



Joined: 06 Sep 2013
Posts: 535
PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 11:58 am Reply with quote
Very cool interview, thank you! I always love to learn more about screenwriters, especially the ones who worked on so many shows I love.
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Top Gun



Joined: 28 Sep 2007
Posts: 4564
PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 12:18 pm Reply with quote
Dai Sato is one of my very favorite people in the industry, and he's worked with most of my other favorite people on some of my favorite shows. It's great hearing his perspective on the projects he's worked on. His take on Watanabe and Kamiyama's personalities is especially interesting; I think you can see those aspects of both of them in their respective works. Also love how he singled out "Chat Chat Chat!" ; excessive infodumping is usually considered a cardinal sin of writing, but he managed to turn a bunch of talking heads into what I'd consider one of the greatest single anime episodes ever. Really glad to see him come back to Eureka seven: every spinoff he wasn't involved with has ranged from mediocre to hot garbage.
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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
Posts: 5296
PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 12:31 pm Reply with quote
He should really stick to episode writing for over peoples shows, he's not as good when it comes to creating his own IPs.
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Lann



Joined: 12 Dec 2006
Posts: 268
PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 1:08 pm Reply with quote
One of my very favourite writers! Thank you for the interview! I've always wanted to know what he thinks of the Eureka Seven spin offs. I still consider all the spin offs are un-canon.
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JacobC
ANN Contributor


Joined: 15 Jan 2008
Posts: 3728
Location: SoCal
PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 1:17 pm Reply with quote
MarshalBanana wrote:
He should really stick to episode writing for over peoples shows, he's not as good when it comes to creating his own IPs.


He's actually literally never done this. Eureka Seven was a combo of Bandai demands and the director's creative ideas, with Sato providing guidance and structure (and maybe the skateboarding idea? but that might have been the director too). Same with Ergo Proxy, that was apparently the director's brainchild too, with Sato just recruited on to give it consistency and coordinate the writing team. So I for one do want to see what a totally original Dai Sato idea would look like, now that I know I've never seen one before!

Every anime project is different, and unless you know the voice of the individual creators behind it really well or have interviews to go off, it's hard to say who if any one person is most responsible for the direction of the story. For example, Wolf's Rain was driven more by lead writer Keiko Nobumoto than director Tensai Okamura, while The Woman Called Fujiko Mine was driven more by director Sayo Yamamoto than lead writer Mari Okada. All four of these people are strong personalities in the industry, but you can tell how the balance shifts in various cases by combining information from interviews with how their voices as creatives come through. Sometimes it's the director, sometimes it's the lead writer, and sometimes it's a production committee or company looking to market a specific product. But every project is different.
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DangerMouse



Joined: 25 Mar 2009
Posts: 3980
PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 4:22 pm Reply with quote
Top Gun wrote:
Dai Sato is one of my very favorite people in the industry, and he's worked with most of my other favorite people on some of my favorite shows. It's great hearing his perspective on the projects he's worked on. His take on Watanabe and Kamiyama's personalities is especially interesting; I think you can see those aspects of both of them in their respective works. Also love how he singled out "Chat Chat Chat!" ; excessive infodumping is usually considered a cardinal sin of writing, but he managed to turn a bunch of talking heads into what I'd consider one of the greatest single anime episodes ever. Really glad to see him come back to Eureka seven: every spinoff he wasn't involved with has ranged from mediocre to hot garbage.


This.
And oh yeah that's such a great point about "Chat Chat Chat!".

Thanks so much for the interview, one of my favorite writers! And as has been said so glad he's back for the new E7 movies, his touch has been strongly missed.
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Doodleboy



Joined: 23 Dec 2013
Posts: 296
PostPosted: Thu Sep 21, 2017 6:36 pm Reply with quote
For original authored stuff Dai Sato made the manga he wrote Yuzuko Peppermint maybe? Although even with manga the author doesn't have full control over the story sometimes and with the concept "superpowered high-school girl seeks revenge over slain family" definitely feels like something that could be an editor's prompt that he just ran with.

The process behind Ergo Proxy was interesting. Does explain the weird plotting and loose threads. Reminds me of an earlier interview where he talked about it and what he described was a bit different from the final result. https://www.japansociety.org/resources/content/2/0/5/4/documents/sato_mcgray%20interview.pdf

That was a great interview, thanks for the deep dive questions.
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relyat08



Joined: 20 Mar 2013
Posts: 4125
Location: Northern Virginia
PostPosted: Mon Sep 25, 2017 8:47 pm Reply with quote
Awesome interview guys! I'm also curious to see what an original series with him as the primary voice, would be like.
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