In this column, Shudo talks about his experience at the launch party for the Pokemon anime, including his meeting with (what are assumed to be) Ken Sugimori and Satoshi Tajiri, the founders of GameFreak.
At the launch party, it is customary for the staff and cast members in attendance to be introduced by the party host to all in attendance and to give brief remarks.
As a representative of the scriptwriters, I was also asked to speak in front of the attendees about my attitude as a scriptwriter for "Pokemon."
Writers are usually not very good at public speaking, so many of them just say a few humble words like, "please treat me well," and quickly withdraw, but at such times, I end up blurting out things that do not need to be said.
In short, I am the type of person who likes to seek attention and be outspoken.
Anyway, no matter who they are or how many people are in the room, I am strangely free from feeling upset or getting stage fright.
And so, I tend to unintentionally say what I want to say.
I can only write what I originally want to write, and on top of that, because of this attitude in public, I think now that when I was younger, I was often thought of as a cocky guy.
One director or producer once told me directly that I was stubborn, but that I could write something unique, but the word "stubborn" had me going "???"
I am not a stickler for my own ideas, but rather, I incorporate whatever ideas I think are good from others into the works I construct.
I believe that to the extent that I say what I want to say, I should also let others say what they want to say and have an ear to hear them.
It is said that for the shows I have constructed, even professional scriptwriters sometimes come up with scripts that they really want to write, or their true feelings, which are not usually written by professionals.
In fact, if I think someone is capable of writing an appealing and unique script, I will only ask for opinions on the script at the first meeting, and then I will ask them to write whatever they want and say nothing else. I do not make any changes to the finished scripts. I would of course respect the director's opinion, but in most cases, the first draft of their scripts became the final draft immediately.
However, it is also true that I tend to say what I want to say to others, and I myself believe that I was called "cocky" when I was younger, but as I got older, I came to be called "stubborn."
And I was never intimidated by anything when I was young.
Now, I have learned to be more reserved and careful about what I say to others, but it seems that the essence has not changed, because I, a mature old man, do not want to be considered a burden or nuisance by younger people for saying all I have to say.
I digress, but there was a time when the anime magazine "Animage" held its Anime Grand Prix event at the Tokyo Budokan, and I was the only one who was given the spotlight on stage to give a speech about an anime work for which I had written the script.
At that time, I didn't think about what I was going to say beforehand, and I just spoke on the spot, ad-libbing what came to me.
It was a time when the anime boom was even bigger than it is now, and I even felt a sense of pleasure for a moment to be in the spotlight in front of a room full of anime fans at the Tokyo Budokan, talking about whatever came to my mind on the spot. I reflected on the fact that a writer should not be too eager to seek attention, and thereafter, I have avoided giving on-stage speeches as much as possible.
When I write stage musicals, whether for children or for other audiences, I sometimes have the opportunity to address the audience as the author on the opening day or the final show.
Because those stage musicals were heavily sponsored and supported, they were performed in large theaters in each city and attracted large audiences.
On the Tokyo stage, it was in the class of Wel City Tokyo or Hibiya Public Hall.
I was not afraid to stand on such a large stage.
There are certain types of people who get an adrenaline rush when they are on stage, under the spotlight, or in the public eye.
And when it is a live performance, where one never knows what will happen, it is quite thrilling and makes one's adrenaline flow even more.
And once you have had such an experience, you can't stop it.
There are many successful movie and TV actors who want to perform on stage, but they must be the type of people who can't get enough of the thrill of the stage, where their performance is never interrupted by cuts or scenes, and they can feel their presence in the live audience's reaction.
It is this type of person, however, who may be said to have the richest qualities as an actor.
Acting is valuable only when there is an audience.
Compared to the pleasure of being on stage, numbers such as ratings and audience attendance are really unimportant.
As well as criticism and reputation, if it's good, there's nothing better than that, but even if it's bad, it actually isn't too bothersome.
It has long been said that actors and ___ cannot stop once they have done it, and there are quite a few types of people for whom being on stage is a pleasure.
You might call it stage dependence, spotlight dependence, or live performance dependence.
It would be fine for a talented person to expose their expression to the public on stage, even if it is not well received, because they can be satisfied with the pleasure of doing so.
They can be satisfied by thinking that the audience does not understand their talent.
However, it is a tragedy for those who have talent in other aspects, or rather, in a nutshell, those who become stage addicts even though they have no talent for performing on the stage.
They will never be able to sell, and in fact, they will never be able to entertain even a small theater audience that came out of obligation, but they will never be able to leave the stage.
Eventually, they think if it's a stage, any stage will do.
In the case of women, it could be a strip club in the rural outskirts.
If the spotlight shines on you and you can catch the eyes of the audience, you got your big moment.
I have seen many such people.
It is useless to say, "You have no talent, so stop."
They are more than happy to be in a place where they can show their flesh and blood expression (performance) to others.
Surprisingly, I am apparently one of those types of people.
I have no talent for speaking or doing anything in front of others.
However, when I am given a place to speak, I get a rush of adrenaline, and I tend to improvise and say whatever comes to my mind on the spot.
Although, as I am over the age of 40, my desire to seek publicity has waned, and the pleasure I feel in doing something in company has diminished, and I no longer have such opportunities in the first place.
But the deep-seated instinct to be out in the open lurks somewhere in me, even as I age.
I seem to have gone off on a tangent.
Let's get back on track.
I was talking about the Pokemon launch party.
The turn to introduce the staff came around to the series organizer and scriptwriters.
When I stood up in front of the attendees, I was going to give a brief speech, but my hidden adrenaline seemed to kick in and I started ad-libbing.
"There are currently 151 Pokémon in the games, and each Pokémon... it's not decided whether to call them critters or creatures... anyway, each critter can have at least one interesting episode, so even if we simply do the math, we can have 151 episodes..."
When I thought about what I said later and considered it myself, I realized that 151 episodes meant that as the series organizer of the animated version of "Pokemon," I had declared to the people involved that I was confident that the series would continue for almost three years, rather than the planned one and a half years, at 52 weeks a year.
Now that the animated version of "Pokemon" has been running for more than 10 years, a three-year airing period is nothing to be concerned about, but it was a very bold statement for the early days of "Pokemon."
At that time, the people involved had already seen episodes 1 and 2 of the animated version of "Pokemon," and they might have thought that I had guaranteed that the quality of the episodes I had written would be good enough to last 151 episodes.
For my part, I had ended up saying something outrageous...
The scripts were already pretty much completed after the two episodes, and I thought each one was not bad, but they were not scripts I wrote.
Moreover, I did not interfere with those scripts written by other scriptwriters in the same way as I did with the other shows I organized.
I am sure that the opinions of the director and producers of the animated version of "Pokemon" were fully reflected in the final drafts of each of the scripts, but I was only offering a few thoughts.
But I can honestly say that I felt that each script would have been different if I had written it.
However, it is not fair to say, "If I write it" and "wrote it" or "had written it" to the script that became the final draft when I am involved in series composition.
In the first place, considering one or two episodes, it would be physically and competently impossible for me to write one script a week that would become the final manuscript of the animated version of "Pokemon."
And even if I could write them, I am not confident that they would be scripts that would satisfy the director and producers.
Rather, there is great concern that the scripts will cause a series of problems.
And yet, I was so confident as if I could write all the scripts myself and proudly proclaimed that we could do up to 151 episodes.
Normally, one would not be able to say this with confidence, especially if the script was written by them.
I remember being exasperated with myself, thinking, "How dare you say that, Shudou Takeshi, the series organizer?"
At that time, I did not have a clear answer as to what stance I should take as a series organizer for the animated version of "Pokemon" and how I should be involved in the scripts of others.
I just didn't even feel like I was baselessly speaking without thinking in my greeting.
Even though the greeting was ad-libbed by me on the spot, or in other words, my adrenaline rush made me say it, I was sure that I had honestly said what I was thinking at that moment.
Perhaps it was seeing the enthusiasm of the staff and the motivation of the cast, including the voices of Team Rocket, that convinced me that the animated version of "Pokemon" would make it to episode 151 or so.
I wonder what the people who made of the "Pokemon" games, who could be called the original creators, think about someone like me constructing the animated series.
I knew that I should not ask the creators of the games directly, because it would be a form of ignoring the anime's director and producers.
As I was feeling impatient, thinking that I wanted to hear the opinions of the people who had created the games and were in the same venue, to my surprise, one of the game creators approached me.
He began by saying something that surprised me.
"I like 'Youkoso Youko.' Please keep up the good work on 'Pokemon' too."
I don't remember the exact words of encouragement, but they were close to that.
I was like, "Huh?"
"'Youkoso Youko' has a good reputation even among people who make 'Pokemon' games."
I was taken aback when the title of "Idol Angel: Youkoso Youko" was mentioned there.
Needless to say, I knew that the work "Idol Angel: Youkoso Youko" was enthusiastically popular among some anime fans, but I personally felt that it was an obscure show that was only loved by a small group of people.
I had no idea that the name Shudou Takeshi had spread to the people who make the "Pokemon" games.
Later, the person who could be called the responsible party for making the "Pokemon" games even asked me if I had any videos to show him, as the anime "Youkoso Youko" is very popular among the people who make the games, but he has not seen it.
When I handed him the copied video of all the episodes of "Youkoso Youko," he spent a whole day watching them all.
The person's impression was quite positive about the content, even though the quality of the copy was terrible.
In short, the people in the game industry knew that Shudou Takeshi, the series organizer and scriptwriter, was the writer of "Idol Angel: Youkoso Youko."
And since the series organizer and scriptwriter of "Youkoso Youko" was going to be the series organizer of "Pokemon," they seemed to have high expectations for the anime version.
Furthermore, the director is also someone who is said to have been be a duo with me in "Magical Princess Minky Momo."
It seemed that hopes for the series were growing even higher.
Then the first two episodes of the animated version were completed, and the results seemed to meet the expectations of those who made the games.
In other words, the original creator side was apparently satisfied with Shudou Takeshi's series construction.
It also seems that it was because of "Idol Angel: Youkoso Youko."
As I have written before in this column, "Youkoso Youko" took a rather unusual approach to scriptwriting from the norm of anime.
Besides the fact that it was a musical-style anime, it was an anime script that did something quite unconventional.
If this was acceptable to the original creators, I felt I could see what I could do as a series organizer for "Pokemon."
I don't mean making "Pokemon" into a musical.
It was just a matter of putting something as extraordinary as the scripts of "Youkoso Youko" into "Pokémon."
I thought that a script like "Youkoso Youko" was probably too unconventional to come from the professional scriptwriters assembled for "Pokémon."
For a professional screenwriter, a script like "Youkoso Youko" is rather the kind of script that should not be written.
This is because many parts of the script seem to defy normal script conventions.
It is the kind of scriptwriting that is never taught in screenwriting schools.
It is the kind of script that might be called a bad example in schools.
Even if they were asked to write such scripts, they would not be able to produce unconventional scripts in one month as per the script schedule of "Pokemon."
It would even be a nuisance for them to ask a professional screenwriter to write such inefficient scripts.
Therefore, I would ask the screenwriters assembled for "Pokémon" to write professional scripts in their own style, on schedule, and that are okayed with the input of the director and producer, without my saying anything.
I'd use these scripts as the basis for the "Pokemon" scripts, with the occasional unconventional script thrown in.
So who should write an irregular script that no professional screenwriter would write?
It should be written by me.
The usual scripts of the others will also have Team Rocket, as per the pattern, and the Pokémon themselves are unique in their presence, so they should be quite different from other shows.
Of course, the scripts written by the professionals have their own professional personalities, so the scripts that became the final drafts have a certain amount of variety.
Then, in addition, a script that is drastically unconventional will be mixed in.
I, as the series organizer, consider how unconventional scripts are needed for "Pokemon" each time.
And I felt that writing such scripts would be my raison d'être as the series organizer of "Pokemon."
In the early stages of the animated version of "Pokémon," if I can successfully create the worldbuilding of "Pokémon" and the characters of Team Rocket, I, as the series organizer of "Pokémon," will be a presence that may or may not be present.
There were already producers for the animated version of "Pokemon" who did what a series constructor usually has to do.
What made me find where I fit in as the series organizer in the animated version of "Pokemon" was the fact that I knew that the people who were making the games liked "Youkoso Youko."
I can write scripts without worrying about some unpopularity on the animation production side.
After all, I have the support of the side of the original creators—it is a bit self-centered, but I felt much more at ease thinking so.
I made a conscious decision to write only "Pokemon" scripts that other scriptwriters would not have thought of.
Normally, a series composer writes scripts that take the tried-and-true method for the entire work and write episodes that serve as key points in the development of the work, but my "Pokemon" series construction was different.
By writing scripts that seemed maverick among the "Pokémon" scripts, and by letting them creep into the work, I tried to create an atmosphere unique to "Pokémon" that made the whole series look like a normal children's cartoon, but still somehow feel different from other cartoons.
The "Pokemon" launch party was not only a chance to meet the people involved, but it was also a party that meant a lot to me in terms of my involvement with the animated version of "Pokemon."
Every production has a launch party - although some productions do not have a party due to budget constraints - but this was the first time for me to attend a party where I decided where I stood in relation to the work.
I immediately began plotting out scripts that seemed unconventional for the animated version of "Pokemon."
To be continued
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● The Me of Yesterday (not so much a status report, but how anyone can be a screenwriter)
I have been talking about the importance of one's originality for a while now, but are the scripts of Shudou Takeshi, who keeps saying so, really original?
This is a question I keep asking myself.
When people read my scripts, they at least say that they are unusual.
Some people call my screenplays that have a strange quirkiness to them the Shudou-ist scripts.
Others say they can tell which works I have written without seeing the screenwriter's title role.
They are not really aware of what the so-called Shudou-ist script is, but it seems that imitations of my scripts are not even a subgenre of Shudou-ism.
Some scriptwriters have told me that they tried to imitate me, but they couldn't do it, so they stopped because it was ridiculous.
There seem to be some screenwriters who feel uncomfortable when they write scripts for works that Shudou has constructed, because they feel as if they have Shudou's tinge on them even though they wrote them themselves.
In one of my recent productions - animation that for some reason ignored the script of the final draft - the finished product was so incoherent that I wrote a CD script just to make the finished product make sense, and the producer told me that it was a "skimping script," which is unlike Shudou.
I wanted to say to him that he should do something about the disregard of the finished anime scripts and the incoherence, but then I decided to go back and read my own scripts first to see what "Shudou-ism" was all about to begin with.
The reason I started this column in the first place was to check myself to see what kind of things Shudou Takeshi, a writer, has written.
The scripts written on a word processor and computer are kept from the first draft to the final draft, and most of the scripts written on manuscript paper and printed and bound are kept at the Odawara library and available for viewing.
It seems that the handwritten drafts written on manuscript paper were thrown away after the production company printed the scripts. In those days, there were no fax machines, so the raw manuscripts are not in my possession.
Few scriptwriters nowadays write their scripts in raw handwritten drafts, and many of them write on computer word processors and send their scripts by e-mail.
Scripts are only needed for script meetings and storyboarding, and a few copies are sufficient, so some animation companies cut costs and do not print the final draft scripts, but instead make photocopies.
The only thing that might be printed and remain in such a company is the dubbing script, which is based on the storyboard.
Some production companies would throw even that away as garbage after the work was completed, and later, when they needed a script, they would contact me to inquire if I had one.
It seems that scripts are discarded and disappear in the world of TV dramas and film as well, and the Writers Guild of Japan is calling for scriptwriters to create an archive to collect and preserve past scripts.
However, with the current situation where even the copyright of screenplays is not fully protected, it seems a long way off to create an archive that preserves the scripts themselves.
Still, I have some raw drafts of novels that I have given to the editorial department of a well-known publishing company, and they returned them to me after proofreading, so I have a few of them stored at the Odawara library.
And, to my surprise, although some of the earliest manuscripts were written in pencil with traces of an eraser, the later manuscripts were written with fountain pens and felt-tip pens.
I don't remember writing a rough copy and then making a clean copy on the manuscript paper.
In other words, what comes to mind is suddenly written down on manuscript paper.
The closer I get to the climax, the messier the letters become.
It is clear that I was in a hurry to write the climax that came to my mind on the manuscript paper before I forgot it.
And in the case of the screenplay, I almost always use the first draft as the final draft.
There is no trace of any revision of the manuscripts.
As I recall, a 30-minute animation script was written in six or seven hours at once.
I didn't even eat during the process.
I didn't even smoke.
However, there were scripts that I wrote in one go while drinking alcohol.
Embarrassingly, the manuscript paper has blurred letters and stains from spilled alcohol.
I remember the time when I put a bottle of whiskey on my desk and finished the manuscript.
In any case, this vitality is unthinkable for me now.
My mind seemed to be directly connected to the words on the paper, and I was recklessly energetic.
What is the same as now is that I hated the writing process, and I know how much I wanted to finish as soon as possible and get away from the manuscript paper.
In short, it is a rough manuscript overall.
It is rough, but there is a sense of speed with which it was written in a blur.
When I first started using a word processor, I remember how irritating it was that it took so long to write.
Word processors and computers make it easy to revise sentences, so while typing on the keyboard, I had to revise sentences and dialogues and rewrite them each time, and it took me quite a long time to write a manuscript.
Reading my past manuscripts, I found that each of them was interesting, but I thought that I would not write like this if I were writing today.
Looking back, I feel like I had been constantly writing manuscripts that I felt are different from my previous ones.
And yet, there is definitely a certain aura in the scripts that I can't get out of no matter what I write.
I don't know if I can call that aura "Shudou-ism" or not.
But I know that I was constantly struggling to get rid of that aura.
What I wrote in the past is different from what I write now.
The awareness of trying to write something different from what I have written in the past—I don't know if you can call it my originality, but I feel that if I no longer think that what I have written in the past is "different from what I am doing now," and I start to imitate what I have written in the past, then it means that my originality is gone.
And I have a feeling that that time is not far off.
Before that day arrives, I have a few things I plan to write, and although I did not draft them, there is a project that I have been asked to write a script for, and I am feeling quite anxious to get it into manuscript as soon as possible.
To be continued