This column is the second part of a three-parter where Shudo talks about his gradual departure from Pokemon. In this entry, he talks about burning out from being the series composer.
My experience in Central Park during the downpour that I wrote about in the last issue of this column seemed to have burst something from within me.
It is frustrating that I cannot express it well, but my feelings toward "Pokémon," which I had been obsessed with in my own way, became unimportant.
It is absurd to compare the two, but even if I tried to express something using "Pokémon" as a medium, it would probably be no match for the downpour of rain that fell on me regardless of anyone's intentions.
Children of all races must have thought during the downpour, "I wish the rain would stop soon." A common feeling. No matter what "Pokémon" expresses, it cannot make children (including adults) have such a common awareness as the downpour, which is just a natural phenomenon.
The scripts I write on a daily basis are not intended to make any sort of thematic statement.
It is to say, "Look at the finished work and feel something."
"Stand in the pouring rain and feel something"—it is similar, but also not. The difference is that one is man-made and one is a natural phenomenon.
It is to say, "By the way, the commentaries I have written so far in this column about my scripts were only written with this intention in mind, but I wonder how you all feel about it."
When a writer talks about their own screenplays, they can only talk about what they "intended" to have written.
Depending on how you read it, it could be taken as an excuse from the screenwriter for the finished work. In some ways, it could be read as taking the offensive.
But that may be the kind of personality that this column, written by a screenwriter, will have even if you don't like it.
It is up to you to decide how you feel about my "intentions of writing" when you see my work.
If you tell me that my "intention of writing" was not conveyed to you at all, my attitude will be, "Oh, I see. I am sorry."
Still, I honestly want to think that you "must have felt something" even if you stubbornly did not get my "intention of writing."
Otherwise, no matter what I write, it will be nothing more than my masturbation, meaningless to others.
There are many things in the world that are like a writer's masturbation, and in many cases, they are appreciated.
In Japan, in particular, there is a field called "I-novels," and there is a tendency for such works to be favored.
I am not the type of person who likes to watch, read, or write such things.
"You want to express yourself in a messy way, but you don't have to show it to people, you can handle it on your own. It's not good for me to be shown that," I end up thinking.
Expression is something that comes from the other party.
I would like to think that self-satisfaction is not expression.
However, the downpour of rain in Central Park that I experienced was a no-brainer.
It forcibly directs the feelings of the people involved in the situation in one direction.
In addition, there were two dark-skinned children dancing joyfully in the rain as a highlight.
The scene that unfolds is a brilliant and dramatic work created by the natural phenomenon of pouring rain.
Moreover, it is not a drama but reality.
I thought to myself, "I can't compete with this."
The expression, "How small we humans are," is often used in front of some of the world's most famous and spectacular natural landscapes.
In my case, it was in the pouring rain of a children's playground in New York City's Central Park, which is probably a common occurrence during the year, which may seem a bit petty, but I felt it anyway, so I couldn't help it.
As an aside, having grown up in Hokkaido from the ages of 5 to 9, I have become immune to the vastness and grandeur of Mother Nature, and for example, the Konsen Plains of Hokkaido, as seen from a child's perspective, are larger than the Siberian wilderness seen from an adult's perspective, and in memory, they are even bigger (I think it's quite important to be aware of the child's point of view and the expanded impressions in memory when depicting a child's world).
So, I am rarely surprised by the so-called wonders of nature.
Then again, if I saw the earth from space, I would have a different impression, but I don't think I would have such an opportunity, and even if it were possible, I would not think "the universe is huge" but "the earth is so small."
So what am I writing so languidly about? What does it have to do with "Pokémon"? It has to do with the fact that there is a limit to what can be expressed in the "Pokémon" anime, and that something bigger is needed. But I still don't know what that is.
And it could be as big as a downpour in Central Park. But I felt a sense of quick defeat, thinking that it would be impossible for a human being to create such a thing.
That sense of defeat felt good.
Still, the random trip to New York City with two women and a girl after illness was tiring.
Even bystanders could see that I was tired, and one producer told me, "Even a normal trip to New York is exhausting, but a trip to New York after leaving the hospital is absurd."
Then, as usual, the Pokémon script meeting began.
Although I was at the meeting, I was mostly in a daze.
I was so tired from just being at the meeting that I fell asleep as if I had passed out, and was once awakened by the chief director gently kicking me in the leg under my desk.
I felt somewhat sorry for myself.
I thought about writing the fourth movie, but I couldn't come up with any ideas.
The only thing I could think of to write about was what I personally envisioned as the final episode: a Roman Spartacus-like rebellion by Pokémon (Pokémon revolt when they realize that they are being used as slaves, even though they appear to have friendly relations), in which Pikachu becomes the leader and has to fight Satoshi, and the Team Rocket trio, who adore no-good Pokémon (they have a Nyarth that can interpret Pokémon words into human language) and are irresponsible in their interpreting, play a major role in arbitrating the battle.
However, such an episode that breaks the rules of the "Pokémon" anime is impossible in the "Pokémon" anime, which has a policy of trying to continue the series as long as it can be continued. If it were possible, it would literally be the last episode.
If I tried to think of another episode, I couldn't come up with one.
I'm backtracking a bit, but I was thinking of an episode called "Nyarth's ABCs," in which Nyarth learns to speak human language, from the time when Team Rocket's Nyarth was established to speak human language.
Team Rocket's Nyarth, which tried to be human but could not and became unique even as a Pokémon Nyarth, is in a sense a Mewtwo-like cloned Pokémon that plays a major role in the battle between humans and Pokémon, finding fulfillment in mediating it.
"Nyarth's ABCs" was intended to be a foreshadowing of such a final episode.
Unable to come up with any other cinematic episodes, I was allowed to step down from the fourth movie.
I remember the screenwriter who was assigned to write the fourth film asked me if I was "quitting while ahead," perhaps because the films' box-office performance was declining (but it was still outstanding compared to other films), but since I could not think of any episodes that could be made into a movie, I would rather have been told I'm "quitting while behind."
So, instead of a movie, I was allowed to write a special, "Mewtwo: I Am Here."
I wrote about Mewtwo because I wanted to settle the story myself.
In some regions, this special was not aired all at once, but for three consecutive weeks, and it took a lot of time to position the turning points from episode 1 to episode 2 and from episode 2 to episode 3, and to make it the final Mewtwo episode.
At the same time, it is strange to say this, but I was also allowed to step down from series organization (construction).
When you think about it, the "Pokémon" anime is an animated version of a battle game.
The highlight of the story is inevitably the gym battles and league battles.
Although I was not conscious of it, I have not written any episodes of gym battles or league battles, where the decisive factor is whether the battles are won or lost, even though I am the series organizer.
I am not good at writing stories in which the outcome of a battle swings between joy or sorrow.
I may have unconsciously avoided writing battle episodes, and I am certain that I did not want to write them.
However, when I think about it, it is strange that the series organizer of an anime adaptation of a battle game does not write battle episodes.
Anyway, in the early days, I was thinking about putting the "Pokémon" animated series on track, so I wrote only episodes that were different from the norm, so as not to fall into a pattern as much as possible.
It is also true that I wanted to write episodes that did not fall into a pattern if I'm writing anyway.
However, if I were to continue writing for more than 10 years (and I have), it would be quite demanding. Then, some kind of cliché is necessary. Patterns are strong when you get used to them.
But the patterns are hard for me. I am not suited for it as a series organizer.
Besides, as far as the series construction of "Pokémon" is concerned, I did not devise the overall structure as much as I have done in my previous series organizer works.
I have only directly modified the scripts of other scriptwriters once, and that was only a few lines of text.
I didn't even write any of the strange episode previews that are typical of my series organizer works.
I don't know how other people construct their series, but I didn't construct the series in my own way. I felt that my way of constructing the series was not necessary.
In addition, there were producers who kept track of the script production status, kept records, and came up with various script ideas.
Besides, "Pokémon" has become a big project, notwithstanding the initial start of the animated series, with the movie becoming a hit, the games selling well, and the sales of merchandise expanding. If a strange twist is made and it fails, the impact will be huge because of the large number of people involved.
From passenger plane fuselages and JR trains to stuffed knockoff toys (and the livelihood of the people who make them in that case), failure was not an option.
Then, there was the downpour experience in Central Park.
I was somewhat discouraged, and the "Pokémon" series construction was becoming painful.
I am not the type of person who does not show my pain to others. I am the type of person who has trouble showing it openly.
At such a moment, I lost my strength and energy. I was in poor physical condition. From other people's eyes, I seemed to be in a very bad state.
Then, the producer said this to me.
"Why don't you take a break for a year or two? Don't worry. 'Pokémon' will continue for the time being, forget two or three years from now."
For now, they said they would continue without a series organizer.
I don't know whether the producers thought that they had established a pattern for "Pokémon" show, or whether they didn't want a series organizer that does nothing.
That being said, I think it was still too early to establish a pattern.
So I said, "I'm going to stop being a series organizer, but I'll do at least one episode a month..."
Nothing to worry about. One a month is a much slower pace than when the series construction title was attached to me.
Moreover, I have decided to write more unconventional and quirky episodes than ever before.
I myself made the decision quite abruptly, so although my name may appear in some episodes after the series construction was stopped due to the production of the opening scene, it eventually disappeared, and for a while, the "Pokémon" anime continued with neither a series organizer nor a series construction title.
Despite the fact that I and the chief director (who still does not smoke) were non-smokers at the time, some of the scriptwriters who came in every hour smoked, and I was sitting in front of the air conditioner, which meant that the cigarette smoke sucked into the air conditioner hit me directly, which was unbearable, and I left series construction—there is a rumor like that, but I didn't quit for such a lukewarm reason. I had reached my limit as a series constructor of "Pokémon."
However, what I regretted quite a bit after I left series construction was what would happen to the Team Rocket trio.
So, in the scripts I have written for "Pokémon" as a screenwriter since I stepped down, I had been very conscious of the Team Rocket trio.
The Team Rocket trio is still useful in some ways for making episodes today, but I don't want them to be too much of conventional dumb villains.
That's what I'm a little concerned about.
The faces and voices of the voice actors who play the Team Rocket trio, who were so motivated to show them as the stars of the "Pokemon" anime when the show first started, still come to mind from time to time.
It's been more than a decade since then...
To be continued
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● The Me of Yesterday (not so much a status report, but how anyone can be a screenwriter)
The animated films of the past few years have been excessively interesting. With the exception of one animation featuring a Japanese battleship flying through space, even "Symphony in August," a film that could only be considered a promotional animation for a pop idol in Shibuya (not Youkoso Youko), which was hardly seen in the movie theaters, has been very inventive in every way possible.
Of course, I have not seen all of the animated films, but I am certain that Japanese animation has reached a maturity stage in its own way.
The great old anime teacher who had been obsessed with the incomprehensibility of fiction and reality suddenly prattles on about Miyamoto Musashi, which was the funniest thing he had ever said in his anime, but it makes sense in the sense of mixing fiction and reality, so it's commendable.
In terms of the reversal of fiction and reality, the TV version, with its tedious monologue by the kid, full of herbivorous casual speeches, is actually a trailer, while the movie version is the full-length version of the anime. The monologues fill more than two and a half hours without boring you, and the super tricky animation, which finally says what it really means, has a power that will leave you stunned, even if you don't agree with its true intentions, along with the extremely thoughtful consideration that you don't have to have seen the TV version to understand this animation. It is a mature style.
Not only this large feature-length animation packed with otaku boys, but all the other animations are establishing their own storytelling methods and styles, which is very encouraging.
While using CG and other techniques, they are all trying to create their own worlds, basically using the jerkiness of limited animation as a weapon.
Today, Japanese cinema is all about animation.
There are some live-action films that are quite good, but on closer inspection, they seem to be mostly imitations of the animated films of a previous generation, relying on the characters of the actors.
The question is, how well do scripts work in today's blossoming anime?
When I think about it, I suddenly feel a bit helpless.
Isn't it impossible for anyone to write a script for an anime?
Aren't new ideas needed?
In this recessionary world, Japanese animation today seems to be made by people who grew up on anime, with the might gained from a scene of a fire. Someone has to protect them, or one day they may run out of steam.
Can scriptwriting be helpful for animation?
Speaking of monologues all over the place, I don't think the script is responsible for that interesting late-night broadcast of an anime about how life is like (?) for college students in Kyoto. The monologue is merely an explanation that follows the picture. That is not a script, but a sound effect. That animation is just as effective and interesting as it is.
However, animation is not only animation in which a monologue is sufficient.
I feel that the day is coming when the monologue will be saying, "Oh, I wish I had a good script."
To be continued