\u2015\u2015Please tell us about your current job, position, and main responsibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My title is Producer. Currently, I’m working on “Uru in Blue,” a project that’s been in development for decades. Beyond that, I established our company’s music publishing division, so I primarily handle copyright management for the music we oversee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015Does music publishing refer to managing copyrights for music related to anime?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes. We have entrustment agreements with the music copyright management organizations Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) and NexTone. While it covers only some of our works, we hold the rights to the music from our company’s productions. This initiative began during our company\u2019s time as Gainax. Music publishing is typically handled by TV stations or record companies. However, for an animation production company like ours that handles music publishing, the significance of undertaking music publishing goes beyond securing profits from it. It reflects our strong belief in the crucial role music plays as part of a work’s artistic direction. By having a music publishing division on the video production side, our stance toward music becomes more visible to people outside the company, and perhaps as a result, it feels like it\u2019s become easier to have conversations or consultations about music production. Additionally, it allows us to easily control the usage of our music beyond production itself, such as for work-related events, promotions, and song usage within committee companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Producers from several music agencies I’ve worked with before, such as agencies representing many famous J-Pop and enka artists, told me, “Ms. Saito, it’s inevitable that your influence over the music in your works will weaken if you don’t have your own music publishing division.” From a specialization perspective, it’s understandable that anime studios are seen as experts in visuals, not the music business. The fact that we run our own music publishing company allows us to demonstrate our commitment to music, which is significant. Since starting to publish our own music, we’ve learned what’s crucial for quality control in music production, how profits are generated from songs, and the challenges of making a profit. This understanding has allowed us to have in-depth discussions with record company representatives and to closely collaborate with composers on music for specific scenes within a work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015You’re absolutely right, musical direction is truly vital. Even in scenes without dialogue, music conveys emotion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Exactly. It’s often called “background music,” so it tends to be seen as just an “assisting” role to the visual expression of the work. But in terms of the work’s direction, it’s truly just as important as the visuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015For example, Disney places a huge emphasis on music, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes. As a child, I was so moved by the excitement of the animation and music in Disney movies that I thought, “If only I could do work like this.” That’s what made me want to become someone who creates music for visuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015I see. Could you tell us a bit about how you entered the industry, starting from what you loved as a child?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back then, Japan Columbia released Disneyland Records featuring stories, songs, and music from Disney films. The first one I got was “Sleeping Beauty.” I listened to it daily on a small record player made for children and memorized every song and line. That record sparked my interest in voice acting. Next, I was greatly influenced by NHK’s music program “Stage 101.” It featured The Beatles and musical numbers in real time for the era. At the time, the program was curated under the musical direction of Osamu Sh\u014dji and Hiroshi Miyagawa, two leading figures in the Japanese music scene of the time who would later go on to compose music for anime, and it also incorporated original pieces composed by them. Fashion-wise, it showcased mini-skirts and boots, the cutting edge of fashion of the era,. It was a singing and dancing program. The choreography was handled by Michinori Sakagami and Taku Yamada, who also choreographed Japanese musicals. The composition and arrangements were excellent, and I believe the skill and taste of the choruses were quite high for the Japanese pop scene at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another composer who profoundly influenced me was T\u014dru Takemitsu. I was captivated by the music for NHK’s program “Legacy for the Future.” It felt completely different from the music I’d heard before with its clear harmonies, flowing melodies, and steady rhythms. Through T\u014dru Takemitsu’s compositions, even as a child, I sensed the vast breadth and profound depth of music. In terms of influences on singing and music, my father would occasionally borrow musical records from his newspaper company\u2019s archive room, and I listened to them a lot too. All of this happened when I was in elementary school. You could say this laid the foundation for my love for musicals as an artistic fusion of visuals and music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015When you say musicals, do you mean Disney musicals?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My first encounter was with Disney, but later I also experienced Broadway musicals and Hollywood films, like \u201cMy Fair Lady,\u201d \u201cThe Wizard of Oz,\u201d and \u201cJesus Christ Superstar.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015\u2015\u2015How did anime tie in from there?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It started with \u201cSpace Battleship Yamato,\u201d composed by Hiroshi Miyagawa who, as I mentioned earlier, was the host and composer for NHK’s \u201cStage 101.\u201d I watched \u201cYamato\u201d specifically because Miyagawa composed it. The big shift was when anime started targeting the generation transitioning from childhood to adulthood. This included the theatrical film \u201cYamato\u201d and the TV series \u201cScience Ninja Team Gatchaman.\u201d As for voice acting, it all started in my very first class during my days as a student in Tokyo. Two girls happened to sit next to me and spotted the “Lupin the Third” anime pen case I had with me. They struck up a conversation with me, which deepened my interest in anime even more. They were close friends with a voice actor and knew a lot about the industry. They told me, “They’re doing the dubbing right in the studio next to our school.” It was a great era back then. Fans were allowed to wait near the gates and entrances of dubbing studios to greet or see off voice actors. I believe this was also the time when studio tours were possible if you applied in advance. Invited by them, I went along after class to wait for the voice actors after they finished their dubbing sessions. The voice actors were very approachable and friendly chatted with us. It’s hard to imagine that happening now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Getting back to the beginning, my father’s love for theater, movies, and music had a huge influence on me. It seems he was the one who decided to have me start piano lessons at age three. And when I developed an interest in theater in middle school, he even told me, “If you go to Tokyo, it\u2019s okay if you join a theater troupe.” Looking back now, perhaps because of his war experiences, my father had this skepticism or resistance toward working within a large organization, following someone else’s orders. He believed you should do what you want. Plus, when he got drunk, he’d sometimes say things like, “Girls are boring anyway, they just end up getting married,” and tell me, “Think about doing something else instead of getting married.” That’s definitely my father’s “curse.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015That’s huge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was huge. Furthermore, once I got to middle school, conversations at home with my father weren’t really family chats about the day’s events. Instead, he’d suddenly launch into things like, “What do you think about Japan’s current agricultural policy?” or debates about what the 1960s student movement was all about, or asking me what I thought about something he saw on the news. That’s what conversations with my father at home felt like. So, I hardly ever experienced the kind of family conversations during meals you see depicted in Showa-era family dramas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015Do you have any siblings?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No, I’m an only child. However, my father worked for a regional newspaper company with branch offices throughout the prefecture. During his time at a particular branch office, we lived for several years in a complex where the workers\u2019 residences and the branch\u2019s office were combined. So, there was a period when I grew up surrounded by many adults. It felt like the outside world existed right inside our home. During his time working at that branch office, he sometimes took me along on his police beat rounds. One night, I was woken up with a bang and told, “Let’s go.” The police had contacted us about a whale that had washed up on the beach in the middle of the night, and we were going to cover it. I remember seeing that huge whale lying on the pitch-black beach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015So your father showed you all sorts of things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I suppose so. Looking back now, I’m incredibly grateful. That experience probably hammered into me the idea that the world isn’t just about what you see. However, during my job-hunting days, there were sections on application forms asking about your family’s religion and your parents’ occupation. I heard that some companies would reject applicants outright if they wrote “newspaper reporter” under their parent’s occupation. It seems the general corporate world really disliked that. Looking back now, I wonder if it was because Showa-era companies, with their rigid seniority systems and absolute organizational hierarchies, didn’t want female new hires who knew that what you see and what your boss says isn’t everything (laughs).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015\u2015Did you join a regular company after graduating?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes. My father passed away from cancer when I was 20, the year I became a legal adult, so I had to earn my own living expenses. I returned to Niigata Prefecture to look for work. By chance, a colleague of my late father knew the HR manager at a company where I took a company entrance exam. The fact that my father was a newspaper reporter worked to my advantage. I got hired by a publicly listed dairy manufacturer with over 7,000 employees company-wide and was assigned to the Niigata branch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015\u2015\u2015How did that lead to anime?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Around the time I started working, the son of a friend from my mother’s days at an all-girls\u2019 school learned I played piano, as well as other keyboard instruments, and composed music. He reached out, and I ended up helping with the music production for an original anime being made by the local anime club at Niigata University. The anime club, acting as the organizer, decided to screen the “DAICON III Opening Animation” at \u201cGataketto,\u201d a d\u014djinshi sales event in Niigata. I helped with the reception at the screening. That’s where I met Mr. Hiroyuki Yamaga (Note 1), who had brought the film of DAICON III for screening. This was before the internet, but there seemed to be some kind of network, and screenings were happening nationwide in various places. I heard later that since Mr. Yamaga was from Niigata, he brought the film as the representative for Niigata from Gainax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(Note 1. Hiroyuki Yamaga was the president and representative director of the animation studio Gainax. He is an anime director, screenwriter, and producer originally from Niigata city in Niigata Prefecture.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Later, I learned from \u201cAnimage\u201d magazine that Mr. Yamaga was working on “Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honn\u00eaamise.” I was playing synthesizers back when Yamaha first started making them, and I was a fan of Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) and Ryuichi Sakamoto. I remember thinking as I read the article that the fact that Ryuichi Sakamoto was doing the music for Mr. Yamaga’s first film was incredible! Then, around the time production on “Royal Space Force” finished and Yamaga returned to Niigata, I started talking with him a lot, along with former members of the Niigata University Anime Club. We’d basically have these all-night discussions at family restaurants. My entry into the anime industry wasn’t because I wanted to be a producer in the anime industry. It all started when I watched the end credits of “Royal Space Force” in a movie theater and thought to myself, \u201cI absolutely have to work with Mr. Yamaga.\u201d After that, when I started talking with Mr. Yamaga, I remember him saying something like, “Anyway, I want to skewer together worlds from various fields. It’s not just about making anime.” I think “Royal Space Force” is a work with strong connections to society. I wanted to make that kind of work, and it seemed obvious that only Mr. Yamaga could create something like that. When people hear about “making anime,” they often assume it’s mostly about wanting to do the so-called \u201cdrawing\u201d part. But for the kind of work I wanted to create, the perspective of how a work exists within society and what kind of impact it makes was crucial. However, I didn’t have a concrete idea of what I could actually contribute to such a project. So, even during the period when there was absolutely no guarantee I’d get to work with Mr. Yamaga, I kept thinking about what I could do for his next film, what I should learn or what skills I should gain beforehand. I just kept doing whatever I could: reading every book I could get my hands on, meeting people I thought were important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015You were still working at the dairy company while doing all that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes. But around the ten-year mark of my employment, I began to feel the limitations women faced within the corporate system at the time. If I couldn’t go into the anime industry, I thought that, even if it was separate from working with Mr. Yamaga, I could gain experience at the Shiki Theatre Company run by Keita Asari, whom I deeply respected. Then, at just the right moment, they had a mid-career recruitment opening, and I applied without hesitation. After that, I passed the document screening and went to Azamino in Yokohama for interviews with Mr. Keita Asari and the executives at the Shiki Theatre Company. I actually got hired for a desk position in the national touring department. Back then, big corporations were overwhelmingly male-dominated. Everything started with “Women should…” It was a male-centered society. There was a strong prevailing attitude that women should marry early and quit their jobs quickly. When a colleague at the dairy manufacturer got married and later became pregnant, I made up my mind alongside my female coworkers that we would never let the company pressure her into quitting. Out of sheer determination, we even took on her work ourselves at times, as a way of resisting through action and showing no openings for them to push her out. But such actions don’t change companies. I also realized that if I stayed on this career path at the dairy manufacturer, I’d never get to work with Mr. Yamaga. I wanted to change my environment. However, my mother’s attempts to stop me were more intense than I’d anticipated. And looking back now, I’m grateful the company also tried to keep me. They told me how much trouble my departure would cause. But my mother’s resistance was the worst. She’d say things like, “Are you just going to leave me behind?” every single day. That hit the hardest. I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t think straight. Then the company asked me not to quit too. I literally cried my eyes out before giving up on accepting the offer from the Shiki Theatre Company. Mr. Yamaga told me, “Personally, I think it’d be good for you later on to experience the theater world, so I’m in favor of you joining Shiki Theatre Company.” But I gave up on joining Shiki Theatre Company. In the end, I think not going there is why I am where I am today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015Mother-daughter relationships are tough, aren’t they?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yeah, they are tough. Ultimately, I was also at fault. After my father died, I thought I had to be a good, considerate daughter for my mother who must have felt lonely. I felt that was my responsibility too, that I had made her that way, so I just had to accept it. However, because of this situation, my boss at the time did some behind-the-scenes negotiating within the dairy company and arranged for me to be transferred from Niigata to Kanagawa. They made it happen as the company\u2019s first female transfer. It seems they framed it as a transfer for me as a management candidate. At that time, Corporate Identity (CI) was trending globally. It wasn’t just about chasing sales; it questioned the company’s social image and involved redesigning various internal systems. So, it wasn’t just about changing the company logo. For example, it included initiatives like work-style reform, reorganizing document management, and reviewing workplace relationships, including promoting women’s advancement. I was asked to serve on the CI committee at the branch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015When was that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was after the bubble burst, in the mid-90s, around 1993 or 1994. The bubble ended the sales-driven approach, and since food was considered recession-proof, the impact of the bubble was relatively minor for us. Still, it was a time when we had to rethink the company’s purpose within society and set new goals for our activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, within the CI initiative on women\u2019s roles in the company, there was no overt discussion about women’s advancement or reforming women’s work styles. Male-centric corporate theory remained central. So I stated, “I believe how we approach women’s career development and promotion within the company through CI will be critically important for our future.” Yet, far from revisiting the male-dominated internal evaluation system, including wages, the company never even addressed women’s working conditions. There was absolutely no clear response from management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015Even in the 90s, that kind of discrimination still existed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, it did. It’s not that distant a past. So, I kept working at the dairy company, but one day, Mr. Yamaga approached me and said, “I’m thinking of getting \u201cUru in Blue\u201d moving again. Would you like to come to Gainax?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That was 1998. Even then, the food industry paid low wages, but learning the anime industry paid even less made me worry about the future. I agonized over it, but decided doing what I wanted was more important! So I quit my job and decided to go to Gainax. My mother, who knew Mr. Yamaga well, didn’t resist this time, saying, “If you think it’s good, then it’s good to me.” However, about a week after I told Mr. Yamaga, “I’m going to Gainax,” the news broke about Gainax’s tax evasion scandal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015That was after \u201cNeon Genesis Evangelion\u201d became a huge hit, right? But it was just a week after he told you they\u2019d let you into the company?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes. My mother woke me up that morning saying, “Isn’t that Mr. Yamaga’s company? It’s in the news. Are you sure it\u2019s okay for you to start working there?” That same night, Mr. Yamaga called and said, “It\u2019s okay for you to come to Gainax,” so I wasn’t worried. I also left my previous company on good terms. However, even after joining Gainax, the tax evasion issue meant the “Uru in Blue” project couldn’t proceed. Ultimately, the main “Uru in Blue” project had to be stopped. Since I wasn’t an animator, Mr. Yasuhiro Takeda (Note 2) told me something like, “Well, since you came to us, we\u2019ll figure something out,” and we discussed what I could do. Mr. Takeda was probably troubled too. Then, around that time, there was talk that Gainax’s event culture, which had started with the studio participating in various events, was fading. So it became, “Alright, let’s do events,” then “Alright, let’s go to Wonder Festival,” then “Apply for Comiket.” From there, Gainax handled booth planning, original merchandise production, and booth setup for the events we exhibited at. My experience from my dairy company days helping with regional and national academic conferences, assisting with clinic openings, and creating pamphlets really came in handy. And at Gainax, there was no environment that hindered my work because I was a woman, or because of working hours, or because of gender disparities\u2013like, what gender disparities? It became an environment where I could work to my heart’s content. That came with its own set of challenges, but it was great to be free from the stress of not being able to do my job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(Note 2. Yasuhiro Takeda was a board member at Gainax.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015What was your job title when you joined Gainax?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Producer. But since the “Uru in Blue” project had stalled, even with the title, it was like, “Who are you?” At that time, there were several people in the Yamaga Group team, and we all ended up in a sort of internal unemployment state. I was internally unemployed right from the moment I joined Gainax. It was a situation where everyone was figuring out what to do. At that time, the “Uru in Blue” flight simulator project was moving forward, so I helped out on the sidelines while also working on generating revenue from enterprises outside of anime. I visited game stores and bookstores in Akihabara to handle sales for our in-house projects like video games and CD-ROM art books. We also held events in Akihabara for our in-house PC games like strip mahjong and typing software.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015What exactly is strip mahjong?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s a PC mahjong game. When you, the player, win, you can strip the character you’re playing against. That’s unthinkable nowadays, right? At Comiket, we even produced our own telephone cards featuring artwork that bordered on 18+ depictions of our characters, selling them at our corporate booth. Because of that, I got pretty good at managing lines of people. We did more than just Comiket, Wonder Festival, and the character shows that existed back then. We also held our own fan events, anime screenings, SF conventions, and the Gainax 20th Anniversary event. The title on my business card changed to Product Development, but I became a producer again when we were localizing a Korean animated film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015\u2015What kind of work was that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At one point, we heard about an amazing animated film produced in Korea. Gainax decided to import it, localize it, and distribute it ourselves. The film was \u201cSky Blue\u201d (or \u201cWonderful Days\u201d in the Japanese and Korean releases). It was filmed at the Namyangju Film Studio in South Korea. This studio is also famous for being the filming location for the Korean movie “Joint Security Area.” For this anime production, they built and filmed using life-size motorcycle models and miniature towns about three to four square meters big. It was a large-scale project involving the Korean government. I handled the entire process for the film’s localization: the contract, script translation and Japanese script production coordination, importing the main production data, video data, music data, film and promotional materials, sound production coordination, casting, promotion, pamphlet production, creating the Japanese version film for screening, and distribution operations. The reason we imported the film and handled distribution ourselves was that if we were going to release the theatrical film “Uru in Blue,” we needed to understand the mechanics of theatrical film distribution ourselves. Similar to the music publishing I mentioned earlier, we needed to experience firsthand, not just through books or hearsay, how the entire process works from production to screening, how to best deliver the film to audiences, what constitutes quality for a theatrical release, and what aspects require careful management and oversight. This included hands-on experience with production, finances, and distribution. Gainax hadn’t produced an original theatrical feature film since \u201cRoyal Space Force.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Furthermore, the relationship between South Korea’s music rights management organization and Japan’s JASRAC wasn’t as established back then. We also lacked sufficient legal understanding of the music industry’s business mechanisms, leading to unexpectedly high music costs. We learned the hard way that when screening globally, you must consolidate rights for all relevant copyrighted works and handle them properly to avoid issues in the target country. This also connects to the significance of having an in-house music publisher, as mentioned earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back then, since movie tickets were paper stubs, movie theater staff would carefully paste each torn stub onto A3-sized sheets of paper, organized by date, to track attendance. They would then submit these sheets to us, the distribution company. I still vividly remember the weight of each individual stub from that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015So the ticket stubs were pasted as proof of sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes. That formed the basis for calculating each party’s share. And through handling this film’s distribution, I learned many things not found in textbooks. Beyond obvious differences like Kodak film color versus Fuji film color, I learned about the quality of the emulsifiers used. Not that it’s useful now, though. I also learned a great deal about how Dolby Digital sound is recorded onto film, how it degrades, and situations where it reverts to stereo audio. The sound on the film we screened in Niigata was apparently damaged by the previous movie theater’s projector, resulting in terrible audio. When I consulted Imagica, they said, “Let’s make a new print,” and promptly re-printed it and sent it to the Niigata theater. What passion for projection quality from the people supporting cinema. However, making a print for screening was quite expensive, so I thought at the time that for low-budget theatrical films with limited budgets, maybe it would be better to go digital sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The transition from film projection to the new technology of digital projection made me experience again what it means to face new technology, just like when animation moved from cels to digital. Nowadays, I think the same thing will happen with AI. It makes me realize how crucial it is to see what the essence of a new technology truly is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015\u2015\u2015From what you’ve said so far, your activities seem quite different from the actual production of the anime itself. (laughs)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s quite different from what you’d call conventional anime production, right? We’ve continued these activities precisely because we knew we couldn’t achieve what we wanted to do with our projects using standard anime production methods, and we’ve been exploring concrete ways to create the works we want to make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One such activity, again not anime, was when Yamaga directed Wagner’s opera “Das Rheingold” several years ago. There, I handled stage setup arrangements, program production, original merchandise planning and production, costume design, and costume production. And why would an anime director direct an opera? It also meant pursuing the true meaning of watching a film in a theater. Most people don’t watch a single film dozens of times in theaters unless it’s a special favorite of theirs. The film experience is about encountering that specific film in that moment within the theater space. It’s a unique experience found only in the theater and includes whether or not that film will have an impact on one’s life. It’s similar to stage theater productions. We consider this meaning crucial for our projects. It’s about that once-in-a-lifetime encounter with a work and the live experience. We believe this is incredibly important for both the audience and the work itself. It gets to the heart of why people go to the movie theaters to see films. How can we best give audiences the experience of that live theater feeling? What should we do in anime film production to achieve this? We’re currently working on building this into a concrete methodology by applying opera techniques and structuring it as a specific production approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a bit off topic, but I often wonder what exactly the job title “producer” represents. The duties expected of a producer in a production committee might be relatively clear. But I haven’t been able to articulate my own vision of what a producer is. I’m constantly thinking about what’s needed to take the theatrical film “Uru in Blue” to the next stage. To achieve that, I’ve done absolutely everything possible, and that won’t change now or in the future. However, the reality is there’s no specific role for someone doing that kind of work. For now, the only thing available is this vague title of “producer.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015Definitely, it does seem like a general jack-of-all-trades, a sort of general producer role, doesn’t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I feel “general producer” is a different job altogether. “Jack-of-all-trades” fits better, actually. When you need to dig deep into one thing, it’s best to leave it to the specialist. But connecting a specialized field to something outside that specialty requires a system to make the connection happen. Specialized fields don’t just connect easily on their own. It’s somewhat akin to how Japanese universities have departments not only divided into the sciences and the humanities, but also further subdivided into specialized fields. Bridging these fields requires a different system or approach. I see my role as creating and executing this mechanism. That’s why I’m constantly in a position of trial and error. With anime adaptations of existing source material, the original work is already perfectly complete. Honestly, there’s almost nothing anyone other than the original creator can do to change the work itself. So, as a producer, my focus is on things like: Is the budget being executed properly? Is the production schedule on track? What do I need to do as the rights liaison? How do we deliver this to the audience? How can we commercialize it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the original project I’m currently working on, “Uru in Blue,” the work I’m doing to lay down the foundation for the project feels like something I can’t quite put into words. It doesn’t seem to fit the typical definition of a producer’s role as it’s commonly understood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015Do you think the role of producer is suited for women?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It depends on what kind of producer you’re envisioning. Regarding whether it’s suited for women, I don’t think the gender of the person in question is related to whether or not that person is suited to the job. Also, the required work style likely varies by company and project. I feel the job descriptions of various roles get conflated, making a clear answer difficult… However, looking at the number of women in positions of influence and the gender ratio at industry gatherings, even though the number of women in the industry is increasing, I still feel the anime industry is more of a male-dominated society. That said, whether male or female, I think the right person for the job is someone who can passionately and persistently figure out how and to whom they should present that work to society without giving up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015Finally, could you share a message for young people aspiring to work in the anime industry?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I feel the type of talent sought after varies by the production company. Furthermore, I don’t think we can assume the current methods of planning anime projects and production workflows will continue unchanged in the future. Unlike typical companies, the combination of people and the way a work is made can turn what was once considered good into something bad, or what was once considered bad into something good. So, a flexible mindset that allows you to observe the situation directly in front of you is probably necessary. Therefore, I think this is an industry where you won’t know if you’re a good fit until you give it a try. So, if you want to do it, just give it a shot. And I think it’s essential to work while being aware of what you’re looking at and where you stand in the production process, in other words, to know how much you can enjoy your work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015Do you have any thoughts about the younger generation, especially women, joining your company recently?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Animators are specialists, so I’ll exclude them from this discussion. I believe the anime industry has no gender pay gap and no overtime gap either. That said, I’m not sure if the current situation surrounding anime is truly beneficial for young women today. Whether they continue creating works in the anime industry will become clear in a few years. I sincerely hope that by then, they’ll be firmly grounded and still enjoying the process of making their works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015\u2015Thank you for sharing your valuable insights today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-229","wija_creator","type-wija_creator","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dock.geidai.ac.jp\/wija\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wija_creator\/229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dock.geidai.ac.jp\/wija\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wija_creator"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dock.geidai.ac.jp\/wija\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/wija_creator"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dock.geidai.ac.jp\/wija\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wija_creator\/229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":668,"href":"https:\/\/dock.geidai.ac.jp\/wija\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wija_creator\/229\/revisions\/668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dock.geidai.ac.jp\/wija\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}