E-EX - Behind the Scenes of Chihayafuru
Source: Crunchyroll
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(Please feel free to edit the speaker names if incomplete or inaccurate. Names are handled on a best-effort basis depending on the info on the source file. Dialogue is left as is.)
[00:02] ---
Chihayafuru tells the story of Chihaya,
[00:05] ---
a high school girl who dreams of
becoming the Queen of Karuta,
[00:08] ---
a traditional Japanese card game.
[00:10] ---
She forms the karuta club in school
[00:12] ---
and together with
her two childhood friends,
[00:15] ---
Their journey begins.
[00:19] ---
Everyone here
[00:21] ---
is a karuta lover
through and through!
[00:26] ---
I'm Toshio Nakatani of Nippon TV.
[00:29] ---
I'm the producer for Chihayafuru.
[00:33] ---
Television network producers are in
charge of the broadcast time slot,
[00:40] ---
funding, making necessary adjustments,
[00:45] ---
decisions involving the original
work, and rights to the title,
[00:49] ---
as well as the production side and staffing.
[00:55] ---
All of that is my job as the producer.
[01:02] ---
Um... How does this work?
[01:05] ---
Line up 25 cards in 3 rows.
[01:09] ---
When the first verse
of a poem is read,
[01:11] ---
you grab the card
with the second verse.
[01:14] ---
My name is Morio Asaka. I've been
directing Chihayafuru since season 1.
[01:19] ---
These are the episode 1 storyboards...
well, half of the episode.
[01:24] ---
I draw them myself, as the director,
[01:30] ---
but I can't do them all myself, so it's
divided up among some other staff, too.
[01:37] ---
And when they're finished, I check
them and make revisions as needed.
[01:44] ---
Well, the storyboards are sort of
like the blueprint for the episode.
[01:50] ---
They indicate how the scenes should
be acted out, using these layouts.
[01:54] ---
They indicate how the scenes should
be acted out, using these layouts.
[01:57] ---
We have the layout of the overall image,
[01:59] ---
camerawork directions, acting directions...
[02:02] ---
And these are the lines.
[02:03] ---
And this also indicates how
many seconds each cut is.
[02:08] ---
Of course, the final video
won't look exactly like this,
[02:12] ---
but the animators create the art,
layouts, and key frames,
[02:17] ---
which are then cleaned up for the final
product. Same for the backgrounds.
[02:22] ---
I doubt we'll ever
see each other again.
[02:28] ---
Why?
[02:31] ---
As long as we have karuta,
[02:33] ---
we'll see each other again, right?
[02:40] ---
As long as we keep playing,
we'll see each other again!
[02:42] ---
I just know it!
[02:44] ---
Doing this job, I've gotten
all kinds of questions,
[02:51] ---
and I wonder how many people realize that ultimately
it's still just people drawing with pencils.
[02:57] ---
That's one thing that doesn't
change with digital.
[03:00] ---
I don't think so.
[03:01] ---
But working on Chihayafuru 3, we do have some
people who work primarily in digital now...
[03:09] ---
The thing is, it doesn't look as good.
[03:12] ---
It doesn't?
[03:14] ---
Yeah. I think so.
[03:15] ---
Lines that are drawn digitally... granted,
individual execution is a factor, too,
[03:23] ---
but it still doesn't look as good as when
Hamada or Imamura do it with a pencil.
[03:28] ---
You mentioned Hamada, you've been
teamed with him a lot, right?
[03:34] ---
That's true, yes.
[03:36] ---
That was the case on Sakura and Nana.
[03:39] ---
Is there a part of you that
prefers to always work with him?
[03:43] ---
There are other talented artists out there,
[03:45] ---
but Hamada is an amazing
artist, and can work quickly,
[03:56] ---
I'm Kunihiko Hamada.
[03:58] ---
My job is to do final artistic
revisions on the video.
[04:08] ---
We start with what's called storyboards.
[04:15] ---
Directions for what we should
do are written on these.
[04:19] ---
Like here, in shot 280...
[04:22] ---
This is how Chihaya's face is drawn.
[04:24] ---
The key animator consults with the producer
[04:27] ---
about how to create the art based on this.
[04:30] ---
And this is the resulting drawing.
[04:32] ---
Then we trace over that
to make the animation.
[04:36] ---
We scan this, then add
colors and backgrounds,
[04:40] ---
Then we check it over within the video,
[04:45] ---
and if there's anything that needs
revision, it comes back to me,
[04:50] ---
and I fix it.
[04:57] ---
Why do they use those two cards?
[04:59] ---
Well, because...
[05:01] ---
I can understand
"The fall paddy shacks,"
[05:04] ---
since Emperor Tenji wrote it and
he's enshrined at Omi Jingu.
[05:06] ---
Yeah, and "May the scarlet..."
[05:07] ---
The first characters in its first and second
verse form "meijin," the word for "Master."
[05:14] ---
This contains a cut of
animation from the opening.
[05:18] ---
So it's got the layouts, the
key frames, the animation...
[05:22] ---
So it's got the layouts, the
key frames, the animation...
[05:24] ---
Here's the timing sheet.
[05:26] ---
And how much footage does this cover?
[05:28] ---
Six seconds worth.
[05:29] ---
So this much art for
six seconds of footage?
[05:30] ---
So this much art for
six seconds of footage?
[05:34] ---
That's right.
[05:35] ---
And here's the storyboard.
[05:38] ---
So this is what gives you the outline?
[05:41] ---
From the moment Chihaya
sends the karuta flying,
[05:45] ---
the camera turns around her face...
[05:49] ---
the camera turns around her face...
[05:51] ---
We put a lot of effort into that.
[05:55] ---
Here we have the poses...
[06:02] ---
And the white pages you see here
were done by our key animators,
[06:09] ---
while the blue ones were done by our
animation director, Hamada, at my direction.
[06:14] ---
And based on that Hamada, does the art.
[06:18] ---
Once that's done, we've got the layout.
[06:22] ---
Then, based on that...
[06:24] ---
We have the key frames.
[06:31] ---
It's really something.
[06:32] ---
So these are the frames
for the key animation.
[06:35] ---
In terms of the timing sheet...
[06:37] ---
This is where the key frames are.
[06:39] ---
The ones you can see that have
circles. Those are all key frames.
[06:45] ---
And you'll see some with dots,
[06:49] ---
those are where we'll have animators handle
the in-between frames for those sections.
[06:58] ---
And once all the animation is
drawn up, we get this chunk here.
[07:01] ---
And once all the animation is
drawn up, we get this chunk here.
[07:06] ---
Something unique is that the eyes are
being done on a separate set of cels.
[07:15] ---
And the reason we're doing that
is to make the hair transparent.
[07:21] ---
So we have the eyes done separately and then layer
them, and they're visible through the hair.
[07:22] ---
So we have the eyes done separately and then layer
them, and they're visible through the hair.
[07:27] ---
It's a gorgeous cut of animation.
[07:29] ---
It is.
[07:30] ---
And you can see here, the
cards in front of Chihaya...
[07:33] ---
Those will be done in 3D, and animated.
[07:36] ---
Based on the layout, we'll have
a CG animator handle that part,
[07:42] ---
and, ultimately, it's all composited
together for the final product.
[07:45] ---
And this is just for the movement in the
foreground, of Chihaya and these people,
[07:49] ---
without the actual background, right?
[07:52] ---
That's right.
[07:54] ---
And then at the very end of the
process, it's all put together.
[07:57] ---
Right.
[08:03] ---
And you did the storyboard
for this part, right?'
[08:06] ---
Right, I drew that.
[08:07] ---
So this is his art.
[08:10] ---
And when you draw it, you're anticipating the
eyes being done on a different layer, right?
[08:17] ---
That's right, yes.
[08:18] ---
So then based on that, comes the art from the
key artists, that you give direction on...
[08:24] ---
Hamada does the corrections on that, and
then comes the in-between animation,
[08:29] ---
and then another corrective pass.
[08:30] ---
All those people for
six seconds of footage.
[08:34] ---
That's a good point.
[08:36] ---
Karuta is a traditional
Japanese card game
[08:39] ---
which involves 3 people:
The reader and the two players.
[08:43] ---
The reader reads from
an old Japanese waka poem
[08:46] ---
from a collection of poems
called "Ogura Hyakunin Isshu."
[08:50] ---
While the reader reads the poem,
on the ground there are cards
[08:53] ---
called "torifuda" which has the finishing
phrases of the said poems written.
[08:56] ---
called "torifuda" which has the finishing
phrases of the said poems written.
[08:57] ---
Now, while the reader
is reading the poems,
[09:00] ---
The players must search
quickly the torifudas and literally
[09:04] ---
slap away the cards that corresponds
with the final phrase of the poem.
[09:09] ---
The world of karuta is
just really interesting.
[09:12] ---
And it's a setting that didn't
have a lot of notoriety.
[09:16] ---
So depicting that in an anime for the first
time, raising its profile in the world,
[09:22] ---
and being able to depict the kind of depths it
has was a fascinating part about working on it.
[09:29] ---
Right.
[09:30] ---
And when we went to first check out
karuta competitions for Chihayafuru,
[09:36] ---
there weren't a lot of players,
or people in the audience.
[09:39] ---
But then thanks to Chihaya, a lot
more people are participating, right?
[09:44] ---
Well, the original manga
is a big factor there, too,
[09:46] ---
Of course.
[09:47] ---
But when the anime started airing, the amount of people
competing at the high school level really jumped.
[09:52] ---
Right?
[09:53] ---
It's pretty remarkable how much
has changed from when we started.
[09:55] ---
Yeah, you're right about that.
[09:58] ---
They might call me greedy...
[10:00] ---
But the title of Queen is
what I've been striving for.
[10:04] ---
After I heard you say...
[10:07] ---
Yeah, y'know, I don't think either of us
approached it being as simple just a karuta story.
[10:15] ---
I don't even think the readers of the
manga think that it's just a karuta manga.
[10:23] ---
There are elements of romance
at the core, and human drama,
[10:29] ---
along with sort of a down to
Earth self-improvement element.
[10:34] ---
And the fact that it takes place
in the world of karuta is just
[10:40] ---
the stage that it plays out on. I think
that's part of the reason people like it.
[10:46] ---
When we went to Omi Jingu, one thing
that really stuck in my memory...
[10:49] ---
I remember that.
[10:51] ---
There was a player who was
crying when they lost.
[10:56] ---
Just collapsed while crying...
[11:01] ---
and that drove home to me how karuta is the
embodiment of your whole life for these people.
[11:05] ---
I think that goes for Chihayafuru
too, the romance is through karuta,
[11:08] ---
the self improvement is through karuta,
[11:10] ---
karuta is how everything is expressed.
[11:13] ---
So getting the depiction of karuta right is a
big part in the entire story coming together.
[11:19] ---
Like how when Sumire is trying to romance
Taichi, karuta is her path to doing it.
[11:27] ---
While it brings me no joy...
[11:33] ---
I-I took a card...
[11:37] ---
My first card.
[11:39] ---
That was great, Kana-chan!
[11:40] ---
Nice job!
[11:42] ---
I'm so happy!
[11:44] ---
Well, our goal now is to improve
the quality as much as possible,
[11:52] ---
so even at this moment, we're
working our hardest on retakes.
[12:00] ---
We're doing our best to create a
product worthy of showing to you,
[12:05] ---
so I hope you'll look forward to seeing it.
[12:11] ---
Arata, I have people
to play with now.
[12:16] ---
I'm not alone.
[12:18] ---
I'm helping to pass on
what you passed to me.
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