SP2 - Second Awakening

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.)
[00:16] Furuhashi
    I was reading a variety
    of webtoons at the time,
[00:20] Furuhashi
    and the thing that really drew
    my attention was the artwork.
[00:26] KR
    When the animation arrives, it will
    truly be the completion of this universe.
[00:39] KR
    The transition from novel
    to webtoon is one thing,
[00:41] KR
    but up to animation is something
    I could hardly have imagined.
[00:45] Jinwoo
    Everybody, get down!
[00:50] Chris
    ...this start off as a light novel
    actually published in Korea,
[00:53] Chris
    and then eventually Redice making
    that story into an actual manhwa,
[00:59] Chris
    and now we get to have the anime adaptation.
[01:02] Jang
    Japanese animation studios
    are by far the best.
[01:06] Furuhashi
    I'm not sure how to express this,
    but we're working hard every day
[01:10] Furuhashi
    to make sure that we live up
    to everyone's expectations.
[01:13] Chris
    So now it's... Really, I guess in a way,
    it's at its third level.
[01:31] Kim
    In Japan, the webtoon format
    wasn't really how it was perceived.
[01:36] Kim
    It was seen as a kind of
    vertically scrolling manga—
[01:41] Kim
    either that or as Korean manga,
[01:45] Kim
    and that goes to show
    how little notoriety it had before.
[01:59] Kim
    But over time it started
    to become more recognized,
[02:03] Kim
    and now they're often referred to as smartoons,
    with a lot more people reading them.
[02:17] Kim
    Hello, my name is Kim, and I work in Kakao
    Piccoma's Global Content Department.
[02:23] Kim
    Piccoma is an app where
    you can jump on at any time
[02:30] Kim
    to read original manga and smartoons.
[02:36] Furuhashi
    After I had looked into it, it became clear
    that it was a global phenomenon,
[02:40] Furuhashi
    not just popular in Japan...
[02:43] Kim
    The first time I read Solo Leveling,
    I went through three or four chapters,
[02:50] Kim
    and I had to see what happened next.
[02:53] Kim
    I ended up staying up all night reading.
[02:57] Furuhashi
    Part of the reason I chose
    Solo Leveling was...
[03:01] Furuhashi
    I was reading a variety
    of webtoons at the time,
[03:05] Furuhashi
    and the thing that really drew
    my attention was the artwork.
[03:11] Furuhashi
    That was the first thing
    that really struck me.
[03:15] Furuhashi
    After that, I started thinking how
    I would like to turn it into animation...
[03:24] Furuhashi
    My name is Furuhashi, and I'm a producer
    at Aniplex working on Solo Leveling.
[03:31] Choi
    For Solo Leveling, we received offers
    from many different studios.
[03:39] Takahashi
    Solo Leveling is being produced like
    the majority of anime in Japan,
[03:43] Takahashi
    with a production committee,
[03:44] Takahashi
    where you have a variety of companies
    investing in the show in order to create it.
[03:53] Jang
    Japanese animation studios
    are the best, right?
[03:57] Choi
    From all of those, we chose Aniplex.
[04:01] Takahashi
    So, on the committee you have
    Aniplex, and Crunchyroll,
[04:04] Takahashi
    along with the licensors
    from Korea, all involved.
[04:09] Chris
    We saw the original story as a light novel,
    then to a manhwa, then to an anime now,
[04:13] Chris
    and now we, as Crunchyroll, Aniplex,
    and all the different committee members—
[04:18] Chris
    we get to be a part of making this be in the
    hands, in the reaches of a global audience,
[04:24] Chris
    by bringing the anime to the world.
[04:36] Chris
    So when we are doing co-production
[04:38] Chris
    it means we have a much more
    intimate relationship
[04:41] Chris
    with the title and the people and
    the committee members involved,
[04:45] Chris
    which allows us to talk about
    things at a much earlier point.
[04:54] Kaneko
    I first learned about Solo Leveling when
    Furuhashi-san, the producer at Aniplex,
[05:05] Kaneko
    showed me the project
    outline in July of 2020.
[05:16] Furuhashi
    A big part of why I chose A-1 Pictures
    to work on the project
[05:20] Furuhashi
    is their success with a number
    of titles, regardless of genre,
[05:26] Furuhashi
    which really speaks to
    their level of ability.
[05:30] Kaneko
    Hey there, folks, I'm Kaneko,
    an anime producer from A-1 Pictures,
[05:35] Kaneko
    and it's a pleasure to be here.
[05:37] Nakashige
    I'm the series director, Nakashige,
    and thanks for having me.
[05:44] Nakashige
    When I first read it, my initial reaction
    was "So this is what's popular now?",
[05:50] Nakashige
    but also a twinge of nostalgia.
[05:54] Nakashige
    It reminded me of how,
    when I was doing art in 2009—
[05:58] Nakashige
    when I was still drawing as an amateur—
[06:01] Nakashige
    I used to read a lot of
    vertically oriented manga.
[06:06] Nakashige
    So it also took me back to that time.
[06:09] Kim
    I'd say there are three big differences
    between smartoons and Japanese manga.
[06:15] Kim
    One being that smartoons,
    like their name would imply,
[06:21] Kim
    are designed to be read
    on smartphones or on the PC.
[06:27] Kim
    That means scrolling vertically.
[06:32] Kim
    Another thing is that they tend
    to have a faster pace, per-chapter,
[06:38] Kim
    with the amount of information
    conveyed being simplified.
[06:42] Kim
    And the last big difference
    is that they're completely in color.
[06:55] Furuhashi
    I have to say, my favorite thing
    about Solo Leveling really is the art.
[07:01] Furuhashi
    The action plays out in this really
    cool, stylish, and stoic fashion,
[07:05] Furuhashi
    which is a big part of its appeal.
[07:10] Furuhashi
    Beyond that, there's also the fact that
    the story takes place in the real world.
[07:18] Furuhashi
    It is not a story about traveling
    entirely into another world,
[07:22] Furuhashi
    which I think makes it easier to get into.
[07:31] Jang
    Aniplex has a great production system.
[07:36] Jang
    For the character design, there was
    the original work, the webtoon, to refer to.
[07:45] Jang
    The anime characters were
    designed with that as the base.
[07:51] Jang
    Every step had to be confirmed by D&C.
[07:59] Nakashige
    With regards to what advice we received
    from the staff of the webtoon,
[08:04] Nakashige
    we got to speak to them, as well
    as the author of the original novel.
[08:08] Nakashige
    So, for example, there would be characters
    who didn't show up in the webtoon.
[08:11] Nakashige
    They'd be brought up in dialog
    but wouldn't appear in the artwork,
[08:15] Nakashige
    so we would ask, "Well, what are they like?"
[08:20] Nakashige
    Other than that, we'd ask things like
     "While the protagonist is doing this,
[08:27] Nakashige
    what are the other characters
    up to around that time?"
[08:31] Nakashige
    and then seed those elements into the script.
[08:50] KR
    As producers of the webtoon,
    we're similar to assistants.
[08:54] KR
    When we get to see the first animations,
    we'll continue to provide feedback.
[09:01] KR
    That's how we pushed the process
    forward up to this point.
[09:14] Sung Jinwoo
    That might be why I was able to tell...
[09:17] Sung Jinwoo
    Everybody, get down!
[09:33] Cho Myung
    What the hell?!
[09:35] Joo Jae-hwan
    Nobody mentioned this!
[09:36] Ra Hyeyoung
    What is going on here?!
[09:37] Joo Jae-hwan
    How should I know?!
[09:38] Kim Sangshik
    You all right?
[09:39] Park Beom-shik
    Yeah. How about you, Kim?
[09:41] Kim Sangshik
    I'm fine.
[09:42] Lee Joohee
    No more... No more!
[09:46] Sung Jinwoo
    What is happening here?
[09:49] Sung Jinwoo
    How is this possible?
[09:51] Sung Jinwoo
    We're trapped. We're done for.
[09:54] Sung Jinwoo
    We're dead. Dead.
[10:00] Sung Jinwoo
    We're gonna die!
[10:05] Furuhashi
    In terms of adapting a webtoon into an anime,
[10:09] Furuhashi
    I'd say the biggest difference
    is probably the pace of the story.
[10:14] Furuhashi
    For example, with a webtoon,
    a single collected volume...
[10:16] Sung Jinah
    You need to take better care of yourself!
    Do you know how worried I was?!
[10:20] Furuhashi
    For a typical manga, that would cover
    two to three episodes worth of material.
[10:22] Sung Jinah
    You always end up a mess,
    even when everyone else is fine!
[10:27] Furuhashi
    But for a webtoon,
    it really is much faster paced,
[10:31] Furuhashi
    so a collected volume is only about
    one and a half episodes of material.
[10:40] Furuhashi
    And that was one hurdle
    we needed to deal with.
[10:43] Furuhashi
    So, in order to overcome that,
    we added a bit of extra meat to the story
[10:48] Furuhashi
    with an eye towards the overall adaptation.
[10:52] Nakashige
    It's such a brisk read
[10:53] Nakashige
    that it can sometimes be a little
    too breezy for 20 minutes of TV,
[10:57] Nakashige
    and with film you need
    upswings and downswings,
[10:59] Nakashige
    so we try to think hard about how to control
    that, what to add and what to subtract.
[11:06] Nakashige
    It'd be simple to just say
    this is an episode,
[11:08] Nakashige
    it's going to contain
    this many chapters of story,
[11:10] Nakashige
    but as an animated product that'd result
    in something that's pretty monotonous,
[11:14] Nakashige
    and wouldn't properly convey
    how entertaining the original was,
[11:18] Nakashige
    so like I said before, we consider
    where to add additional stuff,
[11:22] Nakashige
    and where to subtract extraneous stuff,
    in order to help develop the pacing.
[11:33] Kaneko
    This is an original work from folks in a
    different country with different sensibilities.
[11:41] Kaneko
    And then we take that and present it to
    the world through the filter of anime...
[11:46] Kaneko
    It's really an interesting sort
    of formula we've created here.
[11:58] Furuhashi
    With Crunchyroll, they've been a huge help
    in regards to the localization efforts.
[12:07] Furuhashi
    Since we want Solo Leveling to be
    a global hit, not just a domestic one,
[12:13] Furuhashi
    part of that meant putting
    a focus on the localization
[12:20] Furuhashi
    for each region it would be released in.
[12:46] Takahashi
    At Crunchyroll, we don't often independently
    host premieres for shows before they air.
[12:56] Takahashi
    But in the case of Solo Leveling, there are
    a lot of fans of the original work already,
[13:03] Takahashi
    so we've been holding world premiere events
    across the world, starting with Los Angeles.
[13:11] Takahashi
    This really isn't something
    we could do with most shows,
[13:15] Takahashi
    so helping coordinate these
    different locations across the globe
[13:20] Takahashi
    really was a new experience.
[13:33] Chris
    So, as an example of
    how this gets played out,
[13:35] Chris
    when we were talking about
    what is a big promotion
[13:40] Chris
    that we could do with
    Japan, Korea, and the U.S.
[13:42] Chris
    as being the three biggest
    markets for this title,
[13:45] Chris
    we talked very early on about doing some sort
    of premiere event in these three countries.
[13:52] Chris
    We got to be a part of those discussions
[13:54] Chris
    and also very much have
    a collaborative effort with Aniplex
[13:58] Chris
    on the premiere events themselves.
[14:00] Chris
    So we're making sure that when we do
    some of these marketing promotions
[14:04] Chris
    that we are actually including the
    localized nuances of the different regions,
[14:09] Chris
    so that we can actually appeal to those fans.
[14:12] Chris
    Because it's different for an
    American to view this title
[14:14] Chris
    as it would for even someone
    in Europe, like the British,
[14:19] Chris
    the French, the Germans will have
    a slightly different view of the title,
[14:23] Chris
    and so we have to think about
    from their perspective,
[14:26] Chris
    what is it that they'd be excited about.
[14:30] Takahashi
    What we're doing with this campaign
[14:33] Takahashi
    is operating on a scale
    that we usually don't work at.
[14:37] Takahashi
    And I think that's personally
    helped me level up, as a producer.
[14:44] Chris
    How's everyone doing?
[14:48] Chris
    Who's excited for the first
    two episodes of Solo Leveling?
[14:56] Chris
    It's such a pleasure
    to be here with you guys.
[14:58] Chris
    It's been an incredible day so far,
    with the guys here from Japan—
[15:03] Chris
    by the way, when they come
    out here, I have to tell you,
[15:05] Chris
    you have to give the craziest
    and the loudest applause
[15:09] Chris
    because their flight got canceled yesterday.
[15:13] Chris
    They got here this morning.
[15:28] Announcer
    Before we begin, as a reminder,
[15:31] Announcer
    there is absolutely no flash photography
    or recording of this screening.
[15:36] Announcer
    Seriously, don't make us send you
    into the next dungeon.
[16:03] Jonny Tran
    That actually blew my mind.
[16:06] Jonny Tran
    I'm so excited to see more,
    because there's a lot of gore,
[16:09] Jonny Tran
    some great fights, and the
    cliffhangers are set just right.
[16:12] Justin Han
    I think this is probably my number
    one favorite webtoon of all time,
[16:16] Justin Han
    so finally getting adapted... Y'know,
    it's like a dream come true, actually.
[16:20] Jeremy Evans
    I haven't read it yet, but after watching
    this, I have to read everything now.
[16:23] Chris
    The franchise itself has
    a very, very bright future.
[16:26] Chris
    A lot of the fans who have been keeping up
    with this title from a manhwa perspective
[16:31] Chris
    are really excited to see
    this become animated,
[16:33] Chris
    but for those that have only
    just heard about the title,
[16:36] Chris
    this is their chance to really get into
    this world that Solo Leveling has built,
[16:41] Chris
    and to jump into this with other fans,
[16:44] Chris
    so we're really excited to bring this globally
    to all of our audiences, and to our fans.
[16:50] King Vader
    I've been excited ever since
    they had the teaser trailer,
[16:52] King Vader
    so I'm kinda coming into this, y'know, blind,
    but nevertheless, I'm excited.
[16:57] Reagan Kathryn
    The animation was stunning,
    like the voice acting was fantastic...
[17:00] Samuel Leggett
    Japanese animation, and honestly
    Japanese film in general,
[17:04] Samuel Leggett
    they have, like, a raw invoking emotion.
[17:07] Furuhashi
    With Solo Leveling,
    in anticipation for the show,
[17:11] Furuhashi
    I've been traveling to
    different countries for events,
[17:15] Furuhashi
    and when Solo Leveling comes up,
    the crowd always erupts.
[17:21] June Yoon
    It's one thing to scroll the pages
    of a webtoon, certainly,
[17:26] June Yoon
    and be amused and entertained by the story
    in whatever resonances that we may get,
[17:31] June Yoon
    but it's something else to watch it
    unfold on a screen, with animation,
[17:36] June Yoon
    and sound effects, the mixing,
    the music, the acting...
[17:39] June Yoon
    It really feels like everything
    came together in a cohesive piece
[17:43] June Yoon
    that really, really, really
    feels complete, in a sense.
[17:51] Furuhashi
    I'm not sure how to express this...
    but we're working hard every day
[17:55] Furuhashi
    to make sure that we live up
    to everyone's expectations.
[17:57] Takahashi
    We're all aware of how popular
    Solo Leveling is as a comic,
[18:03] Takahashi
    so being involved in the anime
    adaptation is very exciting,
[18:11] Takahashi
    as well as being a lot of pressure.
[18:17] Stella Chuu
    This webtoon far and exceeds
    anything I've ever read before.
[18:21] Stella Chuu
    It's cinematic, as you're reading it,
[18:23] Stella Chuu
    and so now that it's finally
    being turned into an anime,
[18:25] Stella Chuu
    I feel like... it's finally
    deserved. Like, we're here.
[18:29] Stella Chuu
    All the fans, we've been waiting
    for years to get up to this point!
[18:32] Stella Chuu
    Solo Leveling is here,
    it's an anime! Aw, let's go!
[19:08] Chris
    I know that A-1 Pictures being
    the animation studio on this title
[19:12] Chris
    will deliver that. They'll do an amazing job,
[19:14] Chris
    and we've seen amazing past works from them,
[19:16] Chris
    so I put a lot of faith
    in them, too, as a fan.
[19:20] Furuhashi
    It's our goal to make something
    that will exceed everyone's expectations,
[19:26] Furuhashi
    so we hope you'll check it out.