Neo-Tokyo 2099 Q&A Rewind (May 2013) featuring “PSYCHO-PASS” Executive Director Motohiro Katsuyuki, Director Shiotani Naoyoshi and Producer Wada Joji

With the announcement of the “PSYCHO-PASS” Stage Version for April-May 2019, we present a Neo-Tokyo 2099 Q&A Rewind from May 2013 by J!-ENT’s Dennis A. Amith and Michelle Tymon from Sakura Con 2013 in Seattle, Washington.

In Japan,Motohiro Katsuyuki is a respected director. From directing the popular “Odoru Daisousassen” drama and film series (known as “Bayside Shakedown” in Asia and the U.S.), “Udon”, “Shaolin Girl” and “Space Travelers”, Motohiro was given a chance to work on an anime series. And in this case, become the executive producer for Production I.G.’s series “PSYCHO-PASS”.

Working with director Naoyoshi Shiotani (“Blood-C”, “Blood-C: The Last Dark”, “Tokyo Marble Chocolate”) and producer Joji Wada (“Guilty Crown”, “Kimi ni Todoke”, “Robotics;Notes”, “Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings”), the three were invited as guests at Sakura Con 2013 to promote “PSYCHO-PASS”.

The following is a transcript of the press conference with Executive Director Motohiro Katsuyuki, Director Shiotani Naoyoshi and Producer Wada Joji, a few of the key names behind the Production I.G. animated series, “PSYCHO-PASS”:

Since you started working in anime, how have you evolved and what would you say is your greatest lesson that you learned.
Shiotani: The first thing I thought about was how I could make that piece different from everything else. For example, while talking to the executive director Motohiro-san yesterday, instead of what would be popular, we like to make something we enjoy. That would be the priority. For example, using a very unique design, since the story takes place in the near future. And as for romantic situations, we didn’t put a spotlight on that too much and let the audience think about that on their own. We wanted to make it a piece concentrating on strong male bonds/friendships and I think that the audience enjoyed that very much.
Motohiro: My job for this project as the executive director, was to stand in between the director and the producer, so I left most of the creative side of the work to them. I also protected the director from the producer, to protect their creativity and to protect the script. I think this is what the position of executive director has evolved to.
Shiotani: He really did protect me quite a bit in all sorts of situations. For example, it’s required in TV animation to play an ending song but in “PSYCHO-PASS”, we used arrangements that fit with the story. For example, there were times where we had cut out parts of the song. But of course, the producers of the song would be concerned about this, because of one of the sponsors is Sony and it’s sung by an artist from there. So there were many times that I would be called down to talk to the producer and I would ask Motohiro-san if he’d like to come along and he’d stand in between us.
Motohiro: That was very specific. (laugh)
Wada: Maybe a little too specific, and they won’t understand. (laugh)

 

This is primarily for Motohiro-san. You are known for your live action work, like “Bayside Shakedown”, but how did that experience play into animation and what were some hurdles you faced transitioning to animation?
Motohiro: When I’m directing live-action, there are many references and homages to animation and this is ended up helping create popular live action series. As a way of giving direction, I would have the actors act things out like they were in an anime from the past. So this time around, I was able to actually able to see the world of anime, since I don’t really know much about it personally. So I was able to go in and work with everyone and get to know more about things I thought were rather mysterious to me. And as for my involvement working with people on the ground level, such as the animators, and the script writers, my primary job was to be their support.

 

Akane’s appearance evolves from a sweet and innocent girl to almost haunted in the final episode without any physical change. Was it difficult to plan this into the character?
Shiotani: This definitely wasn’t decided as we were going along. From the beginning, one of the aspects of the story was how the heroine, Akane, would evolve and grow. She as the heroine comes in between the main character, Kougami Shinya, and his main rival, and enemy, Makishima Shogo. And up until that point where she goes in between them, they’re both veteran detectives, so to have her grow and mature enough that she could actually stand in between them was a big part of the story. That was intended from the start.
Shiotani: And another thing was Akane exists to be the audience’s perspective into this show. So when Akane questions certain things or wonders about certain things, she is doing so from the audience’s point of view and the more the audience understands, the more Akane grew herself and eventually works herself into the standpoint of one of the main characters herself.

 

For students pursuing to become future directors, I’d like to ask Motohiro-san to give us a message.
Motohiro: The reason I decided to become a director, simply put, is because I love doing it. So to do something that I love as a profession, there are many misfortunes, but as long as I keep it as my hobby, I can think about it happily. But as soon as I make it into a job, I have to consider the fact that many people are going to be viewing my work so I have to make it something that many people can view and laugh and cry when they see it. So for students, and this is how I pursued it myself, but I think of it as pursuing your dreams, I think will make you happier in the end. I have no regrets and I think I’d be content with dying at anytime.

Episode 16 was the true highlight of the series, but then in episode 17 and 18, there were animation issues. How do you feel about the transition between those episodes.
Shiotani: You have stumbled upon something that is rather hard to talk about. This is a bit difficult. The reason that episode 16 was such a success…
Wada: This really is sort of hard to talk about…
Shiotani: You must have watched very closely to point out that very sort of thing. I do agree that episode 16 was the best episode in the series and an episode that I am very proud of. But one thing that you should be aware of is that everyone involved in “PSYCHO-PASS”, was really pushing things to the very limit. And this is something we did at the limit of our abilities. Right before I started working on “PSYCHO-PASS”, I was working on the movie “Blood-C: The Last Dark”, literally right up to the point where I started working on “PSYCHO-PASS”. So just three months before starting on “PSYCHO-PASS”, I had been working on a the film, so I had to just jump right into the new series that was in full on production and there was not enough ramp up time there. So from there, I kept concentrating on how to make this series that would run for six months a great series. However, there was just one moment where I had run out of stamina, which was during episode 17 and 18. And a bunch of people ran out of stamina after pushing for episode 16. And I knew that might become apparent, so we had clear plans to work extra hard to make things great again from episode 19. However in the end, episode 17 and 18, we ended up having to leave much of it to luck and had to ask everyone to just do whatever they could.
Wada: Episode 17 and 18 is what is great about making a TV series.
Motohiro: Are they going to get that?
Shiotani: It’s the “loose” part of the series.
Wada: Yes, the “loose” part.
Shiotani: If we want to go into some details, episode 17 and 18 were made outside of our team, and we had asked another company to help us out with those two episodes. There was probably the aspect of us not being able to support them very well. They might not have been able to use the same techniques we were using or may not have been able to express the near future world of “PSYCHO-PASS” very well since we were lacking in schedule time as well as being able to communicate things. So we were able to pick things back up from episode 19.
Shiotani: But as for the retail product, we are completely remaking episode 17 and 18, so they’ll be completely different.

 

What do you like to do on your off time?
Motohiro: I love to watch movies.
Shiotani: If I consider the time working on “PSYCHO-PASS”, I’d have to say that I didn’t really have any free time. So I would sleep for a little bit, wake up, and then continue working on “PSYCHO-PASS”… that’s how I spent a whole year.
The one thing that I think slightly comforted me while working on “PSYCHO-PASS”, was to listen to the songs of the most popular idols in Japan right now and I would even go see them live even though it meant I would lose some sleep.
Wada: I think you can mention their name.
Shiotani: Momoiro Clover Z, who is popular among our workplace staff.
Shiotani: And right at the time where I felt that I couldn’t go on anymore, Motohiro-san took me to meet Momoiro Clover Z.
Motohiro: I had gotten platinum tickets.
Wada: Indeed, he is the executive director.
Shiotani: Thank you very much for that.

 

Do you feel that “PSYCHO-PASS” is an anime series that can receive a live-action film or drama series adaptation?
Motohiro: Of course!
Shiotani: He told me from the beginning: Please don’t make anything that we can’t make into live-action.
Motohiro: Now that we have 22 episodes of the animation complete, and now that it’s being distributed in the US as well as the series being novelized, but I believe this is all material for my live films. (the three are laughing hard)

 

What actors would you consider for the live-action?
Motohiro: There’s already quite a bit of buzz on the internet on who should play who.
Shiotani: Do you look at all of that?
Motohiro: Yes, I do. But right now, with the Japanese economy, I don’t think a live-action would be possible at this moment, unless Hollywood wanted to step in.

 

Now that you’re here in America, are there any foods that you have wanted to try or any shops that you have been wanting to visit in Seattle?
Motohiro: Right now, I feel… like I’d like to have some more seafood. Especially the crab where you have to actually smash it with a hammer. It was really good!
Wada: There is something the three of us are currently regretting. When we got the clam chowder, we all ordered a cup, but we should have gotten the bowl! (all three are laughing)

 

Is there any American media that influenced your work?
Motohiro: One of my favorite directors is George Roy Hill, who directed such movies like “The World According to Garp” and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”
Shiotani: I have many, many influences, but for “PSYCHO-PASS”, one of the biggest influences was “Seven”. I like David Fincher a lot, so in the opening, there is some influence from “Fight Club” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”.

 

If you recieved more funding to produce more episodes of “PSYCHO-PASS”, would you create more episodes of “PSYCHO-PASS” and include a fan service episode, for example when they all go to the beach? Also, I heard that you wanted to lose “moe” so you purposely made the world of “PSYCHO-PASS” a rather dark world with very little cuteness.
Shiotani: In Japan, we call that the “Onsen Episode”. It pretty much happens because things get hard on production, so if we put in an episode where they go to the onsen, it’ll get high ratings and it’ll be easy to work on.
Motohiro: Would we do it if we had money?
Shiotani: Those episodes are made because of the lack of funds.
Motohiro: In a similar case for TV dramas, we take all of the cast and staff to an onsen and we wrap up all the shooting in one day. Since the actors take off their clothes, the ratings go up and the staff gets really excited as well because they get a short vacation. However, this was the first time I heard that it was done in anime as well.
Motohiro: We did want to lose the moe and focus on a show where the guys could be passionate about something. But because the guys were so passionate and on fire, in turn, the female audience totally got into the show.

 

This is a question for Motohiro-san, but what is your next goal as a director?
Motohiro: Right now, I have a lot of kouhai/juniors right now, so right now, I’d like to give them some great movies to work on. Mr. Shiotani is one of those people as well. Right now, the directors that are making hit movies, are all my juniors, and so I start to feel a sense of urgency as well and work harder as well. Then I start to feel that I need to make an even better movie and feel like I need to liven up the Japanese movie and entertainment world.

 

Where did your limits come from in limiting the violence in the show? Were they clearly defined going into production and how did that affect your execution of the series.
Shiotani: The story itself is quite violent and involves a lot of body horror, for example, like a person’s legs and arms being attached oppositely and a head being within a head, or there being a face on a stomach. So as to how to deal with that in the TV series, Gen Urobochi-san just let us deal with it. The reason any of that is in the series is not because we wanted to make a violent series, but we wanted to make an artistic series that just happened to have some violence included in it, and we wanted people to view it like they were looking at some piece of art. There were parts that were done off camera and if it needed to be seen, it was seen as well. And when it involves the main characters, we wanted to do it very beautifully and dramatically and make it very memorable. However there were two instances we were told by the TV station that we had gone overboard and so we had to fix those instances so they could be aired.

 

If you three had the chance to collaborate again in the future, would you like to and what genres and projects would you like to explore?
Motohiro: Well right now, if we were going to do something again, “PSYCHO-PASS” is doing rather well and gaining quite a bit of popularity, so I would like to work on a continuation of the series.
Shiotani: I feel the same. That was the short answer. (laughs) The series is an original and it finally felt like what we had all worked very hard on had just taken shape and we had created something very big. And the way the story was written, it feels like we had only covered just a part of a story that has much more episodes that have yet to come to light. So it’d be great if we could pick up the series from any of those other episodes.

 

What type of personality does it take to do the jobs that you all do?
Motohiro: As a director, I need to make sure that things aren’t too concentrated but not too loose, either. There are aspects that I personally concentrate on, but I know there are parts I can leave up to the rest of the staff and I think that is very important.
Shiotani: There are many different kinds of people so it’s hard to say, but I think having a very distinct on and off switch is very important. I think people who can become idiots are great. I think it’s best when people are super serious when they’re working, but when they’re not, they can totally turn that switch off and dumb themselves down, otherwise you sort of lose your mind. I think your body holds up better when you can separate the two, working seriously and having fun, and can think about it positively. If you become an idiot, those around you will do the same, and it’s easy to get along and then you can see what they are like on the inside and it’s something that can be applied to my work. So in the end, it’s actually a very serious approach.
Wada: The most important thing about being a producer, is to not give up. I had heard that many people wanted to create an anime with Motohiro-san and he has had a lot of offers, but I think we’re all here now because I was the only one who didn’t give up.

 

What sort of process do you go through to achieve the results that you want on a project?
Wada: The most important process or procedure is in the beginning, all of us: Motohiro-san, Shiotani-san, Urobuchi-san, and Amano-san all decide on what exactly we want to work on together and to not forget that up until the very end.
Shiotani: I usually make sure I say, “Yes, I can.” to whenever I’m asked if I can do something, but then I go and panic about it when I’m by myself. I make sure to try not to decline anything. Accept everything… and then worry about the details later. (laugh) I think there are a lot of people who say they can’t do something because they’ve never done it before, but I think it’s more fun to do things that you’ve never done before. It’ll be super hard, and you might be killed, but it’s super fun to do.
Motohiro: In Japan, there’s a saying, “Accept those who come to you, and do not chase pursue those who leave you”, so I accept all of those who come to me, and make sure I just say goodbye to those who leave me and see them off. I think this is important in many aspects. This means that many people with a lot of talent come to me, including Shiotani. And there are also a lot of people that things don’t work out with and they end up leaving. This way, I end up making great things with other people that can see eye-to-eye with me and I think this process has been very successful so far. I always make sure I have a beacon or antenna up, looking at and studying various things, I think that’s important as well. That would be my process.

 

What’s your criminal coefficient?
Wada: Yesterday, a fan of PSYCHO-PASS calculated this for me, and I was told it was 300. Apparently there is an app out that can calculate this..
Shiotani: While I was making “PSYCHO-PASS”, I would have to say it was too big to measure, judging what those said about me and how I looked making it. But right now, I’ve calmed down… but my dream is to be so calm that it can’t be measured, like Makishima. That is my goal. I want to become just a brain. (laugh)
Motohiro: I’ve reached the enlightenment level. Once you reach the enlightenment level, your criminal coefficient becomes unreadable. So no matter when I’m measured, it will be low. I am always calm and never get angry… I make sure that they can never find out the coefficient.

 

I know that “Odoru Daisousasen” ended with the final movie in 2012. But what are the chances of a spin-off series with the characters of Shunsaku Aoshima, Shinji Muroi, or Sumire Onda?
Motohiro: Sadly, there are no plans for any spin-offs. The movie that was released last year was indeed the final of the whole series.

 

For more information on Psycho-Pass, please visit the following website

Photos are courtesy of Michelle Tymon, J!-ENT

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