Tekkonkinkreet (2006) | Michael Arias, Eric Nakamura

Good evening everyone. Welcome to the Billy Wilder Theater, home of the public programs for the UCLA Film and Television Archive. My name is Paul Malcolm. I'm the senior public programmer for the archive. We'd like to thank Oh, thank you. We'd like to thank all of the individuals and organizations that have helped uh make tonight's screening possible. All of the archive screening in the screenings in the wilder are free thanks to a gift from an anonymous donor and we're grateful to them for their support. This series and screening has also been made possible with support from the NAI initiative at UCLA for globalizing Japanese humanities. I also want to give a a thank you to all the community partners who helped us get the word out about these shows. So, let's have a round of applause for those folks and thank you all for coming out to the second weekend of our series celebrating the 30th anniversary of Giant Robot Magazine. This series, yeah, Giant Robot. Lot of applause tonight. This series was uh curated by Giant Robot founder Eric Nakamura. has been a real honor and pleasure to work with him uh on planning this entire series and sharing space with him here on stage. Uh let's hear a round of applause for Eric Nakamura, who's also out in the audience. [Applause] So, I'm going to we're halfway through the series, so I want to plug a couple of upcoming shows. On this Sunday, we go way back with a special screening of episodes from two classic Japanese TV shows. Gigantor from 1966 and two episodes from Voyage into Space featuring Johnny Rocco and his flying robot aka Giant Robot where it all sort of began in Eric's mind. Um Eric will be here with archive television curator Mark Quigley to introduce that program on Sunday. Then on the final weekend of the series on Saturday, November 16th, we're going to be screening Gameamra, the Guardian of the Universe with that film star Aayoko Fujitani here in person. And then the next Sunday or Sunday, November 17th, ACT, a actor and filmmaker Daniel Woo will be here for the Hong Kong with the Hong Kong thriller, One Night in Monkok. So please check our web page and come back for those shows as well. So turning back to tonight, we are thrilled to be presenting a modern anime classic, Teongrete. We are especially thrilled to be presenting with director Michael Arius here in person. Yay, Michael. [Applause] Uh, I want to uh give a special thanks to Chance Husky at uh GK Kids for their help in making this screening possible and for getting us a copy of the film that we're going to show tonight. Michael will join me on stage with Eric following the film for a Q&A. So, please stick around for that. Now, please help me welcome to the stage Eric Nakamura. >> Thank you, Paul. Hey, thanks. Thanks for coming out. How many of you here are fans of Matsumoto Taio? Yeah. >> All right. Those of you are you're you're uh well schooled. Um so, how many of you here know Michael Aras? >> Even more. That's that that's promising. I was going to say if you don't know him, you're going to find out. And he's amazing. Uh I got to interview Michael many years ago for Giant Robot magazine and I was intrigued and then uh we become we became friends which is amazing. That's kind of what happens with Giant Robot often. Uh really cool thing. and finally got to do something with him and this is that event finally and uh you don't get to see techon concrete much on screen. Uh this is a really rare opportunity and it's super inspiring. It makes me want to draw and do art and all kinds of stuff which I can't do. So I'll leave it to you. Um but Michael Aras is uh right here and we're going to bring him up right now. So enjoy. [Applause] >> This is exciting. Uh it's been uh a really long time since Techon's been seen in a theater in the US. Um uh in 2006 when it was released um we didn't get a lot of exposure in uh North America, just a a handful of theaters, and it's been kind of uh unavailable uh since then. Um, so it just uh uh brings me so much joy to have you all here uh in this beautiful uh Billy Wilder Theater. Uh uh and uh I I mean it it looks and sounds better than I've ever seen it and heard it looking. So it's just a a a really great uh uh time for me. uh uh coming at the end of a a week that um was a little challenging, right? Uh so I I really hope you enjoy it and and I'm really looking forward to uh uh talking about the movie afterwards. Uh so that's it. [Applause] I wanted to start um actually uh Eric had mentioned uh Taio Matsumo uh in his introduction. I wanted to start with the the source material tick on Crete uh the manga um I guess its run was from 1993 to 1994 thereabouts. When did you come across this material and was it before the project initiated? Were you aware of it before the project came about and what was your first take of it? Like just talk about like its significance importance to you. >> Um uh uh well thanks to both of you guys for this great and and thanks to all you guys for coming. Uh it was really uh really great. Um so uh in um like 95 96 um I was uh living with a friend um and kind of between jobs and um uh you know it was a really kind of weird time in Tokyo. was uh uh right after the big uh Coobe earthquake and uh machine Rikio poison gas subway attacks >> and and that was all uh uh like the poison gas attacks were in the subway station directly below where I lived. So >> there was this period where like the whole city was the skies were filled with helicopters and police everywhere. It was was a really weird time and I was kind of just hanging out uh with my friend who was always also as a freelance designer and so we were just home all the time. This guy had um an amazing manga collection and and I had read uh stuff here and there. Um you know, Otomo, uh Yoshida Sancha, just kind of random collection of stuff that I had uh uh uh sort of stumbled upon. It definitely wasn't a manga fan, but got this great collection there. And I just asked my friend to uh recommend something to me and he gave me the the the three volumes of Techon had just been well the whole series had been collected into books uh kind of around that time and he gave them to me and he just said uh it's going to make you cry and and uh so that was kind of how I got into the comic book and and there were a couple years there where it was sort of my bible and I was carrying it everywhere. there and uh I I was uh working kind of on the fringes of the uh Japanese animation industry doing uh uh computer animation software uh writing the software and then working with animators to improve it uh whatever and I'd often get in this conversation like so what are you doing what what what's the next thing what do you want to do Um, and and I just kind of uh uh uh it became my stalk answer uh to say that I'm going to make a movie of this manga. >> And it's kind of a indie uh sort of underground manga or cult manga. So it wasn't that well known at the time. >> Um uh that he definitely had pretty serious uh fans. Um but that's kind of how it started. And uh it the project uh went through a few different incarnations. Um I produced uh a short pilot with a friend veteran animation director directing like a threeinut uh digital animation piece. Um and that kind of fell apart and uh but um well uh you know uh very slowly gathered steam um I produced animated anthology um kind of spin-off of the Matrix called the Animatrix and that kind of had me embedded in a studio with a lot of the artists who ended up working on TechCon and and that's sort sort of how um well after a while I started pitching myself as a director um and uh yeah it was a long and very bloody story to actually how how uh uh we made it but uh there there were about before we actually went into production there were about seven years where I was just like flogging this project everywhere and uh uh uh to everyone who would listen and and uh yeah, things things uh worked out. There were some uh stumbles along the way. I don't know. Eric, how would you describe uh just sticking with the s source material that uh its influence or it its place in the sort of manga culture? >> I think at least here, Techon Kingrete is probably one of the most influential for indie comic book art or indie artists. Sorry, just indie artists in general. I I that I work with in my world, it's probably the most influential for a as a manga. And um >> yeah, it's one of those things where once once people see it, it makes them want to draw. It makes them want to create. And you know, there's some artists that actually seem to take off on actual Techon concrete style art and then develop it into their own. So, it's actually to me like a really huge influence. And I know some artists are probably here who are influenced by Techon Concrete. It's a big deal. But >> yeah, what made you think you It's not a mainstream. >> What made you think you can do this? >> Uh well, you know, I I'd been uh uh uh on the fringes of uh uh uh the film industry for a long time. Had worked in Hollywood for a few years and and then in Japan for uh I think uh uh by the time we actually went into production, I'd been living in in Tokyo for about 15 years. um always uh doing kind of either working in animation or visual effects or uh computer graphics. And so you know if you dream about something long enough this some kind of image forms in your head and you know uh if you keep dreaming about it it sort of starts to grow. um you know I was uh of course this was the the first um feature I directed but I was also helping out uh a lot of colleagues uh on their bits of the animatrix um and on uh commercial projects and other stuff. So I mean I you know to be completely honest in making tech on king greed I was really flying blind uh and uh I didn't have a lot of time uh to uh reflect on like is this the right way of doing things or >> were you channeling Taio Matsumoto's work was a a huge inspiration he was he he never told me this do this or do that, but he was always just like, uh, do whatever you want with it. Um, you know, make it yours. Um, and, uh, he was also showing me a lot of the stuff that he was working on at the time. He was writing, uh, pingpong for a while and then number five and, and those were also like, oh, I these two great, they're so amazing. Uh, I mean, he's still just my favorite artist ever. like I I just think he's such a genius. >> So, um I've not read the manga, the source material, but I'm assuming Black and White are the main characters of of that novel, but is is the is the film adaptation like does it >> tell the whole story or you're taking one story from the series and compressing it? How did you choose? >> Quite faithful. >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah, it's uh it's pretty much the same story though that we had to uh kind of stitch together a few different things and and uh sequence some of the episodes so that it would work better, you know, as a as a film. Um I think the biggest change between the manga and the film is kind of um like the scale of it. In in the manga, it all sort of takes place on one street corner of one little town. Um, and you know, because I I mean I I wanted to make it really the story of the evolution of this city. I want at least I wanted that arc to kind of um uh run over the story of these kids and these gangsters and aliens. um you know my I won't say template but sort of my guiding light was like um Sergio Leone westerns. I wanted to do something like uh uh you know there's uh uh this little town in the middle of the desert and the bad guy comes and he wants to build a railroad through our town or you know something like that. it it really felt like that or at least that was kind of one of the subtexts of the manga. Um, and I thought that would work better if we're talking about a like a real city, not just, you know, a a little street corner. Um, so, you know, that the setting of the manga is feels much more local. It also feels much more Japanese. Um, whereas I I think me and uh my art director turned it into something more like a kind of pan-Asian city. U well, I mean this let's you talk about the the image that sort of stuck with you and sort of carried you through the development of it. Um, so we're talking about like a, you know, an underground sort of a cult, you know, manga that has a an influence, but now we've got, you know, a film that is also like um off the beaten. I mean, just it doesn't look like any other kind of anime. I mean, I'm just let's go back to the image. Like visually, it's so beautiful. It's so striking and it's so dynamic and it's it's for me it's just so much like it's so much unlike like like my standard picture of anime. So, couple of questions like one, what was your sort of like your vision for the film? I mean, the look of it, how did you achieve the look? I mean, um, and then was there any sort of resistance along the way? Hey, this looks a little too different or this looks a little too vision. I mean, it's like some there's a certain point in the movie you're like, how visionary is this going to get? And it's like a lot more visionary. You know what I'm saying? Like, was there any resistance to like, hey, this is not what an anime should look like or feel like? Well, you know, in most of the folks that I was working with were real like veterans of animation. >> Um, and uh, like my art director for example, he'd worked on, you know, everything from My Neighbor Tortoo to uh, Akira is just done a ton of movies. Um it's funny right before um coming on Techon uh he had spent like nine years working on uh Otomo's follow-up to Akira which is a movie called Steamboy. The whole thing takes place in like Victorian Manchester and it's the entire movie is like a pallet of gray tones. It's all kind of it's like a steampunk uh uh aesthetic and so it's all gray and silver and metallic and um and our first meeting uh for Techon really kind of my introduction to him. He was asking me like kind of what what sort of movie do you want this to make? And I I told him uh well the only thing I remember telling him anyways is is that I I wanted to make the backgrounds kind of the star of the movie. let's just crush the characters with the backgrounds. And I think he took that as as a real uh kind of permission to go nuts. And because he had been working for nine years in black and white basically, I think, you know, we really loaded on the color. >> We were, I don't know, inspired by a lot of kind of Showa sort of post-war uh era Japanese design, poster design, matchbox design, stuff like that. we were taking a lot from there. Um, but really trying to make it um I think the image that we arrived on was kind of like uh when you knock over a kid's box of toys. It's just like a colors and weird shapes and things of different scale and you know upside down, right side up and and nothing kind of makes sense. But there's like a you know in the aggre aggregate it it turns into something beautiful and that was you know that's kind of a a something that we kept in our minds anyways when you do something like that I mean to me it's really artistic when you do something this artistic how do you look at manga today I mean or sorry anime today too like there's so much out there's way more right so how do you look at that compared Well, I mean, I think Techon is one of probably the last movies where um everything was done on paper from the animation, which is all pencil and paper. Um to the backgrounds, which is all like poster colors on just big pieces of paper. Um, you know, I used to uh uh uh go over to my art director's desk after he'd gone home and fish through his waste basket for uh discards, which each piece that he did, even if he had crumpled it up, they they were all beautiful pieces of art. And like the backgrounds for Techon, they're they're really I mean, when you see them up close, uh uh they're they're really cool. Um, uh, and I think that's something that kind of makes it feel special in that it's all physical. And the way animation is made nowadays, even in Japan, for the most part, it's become digital. So, you know, the the background folks, they paint in Photoshop with a tablet. um uh the animators uh work on you know iPads or Cintiques and and so it's there's a very different connection to the artwork. You can go back uh without any loss and fix things. You can just keep making everything as perfect as you like. Um, I think there's a certain raw quality to the animation and the backgrounds in Techon was kind of one of the last of an era and you don't see a lot of animation that looks like that now. a lot of stuff um you know uh sort of mimics that that look through other means, but you know it's kind of like putting the um putting the grain in something that's shot digitally to make it look like it was shot on film. You know that that trying to make it look more DIY look more loi. Um but this is actually lowfi. >> Cool. Well, one of the I mean one of the amazing things that and I'll ask one more question and we'll turn it over to the audience. Um we'll have mics. So just raise your hand and I'll I'll point you and we'll bring a mic to you and and wait for the mic. Yeah. Um no, one of the things I thought was so striking about the film was something you just described. It was there's all this sort of fantastical things happening. Um there's these visions happening um in this kind of dream state, but then there's all these wires and pipes and tubes and scratches and and dirt and everywhere. It really grounds everything else that's happening in the film. Um when you were talking about like layering in that background and stuff like that, can we talk a little about the voice acting? I love the I love the the characters voices and like were they were these were there were these all professionals that you were you know anime you know um regular voice actors or were you drawing anyone from outside the field? >> Yeah, it was kind of a a strange mixture. My my original concept is um I was really inspired by this um Brazilian movie, City of God, Shidada Deos. Uh it's just an amazing uh uh movie. Um and that was coming out as we were kind of going into pre-production. Um I made everyone watch it. It was it was a big influence on us. But so uh this kind of animation, the voices are done after the picture. Um which is not the way animation is typically made here in the US or outside of Japan, I guess. Um so you have a lot of time to think about uh kind of casting and how you're going to do this. Um uh my original pitch was we're going to get actual street kids and teach them how to be voice actors. um my producers didn't not um come on board. Uh uh so uh that became let's get um people who who aren't veteran anime voices because if you watch a lot of Japanese animation, there's like 10 actors who are in everything and they they each have like three or four voices that they can do. And I I think a lot of the emphasis in um anime um voice acting uh is to be able to, you know, um go into the studio with very little prep and just, you know, bang it out because a lot of the culture is kind of TV animation culture. So it's just like, you know, we have a day to do all of this. Um, so we decided to uh kind of book a spend a lot more time on the on the voices and get actors who were um uh either uh like stage performers or you know like uh actual actors um uh rather than uh anime voice actors. Um and some people um like the guy who uh did the voice of Rat that's he's kind of a famous uh bhau dancer uh named Mint Tanaka uh he was very inexperienced in even acting um uh but he kind of was the character so and he had this great presence and incredible voice and uh uh there were other uh um folks the the young actress who did the voice of White um is a woman named Yu Ai and and uh I I saw her she was in one of uh yeah she was in one of uh uh Shuni Wise movies Hana and Alice and the her performance in that was kind of the the basis of White's kind of like this uh kind of oddball kind of genius but also She's got this great very emotional relationship with her her her body and and that kind of felt like the kind of white I wanted. Um so her uh yeah is just a a kind of a really interesting group of of actors. Um and what most of them had in common was that they they had never done any animation work before. Um, now it's quite it's kind of standard in Japan to cast like famous actors, screen actors in the main parts of your animation because, you know, for obvious reasons. Um, but at the time that we were casting technon, it was actually quite rare. Um, so yeah, it was maybe because I was not kind of part of the the system in a lot of ways. I I I think I had a little more a little more freedom with those kind of choices. Is there any questions from the audience? Let's go uh right here in the middle. Uh I can Yeah. Yeah. You right there. Yeah. >> No, I'm sorry. You know the the there's a gentleman back behind you. I'll give you a second. So, we'll bring you to the mic. Yeah, you right there. >> Yeah. I'm sorry. I can't see your own point. There we go. Right there. >> Thank you. Um, so my question for Michael, uh, you've translated several of Taio Matsumoto's manga, including Ping Banga number five. So, I was curious, how did you get interested in manga translation, and how did you get involved with like translating those Tyomsto series? >> Um, what was the first part of the question again? Sorry. Oh, it was just uh you've translated several of Tao's manga. >> So, like how did you get involved with manga translation? >> Oh, um Taio and his wife asked me to uh I think the first one they asked me to do was Sunny. Um and I had translated a book of Tao's wife u Sotono is also an amazing mangaka. Um, and she had done a book of what's kind of like manga poetry in a way. It's called Midnight Mayonaka. Uh, it was really really cool collection. I I don't think it's Well, I don't know. For some reason, she wanted to just put a little sort of appendix in the end of the book um of all the words in English. And so, she asked me to translate that. That was years before we were doing Techon. But um I at some point when Taio was drawing Sunny um the folks doing the English edition of Viz Comics. Um I think there there was a discussion with Taio like if he had any uh translators that he wanted to work with or if they could just pick someone for him. and and he and his wife um made a case for me doing the translation. Um I had never done translation except for you know myself uh uh uh like um but um and and Sunny took me a really long time not because I mean because I was translating it basically as he was writing it. So I would get a chapter as he finished a chapter and it it meant that because he had the whole thing in his head, right? and and I'm kind of figuring out what's what and you know what what do we do with the accents because all the kids are speaking kind of a a very provincial Japanese accent and um so yeah that was well it was a a real gift to be able to dive so deeply into the world of a new work of his. Um, and since then I've done, I think, six more series with him. Um, Cats of the Lou and Number Five, Ping Pong. Uh, I just finished his newest, which is called, uh, Tokyo These Days, which is just such a great manga. Um, and, uh, yeah, I I don't think I'd want to work on anyone else's manga. I mean, you know, it's uh yeah, my uh that's it's a joy, but I don't, you know, it's translating. It's hard work. And it, you know, uh I don't think well, I think it'd be tough to make a living as a a professional translator of manga. Now it's like, you know, people get, I think, probably halfway there just using uh uh uh digital translation tools. Um it's yeah, you know, it's a for me it's really uh just a way to get, you know, the thing sooner than anyone else and and and respect. Yeah. Yeah. >> So, what was the question that Right here? Right here. What's So, we're gonna bring a mic to you. Raise your hand. Wait, raise your hand to the mic. There we go. >> Teamwork. I love it. Thank you. >> Brilliant. Hi. Um, so you made a beautiful film. It was gorgeous. >> Thank you. >> And um, seems so creative how you put it together. And I wanted to ask you about the music because the music was really beautiful. My boyfriend wrote part of that soundtrack and he's sitting next to me and I've never heard it before or seen the film. So, I'm really impressed with both of you, more than I knew. So, now I have to be nicer to you than I ever was before because I respect you even more. Oh my god. Um anyway, so um I just wanted to know the story about how you um actually like decided to to have Plaid make the music and how that was and because it worked so well. And yeah, my first question was actually your first question, so I get to ask that one now. >> Okay. Okay. Well, if I did anything to help Ed impress his girlfriend. You owe me, man. Um, uh, uh, yeah. Um, uh, well, okay, this is kind of a funny story. Um, let's see. Uh, I I was working on this kind of pilot film for Techon. Um uh I was sort of producer and um CG director. Um and we had kind of wrapped the pilot. Uh we had um taken it to Anacey Film Festival and showed it to a lot of people and uh and then uh my director kind of walked off and my producer uh kind of walked off and and I was sort of left. We we had taken a an old karoke room in Harajuku and kind of gutted it and turned it into our little uh workshop and studio and me and six or seven other folks u made this really cool little uh uh pilot for Techon. But I me and a couple other uh guys were left with the tack of kind of packing everything up. you know, we were having to move out of the building and and uh um and um one of the guys helping us clean the place up was a a young uh carpenter who had uh helped us build the place. Kind of, you know, build the bar counter. Uh was a very um kind of a a school project kind of vibe. Um and um he uh was listening to a lot of cool music and he um as I guess kind of as thanks for the job, he um gave me a pair of tickets to a show that Plaid were doing at uh I think Loft Plus One in Shinjuku um which is a tiny little venue and this would have been in like 99, 2000 maybe, probably 99. And um like this is when I think Andy and Ed were still using like keyboards on stage. Um so it was a long time ago. Um and I, you know, I had heard a couple tracks by their previous band. Um, and uh, I went to the show and I I just really dug their music. I got I think the album was Not for Threes, maybe. It's like one of their early things. And and so while I was putting the film together, while uh I was, you know, working on the very early stages, I always had Plaid's music kind of linked to the film sort of in my head. That was the the soundtrack of the movie. and kind of uh I don't know. I I found a link to the the guy doing their video uh stuff and sent him a mail saying I wanted them to uh do the music for my movie. Um and uh and they responded and you know it was it was before they were you know big and famous. >> It's been I I mean we've worked on a lot of stuff together since then and it's just been a a real joy to have uh well such uh uh creative and collaborators people. I mean, Ed and and my sound designer, Mitch, who's who's also in the audience, uh uh the three of us uh uh spent the the three of us spent a couple weeks, I think, on the dubbing stage sleeping on CS uh uh basically living in the in the mix stage. Um and uh you know that um that time spent uh you know in the trenches is some real uh memories formed. >> Eric, you >> Oh, no. I was just going to say you owe him. >> Yeah. >> Another question from the audience. We got one over here on this side. >> Hi. Uh I'm huge fan of this film and the taomoto and I grew up in Japan and I was in high school when this film was came out. Um I had a DVD box and this movie watched this many many times and I made a lot of like fan art of this film. So now I I'm working as artist and a b dancer. So, so this movie was a huge inspiration for me and um yeah, then now that I um grew up and after I graduated art school in Tokyo and spent 10 years there, so now I see the movie, I see many like views of Tokyo city in the film like Asaka, Coenji, Shimbashi, like Shinjuku. So did you mix and made like inspiration of like those cities of Tokyo? Also the scene of the Kimura and the snake were at the bar was reminded of Daido Moryama's bar in Kanazawa. So is >> Yes. Oh really? Oh my god. >> I I think we changed the lips to eyes. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Good. Good. Uh >> yeah. Well, this is the problem with plagiarism. Homage. I think we call it homage. >> Wow. Amazing. So, did you um inspiration from cogi as well? Uh yeah, you know the studios in uh that I uh Yondoshi this is in Kichi and so Coen is on my way home basically and >> uh you know there's a lot of towns like uh Coenji Nishogi Kubo uh uh Shimokawa that that whole uh those kind of towns that still have the old uh uh bars or the old uh uh shopping arcade that those I spent a lot of time in those places. Um, you know, just admiring the, you know, crazy electrical wiring, you know, dangling from every available, you know, mounting point and and, uh, just all the strange mixture of uh, you know, there's parts of those towns that kind of look like shanty towns. are all like corrugated aluminum roofing and and uh there's something visually very exciting about those kind of locations. I put a lot of that into tech. >> Another question from the audience. Let's go in the very back row. Hi, I was uh I like the um the trip out part at the end or you know where where it you know the film's already very colorful and full of stuff and then it goes you know way beyond where when uh Minotaur is is entering the picture. I was wondering what some of the influences or thoughts were during that part. It seemed like there were a lot of, you know, almost uh Jack Kirbyish qualities here and there, cut out things and 2001 and whatever. >> Yeah. Well, I mean the kind of, you know, trip sequence in uh 2001, um the last 10 minutes of Akida, um those were, you know, big inspirations just in terms of like what's the job here? We have to like suggest a journey into into the interior but something that's you know um that is like a renaissance for this uh guy's soul. Um, and uh, I had asked um, a mentor of mine, an amazing animator and director named uh, Koji Morimoto to actually board that whole sequence. And uh, it was very close to the end of the production. We still had like a hole in the story board. It's just this the ending of the movie basically. uh uh note to self, don't do it last. Um uh and and uh and he turned out to be just an incredible procrastinator and um you know, it was, you know, my task uh to uh kind of pester him and nag him. It was awful. And um he he ended up kind of throwing up his hands like if you got it in your head, you do it. And um and he gave me a a small stack of drawings um super rough, just like really sketches. Um that um ended up being kind of a just a a points of departure or like a kind of launching pad for the different bits and pieces. Um, we wanted this kind of nightmare vibe. Um, the guy who was doing the actual character animation for that scene said, "Let's try something totally different." And so he did this. This is crazy. Um, he he animated the whole thing start to finish uh in ballpoint pen. Uh, so no erasing, no fixing it up. And he also rather than you know typically in uh handdrawn animation you have kind of a lead animator who does the key frames and then and then you have uh sort of uh a different group of animators doing inbetweens to to combine that all to make it all uh uh continuous motion and he did the whole thing all as key animation. So he drew every frame in ballpoint pen. I think you know he we were uh like uh uh kind of tiptoeing past his desk like don't bug Kubosan. He's he's animating the Minotaur. Um and so it it does give the the whole thing a really you know kind of weird look. And uh and then you know we were kind of throwing everything into it because we had uh uh worked out everything else and um there was a certain uh I think desperation to our efforts in the end. Um and you know I I that sequence there's all this other kind of random stuff. My my art director painted he painted a bunch of kind of still images of what he thought was kind of hell. There's like a shot of a a kind of a scene from Abu Grae prison that's tucked in there. There's like a kind of Daido Moryama, some weird screaming lady, uh a bunch of school kids hanging themselves in the playground. I it's just like stuff that was kind of adlibbed like we didn't really um discuss a lot of it. Um everyone was kind of throwing everything in that scene and it I mean it kind of amazes me that it actually sort makes a weird kind of sense um at least on a visceral level. I I mean I could have Yeah, it's hard for me to watch because it's definitely visceral. >> I wanted to I'm sorry. I wanted to sort of close um by bringing us back to Giant Robot. So um yeah, I So you're Michael, you were working you were living and working in Japan coming back to the States going back and forth. When did you first become aware of Giant Robot? And from that perspective, moving back and forth between Japan and the States, like how did you I mean, how do you how do you see its influence? How did you see it impacting the the field that you were working in? >> Um, I had seen the magazine a few times. Um, I think I had uh I had a couple copies just because they they were doing uh a lot of uh kind of Asian-American uh sort of more indie art. there was a kind of a I felt like a punk kind of fanzene sensibility that really spoke to me. Um, and I think Eric and I talked Eric uh saw uh the Animatrix I think and and wrote some nice words about it. Well, I think we you interviewed me or there was kind of an early >> something like that. Yeah, a very early meeting. Um, that would have been like in 2003 or something like that. I think that was the first time that we met. And then we found we had friends in common. Um, you know, of course I I love uh well, even the the magazine, the shop, uh the gallery is uh you know, it's such a a a great world there. I mean, um >> I don't know if that was by design or >> kind of happens. It's um but that's how we got to know each other. Um and uh well, you know, um uh right now I've I've been in LA for several months uh for the first time in uh 25 years or something. Um, and um, it makes me feel it's comforting to think that giant robot is just up the road. >> Awesome. Wait, one question I still have. What is What does Taio Matsumoto ultimately say about your project? >> About Yeah. >> Tech. >> Sure. >> Oh, I I think he really treasures it. Um, I mean, he wrote me a lot of uh kind of uh uh uh uh drawings and kind of notes of encouragement when I was making it and then gave me some beautiful kind of uh uh you know, thank you messages. um the times that we've been you know participated together um in events where the movie is shown like he's done a couple retrospectives retrospectives of his art where they've shown the movie and he's you know I just assumed you know cuz like I don't want to watch it again you know it's like watching pictures of myself as a baby or you know in a crowded theater. I I don't know. I mean, today is actually the first time I've watched it start to finish in many, many years. And and it's hard for me, you know, I was I was very young, very inexperienced when I was making it. My uh family was a mess. I you know, I was sleeping under my desk at the studio was it brings back a lot of trauma. Um uh but Taio want every time this has happened I think three or four times that we've been at events where he said let's watch it. >> Wow. >> Let's watch it. Come on finish your beer. Let's go in and watch it. Um which you know is is uh uh well just coming from him. >> Um yeah it's it's I think he's really happy with it. I think he really treasures it. you know, he he's he's always been very clear that it's not how he saw it in his head. He feels like it's, you know, it's me and Tech on Kingrete mated somehow. Um, but I I think he loves it. >> Awesome. You know, I was going to end there, but I would ask this question about like what's next for the film because I was there was a little window of time where I wasn't sure we were going to be able to show it because it was in between rights negotiations between two companies and I was like kind of nothing was sort of moving forward for months and I was like, "Oh my god, I can't I really want to show this." And Eric really wanted to show it, too. But now it's with GK Kids. And do you have any are there any plans for it to come back out or are you re-releasing it or Blu-rays or any any plan to get it back out in the world? something like that. >> Okay, cool. All right. Well, you got to help us spread the word. Thank you so much, Michael, for coming out. Really appreciate it. >> Thank you all so much. >> Thank you, everybody.