@stephen:
Bahaha, nice Jigoku Sensei Nuube parody.
The 3 page special? Really? I thought it was Kinpachi. :sad:
EDIT: Sorry, did this post in bits and pieces and forgot to explain what it is. It's a discussion between Oda and Tanaka Mayumi (Luffy's VA)
Okay, started out just picking out bits but it got kinda deep so I went into some detail. Don't wanna spend time translating right now but this is basically the entire interview. Enjoy.
When she first heard the title, Tanaka thought it was a shoujo manga.
Her first impression of Luffy was when her son showed her an issue of Jump at which time she thought, 'What a weird art style!'.
Oda says he was told that often at the start because he did 'dot style' eyes at a time when 'big eyes' were popular.
When her son told her it was the most popular manga she couldn't believe it because of the art style. Then when she actually sat down and actually read tanks, it made her cry while she was riding a train. She thought, 'Well, the art may be wierd but this is alright!'
VERY COOL INFO HERE FOLKS
Oda drew Luffy with Tanaka's voice in mind. Even though he wasn't sure if the story would survive in Jump, he wondered what to do about VA's and consulted his buddy from assistant days, Takei of Shaman King. They decided on Tanaka.
Oda first met Tanaka when he was about 24-25. Tanaka says kinda like knowing him as a son. She was kinda in a mindset of telling him 'Don't just eat meat! You have to eat veggies too!', because just like Luffy, all Oda ever talks about is meat.
Oda calls Tanaka his 'Tokyo Mother'. But recently he's learned to like fish a lot.
[Note: OH SHIT!!! His 肉時代 (nikujidai) is coming to a close!!! He's rounding the corner of 'Ossan'!]
Tanaka was worried whether or not she'd be able to fill the shoes of a new comic's anime version's hero. Considering her work with Jump comics her portfolio's biggest spot is obviously filled by Krillin and she was worried if that image was too strong.
Oda was simultaneously worried that she didn't want to do it because she didn't want to do a male teen's voice.
Tanaka said she only does shonen voices which she was cool with in her 20's-30's but she wasn't too keen on it in her 40's-50's. She reassures Oda though, that if she didn't want to do it, she wouldn't have shown up at the audition. Oda says he always believed that and that in choosing the lead they needed someone as a 'chairperson' who would be responsible for the atmosphere of the workplace and have a sense about them which is why they wanted to go with Tanaka. Tanaka says if anyone else took that 'chairperson' position not just her, but the whole team would have been made of completely different people and would have turned out completely differently. She says it was kinda something like fate that brought them together. Oda agrees and says that all he really first said was that he liked the voice of Krillin and Pazu (Laputa). Since he was a total beginner with little experience he never expected her to work with it. Tanaka admires this quality in him 'cause she says there are lots of authors who expect certain VA's to work with them since they have a popular series. Oda says if you take that kind of attitude you're taking on a certain responsibility and since you can't take responsibility for the whole thing, it's a lot better to just say 'have fun with it' from the start. There's lots of things she needs to take care of like the studio atmosphere etc. so it really shows that she's the pro here. Just from watching episode 1 he realized he met a great group of actors.
Oda has a question for Tanaka regarding an acting thesis she proposed. She said that when she sees young people acting in scenes where they must cry, she doesn't believe they look like they're really crying and he'd like to know why. She says it's because they just think, "Gotta cry, gotta cry", and they do which she thinks is totally unnatural. She thinks when you really cry, you think to yourself, "I mustn't cry! I mustn't cry!", and this results maybe in some laughter between the tears trying to hold them back. They go back and forth on this for a bit and it's a bit dry but I see her point and I agree with her actually. In a way this is kinda important for OP because it shows how Oda feels about his controversial (at least here -_-) crying scenes. He feels that the face of someone crying out of sympathy and someone with tears just running down their face are two completely different things. He believes manga is on the same page as acting. Oda is obviously very affected by crying scenes. He believes his 'master' Tokuhiro sensei (whom he apprenticed under) can draw amazing crying faces that just make you wonder, 'How can you draw a face like that?' Oda practiced hard and realized that you must feel the same as your characters in that scene. [He must really feel this way because he mentioned something similar in his interview in Animation Log.] Oda says he doesn't do something as childish as simply drawing tears to make readers cry, first he has to be the one to cry, then and only then can he draw the scene, it's his policy. Tanaka says everyone in OP has such an excellent crying face. Oda agrees and says that even his woman have wet noses when they cry. He says that mucus is something that if you don't draw, you simply are not getting across the point and the feeling. In a fantasy world like OP, he says the one pinch of reality he wants to add is human emotion. If he doesn't do it, it will all fall apart.
[VERY COOL HERE!! Been wondering about this!]
Tanaka mentions it [mucus] also works for villains. She specifically mentions the Ener 'scene'! Oda says that from the very start he always drew Ener very cool and collected all for that one page. He was looking forward to the response it would draw that week.
Tanaka mentions that Morikawa did a great job as Ener and it's hard to believe he's the same guy who did Hacchan. Oda says that expressions are something he makes a big deal over. It makes the character's acting.
They talk at length about conveying expressions and feelings, mostly comedy, and Oda complements Tanaka for her opinions and experience. She says that it's a comedian's job to convey certain feelings like rushing to ride a train, missing it and then pretending like you didn't want to ride. Or tripping in public and acting like you meant to. Oda asks if there are differneces between the real expressions and the ones comedians must express and she agrees and admits it's a problem of adjustment for those acting to get it right. Oda believes it isn't important for a character to say what they're feeling as much it is for the characters around said character to bring out the feelings with their actions. Oda believes that having characters express themselves directly through lines just so that children can understand is no difference from reading a novel and he's not writing a novel, he's writing manga. You have to do it all with expressions.
Tanaka says (because she's an old lady) she likes the drama in the series the best. Oda says he tries with all his heart to make the story "A battle with drama". He admits shonen manga really stems from feelings of 'I wanna be strong' and 'I wanna fight strong guys'. Oda says the reason he wants to go beyond that and infuse it with drama is because of (wait for iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit)
Dragon Ball.
If all he drew was a battle comic it would be compared to DB and he would instantly be crushed in the history of manga. It was something he had to avoid in order to survive.
Tanaka recalls that Kappei read his lines from the scene where they part with Merry and it made her cry which she got mad about since it was before recording.
Oda reflects on the Merry scene and says that even for OP it's a huge leap into the realm of fantasy, a talking ship. When he drew it, of course he cried and worked extremely hard on it but he was deeply concerned about how people would accept it. He was surprised that it had such a deep emotional response from fans.
Tanaka wonders if it was even necessary considering the heavy impact of Luffy VS Usopp and comments on what a wonderful character is. Oda says he's the closest to a human in the series with everyone else being super human. He feels that as Usopp slowly gets stronger, his readers can feel the same way and get stronger too. Tanaka loves how when Luffy and team go off leaving Nami and Usopp behind then they both say, "Counting on you -_-;" Oda says there are certain things he wants to keep the same because it will just upset the balance. No matter who joins, he always wants Usopp to be the weakest, he always wants Chopper to believe Usopp's lies. There are just some weaknesses he wants them to carry.
They're asked if they have any requests for one another.
Oda takes a paragraph to say he wants Tanaka to stay the same and do as she always does. She asks if he means it since he says it so much. He says yeah, he even likes how she plays tricks on others because she thinks about how the person she plays tricks on will enjoy it later. Tanaka says she sometimes says too much because she ate the Pera Pera no Mi (a footnote describes it as a fruit she concocted that will let anyone say anything without reservation, the footnote also says 'it will not appear in the manga…......or just maybe....'. perapera means speaking freely or speedily. )
Tanaka just requests that Oda keep up the drama because it's great for the 'Ma and Pa's' of Japan to enjoy. In response to this, Oda says he has a new ambition. He relates how many children grow up and read manga and then read it to their kids thinking about how nostalgic it is, but he admits there's a blank where most people just stop reading it in their life. He wants to erase that blank and make it so people can enjoy it throughout their entire lives. He wants parents and children to be on the same level of fandom. Tanaka questions whether or not he hasn't already succeeded. Her son is 20 and she and him have different opinions and discussions regarding the series. As a parent she loves Kureha's line, "Go on, ya idiot son!", and her son loves Hiruruk's line, "I enjoyed my life to the fullest!"
...........oh man, this next part......
Damn you Oda! Damn you and your cutting straight through my heart strings!!!! I guess because he's specifically talking about my age and what I'm planning on doing in the near future this is why this resonates with me. I'll just quote them here.
Tanaka: Since this began publication, readers who were in middle school are just about to get married aren't they?
Oda: Yeah. Readers now have their own families and until their children become old enough to read, I'll do my best continuing One Piece.
Tanaka: And I'll continue to put your words onto the screen.
♪♫♪♫♪
