Akon08: Now With 100% More Nabeshin
There are actually some non-Nabeshin guests here too, but they didn’t note their names…the panel officially says Nabeshin, Steven Cummings, Megumi Cummings, and Jason Tarbox, but there’s definitely no Megumi up there. But Nabeshin has offered to show us his “secret pictures.” Though I think he also said that they’re embarassing…but now he won’t actually show them. He seems to be waiting for his computer to boot up…
Nabeshin is now showing a design for a manga he wants to turn into an anime; he’s seeking a sponsor (…among the audience). It’s not something I recognize but it looks cute. Opened up for questions and I asked how he happened to wind up doing a cameo in Combat Butler Hayate. He says that the producer of the anime really liked Nabeshin, so that’s how it happened. The producer also wanted a special guest, so Nabeshin seemed like a good idea. But they didn’t really have money to get a special guest, so the producer was looking for a volunteer, so…again, Nabeshin was a good idea. And Nabeshin is a “soft touch” so he let him get away with it, being the wonderful guy that he is. Nabeshin said his original appearance in the episode was too short so he just kept on going.
Next question is who inspires Nabeshin. Nabeshin says that god puts ideas in his head when he wakes up…but he can’t think very well when he wakes up so he doesn’t always get them. Someone now wants to know if there are weapons in Nabeshin’s afro, and Nabeshin notes that you can’t carry guns in Japan so it’s still hiding. If you ask something really strange, he can kill you, he says.
There’s a translator here by the way, but Tarbox just keeps translating for him. Someone asked what Nabeshin was running from all the time in Excel Saga and Nabeshin says he’d just gotten married. And to please beware when you get married.
A question for everyone, who is your favorite character from one of your series. Nabeshin’s favorite character is Nabeshin, unsurprisingly. And his second-favorite is…Nabeshin. And the worst character is also Nabeshin. Just so we’re clear. Nabeshin’s anime is all about Nabeshin. Sounds like a cult mantra! Tarbox likes whatever he’s working on at any given moment, and the man I presume is Steven Cummings says he likes Griffin from TOKYOPOP’s global manga Pantheon High…because since he’s the son of Hades, he can’t die, so he occasionally kills himself to get out of class. Y’know, since he can come back in an hour or so.
Has Nabeshin ever been really sad to have to end a series? (Actually this might have been for everyone.) Nabeshin says he often gets really bored with stuff so he’s pretty happy when things end. He’s kinda jumpy, so he soon wants to make something else. And no one can really stop him so he’ll keep making anime. Translator Tarbox wishes the really really easy series never ended– minimal words, lots of art. Cummings will be sad to see Pantheon High end.
Does anyone have an ideal project that they’ve always wanted to do but never gotten around to doing? Nabeshin says he wants to make an anime about Nabeshin being the coolest person in the world, but he probably can’t because maybe he’s NOT the coolest person in the world. Probably he’ll make the most cool person in the world in 2-3 years, so we should remember him. Tarbox thinks Nabeshin’s works are already the ideal works, so the question just doesn’t really apply to him. But…okay, I missed Tarbox’s description, but Cummings says that now that he knows how to make comics, a lot of his old ideas from when he was young seem really stupid. He just likes something new and interesting things.
What was their first experience with animation (never mind that two guests are involved in comics, not anime)? Nabeshin says there were no anime with Nabeshin in them, so he went and made one.
The tech guy is asking what the funniest or weirdest thing that’s come up in a series he’s worked on. When he was making Excel Saga he met the original author and when anime is made based on a manga, the producer and author often argue. The original author has an idea of how the anime should be and the producer has a different one and wants to make it their own, etc. When he made Excel Saga he thought there was a really good way to deal with it, by killing the author in the first episode of the anime. He thinks all anime should start that way. Cummings says that when he was about to start Pantheon High he’d been working on a French series, and the writer he worked with was Paul Benjamin. They’d sent in all the Pantheon High stuff and had it approved, and then he got a phone call telling him he needed to draw more like Sailor Moon or they’d fire him. Gooo TOKYOPOP!
Someone asked my question…what is this manga about that he wants to do an anime of? It’s about five 12-year-old girls who save their own city from enemies…but ONLY in their own small town. They are only 12, after all. It should be best for someone who likes young girls. Someone asks if Nabeshin will be in it: maybe the main role, but he’s not sure. Will everyone watch it if he’s a 12-year-old girl in it? We all applaud, and he says we must be crazy, since he’s 43.
Press gal just asked how about a 12-year-old boy Nabeshin. Nabeshin says he’s 43 but his heart is 12. The boy who’s 12 thinks he can get away with anything.
What kind of TV did you watch as a kid? Of course anime, like Starblazer (aka Battleship Yamato). He really likes explosions in anime.
Aoi of Japanator just asked if there’s anything Nabeshin CAN’T do. The only thing he can’t do, he says, is quit his afro. Insert requisite “I wish I could quit you!” joke here.
Ever gonna make an anime JUST about Nabeshin? He wonders if everyone would watch it if only Nabeshin was in it. Will we pay for it? Everyone applauds, and Nabeshin says that America is awesome.
Someone says Tenchi GXP needed more Nabeshin in it, and asks if there was some drama behind the scenes there. Nabeshin says that GXP has an original author, and the original author was aaaalways sitting right next to him while he worked on it. So he couldn’t really put himself in it but his voice got into it. He was a producer and a voice actor in it, and he thinks he can’t make anything like that anymore.
How much of the manga does he read before he decides he wants to make it into an anime. He probably reads just the first 2-3 pages and that’s it. First he’ll make the anime, and then he’ll read the original manga and be impressed by it. Then when he feels cheerful and impressed by the original he’ll want to make more and better anime. Mostly he’s too busy making anime to read manga, including the manga he’s in the process of adapting. He thinks the person who makes anime really closely based on the manga who digs into the original works…he wants to say, “If you have time to dig into the manga, just make the anime already!”
What is Nabeshin’s no ideal day? When he wakes up in the morning and his afro is bigger, that’s a perfect day. But often it’s kind of flat because he sleeps on it. Nabeshin’s day starts from making his afro bigger.
Someone asked for more details about Pantheon High, with the children of characters from Greek, Norse, Egyptian, and Japanese mythology (among others), who go to a special high school because they’re too dangerous to go to regular school. And apparently in book 3, a lot of stuff gets blown up. (For the record, Cummings is the illustrator of the manga.)
Tarbox asks if we’d like to see Nabeshin animate Pantheon High, and in all honesty, that would be kind of awesome. Apparently Hercules is the gym teacher in the school and he has an afro, actually. Nabeshin asks if he can really do it, and Cummings kao taos and says “tanomu” (basically a very formal way of saying “please.”) Nabeshin says “makaserou” (leave it to me!).
Someone just asked about the ending of Puni Puni Poemy, and Nabeshin asks if she wanted to see more of it. He says he thinks he made too much of it.
Someone just asked a question of the translator, asking if he usually goes to cons to translate…apparently he just does A-kon ’cause he lives nearby. Ooookay. But Nabeshin’s slave/assistant is in the audience too, and she has to go to cons whether she likes it or not.
Next question is whether Nabeshin has any anime goodies on his computer that no one’s gotten to see…someone else chimes in to see if there are any family photos. Nabeshin says that his family is his treasure so he can’t let us see it…if he said something like that he’d seem really cool, wouldn’t he? Someone asked if his kids have afros and he says “not yet.”
How much creative freedom do all the panelists get when adapting/creating manga or anime, and does it vary per project / increase as time goes on? The asker is sort of over-complicating the question, but Nabeshin answers that anime is a battle between men. EPIC! It’s really a hassle to make your idea happen at the expense of other people’s. He feels sorry because he wins too much. But when making anime, he sometimes doesn’t realize where he needs to stop and no one tells him, so he gets upset because he worries that people might not be happy with the animation he makes. But during the arguments with the original authors and others, he sometimes gets new ideas from the arguing, so he loves making animation while fighting with people. He thought he just said something really cool but no one laughed.
Someone asked if Nabeshin will sign autographs…but he already did an autograph session and is having another tomorrow at 3pm. And I think John didn’t bring his copy of Wallflower. Sad!
Nabeshin sung a song in an early episode of Excel Saga and someone asked he made the song himself. Nabeshin made it up as he went along, completely improvised. But he can’t copy it because he’s forgotten it now.
How did Nabeshin (the character) go from Excel Saga to being an underground weapons dealer in…Nerima Daikon. In Nerima Daikon he tried not to expose his face in it because he did it too much in Excel Saga. So he tried to tone it down. Someone wants Nabeshin to pose for a picture for everyone, which sounds like a recipe for disaster. Nabeshin says he’s embarassed so max 3 pics per person.
May 30th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Great write up! *goes to link it*
May 30th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Okay you and I have to figure out a place to meet somewhere tomorrow.