Last year marked the 20th anniversary since the start of TV anime broadcasting, and “Bobobo” has been gaining excitement with its merchandise development and collaboration projects, and now it will appear at Shueisha’s spring manga festival “Spring Man!! 2024”!
Bobobo, Beauty, and Chief Patch will appear in the commercial for this project to enliven “Spring Man!! 2024”. Following on from Takehito Koyasu, whom we interviewed last time, Animate Times spoke to Hiroki Shibata, who served as the sound director of this commercial and the series director of the work!
The TV anime “Bobobo” has been slowly gaining support since its broadcast, and now has many fans. Mr. Shibata was confused by the popularity of not only this commercial, but also apparel goods and food products, which were constantly being released!? Mr. Shibata was puzzled by the popularity of not only this commercial but also apparel goods and food products. Mr. Shibata spoke candidly about the episode, why he thinks “Bobobo” is loved, and more.
I definitely want Hajikerists to read the secret story behind the production of this work, which is full of mysteries, including the content of the work and how it created a boom…!
–How was Mr. Shibata involved in “Bobobo” at the time it was broadcast?
Hiroki Shibata (hereinafter referred to as Shibata): At the time, I was working as a series director, which is what is called a director at another company. When launching a program, you talk with the producer about the direction you want to take, and think about the opening and ending footage and the cut before the commercial called an eye catch. I also worked with the writer to compose the scenario while comparing it to the original work, and also checked dubbing and various productions.
–While checking each section, you were also working on various things at the same time. So how did you become the series director for “Bobobo”?
Shibata: I don’t know the details of the process of making the first project, but I got involved because I was told that they were making an anime of “Bo-bobo” and wanted me to be the director. At that time, I heard that TV Asahi’s young female producers were excited about making “Bobobo” into an anime.
–What was your impression when you first encountered the original work?
Shibata: I read the work for the first time after receiving the offer, and the second half of the manga seemed to have a certain flow, but the first half was quite chaotic, and I found myself thinking, “I wonder how the flow will turn out.” I was worried when I read that (lol).
First of all, when turning this work into an animation, I thought about how to make it popular with the general public. It was a tough job, but I think it paid off because we had Yoshio Urasawa, who was in charge of the series composition of this work, write the first episode. He’s a crazy person, so he read the short stories of Sawai-sensei, such as one-shots before they were serialized, and wrote about the best parts.
My first idea was to create at least a cool action story, and then use it as a gag in the second half. Mr. Sawai said that he likes Toei anime such as Dragon Ball, so I thought it would be interesting to bring out Toei’s uniqueness and bring in gags that have different differences, so I went ahead and made it.
Actually, the action at the beginning of the first episode was inspired by Dragon Ball… So I tried to create some tension, but from the second episode onwards, it was completely “bobobo” (lol). It was difficult to think of such an approach.
–The beginning of the first episode started with the “previous episode” (lol).
Shibata: Anyway, the atmosphere was “Let’s do something weird!” (laughs). If you do it now, it might be dangerous. It may be difficult to do something as experimental as “Bobobo” again on terrestrial TV in the Reiwa era.
–I think it was a difficult work to animate, but it was completed after much trial and error by the staff.
Shibata: At first, through trial and error, we added more action, and like the transformation scenes in hero and magical girl movies, we made Shinken’s performance the same every time to make it easier to understand. We tried to get people who didn’t know the original work to like it, but in the end we came to the conclusion that it would be more interesting to stick to the original work.
だから、アクションに重きを置くことは少なくなっていって。エピソードによっては、アニメーターさんたちがかっこよく描いてくれていることもありますけど、軌道修正を繰り返す中で原作をアレンジしすぎないスタイルになっていったかと思います。
ーー確かに、おなじみのバンクを挟んで最後は鼻毛真拳で倒す、という展開がキャッチーで、次の話にも入りやすかったと記憶しています。
芝田：お決まりの音楽や演出を使って、できるだけとっつきやすいようにしたかったんです。
ーーたしかに、リアルタイムで見ていた世代としては、バンクなどの画や音で鼻毛真拳を思い出すくらい刷り込まれています。
芝田：狙った通りになっていたんだ！ 良かった！
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