[Warner Japan] Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken: Anime NYC 2019 Report

What You Need to Know:

• Anime NYC is one of the biggest Anime Conventions in the East-Coast which brings over 50,000 anime fans during the 3-days event. At this year’s annual convention, the upcoming Anime series “Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken” held its premiere screening panel with Science SARU producer, Eunyoung Choi.
• The line of the eager fans stretched outside of the venue to see the most recent TV series directed by Masaaki Yuasa of Science SARU.
  Over 300 enthusiastic fans gathered in the room and panel kicked off with the overwhelming excitement. After a brief introduction followed by the short trailer, original manga and voice actors were introduced. When the staffs were announced, Eunyoung Choi, the producer and co-founder of Science SARU was welcomed onto the stage.
  Eunyoung introduced herself by how she came to Japan after studying Fine Art and Sculpture at university. She then enrolled in a college in London and found her way in the anime industry upon returning to Japan. Her unconventional career path amazed the audience.
• A full breakdown of the discussion is below.

Source: Official Press Release

Detailed Discussion

The discussion followed onto the question of how the project initially came about.
To answer that, Eunyoung commented.

“When Eizouken came up during the project development meeting, director mentioned he knew this title. This was a huge surprise as we thought he rarely had the time to check out new manga out there. I asked him how he knew and his told me, “There were a lot of people asking me to direct that title when I searched on twitter”!”
Eunyoung also added “If you wanted something to be made by him, maybe you should post on internet!” and audiences burst into laughter.

During the discussion, the setting board of the ornithopter or the flying bot that appears in Eizouken was revealed. Comparing the designs in the original manga and anime, Eunyoung explained;
“Anime settings aren’t always the same as the original source. We do try to recreate of course, but as anime is all about motion, the important thing is to make the audience believe “This bot will fly”. Therefore, we need to understand the logic and the mechanism of the bot and add extra elements to it if needs to be”.
She also revealed how Yuasa worked on his title and what his creative process was like. “After studying the original source material, director and mechanic designer discussed. The director is studious and does thorough-research on all sorts of things from actual footages and more to develop his ideas. On the other hand, he is also very open and willing to take on comments from the mechanic designer if it contribute to making improvements.”

A special comment video from the manga author Sumito Oowara followed on. The audiences were especially thrilled the way he said “Please watch Eizouken! Bye bye~!” in English.

As the audiences’ excitement reached its climax, the special screening for Anime NYC started with warm applause. Although it was only for 10minutes, the audience laughed at several points during the premiere.
When the screening ended, Eunyoung added “It was the director’s idea to make voice actors to act out the foot-step noises. We all objected to it at first, but the finished piece was really amazing. He is always so full of great ideas!”

As the panel reached to the end, Eunyoung thanked the fans for coming to see her and mentioned; “Please look forward to the broadcast of the Episode.1. Science SARU has other titles coming up such as “SUPER SHIRI”, “Japan Sinks 2020” and “Inu-Oh”. We can continue to create variety of titles because of your support. Thank you as always!”
With that remark, the panel ended with warm content and loud cheers.

Some comments from the industry;
“I’ve only seen the first half of Science SARU’s upcoming “Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!” and I’m already convinced it’ll be one of the best anime of 2020”
(Miles Thomas; Director, Social Media & Editorial Programming at elation)

“When I first saw the concept art for “Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!”, I was absolutely blown away at how intricate the designs were. After watching the first part of episode 1, I can't wait to watch more of the show and see what Science SARU has to offer for the adaptation.”
(Kwok-Wai Hanson; Co-Founder of Anime Trending)

Great write up!

Yeah, now I kind of understand the industry better after reading this!