The Daicon Chronicles, Part 3
Looking back from 40 years later
Any time you come across an artifact with as much singularity as the two Daicon Opening Anime films, it’s natural to wonder what shaped them into being. After all, nothing emerges from a vacuum. When you learn that they were made by fans who were inspired by the SF boom that was happening around them in the late 70s/early 80s, it only explains some of what you’re seeing. When you investigate what they were exposed to simply because they were born at a certain time, that explains more. But the piece that’s still missing is invisible; their cultural coordinates. What role did this have to play in shaping them to produce this singularity?
That question was answered in 2023 when the first Daicon Opening Anime film reached its 40th anniversary and modern media turned an eye toward its legacy. Specifically, there were two magazines that pursued that answer:
Great Mechanics G (Futaba Co.) is a quarterly publication dedicated to mecha anime, and Figure King (World Photo Press) is a monthly digest for toy collectors. Neither seems like the place to go for coverage of a 40-year old student film, which all by itself should tell you something about the context that surrounds and entangles all of these disparate elements.
One way to understand the Daicon legacy is to think of it as a continuous feedback loop. In 1983, a consortium of SF fans based in Osaka Japan concentrated their collective passion into a project that energized everyone who came into contact with it. As that collective grew, their output and expertise grew with it. It reached critical mass when the fans evolved into pros and brought their energy to the same pop culture torrent that inspired them in the first place. When you track that expansion over 40 years, it then becomes very easy to imagine modern magazines showing an interest. After all, they are products of the feedback loop.
Presented here is a lengthy interview from the Spring 2023 issue of Great Mechanics G (published March 17) that explores the question I raised above: what role did cultural coordinates have to play? The content in Figure King (September 26) was much broader with multiple interviews rather than just one, but since it explores the granular details of Daicon Film’s other productions, I’m limiting that content to coverage of the Opening Anime films (and it is shown first).
Hot tip: both magazines can still be ordered from Amazon.co.jp: Great Mechanics G here and Figure King here.
Daicon III Opening Animation
The opening animation, shown at the opening ceremony of the Japanese SF convention Daicon III held in Osaka in 1981, became the talk of the town, even being featured in anime magazines.
It was an extremely rare cel anime produced by amateurs, and the production method was a process of trial and error. The registration holes were made using a 2-hole punch from an office supply, and the drawings were done on B5 paper. Many volunteer staff were gathered to color and finish the cels.
It marked the beginning of the “legend.”
8mm film / Running time approx. 5 min.
Completed in August 1981
Original drawings: Hideaki Anno, Takami Akai
Direction: Hiroyuki Yamaga
This opening anime was produced as one of the projects prepared for Daicon III. A girl with a red backpack is asked to carry a glass of water, and she mows down SF mecha and characters, including mobile infantry, on her way to Daicon. It was a fitting opening for an event that encompasses all aspects of SF.
This work was made before Daicon Film was established. The characters were drawn by Takami Akai, Hideaki Anno was in charge of the mecha, and Hiroyuki Yamaga was in charge of backgrounds and direction. They were students at Osaka University of Arts, and played a central role in the creative process
In particular, the mobile infantry (powered suit) designed by Studio Nue, which originates from Starship Troopers and appears as the main enemy, is an icon that SF fans have a deep attachment to. Seeing the mecha moving in anime was met with applause.
Daicon IV Opening Animation
At Daicon IV, which was held in Osaka, an even larger-scale anime was produced. The quality of the work was so good that it was talked about for years to come.
The main staff in charge were Hiroyuki Yamaga, Hideaki Anno, and Takami Akai. Anno’s art, such as a spectacular scene where buildings collapse, is of legendary quality that is still talked about today. The cel system was the same as that used in commercial anime.
This work is a gold standard that will remain in anime history, transcending even commercial anime.
8mm film / Running time approx. 5 minutes
Completed in August 1983
Director: Hiroyuki Yamaga
Animation Director: Hideaki Anno, Takami Akai
Key Animators: Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, Masahiro Maeda, Norifumi Seizumi, Toru Yoshida, etc.
Art Director: Toru Saegusa
The girl from the Daicon III opening animation appears as a grown-up, flying around the SF space in a bunny girl outfit with upbeat Western music. This work features over 400 SF characters from novels, anime, comics, and tokusatsu, far more than the previous work, and conveys the message that SF should be enjoyed beyond the boundaries of all media.
Compared to the previous work, which was a trial and error process, the production structure was significantly strengthened. Prior to this, Hideaki Anno and Hiroyuki Yamaga had traveled to Tokyo to participate in Macross and gained experience in the professional world. At the same time, art and background staff were trained and public recruitment was conducted.
Students Masahiro Maeda and Yoshiyuki Sadamoto also participated in the art, and professional animators Ichiro Itano and Toshihiro Hirano also participated as guests. It can also be said to be a historic work in the sense that Gainax was later founded by the members who participated in this work.
Daicon IV’s credit system
The “fantasy” venue for Daicon IV was “Immigrant Planet Daicon IV,” and a unique currency system was prepared to fully express the otherworldly feeling. It was named “Credit” (Cr), a unit of currency often used in science-fiction works. One credit was equal to 100 yen. In addition to paper money, coins were ordered from a coin manufacturer for gaming machines. A currency exchange was set up at the venue to distribute this currency to all participants, and small exchange booths and mobile booths were also prepared. Unused credits were exchanged for yen afterward, though many participants took them home as souvenirs.
TOP LEFT: 10 credit banknote featuring the girl from Daicon IV Opening Anime, illustrations by Takami Akai. The design is full of playfulness, and the numbers contain various puns.
BOTTOM LEFT: “Pe notes” were issued as a secondary currency, with 10,000 Pe = 100 yen. Pe comes from the world’s longest running SF series, Space Hero Perry Rhodan, which began in Germany in 1961 and is still being published as of 2023, and its fans were called the “Pe Cult.” The illustrations on the front of the note were by Toru Saegusa and Jun Tamaya.
BOTTOM CENTER: 5 credit coin with serrated edges, an elaborate design. There was also a 1 credit coin.
BOTTOM RIGHT: In order to handle the exchange efficiently, a banking box containing multiple bills was prepared.
“Daicon Film” in 1983 and the “otaku situation” in the east and west
Kansai x Kanto
Yasuhiro Kamimura x Koichi Inoue
Something that should not be forgotten about the 1983 movement is “Daicon Film.” This was a group of independent filmmakers, focusing on anime and tokusatsu, who became famous overnight in 1981 when they created the opening anime for the 20th Japanese SF convention Daicon III held in Osaka. Many people know that this group became the parents of Gainax, which produced several creators.
We spoke to Yasuhiro Kamimura of Groundworks, who managed the copyrights for Evangelion and Daicon Film and was also a participant in Daicon Film. We discussed the situation in Kansai, including the founding of Daicon Film. We asked Koichi Inoue, a former Sunrise employee and a familiar face in this magazine, and a representative of Kanto, to participate in the interview.
What were the differences between east and west anime and tokusatsu cultures in 1983? And what kind of group was Daicon Film?
Composition and text by Hiroyuki Kawai
Translator’s notes: Kansai and Kanto are two different regions of Japan, each containing multiple prefectures. Kansai contains the city of Osaka while Kanto contains the city of Tokyo. Both were hotbeds of SF fandom and had differing cultures. To put this in perspective, think New York and Chicago or Los Angeles.
Also, in case the word “tokusatsu” is new to you, it literally translates to “special effects” and serves as a catchall term for live-action films and TV shows featuring monsters and superheroes. Think Godzilla and Ultraman.
Yasuhiro Kamimura profile
Born in 1962. Originally from Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture. Participated in “Daicon Film” while studying at Osaka University. After working for a major company, he joined Gainax in 1991. In 2010, he founded Groundworks Inc., which manages the copyrights of the Evangelion series and other works. Since December 2019, he has been serving as the representative director of Gainax Inc. As a member of the certified NPO Anime Tokusatsu Archive Organization (ATAC), he also preserves materials for Daicon Film.
Translator’s note: in the time since this interview was published, Gainax declared bankruptcy and some of its IP shifted over to Hideaki Anno’s company, Studio Khara. Read more about that here.
Rebellious spirit against the Kanto region and the soil it created
Kamimura: This is a special feature on 1983, but we need to start by talking about what happened before that. I went to college and came to Osaka in April 1981, and Daicon III was held that summer. In the 1970s, Space Battleship Yamato and Mobile Suit Gundam came out, and otaku were enthusiastically cultivated all over the country. Before that, it was normal to graduate from anime and tokusatsu when you reached middle or high school.
Inoue: I was born in the countryside of Yamagata. So I represent Tohoku, rather than Tokyo. (Laughs) There were no bookstores or movie theaters in my town. The nearest traffic light was more than a 10-minute walk away. You could only go to a movie theater or a bookstore by traveling to the next town. I heard about Kanto later. Kanto had the Keiju Club, and Ekoda’s Manga Gallery was also famous. When I heard stories like that, I thought, “The center is nice,” whether it was in the east or west. Because there are various information networks.
Kamimura: I was born and raised in Himeji. It was a medium-sized city with many bookstores and movie theaters. I think there were about 12 screens at the time. So you could see almost all the movies that were out. We could also get TV. When TV Osaka was established, Sun TV stopped broadcasting anime. (Laughs)
Interviewer: What was the situation like for anime and tokusatsu fans at that time?
Kamimura: At the time, I had a few friends who liked anime and tokusatsu, but it was a minority at school. We were with people who considered themselves SF fans. When I was in high school, anime magazines and mooks started to appear. The launch of Animage magazine in 1978 was a big event for us. Video was not yet widespread at the time, so the images you saw would disappear into thin air. So was a big deal when mooks came out that let you revisit the images in print. I think that up until then, the only general media for the generation above us, who had otaku-like interests, was SF Magazine.
Inoue: For example, if you wanted to learn about old SF movies, there were hardly any media. At the time, Starlog was the only thing you could find.
Kamimura: All of it came out at once. “Apparently there are people who like anime and tokusatsu. Maybe it could be a business.” That’s how the trend started. When the Yamato movie became a hit, people like Masanobu Komaki and Noriaki Ikeda emerged as editors and writers, and started spreading the otaku things they had discovered to the world. Ikeda putting it into words was a big deal.
Inoue: That’s what opened Pandora’s box. (Laughs)
Kamimura: I think so. Even if you thought “Ultraman is cool,” you didn’t have the means, grammar, or vocabulary to express it. So Komaki created a magazine, Ikeda wrote articles, and they started talking about the works.
Noriaki Ikeda started “Tokusatsu Hero Retsuden” in Animec, Asahi Sonorama released their Fantastic Collection mooks, Tokuma Shoten released Roman Albums, anime became the hot topic in the subculture magazine OUT, and Animage became a major anime information magazine with its own brand. In Tokyo, otakus were starting to make a big impact in the media, and our generation was the one that received it.
At that time, the only source of information was bookstores, so when I was in high school, I would stop by 3-4 bookstores every day on my way home from school. Back then they allowed you to browse, so I read hundreds of manga. My personal favorite mook was the Ultra Seven Fantastic Collection. Noriaki Ikeda and Yasushi Kishikawa organized the works and showed how to enjoy them, and stories that could only be seen on TV were covered with visuals, so it was a big shock at the time.
Inoue: Back then, you just had to wait for a rerun. There was no home video. Even before that time, children used to go see monster movies. However, there were hardly any books that could verify this, and no information magazines existed at all.
Kamimura: So there was no feedback. As media began to emerge, otaku culture also saw greater across-the-board cooperation.
Inoue: So that’s when you started your activities to express your own world in some way.
Daicon III, the 20th Japanese Science-fiction Convention (August 22-23, 1981. The third convention held in Osaka, called “Daicon III”) Science-fiction writer Sakyo Komatsu (pictured at front left, holding a microphone) and others can be seen. Approximately 1200 people attended.
Daicon Film “Legendary film” (1)
Daicon III Opening Anime
A short anime film on 8mm film that was screened at the opening ceremony of Daicon III. Young people such as Hideaki Anno, Takami Akai and Hiroyuki Yamaga, who were all students at the time, were involved in its production. The content of the film was beyond the level of an amateur production, and it became a legend as it received a huge round of applause.
Kamimura: Recently, I’ve read in memoirs and interviews about the second floor (Animage editorial department) of Tokuma (bookstore), and the movement to create a new culture at that time was truly amazing.
[Translator’s note: read all about it here.]
Another thing that was amazing was the culture of SF conventions. When Comiket was still small, I think the places where SF fans could interact were the mail-order doujinshi [fanzines] and the SF conventions where fans from all over the country gathered. SF conventions were originally centered on novels. Manga was recognized thanks to Osamu Tezuka, Go Nagai, and Fujiko Fujio. Then Star Wars came along and people started saying, “The visuals are interesting,” and Space Battleship Yamato came along and people started saying, “Why not anime too?”
From there, people’s interests expanded to various genres. SF fans who were biased toward novels were highly literate. In other words, there were many people with high academic ability. These people sparked a fire in Tokyo, and many fan clubs and doujinshi gatherings for authors began to appear, and many otaku editorial departments began to appear at various publishing companies. But there were no manga artists or publishing companies in Kansai. So people would think things like, “The guys in Tokyo are so close to the writers that they act all high and mighty” or “They go around to the editorial departments just to hang out.”
Interviewer: That’s not very interesting. (Laughs)
Kamimura: So Toshio Okada and Yasuhiro Takeda said, “The SF conventions held by the Tokyo guys aren’t interesting. We’ll hold a more interesting SF convention.” It went through many twists and turns, but that led to Daicon III in 1981.
Interviewer: It’s a rebellious spirit that’s typical of Kansai culture.
Kamimura: That’s right. It was totally based on resentment.
Inoue: I was already living in Tokyo at the time, but I didn’t have the background of things that happened before that. I started going to Sunrise, and in 1981 I met Noriaki Ikeda, and I also handled articles for Animage. It took a while to realize that the people who created that culture actually started from the same roots.
Interviewer: People in western Japan at that time didn’t go to Tokyo very often. For example, people from Kyushu often went to Osaka or Kansai to go to university.
Inoue: Kansai is stronger in electrical engineering.
Kamimura: That’s right. There are many companies with technical capabilities in Kansai, such as Sharp and Panasonic. Tokyo is science, but Osaka is engineering. There was also a lot of industry-academia joint research at universities.
The concept of visual science-fiction was created by the TV generation
Interviewer: What was the atmosphere like among science-fiction fans in Kansai at that time?
Kamimura: I think the generations have changed in the same way. At the time, the generation of SF fans led by Okada and Takeda, who loved both anime and tokusatsu, had different tastes and different ways of thinking than the older generation of SF fans. There’s a divide in terms of whether they grew up surrounded by anime and tokusatsu.
From the perspective of the older generation, Ultraman was a work for children, and even though they acknowledged Yamato to a certain extent, they didn’t want to put it in the mainstream. They’d say, “That’s not it, we think Yamato and Gundam are more interesting.”
The new generation used SF as a starting point, and of course they liked novels, manga, anime, tokusatsu, both Western and Japanese. “We like everything equally.” With the exception of a very small minority, it seemed that the older generation wanted to put novels at the top.
Interviewer: I wonder what the difference was there.
Kamimura: Whether you had a TV when you were born is probably a big factor. Astro Boy started in 1963. We grew up with that, and there was a new media aimed at us, and that’s where Yamato came from. There was no longer any media aimed at the generation ten years older.
Interviewer: Your generation started to become active in the media very quickly, didn’t they? It makes a lot of sense when you say that TV was behind it.
Kamimura: Neither Hideo Ogata, who was the editor-in-chief of Animage at the time, nor Suzuki Toshio, who is now at Ghibli, grew up in an anime environment, did they? There’s a legend that they didn’t know anything about anime, so they started by interviewing high school students when they launched. They recruited people like Noriaki Ikeda and his friends who were “more than fans” to create a media that spread anime to the world. As a result, the work was recognized as a culture, and our generation picked it up and it blossomed all at once.
Interviewer: It makes sense that anime and tokusatsu have become the main subjects of science-fiction.
Kamimura: Even among science-fiction fans, those who were interested in the visual aspects must have thought, “There are so many interesting things out there now, why can’t they talk about this work?” I think Okada and the others had that frustration too.
Inoue: Basically, if it’s a science-fiction convention, any kind of science-fiction should be fine.
Kamimura: Well, if you look at it from the perspective of the service-oriented spirit that is unique to Osaka people, or the spirit of, “it’s all about the reception”, the science-fiction conventions at the time were boring. The idea that a science-fiction convention should be more interesting led to Daicon III in 1981. The opening anime was what sealed that assessment.
Inoue: Even Sunrise responded immediately to that. (Laughs) There was a parody culture back then.
Interviewer: Looking back, it feels like the moment when the era of fan-to-creator communication was established.
Kamimura: A critical mass was definitely being cultivated. Among creators, a generation with a fan mentality like Hideaki Anno, Shoji Kawamori, and Haruhiko Mikimoto started to stand out. The older generation of anime directors were basically people who said, “I really wanted to be a film director,” weren’t they? I think it was around this time that people who said, “I want to do anime” from the beginning started to take the lead.
Inoue: That’s exactly what Studio Nue was like. When young people showed up, they didn’t reject them, but pulled them in. They took in people who came to play, regardless of genre.
Kamimura: In a way, Osaka was jealous and competitive towards those “Tokyo guys.” There was no space they could dominate. So SF conventions were a good space for young people who wanted to do something. Daicon III was a really amazing convention. First of all, there was a well-equipped dealer’s room, original items were made and sold, the animation was produced and shown, the stage direction was well-developed, and above all, even though it was a fan-sponsored event, the hospitality toward the audience was unusually high. For amateurs, they were doing something of very high quality. Nobody didn’t want to think, “we can’t do that because we’re not in Tokyo.”
Inoue: The big publishers were all concentrated in Tokyo, weren’t they? If you wanted to do something in the Kansai region, you didn’t have a company to do it with.
Kamimura: I think Okada felt a sense of accomplishment in making and selling goods at Daicon III. They even started making and selling garage kits there, resin kits of the powered suit. The term garage kit didn’t exist yet, but I think Daicon III was the first in Japan to make the world aware that amateurs who were not big manufacturers could make and sell model kits.
Interviewer: It’s amazing that it was organized by amateurs.
Kamimura: Okada-san said some crazy things, and Takeda-san summarized them with his mysterious virtue. And then there was Sawamura-san, who was in charge of the actual work. He was a very sharp person, and he got the site moving. They were all amateurs, volunteers who worked without pay, but they had a strong organizational ability. They had leadership skills that couldn’t be dismissed as “play.”
They did a lot of different things even though most of them were amateur students. Event management, editing and publishing, video production, product development…Okada-san’s contributions in terms of ideas were huge. He’s currently active as a writer and commentator, but I think he should spread his achievements more widely. I’m a big fan of Okada. (Laughs) I think he’s the Steve Jobs of the Japanese otaku world. He also connected with the creator team of Anno, Takami Akai, and Hiroyuki Yamaga in visual production, and because Daicon III was a success, they decided to do Daicon IV.
A scene from the main stage of the 22nd SF Convention (August 20-21, 1983, held again in Osaka and called Daicon IV). Following the great success of Daicon III, the venue and number of participants expanded to about 4,000, the largest number in the history of SF conventions.
RIGHT: A booklet published by the Daicon Executive Committee immediately after the event, The 22nd Japan SF Convention Daicon IV Official After Report. If you could look inside, you’d see that a variety of guests were invited, including director Yoshiyuki Tomino, Sakyo Komatsu, Hiroshi Miyauchi, and even some from overseas. The list of collaborating staff (more than 200 people!) is also included, featuring some of today’s famous creators. Many of them were university students or young people of that age, and their enthusiasm was surprising.
Daicon Film “Legendary Film” (2)
Daicon IV opening film
A short anime screened at the opening ceremony of Daicon IV. In addition to the staff from Daicon III, professional animators Ichiro Itano, Toshihiro Hirano, and Narumi Kakinouchi also collaborated. The character movements and effects were further refined and highly praised.
Daicon Film “Legendary Film” 3
Patriotic Squadron Great Japan
Director / Character Design: Takami Akai
Screenplay / Toshio Okada
Mechanic Design / Hideaki Anno
This tokusatsu film was produced in 1982 by the independent film production group Daicon Film, which was formed by the film production staff who participated in the management of Daicon III and the production of the short anime. It was a strong parody of “Super Sentai” and the world situation at the time, and it caused a sensation. By the way, Ai Sukyaki (in green) was played by Kamimura! Watch it on Youtube here.
The transcendent quality that only an amateur could achieve
Interviewer: In 1983, Daicon IV was held. The opening anime was also powered up and released, but a few months before that, Daicon Film version of Return of Ultraman was released. Unlike the opening anime, which is currently difficult to see due to various circumstances, this can now be viewed through streaming services. On one hand I think, “what a great time we live in,” but on the other hand, it doesn’t seem amateur anymore, but more like semi-professional. It’s surprising.
Kamimura: No, they were completely amateur. It’s a strange expression to say that amateurs were doing professional things. (Laughs) I think they were at the pinnacle of amateur film in Japan. In particular, Daicon Film’s Return of Ultraman is something that can’t be surpassed in the tokusatsu genre.
Inoue: That’s right. There may be documentaries and anime, but it can’t be surpassed in tokusatsu.
Kamimura: For amateurs, just completing a tokusatsu is a great achievement.
Interviewer: You didn’t get permission from Tsuburaya Productions back then, did you?
Kamimura: Well, it was still a more relaxed time. (Laughs) The parody culture among fans was in full swing, so there was no thought of getting permission. We got in trouble when we showed it around the country and sold it on VHS at General Products. But then in 2001, we got official OK from Tsuburaya and were able to sell the DVD.
Interviewer: Even so, it’s amazing that you could do anything.
Kamimura: For example, when we decided to make a book, we didn’t start with, “OK, let’s make a table of contents…” We started by going to the print shop across from General Products and asking, “I want to make something like this, but what should I do?” (Laughs)
Interviewer: I see. (Laughs)
Inoue: Because we didn’t know how to do it, we ended up making it with a quality higher than necessary. (Laughs) Even with the real Ultraman, they went so far as to say, “There’s no need to make that because it won’t show up on film.” I think it was filmed in 8mm, right?
Kamimura: That’s right. The 1/24 MAT Arrow made by Toru Saegusa had airbrakes that opened. The wingtips were all equipped with electric lights. There was even a prop that could use freon gas to create a jet. It had a miniature light bulb installed, just for the shot where the freon gas glows and shoots out. But it never got used. (Laughs)
The MAT sub only appears in one shot in the opening, for about three seconds. (Laughs) It’s a resin model replicated in silicon, and it cost tens of thousands of yen.
The 1/24 MAT Arrow wouldn’t break even if you held just one side of the wing and lifted it up. It was light and very strong. And it was all made of paper, wasn’t it? It’s an incredible level of craftsmanship.
Inoue: Even the rotor of the MAT Gyro was made entirely of paper. That’s really amazing.
Kamimura: The rotor was always removed in the film, though. But he had no hesitation in making things. (Laughs) When Toru Saegusa was a student, he brought a papercraft pointer he had made to General Products as a customer, saying, “I made this, please put it up.” He was pulled in by the staff, who thought, “Here’s a guy who can make amazing things!” (Laughs) It’s a very Kansai-like story in that Saegusa built up his papercraft know-how from scratch.
Inoue: At the time, it was difficult to get ahold of three-dimensional objects, and there were no model kits of satisfactory quality. Even Yamato had a windup motor and a tire on its belly at the time. The power to “make something that satisfies me” was born from that soil.
Kamimura: When Anno was making a plamodel of Yamato, he cut off the windup box, and then gave up. (Laughs)
Inoue: Oh, I cut the windup off and got as far as putting a covering over it. (Laughs) I didn’t have any plastic, so I cut up some cardboard and stuck it on.
Bandai’s first Space Battleship Yamato model kit (1974) was aimed at children. Older viewers were very
disappointed by the addition of a windup motor and wheels, which deformed the anime design into a toy.
Kamimura: It was only a few years before that that plastic became commercially available. We didn’t have any putty, so we used paper clay. But the guys who joined the staff for Ultraman were boys who grew up with plamodels, so they knew the basics, like how to use glue and paint, and if they tried hard, they could make miniatures.
Then General Products’ new materials and new reproduction techniques were added, and the quality of the work improved. At first, we didn’t know where to get even poly putty, but that know-how accumulated.
Interviewer: Poly putty was originally for food prep, but I guess they never thought it would be used for modeling.
Kamimura: That’s right, the team helmets in Daicon’s Ultraman were made of plastic sheets. Saegusa also made the prototype out of paper. The paper model was made into a vacuform mold, and plastic sheets were shaped and assembled. It was a very technical job, and the items were quite fragile. It might have been quicker and cheaper to just use a bike helmet, but I think he had an obsession that “he had to make it from scratch.”
Inoue: It’s also strange that the thing they spent the least money on was the Ultraman costume. (Laughs)
Interviewer: There’s an urban legend that the budget was so high that they didn’t have enough for the costumes.
Kamimura: That’s not true. In fact, even that one is deluxe. Anno’s original Ultraman was meant to have a blue windbreaker. But Akai said, “That doesn’t look like Ultraman,” so Anno painted it silver and red just before filming.
Interviewer: Just before? (Laughs)
Daicon Film “Legendary Film” 4
Return of Ultraman, MAT Arrow No. 1 Launch Order
General Director / Hideaki Anno
Screenplay / Toshio Okada
Tokusatsu Director / Takami Akai
A tokusatsu work produced by Daicon Film in 1983 as part of the promotion for Daicon IV. A parody/homage work full of love for the original Ultraman series. As of March 2023, it is available on Amazon prime, so if you are in a position to watch it, please do!
See it with English subtitles on Youtube here and see a Making Of documentary here.
1983: the last time you could be an amateur
Interviewer: I get the impression that various talents met by fate.
Kamimura: In Osaka, there was a cross-organizational university SF research group. So when you said, “Come if you’re free,” various people came, and there was a base in the form of the General Products store. When the opening anime of Daicon III was playing there, some kids said, “I want to make something like that,” and we pulled them in. The biggest difference between Tokyo and Kanto is that there were professional jobs in Kanto, so employment relationships were created there. If you worked in an editorial department, you were a pro.
Inoue: In Kanto, it would probably be the Comiket Committee.
Interviewer: There were places in Kanto for people who wanted to go pro and for people who didn’t want to go pro. Both were there.
Inoue: There were companies that could work as professionals, or companies that dealt with publications on a nationwide scale. There were also a lot of companies that made models.
Kamimura: For some reason, Osaka had a high density of fans and awareness. But even if you just accumulated know-how, there was no place to spread it. That’s why the garage kit culture was born in Kansai.
Interviewer: In Kanto, if you had that kind of thinking, you’d probably make it in a company.
Kamimura: That’s right. Osaka had the thinking and the technology, but not the industry. So it evolved independent productions and garage kits. It’s easy to see why garage kits appeared at the same time at General Products and Kaiyodo.
Interviewer: They developed very much as indies because there was nowhere for them to go pro.
Kamimura: In Tohoku and Kyushu, there weren’t enough people to begin with, so they didn’t have that much power.
Interviewer: After that, many people went pro, but some didn’t choose that path.
Kamimura: That’s right. There were people who went pro and people who returned to being citizens, and I was in the middle.
Interviewer: There weren’t many people who could make it to 100, but there were probably a lot of people who could go from 10 to 100, and others who could go from 1 to 10, but not beyond that. I think it was also a place where you could bring together all sorts of different people.
Inoue: Exactly. When two people like that team up, they can go from 1 to 100 and become invincible. (Laughs)
Interviewer: That’s probably what’s so great about amateurs.
Kamimura: There’s also a synergistic effect of motivation. If there is a place, the information will also gather, and that is where the cross-linking happens. If the motivation of “I like monsters” didn’t connect to the information that “polyester putty is amazing,” figures would not have been created.
Interviewer: For example, Kawamori and Anno started to be active around 1982, and in 1984, Mamoru Nagano became a prominent mecha designer, so I feel that the period between 1982 and 1984 was a time when there were plenty of opportunities to become a pro.
Inoue: Yutaka Izubuchi debuted with Daimos, and Tadao Nagahama started using new people, designers, and writers. People started rising through the ranks. It was around this time that people on the scene started to think, “You can’t dismiss the fans.”
Kamimura: When I think about it now, they really did a good job. After Daicon III, they were planning to prepare for a convention two years later, which was a long-term plan for amateurs. Isn’t that amazing? For the young guys at the time, two years was the whole future. (Laughs)
In the meantime, they had problems like how to gather staff, how to train the staff they gathered, and how to maintain motivation. And then they said, “We’re going to hold an SF convention in two years. We’re going to make a promotional film for it.” Once the film was completed, it could be used for promotion and they could recruit staff members as they went along. Once they recruited staff, they could put them to work on the front line to gain experience. It was an environment where tasks were constantly occurring, such as solving daily problems. People grow in such places.
The staff gathered through the activities of Daicon Film and accumulated know-how, and they had successful experiences with screenings, so they had a high motivation. The people at Studio Nue who saw Daicon III invited Anno and Yamaga to become involved in Macross.
Interviewer: People who were not professional enough to do it, but still wanted to immerse themselves in creativity, would feel a great sense of accomplishment just by coming home from work or school and doing the tasks they were given.
Kamimura: That’s right. There are people in the world with potential, and they do exist. Giving those people a place, motivation, and actual work is a major role that Daicon Film played.
For example, in the story we were talking about earlier, there was someone who cut the windup motor off the bottom of a Yamato model as an amateur. If someone who gave up because it didn’t work met someone else who said, “You can do it if you use this material,” and gave them some plastic and poly putty, they would complete that Yamato, have a successful experience, and move on to the next step.
That’s what happened. And because there was a place called General Products, it meant things like “my prototype will be sold nationwide.” I realized that “there are a lot of talented people in the world” because I had examples around me. Looking back, I feel that way again.
P.S.
An examination of the Daicon legacy would be incomplete without a look at its echoes in other media. Here are the most prominent examples…
Otaku no Video, 1991
LEFT: AnimEigo DVD (2002) RIGHT: Japanese Bluray (2014)
A highly self-referential parody history of Gainax set in 1982 and 1985 in which fans cobble together their own Daicon-style opening anime that leads to a plot for world takeover. Anime story segments are interspersed with phony documentary footage.
See a subtitled trailer here | Read more about it here
FLCL, 2000
Anime series co-produced by Gainax, includes a direct takeoff on the Daicon IV bunny girl.
See a clip here | Read more about it here
Densha Otoko [Train Man], 2005
Live-action TV series based on the true story of an otaku stepping out of his comfort zone to try and romance a “real” woman. In a truly meta move, the animated opening title is based directly on Daicon IV, using the ELO song Twilight, which also functions as an integral part of the score itself.
See the opening title here | Read more about it here
Blue Blazes, 2014
Another live-action TV series, this time set in 1981 Osaka. The main character Moyuru Hono is desperate to become a manga artist, and has a strong rivalry with Hideaki Anno and the “Daicon gang” as they create the opening film for Daicon III.
Find subtitled episodes here
RELATED LINKS
Yomiuri TV report on General Products store, Osaka
Gainax from Daicon Film to Evangelion
The History of Gainax Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4