Interview: Koichi Inoue, Concept Advancement

Among the masterminds who assembled the primary concepts of Armored Trooper Votoms one layer at a time was Koichi Inoue, whose simple “Concept Advancement” credit represents a lot of complex work. From helping devise mecha gimmicks for the Scopedog to driving the overall story itself, his participation in the original TV series cannot be underestimated. This interview, conducted in 1997, reveals the many levels of thought that were required for the job and the feelings they still inspire decades later.

In movie terms, the overall structure is like Rambo

Interviewer: How did you come to work on Votoms?

Inoue: At the time, I was in the planning department of Sunrise, and I participated in the project from that position. Before that, there was Dougram, a series of 75 episodes including 3 specials. The next program was Votoms, and I participated from the start.

At that time, I started to reflect on the fact that the mecha in Dougram was too big. It was about half the size of a Gundam, but it was still almost 10 meters tall, which made it difficult to have a conversation between the person in the cockpit and a person below, and the person in the cockpit was too small to be captured on the screen. Because of this, Director Ryosuke Takahashi wanted to make a mecha that was as small as a jeep.

Mr. Okawara then proposed a sketch of a mecha with an exposed cockpit, like a jeep without a canopy. He did this for the first time in Dougram, when he put the gimmick into the pose of the decayed Dougram.

Meanwhile, the writers were working on the story separately. Up until now the story [in Dougram] had been a political one, so they took in more of a fantasy/SF direction. I think a story similar to Galient was proposed at first. It had that feel for a while, though the concept was completely different.

Then, with the influence of movies, we converged on Votoms. At that time, various Western movies were popular. In terms of taste for the stages, the Uoodo portion is Blade Runner, the Kummen portion is Apocalypse Now, Sunsa was Alien, and Quent was Dune, which had not yet been made into a movie at the time. If you think about it, the Mogura is a sandworm. The overall structure was similar to that of the movie Rambo.

Dougram was ensemble story with seven people, so we decided to concentrate on just one person. The keyword was “one man army,” which came from Rambo, but has been around for a long time. I thought this would be a good way to make a “superhero” for adults with children’s language. Also, at that time, the aftereffects of the Vietnam War were being talked about in various ways in America, including in Rambo. Votoms was for adults, so I thought it would be a good idea to use that kind of social climate as a backdrop.

As I did recently with Gundam Wing, I wanted to create a story about a man who does not have the mental state of a normal human being because he was raised as a soldier, like the main characters in Golgo 13 and swordmanship novels. In Japan, we aim for a classic hero image. Yoshitake Suzuki created an outline based on such things.

Interviewer: It sounds like a difficult project, but did it go smoothly?

Inoue: Dougram sold so well that everything from the jeep to the accessories became model kits. Takara’s evaluation at the time was that it was a successful work, so we decided to continue this and make it more militaristic.

In the case of Dougram in particular, military fans who were not robot fans started to buy the plamo and toys, like the jeep example. Since we confirmed at the early stage that we would develop it further, Takara told us that it was OK to create a target audience of young adults at high school age and above. At the time, there was no such term, so we said we would target a slightly older mania demographic. However, it was a great fit with young adults than the maniacs. [Translator’s note: in the early 80s, the term “maniac” predated “otaku.”]

When had some images ready for the opening title, we were going to them to the sponsor. The theme song was written with the music first and the lyrics later. At first, I said, “The song is cool by itself without lyrics,” but Director Takahashi decided to add lyrics to Hiroki Inui’s song. When I listened to the finished tape, something stuck in my mind. I thought, “This doesn’t sound right,” and I agonized over it for a while.

I realized that there was no mention of Votoms, no A.T., no Chirico, no Scopedog. In other words, no characters or mecha in the song at all. When I pointed this out to the director, he gave me a look that said, “Get it?” This was the first time a Sunrise TV anime had a theme song with lyrics that sounded like a normal song, with no words from the story.

In the end, we decided to show it to the sponsors after the opening title was done. The song was well received by the sponsors, so we were safe.

Originally, we made all the concepts according to where and what data would appear

Interviewer: Did you have any suggestions for the director from the standpoint of creating the concepts?

Inoue: As written in the inner sleeve of a video that came out at the time, Votoms was made for mecha fans. I was very particular about the A.T. concepts. There were various processes in deciding the A.T. functions.

For example, it was suggested that it would be strange for robots to hit each other with their fists, since it would break the manipulator arm, and we discussed whether there was a way not to hit each other directly. Some suggested adding a knuckle guard, as used in SPT Layzner, but we decided to use the arm punch instead of such guards.

However, no matter how fast a robot moves, it’s not easy to punch it, so we decided to use gunpowder. For more details, please read the A.T. lecture in the book Votoms Odyssey. The details were worked out by students of robotics at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, including someone with the penname Noboru Mao, and in cooperation with the authors of a doujinshi named Powered Suit.

And then there were myself, Mr. Namiki from the writing side, and Director Takahashi. We all came up with a variety of ideas for the project. For example, ideas such as the turret lens and turnpick came from Director Takahashi. Since Dougram had almost no functions, he wanted to incorporate various functions into Votoms and he shared his thoughts.

Many of the ideas I submitted were related to the control devices, such as the goggles. At the time, it was said that it was impossible to adjust to a viewpoint that was several centimeters ahead of your eyes, so I thought an image could be projected onto the retina. Now that we have things like Glastron [an early VR headset], I’m relieved to say, “I knew it was possible.”

We also came up with the idea of a control system inside the A.T. and a monitor image looking out from the A.T. The images are automatically surrounded by frames and various data are displayed. Originally, we made all the concepts according to where and what data would appear. However, it would have been a hellish task to move everything accordingly, so we decided not to go that way.

We also used the muscle cylinder concept from the first version. L-Gaim had a structure that incorporated a lot of dampers to move the joints. Now, people who make models of the interior of the A.T. tend to make them that way. As you can see from the cutaway views, it is not a combination of various cylinders. There is really only one cylinder between the joints. A single muscle cylinder, which can rotate and extend and contract, is all that is needed to make a structure that allows joint movement. You may have to go to a used bookstore to find it now, but Dual Magazine had a good description of it.

For example, one muscle cylinder could do what we would normally do with three cylinders. A real muscle cylinder is not feasible right now, but it will be in the near future. At least, I don’t think there is anything in Votoms that can’t be made. An A.T. can be made, but it cannot climb stairs. The design was based on the calculation that it only needs to go up as many steps as a human can climb. It’s already built into the design structure that even if the knee protrudes, the leg doesn’t rise very far.

Interviewer: What are the points that you want people to keep in mind when looking at it?

Inoue: The A.T. started with Ryosuke’s jeep-like robot and came to look like a realistic existing robot. Nowadays, there are very few robots that can run in the real world. In fact, when I try to draw a good-looking robot, I find that it’s wider than I expected, almost 4 parts wide to a height of 5. So if you were 10 meters tall, you’d need a space nearly 8 meters wide. Such a width is not available to most people.

However, an A.T. is only about 4 meters tall, so it can move around in a city. The directors worked very hard to make it look that way, and even with the plamodel, they were very careful to make sure that each bolt was the right size. The clasps were changed many times, and the three turret parts are deliberately tilted a little. This was a coincidence; when Mr. Okawara was designing it, there was one version where it was slightly tilted. It was cool, so the director and I talked about it and decided to use it.

Normally, it would be easier to draw a precise shape such as equilateral or inverted triangles. I think it was not only cool, but also had character. The most impressive thing about Votoms is that we went to great lengths to give it character. In the end, I think the people who support it like that character. Whenever I’m in doubt about a final decision, “character” is more authentic than logic. I feel that this is probably true.

Interviewer: Conversely, from the standpoint of a concept creator, do you find anything strange in the series?

Inoue: There was one time when the Armor Magnum fired one shot more than the specified number of rounds, and other times where it was loaded in a split second.

Also, the mission disc is a floppy, but I think that’s okay because it’s a different world. Since that time, floppies have gradually fallen out of use. I expected it would take a different form at some point, so there was talk of going that way. We wanted to make sure that it wouldn’t look dated even ten years later.

However, we were not able to put some things into symbols that would be easy to understand, including for the viewers. At that time, word processors weren’t as popular as they are today. So there were times when the method of typing was different from the way we do it now, but it couldn’t be helped.

It was difficult because it required more art settings than usual

[Translator’s note: “setting” is the anime industry term for a design sheet. The American equivalent is a “model sheet.”]

Interviewer: What was the most difficult thing for you?

Inoue: The art settings. Despite the stress it gave him, Takizawa-san, who was in charge of production, came up with rough sketches and other various ideas that were different from what had come before. For example, if you have a normal square-type spaceship, you could see every surface and grasp the whole thing with two pictures.

But with Battleship X, there are many invisible surfaces, and the silhouettes are all different depending on the angle of view, so we had to create three or four additional drawings. That’s is a lot of work.

As an aside, in Dougram, there were dozens of meeting rooms, some of them for top management and some for the guerilla side. In Votoms, we had to change the location in every arc, and there were so many locations that it was equivalent to creating four series. On the fourth arc, we went to Quent and I said, “Let’s just make it a desert town and take it easy.” And then we went underground and I was like, “Wow, there’s a lot of stuff down here.”

Since it was originally a TV series, we were working on a weekly schedule. But it was very difficult because we had to create a huge number of settings that exceeded the usual amount. But I don’t draw, so rather than saying it was difficult for me, I had to say “I’m sorry” a lot to the designers when I asked them to do something.

I heard that there was an opinion from the sponsor side that the target was too high. However, people on the development side, who were in direct contact, said, “No, we’re going to bet on this,” and they did not issue any orders from the Sunrise side that would have ruined the worldview. I was very grateful for that. We were able to do a lot of things without debating whether it was okay to go that far on TV. So I was happy and had a lot of fun doing it.

Interviewer: How was the OVA experience?

Inoue: I only helped with the first OVA of Shining Heresy. At the time of the TV series, the master I put together with all the settings was a stack of paper probably 6 or 7cm high. I entrusted it to the video team, and now it’s back with me.

There are so many art-related things that I think, “Wow!” But even though the stage changes, it’s still basically the story of those four people, so the number of characters has not increased much. Nowadays, there are works with many more settings. It’s just that there was a lot of work at the time.

Mr. Namiki left from the third arc, and I was in charge of both writing and concepts

Inoue: In the latter half of the series, there is a scene where Chirico completely betrays his friends when he becomes Wiseman’s successor. From that point on, I really wanted Chirico to be the villain for a while, both in terms of acting and drawing.

I didn’t let the animators know how the ending was going to turn out until the last episode, and even the episode director didn’t know until after the storyboards had been finished. I think this was Director Takahashi’s instruction, but I did it because I knew that in order to deceive the viewers, I first had to deceive my allies.

Thanks to this, Chirico’s face even changed. I heard a lot of, “Oh my God, is this what Votoms was all about? I hate Chirico!” but I did it anyway. I have to say that I was glad to hear that, because Votoms has a different scent than previous TV series, including the character of Chirico Cuvie. I guess I felt like, “Oh, so I guess we’re going to go there.”

Also, starting from the third arc at Sunsa, Mr. Namiki from the writing side left, so I handled both writing and settings. I had to settle the issues of story development, destination, and so on. I made a list titled, “Mysteries of the World of Votoms” to sum up what issues the viewers would be upset about if we didn’t settle them.

However, everyone on the staff was a veteran writer who was all about series structure, so they focused on creating interesting problems and relying on others to solve them. Even if I solved one problem, they would come up with three new ones.

When I was working with these veterans, I naturally felt that “Chirico is not a normal person.” So we thought of him as a person with different abilities and ending the story not knowing whether or not he’s human. And as we talked about whether or not he was human, Director Takahashi’s perception changed and he said, “So that’s what Chirico is like.”

As for where to take the story, there were various exchanges between the writers and the director that were difficult to grasp. I think it was only possible because everyone was in a class that could compose a series on their own. There may be still be other mysterious people.

Interviewer: In the OVA Roots of Ambition, it was hinted that Chirico might be a singular overman. In the initial concept, it was written that there are three, but is Chirico the only one?

Inoue: I think there are many ways to think about it. For example, when we were working on the series, there was a serious discussion about the idea that Chirico is not really Chirico. That he was actually an ordinary person born in a completely different place, or on Sunsa. Or that he was a different kind of being, or the first Perfect Soldier, but he died on Sunsa.

Another guy thought could join the army to get away from Sunsa, where there was no food left, so he pulled off Chirico’s dog tags. Then at the end when Wiseman asks why he is not the successor, we could have him say, “I’m not Chirico.”

We could have taken the story in any direction, but I’m not sure if that direction was interesting or not. For example, would it be more interesting to decide that he had to be an overman? We left that to the person who would create the next story.

In the TV stage, we did not conclude who Chirico is, but left various possibilities open. Chirico is a different kind of person, not an artificial being, but rather an accidental birth within the Astragius galaxy. Maybe one that was scattered from the ancestral planet Quent, or assembled by the same genes as Wiseman.

The initial idea was to have three overmen, and it would have been better if there had been one more besides Fyana and Ypsilon. However, Ypsilon was working so hard that there was no room for a third to make an appearance. There may still be others, and I think there’s a wide enough range that we can use it when we make videos in the future.

Interviewer: Chirico’s heart being blown out in Roots of Ambition makes you think that he might not be an overman, doesn’t it?

Inoue: That kind of “maybe” is what makes the world of Votoms interesting to adults. If the target audience were a little younger, we would have to provide a complete answer. I think it’s better to make it ambiguous. The identity of Golgo 13 is still unknown, right? There are several candidates. But I don’t think that’s the way it is.

“In the end, it’s just a game.” I like that very much.

Interviewer: What is your favorite situation or character in Votoms?

Inoue: Well, I like the whole thing. When a new script came in, I felt especially good about it!

For example, Quent. Aside from a pilot’s skill, the military is all about pitting things against each other until one penetrates the other’s armor. Basically, it’s a world of logic. And then you go to Quent, and you hear things like, “It’s just as Mage said.” The atmosphere suddenly changes, with prophetic things coming out of the woodwork. I like the world of Quent in the sense that it gives us a whiff of the various cultures that exist in the world of Astragius.

I also like the interaction of the three guys who fought with Chirico in Kummen. One of the lines that left an impression on me was, “In the end, it’s just a game.” I like that very much. I think it would be great if a man could say that in a situation like that, a game where lives are exchanged and people die. It’s different from the battlefield.

That episode was created by Director Takahashi starting with the storyboard. When that line came out, I could only think of one thing to say: “Oh, that feels good!” And I don’t mean that in a bad way. It was such a fun line that it left a strong impression on me as symbolic of Votoms.

I also like the scene in Episode 9 where Chirico says, “Thanks to you, I was saved.” Compared to narration and monologue, Chirico was a character who didn’t talk much. Under such circumstances, I think it was a very interesting way of making it when we started in the early days.

In Episode 10, when Vanilla paints a Scopedog’s left shoulder to look like a Red Shoulder, Chirico says, “A Red Shoulder’s red is darker. The color of blood. And the mark is on the right shoulder.”

He’s not bragging about what he knows, he’s just talking about it because he belonged to it. This is part of the process of forgiving himself. In the narration monologue, he follows up by saying that he didn’t want to say that he belonged to that group. I like the way he says that one word. His voice had a high tone until then, but it gradually became more subdued, and it was pleasant to listen to. I felt that [voice actor] Mr. Goda was getting into it.

As for the other characters, Coconna was loved by everyone. I don’t need to say that. There are only a few female characters in Takahashi’s works, so the artists work very hard to make them look cute. I think that Coconna was the one who brought the most out of Votoms.

On the other hand, Fyana was dignified at first, but in the second half she was portrayed as a fragile maiden who lives for love. It wasn’t that Fyana’s fighting ability declined, but rather that Chirico’s power steadily increased.

So when you make something like a game, it’s going to be difficult. Nowadays, there are characters who can defeat mobile suits with their bare hands like in G Gundam, but even if Chirico can’t do that he’s still amazing man who could defeat a robot with his Armor Magnum.

A Scopedog can be made without using CG

Interviewer: What does Votoms mean to you today?

Inoue: That’s a tough one. It was only my second or third year in the animation world, so you could say I was working in the dark. I would be lying if I said there were no sponsor directives. But at least it was a work that I was able to concentrate on. It taught me that if you’re particular about making things, you’ll get the right reaction.

Even if the world view was different, the users followed me as long as I stuck to it in the various works I did later, such as Samurai Troopers and Demon God Hero Legend Wataru. Those genres are completely different, though.

Interviewer: Finally, please give a message to Votoms fans.

Inoue: This is a high target interview, so I will say this…it’s a fact that there some variations in the artwork when you work on a series. Also, it’s been more than a decade since the last episode was made. I think the drawing and film techniques of that time were not as good as those of today’s video anime. However, if you watch the whole series, you’ll definitely enjoy the story regardless of that, so please give it a try. Also, although the TV version is designed to be complete on its own, if you watch the videos as well, it will give you a more complete picture of the whole story.

This may be a personal matter, but since I’m currently working in the digital field, I’d like to share some of my experiences with you.

(Note: At the time this interview was recorded, Mr. Inoue was working in the field of digital image development, or D.I.D. for short. He was in charge of Sunrise’s digital operations, from CG production to website management).

I’d like to do a Votoms CG movie using the most advanced computers. Therefore, in order to create an environment where production is possible, I’d like everyone to tell video makers here and there, “I want to see it in CG.” I think it will happen someday.

Also, a Scopedog can be made at that size without CG. At least, thanks to Honda, we can make it walk. (Laughs) Without a real muscle cylinder, the landing mechanism is the only thing that can’t be done. But it is possible to make it walk, and the structure can be made for any of the manipulators.

Interviewer: Thank you very much for your time today.

(Recorded at Sunrise on November 14, 1997)

Postscript: as one who was intimately involved in the creation of the Armored Trooper, Mr. Inoue got the chance to return to it in a later project for Sunrise called “Scopedog 21C.” Starting in 2007, the goal was to refine the Scopedog from top to bottom, advancing the original design concepts with modern technology and bringing it as close as possible to reality. The results were published in a 2009 book from Soft Bank Creative, and had a profound effect on products that have appeared since then.

 

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