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Comments by Darker than Black composer Yoko Kanno+ chara designer Takahiro Komori [Newtype May 2007]

2007-04-08T16:31:33Z

Comments from Yoko Kanno from page 32 of Newtype May 2007. Really, really, really loosely translated.

"This might sound rather strange, but even what the director's wearing has an influence on the music"

When Kanno went to have a meeting with the director Tensai Okamura and first saw him, the director was apparently wearing hunting-gear-influenced wear*. The situation at the time was such that the designs and plot were yet to be completed and Kanno had to rely on conversing with Okamura for information. Without having any sort of firm impression to work with at all, how did Kanno get a grasp of this show's image?

"Wearing that hunting outfit, the director seemed to give off these 'police detective' vibes. Or even that of an artist from France... well, I can't really express it well (laughs)."

While discussing with Okamura, words which [they] were intuitively found interesting were picked out, and thus the image of the show became more fleshed out .... That's the way Kanno gets things done.

"Rather than through logic and reason, I can vaguely form impressions of the show through talking with the director. I thought, why not try emulating the mood of vintage French films? The males would be full of masculine allure while the females would be glamorous and very conscious of their physical body, and there'd be mellow music during the romantic scenes - that sort of feeling. This is kind of the complete opposite of the world of 'Darker', though!"

Indeed, the characters in the show as represented by Hei and Yin seem to be full of the rather inorganic types indifferent to sexiness. In that case, why express an image completely different from that of the anime's in the music?

"The characters have become what they are after disconnecting themselves with certain aspects of their human side, right. So that's why I was thinking I wanted to bring out precisely those aspects through the music. If the emotions and humanity, the bit inside themselves that they've lost which can't be portrayed visually, could be seen through the music instead, I had a feeling it'd make the film all the more impressive."

So contrasting with the visuals which try to take out the humanity of the characters, is the music, going in a more sensual direction. Needless to say, through the harmonizing of these two elements, the anime's level of finishing gets notched up higher.

"This time around there's two vocal tracks, which are being recorded right now. I had again gone to request a favour from Mai Yamane-san after a long time since 'Cowboy Bebop', and am having her sing the emotions of a man beyond help. However, there were more things I wanted to express through instrumental songs than through vocals, so I have no intention to increase the number of vocal tracks any further."

Yoko Kanno, whose skill is dubbed as a tamatebako (a treasure) by the sound director Kazuhiro Wakabayashi. One wants to enjoy the combination of her music with the visuals to their heart's extent.

*Literally, "ハンチング". Imagine Huang's outfit - that's the type of thing they mean.

Summary of comments from animation character designer Takahiro Komori from Darker than Black booklet featured in Newtype May 2007.

Regarding the drawing of eyes
-Because of Hei's cold and yet sometimes blank look, they decided to do something still relatively unusual in anime and draw his eyes with no highlights at all.
-This is normally used in manga but not so much in anime so they decided to go with it
-They might decide to put in a bit of highlight when there's a closeup of his face, but not putting any does highlight his personality after all.

Regarding drawing from original character designs
-The first impression Komori had after seeing Yuji Iwahara's original designs were that "This is someone who can draw pretty well"
-The problem was to retain the touch of the original designs while drawing it such that it's easier on the animators while including all relevant details.
-Some parts of the designs were changed from the original - such as Yutaka Kouno's and Mayu Ootsuka's clothing, and Huang's hat and tobacco were probably added in by Komori.
-Huang's "hunting gear" type of clothing (see above) was director Tensai Okamura's idea - the hat he wears is the same as Okamura's.

Regarding the type of people living in Umitsukisou (the apartment Hei lives in)
-The director gave Komori a clear idea about the type of people who live there
-For example as detailed as... (I don't know if this made it into the show as described below at this point of time.)

-The African who got into Yamanashi University because of his marathon running but decided to stay on in Japan
-The Israeli who came over because he was so in love with Japan, wears anime t-shirts and listens to anime songs

-However, they pretty much hardly ever appear in the show itself, which Komori thinks is a bit of a waste.

Regarding girls and butts
-Komori says that when drawing females he pays special attention to the line connecting the butt to the leg.
-He thinks of the silhouette a character makes when drawing them... even if they're wearing jeans?
-This was particularly pertinent in the OP which features a female silhouette; he ended up correcting the drawings of the butt line
-He mentions people paying special attention to the chest area instead, and a trend in thinking that it's good as long as it's big, which he doesn't exactly agree with - but in the end he admits that if it isn't drawn sexily it doesn't really impact people much.

Regarding colour design
-The colour designer Nobuko Mizuta was a little disappointed because a lot of the show takes place at night and the main characters' clothings are generally dark-coloured, so to make up for it she donned the guest characters with brightly-coloured clothes
-But however colourful they may be, in the end when it turns into night the colours get desaturated so you don't actually see that many bright colours.
-To put it simply even though it's "nighttime" there's variations within this in the detailed colour design, along the lines of a more "greenish" night or a more "blueish" one.

Related posts: Darker than Black information booklet [Newtype May 2007] (08 / 04 / 07)

Comments and corrections are welcome.
This interview may be posted anywhere in any form without need for credit.

Darker than Black information booklet [Newtype May 2007]

2007-04-08T06:33:45Z

Snippets of information from page 32 and 33, as well as the insert booklet pages 2, 3 and 4 from Newtype May 2007.

Hei

Hei has a internal knife-holder that he wears under his shirt.
He's good at cooking.
And he's so good at eating that he even gets featured in eating competitions.
He's believed to be around his 20s and poses as a Chinese student, but his real age and nationality are unknown.

Yin

Yin is 17 years old.
She wears over-knee-length socks as opposed to stockings, but you can't actually see them (really, what were you thinking?)

Mao

Used to be a 43-year-old human Contractor.

Amber

As we already know, she is deeply linked to Hei's past
She is also a Contractor.

The police department

Their ages:

Kirihara Misaki - 27

Kouno Yutaka - 28

Saitou Yuusuke - 32

Ootsuka Mayu - 25

Hourai Yoshimitsu - 53 [Head of the Public Safety division and an advisor of sorts to Misaki]

Matsumoto Kunio - 52 [Does not care much about the path to eliteness, and is more practical]

Misaki graduated from Tokyo University (which is renowned for being very prestigious and hard to get into), and her father was a bureaucrat in the police department. In other words she has a very privileged background.

The Observatory

At the observatory they aren't observing the real stars since those disappeared 10 years ago after Hell's Gate appeared.
What they do is track Contractors - when a new one is born a star appears, and when one dies it fades away as a shooting star. The movement of these Contractors can be tracked by observing the stars as well.
They relay this priceless information to the police department
The observations are done by Hoshimi-sama (星見様) who has many cables attached to her brain. The information is sent immediately to a network.
One of the people who work there is Ishizaki Kanami (石崎香那美), the lady in a labcoat. She was friends with Misaki in high school but is quite different from her.

xxxxx-----------------------------

[Some of the following goes beyond episode 1.]

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Guest characters

Chiaki Shinoda [ep 1, 2]

Chiaki Shinoda is 26 years old.
Both her parents were killed by a Contractor.
She is described as a "fake person".
There's secret information hidden somewhere on her body (in her clothes).
She started working at a nightclub and had a makeover in order to hide her identity.

Same reason why she borrowed a room at Umitsukisou (the apartment where Hei stays at) under a fake name "Haraguchi".

This is an episode 2 spoiler to make it a little clearer: (big spoiler for episode 2)it turns out the Chiaki Hei is after in episode 1, is actually a Doll who looks exactly like the real Chiaki, and was prepared by the enemy with Chiaki's memories transferred into her. The real Chiaki is dead, and the special information Chiaki has is not with this doll!Chiaki any more. (/spoiler)

The Three Muskateers Contractors, Louis, Jean and Paul [ep 1, 2]

Louis had pretended to be Chiaki's lover in order to get the secret information she holds.
Jean's price on his contract is really to line up stones in a precisely geometric fashion.
Paul (the black guy)'s power is to cause things to implode and in exchange he has to eat weeds raw.

The following goes beyond episode 2, and concerns previously unintroduced characters.

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Mai Kashiwagi (柏木舞) [ep 3, 4??] Character voice: Megumi Nasu

A 14 year old schoolgirl.
Her parents divorced and then her mother died. She took on her mother's surname.
She is in the custody of Tahara Kouzou, her father, but does not get along well with him.
There is a certain secret about her that even she doesn't know.

Kouzou Tahara (田原耕造) [ep 3,4??] Character voice: Kousuke Meguro

Mai's 42 year old biological father
The only remaining survivor of a group of investigators sent into Hell's Gate
Now he works in a relatively slack job as an advisor to a factory
Hei and the other rival organisations are all after the research materials he brought back after going to the Gate.

There are also four other Contractors that have no explanation attached.

Top row
L: "November 11" R: "Ruuko"

Bottom row
L: "July" R: "April"

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Related posts: Comments by Darker than Black composer Yoko Kanno+ chara designer Takahiro Komori [Newtype May 2007] (14 / 04 / 07)

Comments and corrections are welcome.
This interview may be posted anywhere in any form without need for credit.

Interview with Darker than Black original character designer, Yuji Iwahara [Newtype April 2007]

2007-04-01T16:05:33Z

Extremely loose translation of original scan: here
Newtype April pp 26-27

Yuji Iwahara (岩原裕二): Born in Hakodate, he started off as a game designer and went on to become a mangaka. His most well-known works are "Ibara no Ou" (いばらの王, King of Thorns) and "Chikyuu Misaki" (地球美紗樹, Misaki and Earth). His current work (April 2007) is "Gakuen Sousei Nekoten!" (学園創世猫天！) , serialised in Monthly Champion RED magazine.

Summary: A bit about how Iwahara came to join the project, some of his thoughts and short comments on some of the character designs.

A mangaka who draws, with confident lines and a touch of shadiness, worlds brimming with an unique aesthetic: Yuji Iwahara. Behind the reasons of how he came to do the character designs for this anime, was a strong backing from director Okamura: "For a more subdued piece like this, I wanted something different from what an animator would draw. Iwahara-san could do that fine, and he can also draw characters that can be moved in a realistic manner."

And so, Yuji Iwahara became involved in an animation project for the first time in his life. How does he himself feel about taking on a new challenge?

"The reason why I accepted the offer was because, well, I was interested in the project to begin with, and I had something of a break since my previous serialised comic had finished. If I had to do the actual character model sheets I would have to design everything down to the smallest details, but if it was just the character drafts then it'd be OK, I thought."

However, such plans were to be simply turned on their head in the end.

"It turned out I ended up drawing the most number of characters I've ever drawn in my lifetime. It's pretty much an omnibus of story arcs meaning there's a lot of guest characters per episode, and there's a rich diversity of nationalities present so it was quite the task," says Iwahara.

In the process of creating the characters, the most important thing is the scenario. The image of the characters extracted from reading the script and meetings had with the director gave rise to the characters taking an actual shape. During this process, what had to be taken into consideration the most?

"We were supposed to portray the fantastic story of superpowered individuals fighting each other against the realistic backdrop of Tokyo, so first and foremost forming an image of that took considerable effort. After that it was about visually depicting the low-key designs and wanting to bring out this feeling of having one's feet on the ground. The director wasn't one to settle for mere compromises, so until my image of the characters matched with his I had to redraw the pictures countless times."

Animation and manga are similar in that both are centered around the act of drawing, but animation requires more precision, says Iwahara.

"When I first saw the promotional video I quite thoroughly and painfully felt the weight of responsibility. I wasthinking how in the case of manga you're pretty much allowed to be a little careless and change the way you draw the faces and expressions every time, but you can't get away with that in animation. I'm really looking forward to what there never was with the manga and game designs I've done until now, namely the movement of the characters in animation."

Comments on the individual characters:

Hei :: "He was the hardest character to draw. I needed to achieve a subtle balance [when designing him?]."
In the earlier stages Hei's black eyes were supposed to be smaller, giving off a more cold feel, but he instead became more expressive. Li was a gentle-looking person from the point of his original design.

Yin :: For Yin's design, it was a bit troublesome geting the clothing right. "Because what you wear would change depending on what kind of background it is, and what season it is and so on. At first I didn't think it was going to be set in a realistic background so she ended up having a dress that isn't exactly contemporary."

Kirihara Misaki :: At the young age of 27 she's an elite of elites within the Public Safety division. With that sharp, crisp appearance of hers, she seems to be Iwahara's favourite. "At first I had thoguht she was the heroine. She's a character who seems to live a life that really feels like life*

*The original: 生活臭がある暮らしをしていそうなキャラ. I don't really know how to translate this properly. I imagine he means that it's full of the things you expect in an urban life these days.

Mao :: Contrary to his external appearance, he's a Contractor whose special characteristic is that he has a humorous sort of demeanour and way of speaking. You can guess his "contract" from the fact that he can't return to a human form.

Huang :: He supervises the team and has a supporting role as well, but has absolutely no trust or feelings of friendship with his teammates. His appearance with wrinkles on his face as a person who's gone through a lot of trouble disguises the fact that he's actually under 40.

Comments and corrections are welcome.
This interview may be posted anywhere in any form without need for credit.

Interview with Darker than Black main cast from Hobby Channel

2007-03-22T22:51:00Z

Loosely translated from Hobby Channel: ttp://hobby-channel.net/content/view/2411/67/

Kiuchi: Hironobu Kiuchi (Hei)
Mizuki: Nana Miuzki (Misaki Kirihara)
Fukuen: Misato Fukuen (Yin)

Summary: Promotional fluff, with character introductions, and a revelation about how smitten the female seiyuu are with Hei.

---Please introduce the character you're playing to us.

Kiuchi: Hei's like one of those professional killers you see in anime, and carries out missions as a Contractor under the orders of The Organisation. Normally he passes off as Li Shun Sheng, a Chinese university student living in a nondescript apartment. As Li he's a warm person, but when he's on the job as Hei he takes on an emotionless, cold facade, so he's really a character with two personalities. He's still a mystery even to me, the person voicing him, so I too am looking forward to what'll happen next.

Mizuki: Kirihara Misaki is a detective from Section 4 of the police's Public Safety department pursuing the "Contractors". As a section chief she leads her subordinates in going after Hei, the "Contractors" and "Dolls", but because her opponents are supernatural beings possessing special powers, it's an uphill battle where they constantly get outdone. It's hard to predict the story right now, but by the later half of episode 2 she finally comes in contact with Hei and co., so it'll get very interesting from there on.

Fukuen: Yin is a "Doll", meaning she's a mere soulless body, and she's rather devoid of expressions. She works with Hei, Mao and Huang but rather than fighting on the frontline, she uses this thing called a Spirit of Perception (観測霊 kansokurei) to find out where the target is, and gather information about the enemy. Normally she works part-time at a tobacco store.

---What are your thoughts on the dubbing and this work?

Kiuchi: There are many people here who are coming to work for the first time, but I enjoyed myself greatly. Personally I think it's a really interesting story so I'll put in my best while having fun at the same time.

Mizuki: Misaki's a cool lady who has older people working under her and gets the case solved quickly and efficiently, uses words like a man and is very much a detective; basically a mature career-oriented woman which is a type I haven't really done before, so I'm always full of nervousness each time I enter the dubbing studio. (laughs) In such a nice atmosphere, I've been learning new things every time I act out her character.
This show features a continuing series of bi-episode stories, so I think you get to see a lot of characters possessing special powers different from Hei's and Yin's. These "Contractors" have to perform some sort of special action in order to activate their powers, so for some of them it's cracking their knuckles, or eating dandelions... you get to see some pretty strange stuff so it might be rather interesting in that way (laughs) It's a pretty hard-going anime but if you manage to enjoy it anyway I'll be glad.

Fukuen: The main group of 4 people, namely Hei, Yin, Huang, and Mao are so wrapped up in mystery to the point you'd end up thinking "Isn't Misaki pretty much the main character~?", so I'm really looking forward to see what'll happen from now on. I love the whole dirty sort of atmosphere of busy streets, and this show's worldview and character relationships are very much the late-night type aimed at adults, so I reccomend this to those of you who like this kind of thing. For me I was really most surprised by Hei's personality! There's new guest character heroines replacing previous ones every other episode, but....

Misaki: They just keep coming like Bond girls (laughs) Hei's really popular with the girls, you know. In the first episode the girl he saves kisses him, like... from out of nowhere? But it was so nice... ... I went all ♥ (laughs)

Fukuen: And it wasn't just a kiss, either (laughs)

Misaki: It felt very adult, didn't it ♪

Kiuchi: He's a determined desparado... and that would be a lie (laughs) Hei's doing this totally naturally, he isn't a scheming sort of guy.

---Tell us what's your enthusiasm behind this show.

Kiuchi: Putting aside the fact that I'm acting the main role and all, from the viewpoint of wanting to create a great show with everyone I'd like to put in all my effort into this.

Mizuki: For me, since I don't have that much of a chance to be dramatic with my character, I put in a lot of force when I'm in the studio. It's to the point where I get told "Relax a bit more" when I overdo it, though (laughs) I'm really glad to be able to be involved in such a deep and charismatic work.

Fukuen: Like Mizuki-san I was also so nervous that I strained myself so much on just one line I ended up fumbling over my words anyway (laughs) It shows how much I want to take each and every single thing seriously. It's a show made quite prceisely to the point where you start thinking "you sure can't go around telling lies now, can you?", so it'd be nice if people enjoy the acting also along this line.

---Darker than Black -Kuro no Keiyakusha- goes along an original plot not based off an existing work, but do you have a message for the people looking forward to this show?

Kiuchi: It's an original work with no preexisting story behind it, and you can't find out what's going to happen by reading the original novel or manga, so I'm just thinking you could come in with with fresh expectations and enjoy this every time.

Mizuki: With shows that have an original work you know what's going to happen in advance and end up thinking that the acting of the characters, who are living in the present, feel fake, so in order to react at the same time as the characters the original story goes right along with the anime. But for this show it's quite fun in how the audience, like Misaki, keeps getting outdone by Hei.

Fukuen: It'd be good if you could keep yourself firmly in one place and see this show from a long-term perspective. Just watching the first episode alone will leave you with many unanswered questions, so do enjoy it slowly but surely.

---From the eyes of a female... what's Hei's charming points?

Mizuki: It must be that unscheming, calm and unassuming nature after all. Especially his gentlesness when he's Li, now that's just against the rules, you'd think (laughs). He quite innocently does certain things that would come across as rather sobering towards girls who've fallien for him. But as Hei he's very cold and I can really feel how he's acting under cool, caluclated instructions.

Kiuchi: Actually, he's schemed out a lot of things, you know... >Hei

Fukuen: Eeeeh...! At least I hope he'll stay nice when he's Li, at least (everyone laughs). Even if I actually met him without knowing who he was, I swaear I'd get just as equally attracted to Hei as the guest heroine from episode one [Chiaki Shinoda]. He's mysterious but still shows a bit of his kindness here and there, so I was thinking he's a rather nasty character in that way (laughs)

Comments and corrections are welcome.
This interview may be posted anywhere in any form without need for credit.