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AnimeNYC Haikyuu!! Panel Recap!
Aug. 24th, 2024 06:50 pmOn Saturday August 24th, AnimeNYC presented an official Haikyuu!! panel titled "Haikyu!! Panel: Fly and Connect". Here was the summary of the panel from their website:
"TOHO animation presents the HAIKYU!! panel – a dynamic sports anime based on Haruichi Furudate's manga. Join us for an exclusive North American panel where we celebrate 10 years of the series and hear from the anime’s main producers on the making of HAIKYU!! The Dumpster Battle. Get ready for behind-the-scenes stories and exciting surprises that fans won’t want to miss!"
I was fortunate enough to attend the panel and took thorough notes so that I could write-up a recap post! Please bear in mind, this is my understanding of a translator's interpretation of what executives who worked on the film had to say, so I hope you can forgive if it's not 100% accurate to what people said in Japanese. Also, photography was prohibited, so I can't share any images.
ALSO! MOVIE SPOILERS AHEAD!
The panel opened with a screening of the North American trailer for the Haikyuu: The Dumpster Battle movie that was released by Crunchyroll (in Japanese with English subtitles). As we entered, they distributed one of the Japan movie theater bonuses for seeing the film, the group portrait of Nekoma's team - I didn't get one, and it seems many people didn't, so it is likely they ran out at some point? (I was seated closer to the back than the front.)
Then they introduced the three panelists from Japan:
- Keiko Matsushita, an animation producer at Production I.G. It sounded as though she's been involved with the haikyuu!! anime for years, if not from the very beginning of its production.
- Shoichiro Taguchi, a producer at TOHO animation who worked on the Dumpster Battle film. He was wearing Kenma's jersey!! He mentioned it was his first time visiting New York.
- A third surprise guest! We were not told he was coming, but we were joined by Riki Azuma, an editor for Shueisha who worked on the Haikyuu!! manga.
All three guests reflected on this being the ten year anniversary of the anime's debut, and discussed how they were happy so many people worldwide went to see the film in theaters. They seemed impressed how many people showed up to the panel in NYC. Azuma-san took a picture of the audience to send to Furudate-sensei, but told us that it's midnight in Japan so sensei probably wouldn't see it for a few hours.
They first talked about their roles in the production of the film. Matsushita-san said her role was building the team who would handle the adaptation, and working with the director to decide what gets adapted from the manga. She mentioned at this point that it was director Susumu Mitsunaka who decided that the movie should be told from Kenma's POV.
The moderator of the panel was prepared to move on to the next section, and there was some awkwardness, as Taguchi-san also wanted to talk about the choice to make the Karasuno v. Nekoma match into a film. He mentioned he was surprised they went for a film, but that TOHO animation specializes in films so it made sense for their partnership for this project.
Matsushita-san indicated that the theme of this arc was "this is a festival" so they wanted a theatrical release to tell the story of the whole match at once instead of episodically which is why TOHO was chosen. (This gets expanded on a little more later.)
The next part of the panel was called "Behind the Scenes Cross Talk". It began with a discussion of the vision and work done by director Mitsunaka-san.
The first scene they focused on was the back and forth of Kenma and Hinata's inner monologues as Kenma thinks he has Hinata in a "game over" by forcing him to receive the ball, preventing him from spiking. They screened the scene, and paused it on Kenma's surprised face when Hinata receives and then runs up for a spike, and the audience found that screengrab very funny.
After showing the scene, the producers discussed how the sentiments in this moment are scattered across manga chapters, but the director wanted to show the back and forth of Hinata and Kenma's thoughts all at once. They reflected that manga has to stay interesting from week to week, so every chapter needs to have a "moment", but in a movie you need to change the pacing to serve the medium. This scene was very different from how it was in the manga. Taguchi-san asked if we still liked it (we did).
The next highlighted scene was the Kenma POV from the last rally of the game, with the 360 flashback to the summer training camp. Matsushita-san commented about how excited the director was about this cut. She recalled the storyboard was hard for her to visualize from, so she didn't really know how it would look animated. Creating this cut was 17 cuts put together, it took a lot of work and a lot of staff to make that scene. She also highlighted the sound department and voice actors, especially Kaji Yuki (Kenma's VA)- the director insisted that this whole scene was recorded in one take, and the seiyuu was hyperventilating by the time he was done.
She also recalled that the director was particular about this being from Kenma's pov even in terms of sound design, like how far away a character is standing from him affects the volume of his voice. So the Karasuno characters calling for the ball sounds further away from the Nekoma characters, etc.
The producers also highlighted the decision in this scene that we do not see a scoreboard. The manga always shows us a scoreboard after a point, but they leave it out in the movie to help the audience forget that the set was over. Because Kenma didn't want the match to end, and Hinata tells Tanaka "nice serve" even after the game is over. They wanted the audience to also think the match was still ongoing just like the characters wanted it to keep going.
Next, they discussed the role and work of character designer Takahiro Kishida. Matsushita-san mentioned that she has wanted to work with him for a long time, and so she sent letters to convince him to join the production of Haikyuu from season 1. She said it's because he's shy so she had to write to him lol
At this point they showed the design sheets for child!Kuroo and Kenma and the crowd went "awwwwww". They talked a little about how these were the only new designs created for the movie.
Kishida-san also drew the teaser visual, with Kenma and Hinata holding knives at each other's throats. The producers laughed and wondered if it was a good poster since you cannot tell it's for a volleyball movie, it's just two boys in shorts holding knives. But as a teaser it gets people excited and manga fans would know the visual so they went with it.
Kishida-san also did the movie poster, with the Nekoma and Karasuno teams against a blue sky. They pointed out the choice to have Karasuno "in the air" and Nekoma "on the ground" which is reflective of their team mascots and their play styles as well.
The next person featured was animation director Takahiro Chiba. They showed the drawing of Hinata's reaction to Kenma's answer when he asked him "Do you like volleyball?" The producers noted that we don't really get the same reaction shot in the manga, but that Chiba-san wanted to show Hinata's disappointment. They also pointed out that the drawing extends past the "frame" of the screen of animation - they mentioned that Chiba-san often drew outside of the boundaries of the screen in trying to capture the character.
We were told that the producers requested the animators redo the shot of Hinata saying "A match with no do-overs, Kenma!" They felt the first version did not reflect Hinata's excitement enough, especially when they wanted to contrast it with him hitting "rock bottom" later. So they asked the team to redo this shot even though it was close to the deadline for the movie's release.
The next image discussed was Kenma holding the cage with Hinata in it. The producers reflected that this had to be terrifying because Furudate-sensei is very good at horror! (The manga they did before haikyuu was horror genre.)
The producers told us that about 20% of the film was drawn on paper, as opposed to digital. In particular, panning shots were drawn on large sheets of paper, 60 x 180 centimeters (23.6" x 70.8"), as you move the "camera" across the drawing to create that pan.
The next highlighted animation was Kuroo grabbing the net as he begs Tsukishima to give up on blocking. They pointed out that Kuroo was tired, and the production staff was also very tired (lol).
Kenma saying "Volleyball is fun" was the key moment of the movie for the director, Mitsunaka-san, to build towards. Again, he was the one who wanted the movie to be told from Kenma's POV, so this makes sense.
This section concluded with the producers saying that the crew worked very hard on all the small details and they would appreciate it if fans noticed those details and their hard work!
The last part of the panel was Fan Q & A. Questions were solicted in advance through the AnimeNYC website. They had more questions in the slideshow than we actually had time for in the panel room.
Question 1: "Haikyuu has many teams with different styles, how do you distinguish them in animation?"
The producers note that the animation style does not differ from team to team, it's consistent throughout. They did say that an important aspect to reflect the uniqueness of the teams, was the voice actor casting. That the personalities contrasted in their voices, and that you balance the energetic first years with calm third years, or a team with a calm captain having a supportive vice-captain; those were the considerations for casting. I believe it was Taguchi-san who commented that the conversations that happened between the seiyuu during breaks were still very reminiscent of their characters (lol).
Question 2: Do you watch real-life volleyball for research?
Yes. The producers mentioned attending prelims, regional matches, and games with small teams of only 6 people to get inspiration and do research.
Question 3: How many staff members worked on the movie?
Around 700! Could be even more that went uncredited. Much more than the TV anime.
They mentioned that the film has 1200 cuts, one quarter of them done by Takahashi-san. (My research shows this is likely referring to Hideki Takahashi, credited as "main animator on IMDB".) 300 cuts is equal to one anime episode, so he did a whole episode by himself.
I didn't write down the next question, but it had to do with the involvement of the manga production team on the movie. The manga editors were a part of the team that worked on the film (unsurprisingly imo).
Question 5 was from a young artist who wants to be an animator, asking how they should train. The answer was credited to animation director Chiba-san, as "Copy, imitate." Pick animators you look up to and copy their drawings to learn how they did it.
The final question wasn't much of a question, and it was credited to many, many fans (LOL): We want more haikyuu content in the future. I'm positive this was AnimeNYC's spin on people who used the online portal to ask why we were getting movies instead of new seasons, whether [specific arc] would be animated, and so on.
The answer?
We hear you loud and clear. We also want more content. And we're working hard so stay tuned.
(PLEASE do not take this out of context, this is not a promise for anything other than what we've previously been told is coming!)
The last part of the panel was giveaways. First, special illustrations were given to two people, sitting in seats that had a Hinata and a Kenma sticker on the underside. I am actually not sure if both of these were claimed??? I heard one person cheer so at least one was (lol). Then they had a few other prizes to give away, figures and prize packs, and for these they asked everyone in haikyuu cosplay to play rock paper scissors, though perhaps not the exact right way. To whittle down the group, they had only the people who picked "rock" go to round 2, and so on. I know all the prizes did get claimed but it was a bit chaotic how we got there.
I was fortunate enough to attend the panel and took thorough notes so that I could write-up a recap post! Please bear in mind, this is my understanding of a translator's interpretation of what executives who worked on the film had to say, so I hope you can forgive if it's not 100% accurate to what people said in Japanese. Also, photography was prohibited, so I can't share any images.
ALSO! MOVIE SPOILERS AHEAD!
The panel opened with a screening of the North American trailer for the Haikyuu: The Dumpster Battle movie that was released by Crunchyroll (in Japanese with English subtitles). As we entered, they distributed one of the Japan movie theater bonuses for seeing the film, the group portrait of Nekoma's team - I didn't get one, and it seems many people didn't, so it is likely they ran out at some point? (I was seated closer to the back than the front.)
Then they introduced the three panelists from Japan:
- Keiko Matsushita, an animation producer at Production I.G. It sounded as though she's been involved with the haikyuu!! anime for years, if not from the very beginning of its production.
- Shoichiro Taguchi, a producer at TOHO animation who worked on the Dumpster Battle film. He was wearing Kenma's jersey!! He mentioned it was his first time visiting New York.
- A third surprise guest! We were not told he was coming, but we were joined by Riki Azuma, an editor for Shueisha who worked on the Haikyuu!! manga.
All three guests reflected on this being the ten year anniversary of the anime's debut, and discussed how they were happy so many people worldwide went to see the film in theaters. They seemed impressed how many people showed up to the panel in NYC. Azuma-san took a picture of the audience to send to Furudate-sensei, but told us that it's midnight in Japan so sensei probably wouldn't see it for a few hours.
They first talked about their roles in the production of the film. Matsushita-san said her role was building the team who would handle the adaptation, and working with the director to decide what gets adapted from the manga. She mentioned at this point that it was director Susumu Mitsunaka who decided that the movie should be told from Kenma's POV.
The moderator of the panel was prepared to move on to the next section, and there was some awkwardness, as Taguchi-san also wanted to talk about the choice to make the Karasuno v. Nekoma match into a film. He mentioned he was surprised they went for a film, but that TOHO animation specializes in films so it made sense for their partnership for this project.
Matsushita-san indicated that the theme of this arc was "this is a festival" so they wanted a theatrical release to tell the story of the whole match at once instead of episodically which is why TOHO was chosen. (This gets expanded on a little more later.)
The next part of the panel was called "Behind the Scenes Cross Talk". It began with a discussion of the vision and work done by director Mitsunaka-san.
The first scene they focused on was the back and forth of Kenma and Hinata's inner monologues as Kenma thinks he has Hinata in a "game over" by forcing him to receive the ball, preventing him from spiking. They screened the scene, and paused it on Kenma's surprised face when Hinata receives and then runs up for a spike, and the audience found that screengrab very funny.
After showing the scene, the producers discussed how the sentiments in this moment are scattered across manga chapters, but the director wanted to show the back and forth of Hinata and Kenma's thoughts all at once. They reflected that manga has to stay interesting from week to week, so every chapter needs to have a "moment", but in a movie you need to change the pacing to serve the medium. This scene was very different from how it was in the manga. Taguchi-san asked if we still liked it (we did).
The next highlighted scene was the Kenma POV from the last rally of the game, with the 360 flashback to the summer training camp. Matsushita-san commented about how excited the director was about this cut. She recalled the storyboard was hard for her to visualize from, so she didn't really know how it would look animated. Creating this cut was 17 cuts put together, it took a lot of work and a lot of staff to make that scene. She also highlighted the sound department and voice actors, especially Kaji Yuki (Kenma's VA)- the director insisted that this whole scene was recorded in one take, and the seiyuu was hyperventilating by the time he was done.
She also recalled that the director was particular about this being from Kenma's pov even in terms of sound design, like how far away a character is standing from him affects the volume of his voice. So the Karasuno characters calling for the ball sounds further away from the Nekoma characters, etc.
The producers also highlighted the decision in this scene that we do not see a scoreboard. The manga always shows us a scoreboard after a point, but they leave it out in the movie to help the audience forget that the set was over. Because Kenma didn't want the match to end, and Hinata tells Tanaka "nice serve" even after the game is over. They wanted the audience to also think the match was still ongoing just like the characters wanted it to keep going.
Next, they discussed the role and work of character designer Takahiro Kishida. Matsushita-san mentioned that she has wanted to work with him for a long time, and so she sent letters to convince him to join the production of Haikyuu from season 1. She said it's because he's shy so she had to write to him lol
At this point they showed the design sheets for child!Kuroo and Kenma and the crowd went "awwwwww". They talked a little about how these were the only new designs created for the movie.
Kishida-san also drew the teaser visual, with Kenma and Hinata holding knives at each other's throats. The producers laughed and wondered if it was a good poster since you cannot tell it's for a volleyball movie, it's just two boys in shorts holding knives. But as a teaser it gets people excited and manga fans would know the visual so they went with it.
Kishida-san also did the movie poster, with the Nekoma and Karasuno teams against a blue sky. They pointed out the choice to have Karasuno "in the air" and Nekoma "on the ground" which is reflective of their team mascots and their play styles as well.
The next person featured was animation director Takahiro Chiba. They showed the drawing of Hinata's reaction to Kenma's answer when he asked him "Do you like volleyball?" The producers noted that we don't really get the same reaction shot in the manga, but that Chiba-san wanted to show Hinata's disappointment. They also pointed out that the drawing extends past the "frame" of the screen of animation - they mentioned that Chiba-san often drew outside of the boundaries of the screen in trying to capture the character.
We were told that the producers requested the animators redo the shot of Hinata saying "A match with no do-overs, Kenma!" They felt the first version did not reflect Hinata's excitement enough, especially when they wanted to contrast it with him hitting "rock bottom" later. So they asked the team to redo this shot even though it was close to the deadline for the movie's release.
The next image discussed was Kenma holding the cage with Hinata in it. The producers reflected that this had to be terrifying because Furudate-sensei is very good at horror! (The manga they did before haikyuu was horror genre.)
The producers told us that about 20% of the film was drawn on paper, as opposed to digital. In particular, panning shots were drawn on large sheets of paper, 60 x 180 centimeters (23.6" x 70.8"), as you move the "camera" across the drawing to create that pan.
The next highlighted animation was Kuroo grabbing the net as he begs Tsukishima to give up on blocking. They pointed out that Kuroo was tired, and the production staff was also very tired (lol).
Kenma saying "Volleyball is fun" was the key moment of the movie for the director, Mitsunaka-san, to build towards. Again, he was the one who wanted the movie to be told from Kenma's POV, so this makes sense.
This section concluded with the producers saying that the crew worked very hard on all the small details and they would appreciate it if fans noticed those details and their hard work!
The last part of the panel was Fan Q & A. Questions were solicted in advance through the AnimeNYC website. They had more questions in the slideshow than we actually had time for in the panel room.
Question 1: "Haikyuu has many teams with different styles, how do you distinguish them in animation?"
The producers note that the animation style does not differ from team to team, it's consistent throughout. They did say that an important aspect to reflect the uniqueness of the teams, was the voice actor casting. That the personalities contrasted in their voices, and that you balance the energetic first years with calm third years, or a team with a calm captain having a supportive vice-captain; those were the considerations for casting. I believe it was Taguchi-san who commented that the conversations that happened between the seiyuu during breaks were still very reminiscent of their characters (lol).
Question 2: Do you watch real-life volleyball for research?
Yes. The producers mentioned attending prelims, regional matches, and games with small teams of only 6 people to get inspiration and do research.
Question 3: How many staff members worked on the movie?
Around 700! Could be even more that went uncredited. Much more than the TV anime.
They mentioned that the film has 1200 cuts, one quarter of them done by Takahashi-san. (My research shows this is likely referring to Hideki Takahashi, credited as "main animator on IMDB".) 300 cuts is equal to one anime episode, so he did a whole episode by himself.
I didn't write down the next question, but it had to do with the involvement of the manga production team on the movie. The manga editors were a part of the team that worked on the film (unsurprisingly imo).
Question 5 was from a young artist who wants to be an animator, asking how they should train. The answer was credited to animation director Chiba-san, as "Copy, imitate." Pick animators you look up to and copy their drawings to learn how they did it.
The final question wasn't much of a question, and it was credited to many, many fans (LOL): We want more haikyuu content in the future. I'm positive this was AnimeNYC's spin on people who used the online portal to ask why we were getting movies instead of new seasons, whether [specific arc] would be animated, and so on.
The answer?
We hear you loud and clear. We also want more content. And we're working hard so stay tuned.
(PLEASE do not take this out of context, this is not a promise for anything other than what we've previously been told is coming!)
The last part of the panel was giveaways. First, special illustrations were given to two people, sitting in seats that had a Hinata and a Kenma sticker on the underside. I am actually not sure if both of these were claimed??? I heard one person cheer so at least one was (lol). Then they had a few other prizes to give away, figures and prize packs, and for these they asked everyone in haikyuu cosplay to play rock paper scissors, though perhaps not the exact right way. To whittle down the group, they had only the people who picked "rock" go to round 2, and so on. I know all the prizes did get claimed but it was a bit chaotic how we got there.
