Hiroyuki Imaishi & Hiromi Wakabayashi Studio TRIGGER – Press Conference
Anime NYC is New York City’s premiere anime convention! A showcase of the best of Japanese pop culture in the biggest city in America, Anime NYC brings anime fans together for three days of unique exhibits, exclusive screenings, and appearances by some of the biggest creators in Japan! This year Anime NYC was held on November 17-19th at the Javits Center, NYC.
Anime NYC presents over 100 hours of panels, screenings, and special events featuring guests from America and Japan, manga and anime publishers, premiere screenings, and talks from your fellow fans! This year Studio Trigger, the unique and vibrant animation studio had a presence at the fan convention.
Trigger Inc., also known as Studio Trigger is a Japanese animation studio founded by former Gainax employees Hiroyuki Imaishi and Masahiko Ōtsuka back in 2011, and they’ve steadily been creating groundbreaking content for over a decade. It has produced anime works including Kill la Kill, Little Witch Academia, Promare, BNA: Brand New Animal, and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.
Hiroyuki Imaishi & Hiromi Wakabayashi Studio TRIGGER – Press Conference
We sat with Character Designer / Animation Director and Trigger co-founder Hiroyuki Imaishi, and writer/ creator Hiromi Wakabayashi (with a translator) as they discussed the comedy sci-fi Space Patrol, committing to a project and continuing to work on Panty & Stocking, the breakout success of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and their experience of working with Netflix and CD PROJEKT RED and what sets Trigger apart from other anime studios.
“So we currently have three distinct directors at the studio and while the creative staff involved in it is the same, that head who controls the staff is it’s different, so maybe that’s why there’s a distinct difference between each project. But speaking of myself, personally, I feel that like I, I get bored very easily, and I try to not get bored. So I try to do something new for every project so that I won’t get bored.”
Trigger has a certain style of humor, but the dystopian action series Cyberpunk has very little humor. Hiroyuki explains “I personally feel that its easier for me to work on a project if there’s some comedy relief in it, but I have been feeling that having by having this comedy relief makes it to difficult to depict a more serious story”…”I need to try something a little bit more serious, so cyberpunk edge runners was a perfect opportunity to try this experiment out. So I don’t think I had a hard time working on edge runners. But that might be an exception.”
I asked about how their approach and style has shifted over the year’s as two of the studios biggest works are Kill la Kill and Edge Runners.
“So starting with Kill La Kill, Kill La kill was studio triggers first television anime series. And it was also the first original series that the studio took on as well. And I guess it took us a very long time to for the pre production phase. Because every everything’s a complete original title. And since the studio itself was new, as well, so I didn’t have a very good grasp of wind, what the capabilities of the studio so I just didn’t have a good good grasp of when to pump the brakes. So I think I went a little too hard. “
“For Cyber-Punk Edge-Runners obviously, there’s been about 10 plus years between kill la kill so the studio was a lot more seasoned as well and I had a better grasp of what you know what my studio is capable of. And every everybody in the each department was a lot more optimized as well. So we were I felt that we were able to shorten the production time by a lot without losing the quality of the finished product as well. And it also helped that edge runners or cyberpunk was a pre existing IP as well. So that cut back on the pre pre pro phase.”
They explained what they look for when choosing new projects and they had somewhat different takes as Imaishi comments that it’s “however much I’m able to enjoy a particular project” and Hiromi adds on by saying “it’s how much they are willing to work with us to make it a Trigger project, So like if they were to offer to just like animate our IP it obviously won’t work well with us. So we need like a willingness from our client side to work together with us into making a project.”
When discussing the future of Trigger and its impact, “I guess like a very optimistic vision for our end I guess, we don’t really follow trends, I suppose we try to do what we enjoy the most. So hopefully by doing what we feel like that we enjoy and kind of like disregarding what the popular trend is we hope that it’s positively affecting the anime industry. “
At the convention Trigger Inc. held a design conference and invited fans to participate, so they talked about what they were looking for beforehand. (Hiromi) “so he may made a tweet. We retweeted our company tweet yesterday, his personal account that he’s hoping to find some a lot of in a good way. I want I want everyone to take this in a good way. We’re hoping get a lot of smooth brain takes, like it’s it’s meant to be an entertainment. So we want we want enjoyable takes.”
One anime that they worked on that they were very surprised to learn had a massive following in the West “so in that regards, I think it might be Panty and Stocking. It’s like a 10 plus year old series. And pretty sure a lot of our like current audience, there’s a lot of folks probably who haven’t seen it. And we thought that it would be like out of their generation. But it turns out that a lot of folks are really looking forward for it, which was interesting, I suppose.”
I also asked about the soundtrack and musical inspirations, Hiromi explains the process of the anime’s music selection. “I worked with the director when selecting which tracks to play on each episode. I first received a request from the director on which track he would want played, once I received that request I would play around with that particular track and fill out other portions of the episode. In regards of inspiration Imaishi explains they are all actually from the cyberpunk game and that’s where he got started, and listened to track non-stop and went by his instincts.
Hiroyuki Imaishi
Character Designer / Animation Director
Hiroyuki Imaishi (今石 洋之, Imaishi Hiroyuki) is a Japanese key animator and animation director and one of the co-founders of Studio Trigger. His style is marked by fast and frantic animation combined with elaborate storyboarding and punchy direction. Prior to founding Trigger, he was an animator and director at Gainax. His most well-known works include Gurren Lagann (2007), Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt (2010), Kill la Kill (2013), Promare (2019), and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners(2022).
Hiroyuki Imaishi, the co-founder of Studio TRIGGER, began his career at the historic Studio GAINAX (“FLCL,” “Gurren Lagann”), making his industry debut on the critically-acclaimed anime series “Neon Genesis Evangelion.” Imaishi went on to work on a variety of hit titles at GAINAX, and in 2007 made his directorial debut on the massively popular and award-winning series “Gurren Lagann.”
In 2011, Imaishi left GAINAX to establish Studio TRIGGER, and directed TRIGGER’s debut series, the critically acclaimed “Kill la Kill.” Continuing in his dynamic high-octane animation style, Imaishi, along with his core creative team, went on to direct the first feature film from Studio TRIGGER, “PROMARE,” a spiritual successor to his work on these former titles.
Hiromi Wakabayashi
Creative Producer/ Writer/ Director
Hiromi Wakabayashi is a screenwriter and director currently working in the advertising department of animation studio Trigger.
Previously a member of Studio GAINAX, Hiromi Wakabayashi has been involved in several works with Hiroyuki Imaishi, most notably GURREN LAGANN as design production. Hiromi also contributed to Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt as co-creator, writer, and episodic director. After making a transition to Studio TRIGGER, Hiromi has been actively involved in the production of KILL la KILL, Space Patrol Luluco, and PROMARE as creative director and music producer.
Hiromi has also filled in roles as script and art director for STAR WARS: VISIONS “THE TWINS” and took part in the production as creative support and music selection for TRIGGER’s most recent project – Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.
After joining TRIGGER, Hiromi wrote the script for the fourth episode of KILL la KILL and directed the second ending sequence for the series. More, he assisted and oversaw the design team of KILL la KILL as its Creative Producer. Later on, he took part in numerous TRIGGER titles such as Little Witch Academia, Inferno Cop, Space Patrol Luluco, and DARLING in the FRANXX.
Hiromi is currently working with Hiroyuki Imaishi on Studio TRIGGER’s Promare.
NOTABLE WORKS
-Aim for the Top 2! (Diebuster) (episode 4, 5, 6 special effects)
-GURREN LAGANN (settings production)
-Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt (original idea, screenplay, episodic director)
-IDOLM@STER (episode 1, 13 assistant episodic director)
-KILL la KILL (creative officer, 2nd ending sequence storyboard and directing)
-Little Witch Academia (plot development assistance)
-Little Witch Academia the Enchanted Parade (plot development assistance)
-Momoiro Clover vs KISS music video (animation part producer)
-BATTLE SAURS (Toy Story That Time Forgot) (producer, coloring design)
-SEX and VIOLENCE with MACHSPEED (design and story development, music producer)
-Obake-chan (episodic director, plot development assistance)
-Space Patrol Luluco (creative director, music producer, OP director, storyboard)
-DARLING in the FRANKXX (producer)
MORE INFO
Twitter
https://www.instagram.com/trigger_inc/?hl=en
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