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第四回のインタビュー（SPインタビュー:やぶのてんや先生＆渡辺けんじ先生 前編
“I Want to Know More – Let’s Ask the Digimon Staff!”
Interview No. 4 (Special Interview: Tenya Yabuno and Kenji Watanabe – Part 1 of 2)
Interview originally published December 11th 2017.
In commemoration of the release of Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Hacker’s Memory, we have here today an interview by Hacker’s Memory producer Kazumasa Habu of Tenya Yabuno, the author of Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01, and Kenji Watanabe, a designer for Digimon, about the production secrets behind Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01!
Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01 was serialised in the V-Jump magazine from 1999 to 2003.
Among the manga titles in the Digimon series, V-Tamer is a title to be remembered. This manga, set in the Folder Continent, tells the story of Taichi Yagami and V-dramon’s adventures and development.
“Arkadimon”, who was created to be the partner of Neo Saiba, Taichi’s rival, is set to appear in Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Hacker’s Memory, due to be released on December 14th 2017.
In the story, Arkadimon evolved from “Ultimate” to “Super Ultimate” level, driving Taichi and V-dramon into a corner.
How did this formidable foe come about? Together with Kenji Watanabe, one of the founding fathers of Digimon, producer Kazumasa Habu jumps straight into questioning Tenya Yabuno.
Left: Kenji Watanabe (henceforth referred to as ‘Watanabe’)
Center: Tenya Yabuno (henceforth referred to as ‘Yabuno’)
Right: Producer Kazumasa Habu (henceforth referred to as ‘Habu’)
● Another Digimon Adventure – A Story Featuring Taichi and V-dramon
Habu: To start off, I’d like to ask: Yabuno-san, how did you get Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01 to be serialised in V-Jump?
Yabuno: My first experience working on Digimon was drawing illustrations for the guidebooks. Quite a while before that, I had worked on illustrations for V-Jump, so with those connections I eventually got tasked to work on a manga for Digimon.
Habu: Your one-shot, C’mon Digimon, was published in the second volume of Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01. It was made before planning for Digimon Adventure had even begun, when the whole concept of Digimon was still fresh and not yet fully developed; whether because of that, the Digimon in that one-shot looked very different from the Digimon we see today.
● The one-shot C’mon Digimon
Watanabe: The characters feel very different as well (laughs).
Habu: Yabuno-san, were these all created by you?
Yabuno: Watanabe-san had done up illustrations for the Digimon beforehand, but he told me I was free to change up the designs if I wanted to (laughs).
Habu: So they’re pretty much original designs, then.
Yabuno: Right. The Digimon names and characteristics had already been established, but since I was told that I was free to change them if I liked, I thought, “Why not?”
Habu: In the one-shot, you included original Digimon such as DeathAeromon¹ and DeathMeramon, but a completely different DeathMeramon design ended up being made later on (laughs).
● Yabuno-sensei’s Deathmeramon
Watanabe: Back then, we couldn’t check each other’s work via email, so I would only see the finished work and go “Oh, so that’s how it turned out!”. The one-shot was serialised in Akamaru Jump, but I remember my delight when I heard Digimon was to be turned into a manga.
Habu: Did the serialisation of Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01 begin after the one-shot was finished?
Yabuno: I did work on another project first, but I started drawing for Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01 after that was done. I have a rather interesting relationship with the manga’s author, Izawa-san (Hiroshi Izawa, the writer and creator of the manga). I had already been friends with Izawa-san since my early 20s, even though we worked on different projects. When it was decided that a Digimon manga would begin serialisation, the editorial department wanted to introduce me to the author so I waited in anticipation…only for Izawa-san to make his appearance (laughs).
Habu: That must be fate, then (laughs). So that marks the start of the serialisation; Yabuno-san, I heard you were the one who came up with the base design for the protagonist, Taichi Yagami?
Yabuno: Nakatsuru-san (Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, an animator and character designer for Digimon Adventure) had done up image boards beforehand, but since the manga would begin serialisation first, he decided to use the character I’d designed out of respect for that fact.
Watanabe: From what I remember, the protagonist design they were considering for the anime at the time felt a bit ‘weak’ image-wise. There was some discussion that since the manga would begin first, why not consult Yabuno-san about the design?
Habu: If I’m not wrong, Yabuno-san, you came up with the idea of giving Taichi goggles too, right?
Yabuno: When the serialisation had been confirmed, I immediately imagined an aerial battle as a highlight of the story; you can see some rough sketches of the idea in volume 3 of the manga’s e-book version. That’s when I thought of giving Taichi goggles, since those were indispensable in an aerial battle.
(↑Taichi’s goggles, which were inherited from his grandfather.)
Habu: And so the tradition of Digimon protagonists wearing goggles started here; all of them wore goggles up until Masaru Daimon from Digimon Savers. By the way, Yabuno-san, did you come up with Taichi’s name as well?
Yabuno: If I recall correctly, Izawa-san brought up the name and discussed it with Toei staff during a meeting.
Watanabe: I think Seki-san (Hiromi Seki, Animation Producer from Toei Animation) might’ve been the one to decide on the name. She did do research on name-based fortune telling, in order to decide whether the names were acceptable or not.
Yabuno: The protagonist having an ‘ichi’ [Japanese for ‘one’] in his name was a complete coincidence, but I wanted to include a ‘zero’ in his partner Digimon’s name, to give a fighter jet sort of image. When put together, the ‘0’ and ‘1’ in the protagonist duo’s names had a nice, digital ring to them. However, we couldn’t trademark the name ‘Zero’, so I changed the partner Digimon’s name to ‘Zeromaru’ instead; from the protagonist’s ‘1’ and the partner Digimon’s ‘00’, the ‘100% Combination’ was born.
Habu: It’s almost like the stars happened to align while you were coming up with the setting for the manga. Come to think of it, Yabuno-san, you came up with V-dramon’s design as well, right?
Yabuno: Yes, that’s right.
Watanabe: The V-dramon line is Yabuno-san’s original creation. Yabuno-san’s V-dramon was so cute, I felt that I had to create something even cuter for Digimon Adventure 02, which led me to create V-mon.
Habu: I see. But Zeromaru debuts in the manga already in his Adult stage, right? Is there a reason why he didn’t appear in his Child stage?
Watanabe: At the time, there weren’t really a lot of Child level Digimon who could put up a proper fight. Not only that, while the manga only has to focus on Taichi and Zeromaru, a lot more characters are included in the TV anime. If all the Digimon didn’t revert to their smaller Child forms, it’d be hard to keep fitting them all into the screen.
Habu: Yabuno-san, did you have any image of Zeromaru’s Child form in mind, even though he didn’t show up in Child form in the manga? Something like V-mon?
Yabuno: Oh, I didn’t create any original ideas for his Child level. However, I did design him using C’mon Digimon as a base, so the keyword ‘pet dog’ still stuck with me. Not only that, Taichi’s black wristband is a throwback to that one-shot as well.
Habu: Kenji-san, when did you find out about V-dramon?
Watanabe: We did hold a brainstorming session before the manga began serialisation, so that’s when I found out about V-dramon. That was also when I saw the rough sketches for the manga and read the plot outline Izawa-san had written. The TV anime had already been confirmed at that point, so I remember having to look through the materials quite thoroughly.
Habu: I’d like to take the opportunity to find out more about how V-dramon’s concept and design came about, if I may?
Yabuno: The Digimon Kenji-san designs usually sport solid-looking legs, but I designed V-dramon with the image of a small, carnivorous dinosaur in mind. I had initially wanted to design it like a fluffy dog as well.
Watanabe: Yeah, I had the impression that it looked like a dog-dinosaur hybrid.
(↑V-dramon, who was designed with dog and dinosaur elements in mind.)
Habu: Kenji-san, did you request for Yabuno-san to keep anything particular in mind as he designed V-dramon?
Watanabe: I did give little bits of advice like “maybe adding belts would look good”, but nothing more than that. While it would be a different story if I already had a clear image of I want the Digimon to look like in mind, I try not to interfere when others are the ones doing the designing. At that time, we didn’t really have any rules that dictate “Digimon have to look like this!”, so I thought it was good to see each artist’s individuality shine through.
Yabuno: I’m really grateful to have been given so much freedom in designing him. I can’t remember if this was taken from Watanabe-san’s advice or not, but I remember being told to try and bring out the unique Digimon feel while using a dog as a base, to which I added dinosaur elements and formed the final design.
Watanabe: Yabuno-san has designed other Digimon as well. I was the one who designed Angemon, but Yabuno-san designed HolyAngemon, Angemon’s evolution.
(↑HolyAngemon, as designed by Yabuno-sensei.)
Yabuno: That’s right, I did HolyAngemon too.
Watanabe: We discussed about it with each other while working on the design.
Habu: Oh right, HolyAngemon debuted in the manga first.
Yabuno: There weren’t that many Digimon back then, especially at the very beginning, so I was actually given a fair bit of freedom to create new Digimon.
Watanabe: During the initial stages, there weren’t a lot of ‘orthodox’ evolution patterns like Angemon to HolyAngemon.
Habu: Yabuno-san, were you the one who created Demon too?
Yabuno: The design was done by me, yes; when Izawa-san and I were discussing about creating a final boss, we settled on the name ‘Demon’ for its straightforwardness.
Habu: The fans who followed the series chronologically probably know Demon well, but the same may not be so for fans who entered the series through the anime.
Yabuno: That’s true. Just the other day, I happened across some interesting reaction posts online; one of them read a synopsis of the manga’s first chapter and questioned “Why is Taichi defeating Greymon?”. I kind of understand their confusion after reading their opinions.
Habu: Greymon, who evolved from Agumon, is Taichi’s partner in the anime after all. I was also surprised when I saw some of the Digimon who were powerful foes in the anime get treated like small fry in the manga.
Watanabe: Zeromaru was an Adult level, so we thought we had to make the enemies in the manga stronger, as opposed to in the TV anime where their Digimon begin at Child level.
Yabuno: Right. Even though they both share the title Digimon Adventure, the manga and anime are already quite different from the start, since in the manga people who raised Digimon on their V-pet toys would arrive in the Digital World already as Tamers. Since your ability to beat tougher foes proves the strength of your combination as Tamer and partner, the constant quest of taking on of higher level opponents is more prominent in the manga than in the anime.
Habu: An Etemon named Etemonkey appears near the beginning of the manga; was the manga the first to give Etemon that sort of image?
(↑Etemonkey’s appearance in V-Tamer.)
Yabuno: Etemonkey’s character was established to be ‘a Digimon who just really wants to get along with kids’, but since the Digimonkey character (?) already existed…
Watanabe: There was this character named Digimonkey in the Weekly Shonen Jump’s Digimon corner. They would partake in events while in costume and go around the country promoting Digimon enthusiastically, so we made Etemon and included it in the game as a way of saying thanks. That’s where the tradition of creating Digimon versions of Shueisha staff who worked with us began.
Yabuno: The start of this franchise is really quite chaotic (laughs).
Watanabe: We might be the creators, but we did play with our products as we worked on them. We just wanted to create a fun product; we didn’t even imagine it would get turned into an anime or a manga series. Not only did we include the Tamagotchi’s Oyajitchi in Digimon as Nanimon, we also modeled Mojyamon after our former department lead, Hongo-san; even the Special Move ‘Hang On Death’ was named to sound similar to the phrase “Hongo desu” [meaning “This is Hongo”.] (laughs).
(Continued in Part 2)
¹Note: DeathAeromon (デスエアロモン) could be a misspelling of DeathAirdramon (デスエアドラモン), who appeared in the C’mon Digimon manga.
garm's translations 