This year at Otakon, Manga Mavericks and Weekly Shougakukan Edition’s Varun Gupta and Sakaki had the pleasure of speaking with the staff for the anime A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics, including the original light novel writer Yomi Hirasaka, Shogakukan’s GAGAGA Bunko Deputy Editor-in-Chief Kentaro Iwaasa, character designer Kazuhiro Fukuchi, and TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System) producer Maiko Higa.
Check out the full interview with the team down below:
Hirasaka-sensei, after A Sister’s All You Need what made you continue to publish your work with Shogakukan?
Hirasaka: After A Sister’s All You Need, I started discussions with Iwaasa-san about what to write next and it was through our discussions that we came up with A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics.
Iwaasa-san, what do you think makes GAGAGA Bunko stand out from other publishers?
Iwaasa: What makes GAGAGA Bunko stand out from others is the variety of stories we publish. Of course, there are very mainstream light novels such as ones with cute girl protagonists or romcoms, but we also offer coming-of-age stories for older readership as well as works targeted to girls and women and other niche genres.
Fukuchi-san, how much feedback did you get from Hirasaka-sensei and the LN illustrator Kantoku when working on the character designs?
Fukuchi: At the beginning, Kantoku gave us some initial feedback about the nuances of the characters such as making their faces rounder, but otherwise we had a strong foundation of trust and there wasn’t too much back and forth on the character designs.
Higa-san, as a producer what were your main priorities on A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics and how far in advance did anime production begin before airing?
Higa: Generally for anime productions, discussions begin about two to three years before they air. That was the case for A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics where planning began two to three years before airing. As for the other question –a producer’s primary job is securing money. (laughs) So my first task and main job was to find party members to join this adventure and help pay for the expenses.
Hirasaka-sensei, we noticed that Detective Conan was a major part of this work. Are you a fan of the series, and what was it like going to Aoyama-sensei for his blessing to use his work as part of A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics?
Hirasaka: Of course I’ve read and watched Detective Conan and am a fan of the series. As for it’s inclusion in the series —the main character Sosuke is a detective, and if you’re writing a series under a Shogakukan imprint, then Conan is the detective you think of. So it almost felt like we had to include him. However when we approached the editorial department they at first told us it might not be likely we can use Conan, but they figured it couldn’t hurt to ask. To everyone’s surprise, Aoyama-sensei was on board almost immediately and gave us the okay without much of an issue.
Iwaasa: As an aside Detective Conan also appears in the anime version as well. So when we went again to ask for permission to use him Aoyama-sensei was once again on board and said that he’s okay with anything we want to do and looks forward to the anime. He’s a truly wonderful person.
For the season finale of the anime, there was an advertisement in Times Square in New York. What was the process for making that happen?
Higa: To Japan, New York is a melting pot of ethnicity, much like A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics. That was one of the reasons why we thought to approach advertising there. Also in Episode 5 of the series, Sara asks if they’re in New York, but she’s quickly corrected that they’re in Gifu, Prefecture Japan. Since New York did come up in the show that was another factor in favor of advertising there. Also, other popular anime such as Demon Slayer had advertisements in New York, so we wanted to try it. We went in thinking it may not work out, but in the end, it did.
Hirasaka-sensei, you write the scripts for the anime adaptions of your works. Is that by preference?
Hirasaka: I strongly believe when a work is transferred into another medium it’s important to keep the spirit of the original intact, so I elect to write the anime myself. In the previous adaptation of one of my series, I wrote the script so with this one I asked the producer if it would be okay if I wrote this as well and got the okay for it.
Fukuchi-san this is your first show as a character designer how did you get this role and how does it differ from doing key animation?
Fukuchi: There was a contest to choose the character designer for the anime, and it came down to three choices. They asked each of us to draw the leads, Sara, LiVia, and Sosuke to get an idea of who would best represent the characters in the anime. The staff involved with the anime then went through these illustrations and chose mine.
Higa-san how has producing A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics differed from other productions you’ve been a part of?
Higa: A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics was a ton of fun to work on because of the many jokes in the series. Some of them are edgier than others. When an anime goes to broadcast on TV, there are rules and guidelines they have to follow so it was challenging and rewarding to figure out just how to get the jokes on air. One specific character was Noa, a character who runs a cult. Not surprisingly matters of religion have guidelines so we had many conversations to figure out what would be okay to air, as Noa wouldn’t work without her background as a cult leader.
Fukuchi-san, Hirasaka-sensei what were some of your influences when working on the anime and light novels respectively?
Hirasaka: There are two works in particular that influenced me, the manga Hinamatsuri and the video game Yakuza 7. In Hinamatsuri the main character is suddenly put in charge of a girl with psychic abilities. It’s a relaxed slice of life series I really enjoyed reading. The other, Yakuza 7 Sosuke starts off as a easygoing character, but as the series progresses he sees the dark underbelly of society and I feel like Yakuza is a heavy influence on that.
Iwaasa: So when Hirasaka-sensei and I were discussing what to do next, we had several different ideas. One day Kantoku-sensei and I received a totally different idea from Hirasaka-sensei, which had us confused since it was totally different from what we had discussed earlier, and he revealed it’s because he wanted to write something similar to Hinamatsuri.
Fukuchi: As far as inspirations for the series, I didn’t have anything in particular but one general thing I made sure to pay attention to is the shading on the characters. Anime in Japan right now has a trend of lighter shading on characters. As for a specific character that was influenced by other works –Yuna, or well her mom does not have a specific appearance in the light novel so I was left on my own to design her. Since I haven’t drawn that many mother-figure characters I did look through other anime for inspiration. I didn’t use any one series in particular, but I did get inspiration from them.
Thanks again to the A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics team, TBS, and Otakon for making this interview possible!
A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics is currently streaming on Crunchyroll
