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Yasushi Nirasawa & Takaaki Utsunomiya Interview Translation

From the Undead: Green Blood art book.

The task of designing the Undead was carried out in a back-and-forth between Mr. Nirasawa and Producer Utsunomiya. We asked the two of them to share some stories from that time. The unused designs mentioned in this interview have been published in the following pages, starting on page 105.

First, please tell us about how you became involved with Kamen Rider Blade.

Nirasawa: I’d known (Tamotsu) Shinohara, who designed the Orphnocs for Kamen Rider 555, for some time. One day, he asked me if I’d like to work on next year’s Rider. That was a dream job for me, so I was delighted to accept it. The first time I met Utsunomiya was for our briefing session at a coffee shop in Ginza.

Utsunomiya: That’s right. Actually, Nirasawa had been recommended before. But to us, he’s a master, so we wondered if he would be able to take on the role. Then, he told me, “I want to do it,” so I thought, “Wow, score! I absolutely can’t let him go.” (laughs)

If Nirasawa hadn’t requested the job, you were considering trying to offer it to him.

Utsunomiya: I thought I would at least try asking. But Yasushi Nirasawa is a big name, so I wondered if he would accept…

Nirasawa: It’s not big.

Utsunomiya: Because of that, I was nervous to meet him for the first time…

Nirasawa: Likewise, I was nervous too.

Utsunomiya: At that first briefing session, Nirasawa brought two designs.

Nirasawa: Shinohara told me that if I had my own proof of concept I should bring it, so I drew Chameleon (pg. 116) and Octopus (pg. 115) and brought them. Then, he smoothly said, “Okay, let’s go along these lines.”

The concept was roughly established from the beginning.

Nirasawa: I wanted to use black as the base color and put studs on them. It was an impression of the original Shocker belt.

You said that since the Orphnocs used white and grey as base colors, this time you wanted to try using black.

Nirasawa: Since the Orphnocs were like stone statues, for the Undead I was going for “Hellraiser” or “Mad Max.”

Utsunomiya: In the case of the Undead, the designs were brilliant, but I actually think there was a great advancement in modeling techniques.

Nirasawa: I thought they’d make the black parts out of urethane foam or something, but I was glad they actually used leather. Even the studs weren’t polyurethane.

Utsunomiya: At Rainbow (model planning company), there were a lot of fans of Nirasawa, so I think they tried their best to faithfully recreate his ideas. Also, since it was shot on videotape, there would have been problems with the look of the texture if they’d used polyurethane.

Also, I imagine there would be limitations if it had to be worn during action scenes.

Utsunomiya: I prepared for things like that with action director (Takeshi) Miyazaki in the early stages.

Nirasawa: After all, the movement aspect is what matters. But when I told Shinohara about this, he said, “You shouldn’t worry about it that much.” I could hear God’s voice from both sides, and I was worried (laughs).

Utsunomiya: A characteristic of Nirasawa’s designs is a small waist. I wanted to recreate that somehow, but it was difficult. The suit actors hadn’t even been decided yet… Nirasawa was probably thinking, “too fat.”

Nirasawa: No, no!

Did you visit Rainbow at all?

Nirasawa: I stopped by once. It was pretty early on, when they were making Bat or Locust.

You said you drew two motifs and brought them to the first meeting, but did you draw them without any idea of what kind of piece they’d become?

Nirasawa: That’s right. I just wanted to draw a chameleon and a jellyfish, so I drew them and brought them with me (laughs).

Utsunomiya: The plan changed several times, but the fact that 52 monsters would appear and what their motifs would be were roughly decided in the early stages. We changed a few of them later in discussions with Bandai. We asked them to choose their favorite motif from among them. I felt sorry that we couldn’t draw motifs they liked. But Nirasawa graciously accepted their requests.

Nirasawa: If I remember correctly, the crane became a scarab beetle, and the black cat became a chameleon.

Utsunomiya: The choice of motifs was heavily influenced by “555,” so there are quite a lot of shared ones. As far as I know, this is the only show where all of the motifs were decided from the beginning.

What motifs were difficult to work on?

Nirasawa: Animals with hooves were tough, like deer… or maybe the cat. Like deer, I like that sort of cute creature, so I was sad to turn it into a monster. On the other hand, Shinohara is unbothered by that sort of thing, so I thought I would leave motifs like that to him. At first, we took turns doing it, but then he told me, “If you’ve come this far, go for it.” (laughs)

What motifs did you want to try doing?

Nirasawa: Paradoxa (praying mantis). There’s Chalice (Mantis Undead) in the show, but I wanted to try doing a different design, while still including the Chalice design on top of that.

Which is your favorite?

Nirasawa: I really like Mole. It looks like a soldier, and it’s simple. For some reason, the mole monsters, like Mogurang and Drill Mole¹, are blue. And following suit, this one is blue, too. I wanted them to make a soft vinyl figure of it, but I guess that didn’t happen (laughs). Even if we did a popularity contest, I think it would be quicker to count from the bottom.

Also, you frequently use skull motifs.

Nirasawa: The Undead are monsters associated with imagery of “death,” so I began frequently using centipedes and things like that as a symbol of the Undead.

This might be a weird question, but why do all of your designs face right?

Nirasawa: I think it’s mostly because I’m left-handed. Also, I decided to base the proportions and such on the first Chameleon I drew. In short, all of the Undead were born from Chameleon. Because they’re chameleons, it might be more accurate to say they’ve shape-shifted. (laughs)

The Undead planning sessions were mostly held with Utsunomiya.

Nirasawa: First, I received a fax from Utsunomiya. It would contain things like the motif, the story of that episode, and also the following developments they’d written, and that got me really inspired. When I got home from work and saw that I’d received a fax, I thought, “Ah! Instructions from Utsunomiya!” and it got my blood pumping (laughs). I wondered just what kinds of things would be written this time.

Utsunomiya: I sent more faxes than phone calls. Meetings would go late into the day. In the faxes, I’d write various things, like notes on my meetings with the writer and director, the motif is ____, whether the death would be quick or drawn out with tension, this design should have a boss-level feeling, things like that. But I didn’t really write many requests for what I wanted him to do. It’s not like I had zero, though.

Nirasawa: But I’m glad you sent faxes. If we had phone calls, it would’ve completely given away that I was nervous or excited. I’d be saying things like “Whaat?” or “Are you serious?” (laughs)

What was the most memorable part of these exchanges?

Utsunomiya: Joker for the movie. I received the design 5 minutes after I sent the fax (laughs).

Nirasawa: I knew the Joker would be appearing, so I already had a feeling of the direction I wanted to go in ahead of time. I wanted to use a longhorn beetle motif for the headgear, and a demeanor that resembled Hakaider (the evil warrior who appeared in “Android Kikaider”), so I made his internal organs visible in some places.

Utsunomiya: I really wanted to include some sort of Nirasawa Rider in the movie, and I was disappointed that I couldn’t.

Nirasawa: But that was reflected in the Trials. I didn’t think the Trials would appear that much, so I used things like Fake Kamen Rider and the Great Leader of Gel Shocker² as the motifs. One thing that I strongly remember from that time was that for one of them, I used Satan Bug (Kamen Rider Stronger)³ as a motif. When I told Utsunomiya about it, he asked, “Is that Cloth?” and I was personally very amused. Utsunomiya looks cool, but he’s really knowledgeable about “Kamen Rider” (laughs). I was really happy to learn that.

Utsunomiya: I’d seen it in a book or something before, and I got a strong impression of it.

Nirasawa: I remember that the movie was difficult because there were so many of them. If I remember correctly, we started working on it before the Golden Week holidays in May⁴, and we finished the first week of June.

Utsunomiya: Actually, there were more. There were a few monsters that got rejected.

Nirasawa: Cobra, or something. It made it to a rough sketch, but that was it.

Utsunomiya: I really wanted to do it without reusing any monsters, though.

The final boss, Fourteen, was the only fully CGI monster.

Utsunomiya: The first version was designed so that a person could be inside. But it was going to be CGI, so we were asked to redraw it.

Looking at your commentary on the designs, several costumes were revised, but did you have any other challenges with the designs?

Nirasawa: I don’t remember struggling. Actually, I had fun.

Utsunomiya: We had discussed ahead of time that there would be more revisions in the second half. As an example that’s easy to understand: for the Darkroaches that appeared in the final series of episodes, we recolored the Albiroaches from the movie, and we wanted to make not only the body but also the eyes green. When we discussed it with Rainbow, they told us, “We can’t do that.” But when we persistently asked the person in charge on set, they did it.

Nirasawa: They turned out to be a nice clear green.

Utsunomiya: We were really grateful. I might have been a little angry, though (laughs).

Nirasawa: How many of them were there?

Utsunomiya: There were six. Two of them had wings that opened.

Also, you designed not only the Undead, but various other things like the Undead Buckle.

Nirasawa: There was also the stone slab that appeared near the end. Director (Takao) Nagaishi requested that it be like a monolith, and he told me to twist it a little more, so I tried to “twist” it exactly like he asked (laughs). The staff called it “twisted konjak.”

Utsunomiya: At first, we planned to make it out of urethane foam, but if we did that, we wouldn’t be able to do any close-ups because of how the texture would look, so we decided to make it out of fiber reinforced plastic. Nirasawa also gave us various other ideas. It had been established that Undead can’t die, which is fine, but how would they be able to defeat them? At first, we thought they could explode and be sealed in a card, and then Director Ishida had the idea of sticking a card in them and sucking them in, which prompted the idea of the buckle opening. So, we ended up with the buckle opening and sticking the card in it.

Nirasawa: The card-throwing action was cool, too.

Utsunomiya: Also, you gave us instructions for the Bat Undead’s wings to move.

Nirasawa: That had just been on “National Geographic,” so I used that. It was recreated in the show, which made me happy.

This might be a bit of a change of subject, but what memories do you two have of “Kamen Rider?”

Nirasawa: Well, I was in the generation that grew up with it.

Utsunomiya: To be honest, I didn’t know much about it. I was born in 1970, so I have some vague memories of “Kamen Rider Amazon” and “Stronger.” If anything, “Himitsu Sentai Goranger” probably left the strongest impression on me. When it came to “Kamen Rider,” I mostly learned about it through reading books later on. It was the same with Satan from earlier. I remember being surprised that that was the final boss… (laughs)

Speaking of which, what’s your favorite monster?

Nirasawa: I was the most shocked by Ganikoumoru (Kamen Rider 1971), the first monster of Gel Shocker, and the storyline in which he kills off the remnants of Shocker one after the other. Also, the two motifs wasn’t exactly half and half, but mixed together, and the asymmetrical design was the best. It’s not Ganikoumori, it’s Ganikoumoru. I also like the use of the colors, and that the blank part on the right shoulder is slanted. I think that must be the “ru” (laughs)⁵. I like the monsters of Gel Shocker, so I was happy with Titan. That was a fusion of the Chameleon and Scorpion monsters. I thought, “we can have Gel Shocker monsters in this world.”

Utsunomiya: From the start, we decided that there would be 53 Undead, including the Joker, so I thought having compound or man-made Undead would be okay.

Nirasawa: I always thought those kinds of monsters were designed by Ishinomori, but fairly recently I learned that Akira Takahashi was in charge of the modeling design. For example, Sea Snake Man (Kamen Rider 1971) has a face that’s not a sea snake at all, no matter how you look at it. But that was Takahashi’s interpretation. Worm Man (Kamen Rider 1971) also deliberately had a tear in his side, so the worms inside could peek out. Also, the use of color for Kamakubikame (Kamen Rider V3), the proportions of purple, yellow-green, and orange have a Western-style feel to them. According to him, since it was a children’s show character, he could have done something simple, but no, this is how a monster should look. I was definitely influenced by Takahashi to make the Undead asymmetrical. The Eagle Undead is Gilgaras, and the Jaguar Undead is Jaguarman⁶ (laughs). It’s my homage.

Utsunomiya: I wish I had replaced the feathers of the Eagle Undead. I regret not including a scene of the feathers growing, because it would’ve looked more realistic.

Nirasawa: I wanted to have the eagle land on top of the Earth. Doing that would create a Shocker mark, right? (laughs) I tried doing a rough sketch with that in mind.

Utsunomiya: Since he’d gone to the trouble of drawing it for me, I showed it to the production team, but they couldn’t find a good place to film it.

Nirasawa: It wasn’t much of a replacement, but I tried putting a Shocker band on the left arm.

Utsunomiya: That was still good.

Nirasawa: I got advice from Shinohara that I shouldn’t include many motifs from existing works, but it was my first project, after all, so I couldn’t help it.

What’s the appeal of Nirasawa’s designs from the producer’s perspective?

Utsunomiya: Personally, I think it’s better for a monster to be scary. But it’s a morning show, so there were limitations. Despite that, they’re stylish. And most importantly, they’re cool. That’s their greatest appeal. I’m just grateful that those exquisite lines have been beautifully reproduced. I would love the chance to work together again. Next time I definitely want to ask for a design with an original motif.

June 9, 2006・At Toei Studios

T/N 1: From Kamen Rider (1971) and Kamen Rider V3, respectively. 2: “Fake Kamen Rider” refers to the Shocker Riders. Both are from Kamen Rider 1971 3: The Great Leader of Black Satan from Kamen Rider Stronger. 4: Takes place the first week of May. 5: “Ganikoumoru” (ガニコウモル) is a combination of “kani” (カニ - crab) and “koumori” (コウモリ - bat), with the “ka” カ syllable changed to “ga” ガ and “ri” リ changed to “ru” ル 6: From Kamen Rider 1971. 7:

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