R.I.P Takeshi Shudo

[KonokoHasano]

Takeshi Shudo, the head script writer for the original Kanto, Orange Islands, and Johto episodes of Pokemon, as well as the first three movies and Mewtwo Returns died yesterday at the age of 61. He was also the man responsible for pushing Jessie, James, and Meowth of Team Rocket to become main characters, and he was also apparently the one who created Lugia.

Shudo also did work for different anime as well, such as Legend of the Galactic Heroes, and did some work with Studio Ghibli.

[Maiden Miki]

I know that he hasn't done anything recently for the Pokemon anime but it still sad to hear that he has passed away. I remember before going to (the anime) convention this weekend that he was in the hospital but I didn't expect to come back to hear he has passed away. Though I am happy for the work he has done since the Rocket Trio are one of my favorite characters so I thank him for giving us the chance to see some great episodes featuring this trio of bumbling villains.

May he be writing scripts for the angels now.

[KonokoHasano]

The creepy, coincidental thing is that on the day he went to the hospital (The 28th), it was the same day that the 666th episode of Pokemon premiered in Japan.

[Maiden Miki]

The creepy, coincidental thing is that on the day he went to the hospital (The 28th), it was the same day that the 666th episode of Pokemon premiered in Japan.

It was? Now that is creepy.

Though I wonder what were his opinions on what has become of Team Rocket.

[KonokoHasano]

Here's some bits from blog posts that he made, translated by other people...

The group of the protagonists - Satoshi, Kasumi, Takeshi and Pikachu, as might be expected, are the main ones that appear on a screen. I was thinking about various personalities for them, but after all, they had to get so called stereotypical personalities, easy to understand, to obtain the empathy of children, who are the main audience of anime version. There was also a way to give them unique personalities to make the production characteristic, but considering that the main audience will be children, it was better to make the protagonists plain and simple characters. Regarding to minor audience, it doesn’t matter, when villains and rivals are displayed in a simple and easy to understand way as well. But, to that extent, it becomes a production intended completely for kids. In this situation, it won’t become interesting anime, no matter who watches it. Even though I tried to create anime for children, I wanted something that would make it admirable for youths and adults. Just like giving satisfaction to adults with a great picture book or a fairy-tale, I thought it must be the same when it comes to kids-oriented comics and anime. Actually, I’ve never written a screenplay that would be restricted to anime for children myself.

Consequently, even if the series looks like “the story about manga world” or “the first manga tale” addressed to children, I intended to write a thing that would stimulate intellectual interest in adults and wouldn’t make fools of them. Therefore, when I was deciding on anime screenplay for Pokemon, the thing I wondered about first, was “what about extending the age limit from little children to adults, so that the people could enjoy it also at older age?”

There was also a way to describe mental development of the protagonists during their meetings with various pokemon, but since the televising was arranged to last for 1 year and a half, with audience being little kids, it no longer could be about protagonists growth.

I’ll repeat myself but, the thing is that Pokemon was arranged for at least 1.5 years running period. It may be digression, but I think it’s amazing that Pokemon is being continued for more than 10 years already.

The elements that I’ve been trying to put in Pokemon anime version, the ones that were made for amusing adults and make them think, have been gradually fading, the audience that were children at the beginning, steadily became adults and for sure lost interest in Pokemon.

As a substitution, in spite of the amount of children whose Pokemon amuses, certainly getting smaller due to decrease in birth rates, there’s no indication that Pokemon’s popularity, whether it’s games, TV anime or the movies, becomes weak.

And, once more, Team Rocket’s existence was naturally essential. In case of Pokemon edition, because villain characters were going to be original here, it was possible to create them in any way. Moreover, with fascinating villains or protagonist’s rival being the case, the interest of the whole production becomes to change. In interesting productions, the existence of fascinating villains and rivals is essential. 　

In other words, whether the production becomes interesting or boring, it depends not as much on the main character’s charm, as on how much villains and rivals are fascinating.　

It’s often said that Team Rocket was created with being conscious of the evil trio from “Time Bokan”. At first, when planning started, it may be that the producers submitted an example of Time Bokan’s evil trio for making their explanations easy to understand, but since I’ve become the series constructor, the nuance of Team Rocket was a little different. The evil trio from “Time Bokan, the clumsy villains whose evil boss continues to set punishment on them for their failures, are so-called losing buffoons, but Team Rocket, even if they continue to lose because of their clumsiness and stupidity in the same way, have a self-confidence and they never regard themselves as losers. They have their own policy, and even if it differs from general common sense, it asserts their sense of existence to the end. Inside Pokemon anime, where villains are essential, they make an appearance being aware of the fact that Pokemon anime wouldn’t come to existence if they weren’t there. It’s because they aren’t usual villains whose appearance is limited to only 2-3 times. While the protagonists are stereotypes easy to understand, Team Rocket in the role of villains must be full of individualities and having sense of existence characters. Their existence must be made the way, that would make the audience to call out “I’ve been waiting for it!” when they appear on the screen. The more Team Rocket will be individual, the more they will stand out, the more Pokemon anime edition will differ from usual anime and become a unique thing. 　

In short, it’s me who thought of making up a primary factor for Pokemon with existence of clumsy villains, “Team Rocket”, appreciated by adults, transforming children-oriented anime into family anime that adults can enjoy too.

“It’s us, who will decide, whether Pokemon anime will succeed or end up as a failure” it seems that three people performing voices for Team Rocket were pretty much aware of that at the time of celebration party. They looked as if they were thinking that this job is worth doing, as voice actors and as performers. The voices of Rocket Gang, Megumi Hayashibara’s trio, came to me specially all together and told me such a thing in front of me.

“If you ask about us this and that, the answer we will give will be society’s compassion, to prevent the world’s destruction, to protect the world’s peace, to carry through the evils of love and truth, in the roles of lovely, charming villains, Musashi! Kojiro! Team Rocket’s duo soars through the galaxy, the white hole, the white tomorrow is waiting for us! Something like that!”　

That was the motto Rocket Gang say when they appear in front of Satoshi’s group. “Let us say this motto every time we appear and make it popular” I was told. In short, I necessarily included this motto in the script, whenever Team Rocket appears… Because of this being the request from voice actors’ side, I was very happy myself, since I created it thinking about it considerably. Furthermore, people from animation also were devoted to this motto, and every time, they came up with different poses.

In terms of other anime, I guess that the evil trio from “Yattaman” or “Time Bokan” represents this idea. As in that stupidity and clumsiness there was even a sorrow shown, there were lots of cases when their popularity exceeded that of respectable heroes of justice. When you go too far, this existence stands out more than the story itself. However, in Pokemon, giving a highlight to the villains’ blunders by arranging them as the main point of the show was a problem. The main points of Pokemon were, to the very end, the main characters’ actions with Pokemon, catching Pokemon and making them battle. Nevertheless, making them regular characters lacking individualities would be boring. So I schemed a little.

Team Rocket appearing in Pokemon, even if just for a short time, have to be self-assertive and impress the viewers with their the sense of existence. They are characters whose self-respect is high and at least it’s them who are convinced that if they weren’t here, the anime called “Pokemon” would cease to exist. What they’re doing consequently ends up with a clumsy and idiotic result, but it’s because of their bad luck, as they themselves think they do their best. They’re proud of their own position in this show. Speaking about their role in the show, since they’re villains, their Pokemon’s unworthiness hasn’t been focused on. Cute or cool Pokemon are being held by the main characters. Because there is no “unworthy Pokemon”, they understand also their sadness. Their self-awareness is strong, but that’s because they’re good-natured by nature.

And indeed, they’re not hopeless villains. It doesn’t matter if it’s not topnotch, they’re able to do practically everything. Musashi, is a beautiful woman and suffers hardships of being beautiful. These experiences aren’t quite complete, but there is plenty of them. Well, it’s not that she can’t say that she easily falls in love because she can’t become a world-class beauty...* Kojiro is fairly well-brought-up and educated. When it comes to Nyasu, he’s an intellectual who worked hard to master human language. However, with some little causal relationship, they stepped out of line and stopped living a honest life.

Belonging to Team Rocket, they may look as if they’re kowtowing to their boss, and they actually do things they’re told to, but when they aren’t seen by him they’re acting impudently. They don’t wear uniforms matching to those of Team Rocket. In this difference from other members there’s also a self-awareness included. Really, they can’t lose sight of themselves while they look like belonging to the organization. Even if they’re villains, they’re not as much mere villains, since they’re proud and undoubtedly (?) charming ones. In my productions, such criminals appear often. I remember that I wished that Team Rocket’s character designs would rather be like beautiful villains from “Sasuga no sarutobi” instead of villains from “Time Bokan”. Also their speech, being random, long and nonsensical self-introduction beginning from words “If you ask us about this and that, the answer we will give will be world’s compassion…” was fairly considered to express their individuality. This, as far as it concerned the criminals who tend to be regarded non-seriously, seemed to be a speech that has its charm (but knowing, that the voice actors of this trio are excellent, you can say that it’s a matter of course). At the time of this show’s start celebration party, voice actors performing roles of these 3, were coming to me all together over and over again, telling me “Even though this speech is long, we will try to make it popular, absolutely” and I felt happy. Incidentally, it seemed like the animators also get on board, since every time during this speech they were coming up with different poses.

Also, Takeshi Shudo wasn't exactly a fan of Misty.

""There were people that felt that behind the words "It's just an accidence that I want to go there where Satoshi is" she hides a love interest for Satoshi, but it was just fake scene I prepared for Kasumi to make her sense of existence (in the series) stand out.

Kasumi doesn't have anything like love interest for Satoshi. If Kasumi's feeling of love towards Satoshi would become Pokemon's subject, it would break the whole structure of Pokemon."

He also made it clear that for Satoshi, being a child, his relation with Pikachu is stronger so that even if Kasumi felt something towards Satoshi, she couldn't intrude between them.

Even if in Pokemon happened something like Kasumi falling in love with Satoshi, it would be like with addding spices to the cooking, too much spices would make only the flavour too complicated and it would be just intrusion.

He also said that out of all characters in the show , Kasumi's existence was the least justified. She was there to draw attention of girls, because anime with boys only would be "tasteless" for them.

And why she left the show. After the show got longer, there was a decline in ratings so they thought of changing something about the main characters and the villains.

Because justification of Kasumi's existence was the weakest, she was the most endangered to leave. He says that it wasn't like he wanted to substitute her, but they needed someone with fascinating personality, whose existence was neccessary.

Also he stated that Kasumi didn't have enough charm for a girl (sexist much?).

He explained why the scene where Kasumi rescued Satoshi that was sinking in the sea in Pokemon 2000 was erased in the end.

He wrote in the script that because Satoshi didn't breathe, she gave him artifical respiration, knocking his chest many times. He explained that he wanted him to live not because of the love she felt for him, but of her anger that her existence would become even weaker. He didn't want a misunderstanding abroad, so this part got deleted."

[Maiden Miki]

Okay. So in his eyes Team Rocket was always suppose to be a group of 'fools' who keep doing what they do. haha That is cool. Kind of makes me more sad in how they are in the BW anime.

[KonokoHasano]

Well, not exactly. In Takeshi Shudo's eyes, Jessie, James, and Meowth were possibly the most developed characters in the series. They were fools, yes, but they had personality and drive that was meant to make them likeable, going through hardships and never giving up. There were so many things that he wanted to do with the three, but it all just didn't work out.