Все тот же Free! Creation Notebook Vol. 2

[Aurum-san]

Какой нажористый том оказался! И картинки в нем классные, и интервью — последнее особенно. Оно длинное-длинное, но его обязательно нужно прочесть, потому что в нем Хироко Уцуми, Масахиро Ёкотани и Футоси Нисия рассказывают о втором сезоне, включая 14-ю серию.

Несколько цитат с моими абсолютно неуместными, но короткими комментариями

О жанре сериала
Utsumi: After I read Yokotani-san’s draft, I said “this is entertaining.”
Yokotani: But I said various things like “sports aren’t my forte.”
Utsumi: You certainly did! But I believe I said “it’s not my intent to make Free! into a sports show, so you’ll be fine!” I was consciously thinking of it like a shojo manga.
Nishiya: I can’t remember if you said “shounen manga” before.
Utsumi: I… said that. (laughs) When I said “shounen manga” it was the part with “hot blooded friendship” but it would be important for the presentation and emotional portions to be directed more like a shojo manga. When I read the draft, it matched that peculiar feeling that I wanted Free! to be: a sports show without that fighting spirit.

Что и требовалось доказать. Совсем другая проблематика, другая атмосфера, которая отличает Free от обычных споконов, нацеленных на мальчишек-подростков. В целом у них получилось.

О Нитори
Nishiya: At first he was the cool type.
Utsumi: Right, right. Since that was the preliminary order for his character description, he had a bit of a different atmosphere in the actual show.
Nishiya: He certainly did. But I also sensed that direction had been decided with how his voice was.

Нитори? Сool? Хотела бы я это увидеть!

О Харуке
Utsumi: Speaking of changes, the character who changed the most from the draft was definitely Haruka. I truly had no idea how to best handle the Haruka from the draft who was cool and felt like he wouldn’t let anyone near him.
Yokotani: Haruka, from the first season until the end of the second… was our problem child.
Utsumi: (laughs) But the draft you wrote made me say “I love Haruka” so that was awfully reassuring. I think we did well depicting Haruka from the original draft to the Free! version. Not disrupting that character nor messing around with him too much. But as Haruka would speak, I’d gradually say something like “that’s not something Haruka would say.”
Yokotani: Right, his lines kept getting trimmed.
Utsumi: We struggled with his lines every time. His comedic style was representative of Yokotani-san’s . Yokotani-san kept saying “I want to toss in a gag here.”
Yokotani: That’s why the second half of season two was very difficult.

Ну вообще говоря, да. Характер у Харуки непростой — не потому, что тяжелый, а потому, что сложный. Чудная формулировочка, надо запомнить.

Еще раз о жанре
— Nishiya-san, what expectations did you have for the second season?
Nishiya: Hopefully that it would be more like a shounen manga than the first season. With Samezuka Academy filled up, I thought it’d be a strong swimming anime. Well… It was a bit of trouble…
Utsumi: We had already “resolved” ourselves when making the second season that they would swim.

Ну вот. Отсюда почти полное отсутствие взаимодействия между Рином и Харукой вплоть до 12-й серии. Потому что... вы сами знаете почему.

О Соскэ
Yokotani: And then Sousuke was constantly a turbulent, turbulent, turbulent depiction.
Utsumi: Yes…. His shoulder wasn’t hurt in the first draft of his character.
Nishiya: Is that true? I thought that was determined from the very beginning.
Yokotani: It was decided that he’d be the person who “gave up swimming” but we didn’t clearly decide if it would be from injury or family circumstances.
Utsumi: I was troubled thinking of what pattern to use for him. I’d wanted to avoid that “injured” atmosphere in the first season.
Yokotani: Right. But that would also make him more pitiful too….
Utsumi: We did avoid that atmosphere after all. But when the adviser for the swimming club we used as a reference said “Kids who swim lights out inevitably injure themselves,” I slumped and understood. And so up until then it was the plan that Sousuke wouldn’t stand on that board again. We met supporters during the first season, so I thought it’d be important to delve into him looking after the first season’s characters. But if we did that, Sousuke would end up just being “the new character.” I certainly didn’t want him to feel like the type who’d get reactions like “wouldn’t it be better if he didn’t appear?” If Sousuke moved into the story, then Samezuka would have a team, Iwatobi would become their rivals, and we’d have a nice battle. Thus if we didn’t build him up properly, it’d be a failure. So you see how we thought about Sousuke quite a lot. And then, episode 4!
Nishiya: That episode 4!

О да, четвертая серия!

О занятом Рине
Yokotani: While I got that impression from Sousuke, I thought a lot about his relationship with Rin.
Utsumi: That unpleasantness around them is somewhat incorrect despite being close friends. But you’re only aware of it because they each have something inside them that they don’t want to reveal. Also, Rin was troubling in the second season due to how busy he became.
Nishiya: He was really busy.
Utsumi: Achieving his dream, placed as captain, Sousuke, and Haruka. I was worried that if we added something, it’d overdo it with this and that already there and he’d not be able to do it since he’d choose something else. Preferably, we had a draft without him as the captain too, but wasn’t it better with him as captain? It kinda feels like he’s at the top.

Вот! То, о чем я всегда говорила: у Рина тупо не было времени. Причина, конечно, не только в этом. Но и в этом тоже. Объективная причина.

О сюжете 14-й серии
— The Iwatobi Festival in episode 3 of season 2 served as the basis for the idea in the ExFr. And then from there many changes were done.
Yokotani: It was an awful episode.
Nishiya: I too thought it was awful.
Utsumi: (laughs)
Nishiya: I thought “Yokotani-san…. Are you okay?”
Yokotani: I said “I showed you a plot I made using the gags we threw away from episode 3 re-shuffled, and you’re throwing them away again!”
Utsumi: This just came to me “Ah!” At that time, I suddenly realized that this was something we had to do more than the Iwatobi Festival. I felt so bad that we never depicted Sousuke having a conversation with the Iwatobi boys.
Yokotani: And I couldn’t reject that; we should definitely go that route. It’d feel like we were pushing him off the stage otherwise.

О командах
Utsumi: The team divisions were “the fools and the straight men.”
Nishiya: Ah, is that right? I thought it was the captain team and not-captain team.
Utsumi: That’s right too~ You could see it like that as well. Serious boys and the not so serious boys. Rin’s team were the straight men and Haruka’s team were the fools.

Straight men? Правда? В смысле... А другая команда у нас, стало быть, не straight men.

О Кисуми
Yokotani: Kisumi also appeared in it as well. He had only shown up in episode 8 of season 2.
Utsumi: He appeared more in the first draft.
Yokotani: The cat at the end was also Kisumi. But, as you’d think, it was too much. Maybe he used Hayato as bait.
Utsumi: The poor boy! How horrible!
Yokotani: Makoto would pay attention to Hayato and so there would be a gap.

А-а-а! Почему? Надо было больше Кисуми! Гораздо, гораздо больше.

О золотом трио
Utsumi: I wanted to see the Sasa no Elem trio (Rin, Sousuke, and Kisumi) talk again. Rin and Kisumi’s mutual skinship is quite intense.
Nishiya: That’s right.
Utsumi: If it was Haruka, they’d just exchange unpleasant ignoring motions, but that difference between Haruka and Rin is cute.

Да, Кисуми и Рин всего-то пять секунд пробыли в одном кадре, но взаимодействие получилось классное. Даже страшно представить, как они жгли бы, если бы им дали больше времени. И как Харука злобствовал бы.

О Рине в костюме горничной
Utsumi: Also Rin’s maid costume! I wanted to see him wearing one from Nishiya-san!
Yokotani/Nishiya: (laughs)
Utsumi: But ordinarily, how would that stoic Rin wear a maid uniform? Since I thought it might crush that solemn pride Rin has, he wasn’t made to wear a maid uniform. I say that, but I really wanted to see him depicted in one. (laughs) Also, I was continually worrying by myself about whether their skirts should be mini-skirts or long skirts.

Да кто бы не хотел? Мужикам не понять.

О коварном Нагисе
Utsumi: Also the cut with Nagisa backlit saying “Sorry, Rei-chan,” was one I obsessed over. A lovely, fleeting, betrayal of friendship!

Уцуми точно садистка в глубине души. Или не в глубине.

Уцуми о своем любимчике
Utsumi: Me?! (laughs) I immensely loved the cover arts you drew for the character song CDs!! Everyone’s coloring was so seductive. Also, all of the cover arts for the Blu-ray/DVDs for Eternal Summer were beautiful! Especially volume 5 with Rin. It’s the best. It’s beautiful, but the muscles are firmly there, so it feels like an enchanting masculine image. I was moved. That was something only you could have drawn, Nishiya-san!

Любая картинка с Рином сразу становится лучше.