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Famed
director Kunihiko Ikuhara has moved to America to learn English
and attend film school at the American Film Institute. But these
lofty endeavors belie the daily hustle and bustle that plagues us
all - the kind of daily hustle and bustle for which Ikuni (Ikuhara-san's
endearing nickname) has solicited the help of the Digital Manga
staff, a motley crue of semi-Japanese speaking do-gooders whose
reverence for the "Utena" director is matched only by the
daunting task of having to ease his transition into American life.
But the effort gives DMI's VP of Operations, Shizuki Yamashita,
a chance to study and record the life of a famous alien in LA.
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Current Observations Ken has this report from the 7th Annual Marc Davis Lecture on Animation.
The "Makki" Edition: by Shizuki
File date: 10/24/01
Title: Ikuni & Makki
Observation:
Makki landed in LA safely.
This is Makki's second time in Los Angeles. Makki's first visit was five years ago with Hideaki Anno to Anime Expo.
After half-day of recording of the FLCL English dub, we pick up
Ikuni and take Makki to an Italian restaurant. Ikuni is leaving
for NY the next day to attend Big Apple Anime Festival. Ikuni's
trip overlaps Makki's stay, and this is the only time they get to
hang out.
I didn't do my homework, so I didn't know that Makki had worked
with Ikuni on "Sailor Moon" and "Revolutionary Girl Utena."
"Only a little," Ikuni & Makki say.
After dinner, Ikuni tells Makki to stop by the Ikuni habitat. Ikuni
wants to show off the jacuzzi & stuff. I draw Ikuni a map to Makki's
hotel. The directions are simple, but worried that they would get
lost, I leave my cellphone number on the directions as well.
File date: 10/25/01
Title: Makki vs Ikuni
Observation:
Sure enough, Ikuni got lost taking Makki back to his hotel. They
saw the hotel, but went around in circles looking for the entrance.
For 30-minutes.
So much for Makki's jetlag.
During the English dub recording sessions, Makki tells us that
he selected the voice actors for FLCL based on voice quality alone.
So far he's impressed with the actress we've selected for Haruko.
Makki wanted a way to express Mamimi's odd speech pattern in
English. In Japanese, Mamimi talks like a male athelete talking
to an upperclassman, in a respectful yet rough type of speech.
After 20-minutes of discussion, Makki and the staff agreed that
the English Mamimi will talk like Peppermint Patty.
The pinky is the key to holding the bat, chief.
After lunch, we tossed Makki into the sound booth. Makki was
horrified. According to Makki, "Ikuni likes this sort of thing, but
I'm really bad at it!"
(More to come)
Observations by Ken:
File date: 11/1/01
Observation:
Ikuni was ticketed by the police as he accidentally turned into the construction-closed lane as he was heading to Digital Manga. Ikuni called me and I told him there is nothing to worry about...since this was his first time, the only consequence was that he pay the fine and attend traffic school. But Ikuni was still in disbelief as this was his first "offense" in America. (See why I never drive with him anymore?)
File date: 11/2/01
Observation:
Ikuni was apparently surprised when he met Sean Lennon in New York. Ikuni was even more shocked when he received a call from Sean. Sean said he was in Los Angeles and invited Ikuni to his home. Ikuni needed a translator so I leaped at the sudden occasion and we went off to Sean's house around 7:00pm. Coincidentally, Sean's home was on Mulholland Drive so Ikuni was able to discover that it was exactly like the movie.
At Sean's home we met his friends and he invited us to dinner at a local sushi place. It was the first time I actually saw Ikuni drink something with alcohol and he seemed fine (he despises alcohol).
Ikuni gave Sean a copy of "Utena: The Movie." Sean watched in awe and amazement at the beauty and artistic scenes of "Utena." For several hours I translated Ikuni and Sean's conversation on the movie.
File date: 11/3/01
Observation:
Another luck happened to struck me the very next day, as Ikuni asked me to be translator for him as he received another invitation from yet another artist. This time it was Peter Cheung, the conceptual artist of "Aeon Flux" fame. At around 3:00pm we drove to Pasadena, but the directions Peter gave us were very confusing. The driving directions on Yahoo! didn't help us either. For ten minutes we were lost in the vast twists and turns of the complex streets of Mt. Washington. We called Peter to come find us and lead the way.
When we finally arrived at Peter's home. The first obstacle we discovered was the steep parking to the garage. Evidentally, my car (a rear-wheel drive Nissan J-Ferie) became stuck at the top and I couldn't back out. Literally my car was burning rubber and Ikuni thought the car was going to catch on fire.
Peter showed us around his house. He showed Ikuni his newest project, a Korean animated motion picture in development, and several of his collectible metal die-cast figurines. Ikuni and Peter talked for several hours on various projects in development, the difficulties and obstacles of Hollywood, payroll, animation management and other subjects pertaining to the industry. Like last time, I translated all the details between Ikuni and Peter, especially when Ikuni became stuck in his English.
File date: 11/4/01
Observation:
Coming back home from Peter's house yesterday, Ikuni decided to sleepover at my place for the night. I guess he was just too tired to go back to his house, so began sleeping soundly the moment he hit the couch. Oyasumi-nasai.
In the morning, we went to eat breakfast at Souplantation in Marina del Rey. He liked the all you can eat style for $6.50 and ate a huge amount of salad.
Ikuni wanted to rent some DVDs at Blockbuster, but he didn't know how to become a member. We went to the nearest Blockbuster from his home and I helped him fill out the application form . He always wanted to watch "Memento," so we rented that as his application was processed.
File date: 11/5/01
Observation:
We watched "Memento" at around 2:00am. I translated most of the movie as the scenes and flashbacks were quite complex to him. I gave him my thoughts and views of the general outline of the story. However, Ikuni seemed to be confused and decided to watch the movie again when the Japanese subtitled version is released in Japan.
Ikuni Observation Journal Archives:
Other Ikuni related articles on Akadot:
Ikuni related items available at OmochaBox: |
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