Recently during a Reddit AMA, Joseph Chou co-creator and producer of Toonami’s latest original anime series Ninja Kamui proceeded to share his secrets, and creative process and help from Adult Swim Official in helping him answer various questions about the production, The animation team E&H Production along with Sola Entertainment, It’s Director Seong-Hu Park, it’s inspirations and it’s creative process while periodically switching to answer questions with Adult Swim staff. On what type of benefits/advantages does the anime get by working with Adult Swim?
Typically a hard-hitting action genre like Ninja Kamui doesn’t get proper financing in Japan. Some of the titles I worked on at the beginning of my career in anime had the same problem – we’d be way outperforming outside of Japan, but not so much in Japan. Titles like the Appleseed franchise. Or Cowboy Bebop or Samurai Champloo. Those did ten, twenty, hundredfold business in the West especially but because they didn’t make waves in the Japanese domestic market, things got very difficult for action titles like these. Working with Adult Swim – we were enabled to produce these kinds of titles without having to rely on Japan domestic market trends. So that’s the biggest benefit.On how did you get such an awesome opening song for Ninja Kamui?Coldrain and Ninja Kamui were match-made in heaven I think! LOL. Coldrain as you guys might know is bilingual in English and Japanese and the director Park was a fan – so our music producer did some fantastic footwork for us to work together on this title.On the inspiration behind creating the lead character Higan? And What are the other main inspirations, works, or references that Ninja Kamui draws onDo I get in trouble if I say John Wick or The Punisher? In fact, John Wick’s director Chad Stahelski and his action team 87Eleven helped us with Ep 13 of Ninja Kamui finale. BTW – Chad is the action designer for the upcoming LAZARUS series as many of you might know. I hope you guys are looking forward to that too!!!
Aside from that, the inspiration was the anime and games that we grew up with. Both the director Park and I have a Korean background, but even in Korea, we could not escape the popularity of games like SHINOBI, NINJA GAIDEN, etc. Ninjas were everywhere in the 80s and 90s!What are some of your favorite works? Can be any medium (film, anime, novels, stories, etc).We also wanted to pay homage to the great Yoshiaki Kawajiri who directed NINJA SCROLL. Park and I’ve always been a fan of his work. Kawajiri san likes Park’s work too – if you’re eagle-eyed you can see that he provided some storyboard work for Park’s past series. A lot of ninja fictions whether it’s game, manga, or anime draw inspiration from the literary works of novelist Futaro Yamada (some of you might be familiar with his works if you love the ninja genre) – and I wanted to see if we can use inspiration from there in the modern setting. The Director Seong-Hu Park also really loves American action films and there’s always an archetype we drew from other Japanese anime.As a co-creator and producer, how involved are you in the finer details of the production, such as storyboarding or music? What are your responsibilities?Oh – anything and everything. There is no definition for a ‘producer’ but there is a quote from the Making of Kamen Rider manga that I like…”You’re a producer, so of course you must do EVERYTHING necessary!” lolMy tasks would vary depending on the title that I work on – but it starts from planning and financing the title to hiring and staffing the production, overseeing the scripts and design, managing the production schedule and timeline, working on arranging music and post, etc. And sometimes buying lunches and dinners for the staff!With Adult Swim and E&H now dipping their toes into original anime – how are IPs going to be considered moving forward?Creating anime involves many people and costs money, so the easiest route is usually to adopt a popular IP – mostly manga. And you see that most anime are based on manga.In your experience, is a concept preferred to come from an existing name in the industry with some weight behind it?Adult Swim has been our champion for helping to create an original anime IP. Sola is now producing another original anime with Cowboy Bebop’s Watanabe Shinichiro, called LAZARUS, which we are very excited about. We don’t usually get chances like this in Japan that easily so I am grateful.Is there a particular work that you’d like to adapt as an anime?Well, the first title I wanted to do and got to work on was Matrix…and I got to work on The Animatrix…which I just happened to walk into when I joined Warner Bros way back when. So that was one. The next one I was really after was Blade Runner – which I got to adapt as a short anime with Watanabe Shinichiro san and the subsequent series for Adult Swim and Crunchyroll. Took me 15 years to get there.Ninja Kamui serves as the first full series production for E&H Production, though there’s plenty of experience within the studio. Do you think that there could be more potential collaborations with them for Adult Swim in the future?My company Sola first collaborated with Park on God of High School – and Ninja Kamui was the follow-up partnership, which became E&H’s inauguration title. If Ninja Kamui keeps doing this good (knock on wood!) – then it may very much be possible to do a follow-up with Adult Swim. Crossing fingers! Sola is also producing Rick and Morty the Anime series for Adult Swim – which should be released soon I believe! I am under no obligation but will do a plug for Adult Swim – they’re the BEST! Love working with everyone here. Just so looking forward to doing Ninja Kamui S2 with them! (wink wink)And finally, what were some of the biggest hardships you faced during production?Ooh, I only have one minute left. But I can say each journey is different – but working on an original is much more work than usual like on this one! I’ve been blessed to have been able to work on the titles I loved – but now it’s more like the creators I’d love to work with. And I am getting to work with many of my heroes in the industry but there are many more…!!!
Looks like time’s up – thank you everyone for enjoying and supporting NINJA KAMUI!!!