Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and Bakemonogatari in Animage

Continuation of the previous post, this month’s issue of Animage has an amazing volume of information for both Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and Bakemonogatari. The magazine also interviewed Shaft’s company director whom revealed a little surprising history. Totally satisfy. (More content after the break!)

Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei:

• While there are two assistant directors in the series, Tatsuwa Naoyuki “Assistant Director” is mainly controlling the layout (stage composition) while Miyamoto Yukihiro “Chief Director” is in charge of direction.
• They have been experimenting on directly using manga frame as storyboard since Goku, this resulted in closer atmosphere to the original manga. (Thus, Tou Fuyashi is credited as Series Composition.)
• “I like Kaga Ai but recently I’m starting to like Nezu Miko more and more. But in all characters, it is Kino Kuniya. He’s cool. (laughs)” said Tatsuwa Naoyuki
• The director’s demand from the beginning is to have all characters appear. The method used is not randomly adding their roles but arrange the original manga chapter used in the episode (e.g. Part A as Kafuka’s → Part B as Kaga Ai’s → Part C as Kino’s). Tatsuwa Naoyuki is responsible for chapter organization.
• Nozomu’s and Matoi’s “You were here?” “Yes, always.” is also director’s idea to have it in all episodes.
• Shinbo’s favorite character is Kafuka and Kamiya Hiroshi’s is Komori Kiri.
• The first season’s visual methodology is the “basis”, the second season break that basis and “experiment”, the OAD expand the experiment throughout all episodes and everything in the third season will be “turned over”.
• There will be no more experiment part in the third season. The visual methodology for the series is already completed in itself, but the director just doesn’t allow that so he added some “disappointing” ingredient to it.
• “Because if you completed it, it is the end.” said Shinbo
• All the casts thought “is the video tape broken?” when they were in a rehearsal.

Trivia bits

Nisio Isin and Shinbo’s interview in Pandora:

• The series was created as a challenge on how far could he go with a text-only light novel.
• “As expected, the series isn’t really suitable for an anime, is it?” said Nisio Isin
• “For a book, there’s a wordplay but for an anime, you can still play it visually.” said Shinbo
• “Looking at the storyboard, now that was an unneeded worries.”

ryo’s interview at Akibablog:

• The lyrics will relate to Bakemonogatari world as a spin-off.
• Idea of the song is when each character visits the star observation deck in different situation and different time.
• Second verse of the lyric will be a line that exists in the light novel but Koyomi will say it instead of the girl.
• Ryo went to request Gazelle by himself, her voice nicely fits the song’s high vocal range.

Oishi Tatsuya’s interview in Animage:

• Oishi Tatsuya will be doing everything from storyboard check to direction planning this time, unlike his previous involvements.
• “Other than following the director’s order, I’m also putting my own characteristic into this work.”
• Even if they’re going to use on-screen letters like usual, there will be a change or something new for you to see.
• “I won’t feel success unless we can make this an anime that you moé at Hitagi.”
• “Although I like Hanekawa Tsubasa the most (laughs)”
• Shinbo is really using Kafuka’s “we’re getting along” (仲いいですよ) and “normal” (普通) in real life.

Takahashi Yuma in Geneon’s Radio:

• Akio Watanabe will be providing keyframe for several cuts in each episodes apart from being Animation Director.
• “I asked ‘is this Akio Watanabe’s cut?’ and the director replied ‘Yes, it is.’”

Bakemonogatari casts announced

Araragi Koyomi – Kamiya Hiroshi
(Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei’s Itoshiki Nozomu, Natsume Yuujinchou’s Takashi Natsume)
Senjōgahara Hitagi – Saito Chiwa
(Pani Poni Dash’s Rebecca Miyamoto, ARIA’s Aika S. Granzchesta)
Hachikuji Mayoi – Katō Emiri
(Lucky Star’s Hiiragi Kagami, Darker than BLACK’s cosplay girl Kayanuma Kiko)
Kanbaru Suruga – Sawashiro Miyuki
(Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei’s Sekiutsu Maria Taro, Kannagi’s Aoba Tsugumi)
Sengoku Nadeko – Hanazawa Kana
(Kannagi’s Zange, Zegapain’s Kaminagi Ryoko)
Hanekawa Tsubasa – Horie Yui
(The Tower of Druaga’s Fatina, Toradora’s Kushieda Minori)
Oshino Meme – Sakurai Takahiro
(Code Geass’s Kururugi Suzaku, Moon Phase’s Mido Seiji)

From 2ch thread. Except Kamiya Hiroshi and Saito Chiwa, I think the casts pretty match the roles. The first episode, Hitagi Crab: First Part, is scheduled for July 3, 2009 at 23:00 JST.

This is unexpected. Bakemonogatari’s theme song by… supercell.

First announced in supercell’s official blog, they will be releasing their first major single “Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari” (The Story You Don’t Know) as a theme song for the upcoming Bakemonogatari anime series. Gazelle (a.k.a. Yanagi Nagi), a well-known vocalist in Niconico, will make her debut as “nagi” with this song. Cencoroll theme song will also come bundled with this single.

The single will be release on August 12 and will come in limited edition and standard edition at 1,575 yen and 1,223 yen price tag respectively. The limited edition will come with Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari’s “video clip” which I hope it to be Oishi Tatsuya-made PV. (Full version of the OP animation? Who knows?)

Bakemonogatari: the 7th Illustration

After lacking any significant update for over a month, they have finally revealed the most important character design illustration: of the main character Araragi Koyomi’s:

Image source is the official website.

Eh? Who the hell are you? Isn’t Araragi Koyomi a weakling that is even shorter than his girlfriend? No worries, this month’s issue of NewType magazine has another non-exaggerate version of his character design: