Interview with Shinya Ogura, Setting Researcher/Designer of “Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet” 1/4

ANIME
Jun. 19, 2013 06:07 PDT

A new image of space

Ishikawa: I will start with the questions at once.

Hirasawa: Thank you for taking the time.

Ogura: Thank you for having me here.

Ishikawa: I always thought that setting and design research is all done by the director... What is the range of your work?

Ogura: Since it would be difficult if the director had to do all of it, it might be correct to say I’m helping him. In terms of this anime, the first time I was called was for the huge battle scene in the first half of the first episode. I was told, “I want to make a visual different from the space battles in anime until now. Come up with something.”

Ishikawa: Wow.

Ogura: Urobuchi’s script was ready, but with only that, there would’ve been no difference from other anime where robots fight in space. Murata already decided on the guidelines of the enemy to be fought, so I was thinking about what it would look like if such an enemy advanced even into space. For instance, it was decided that they would attack the nest of the Hideauze, but what would that nest look like? My work started with deciding on such things.

Ishikawa: Really?

Hirasawa: Avalon was also Ogura’s idea.

Ogura: That’s right. In Ledo’s world, Avalon is a ship of immigrants everyone dreams about. The director asked me, “What would it look like?” So I drew a color illustration and said, “In that case it would be something like this,” and everyone including Hirasawa was surprised.

Hirasawa: I’ve never seen a space colony of that shape until now. Usually, most of them are cylindrical and revolve around, however, Avalon has a totally different setting.

Ishikawa: It gains gravity through centrifugal force?

Ogura: That’s the same as in others.

Hirasawa: It’s something different.

Ishikawa: Indeed, I did think it had a very new shape when I saw it.

Ogura: It was colorful, wasn’t it. Looking at it in a composition that it’s flying upwards is the right way. If something slowly gains speed, even small things could hurt it. If this thing moves through space close to the speed of light, it wouldn’t just get hurt, it would cause great troubles. That’s why just above there is a barrier to shield it from things like that, like an umbrella. Regarding the question of what its energy source is, there is a strange black thing right in the middle with some red around it...the black part is drawn as a whirlpool into which the hydrogen disk is falling. That disk is called an “accretion disk,” which whirls around, and when it falls in, it is converted into energy and emitted. There is a theory that you can gain energy using a black hole, but since making a real black hole would be troublesome, there is a thing called a “space jet.” It works in the following way: You throw things into something that is almost like a black hole, and the matter thrown inside is released in the form of a vertical electrical or plasma discharge from both poles. This can be used as a barrier by spreading the energy in the direction of movement, and also for propulsion energy. So, in the center, there something heavy, like a black hole, and it is arranged in a way that the residential area and the various facilities form an orbit around it, and so they constitute a spaceship as a whole. Do you know the astrophysicist Dr. Stephen Hawking?

Hirasawa: Yes, he’s a famous theoretical physicist.

Ogura: I expand my imagination by reading books and theses by such people.

Ishikawa: Amazing.

Ogura: Kaito, even from before you were born, there were a lot of authors overseas depicting space sci-fi and publishing a great deal of ideas. Relying on my memories of “now that you say, there was an idea like that,” I went on collecting various things, thinking that I might be able to make a spaceship that has never existed before. I made it into a visual, and proposed it to the director.

Ishikawa: I see. So the base instructions come from the director?

Ogura: He tells us what things he wants to have in Gargantia.

Ishikawa: And you think about the details of such things.

Ogura: That’s right.

Ishikawa: I see. That’s amazing.

Gargantia x Tokyo Otaku Mode Special Site:
http://otakumode.com/sp/gargantia

Source:
http://gargantia.jp/#kaito_2 (Japanese)