STAFF INTERVIEW [FANBOOK] (4/8)

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PARTICIPANTS:
(SS) Soukichi Shimooka: IDOLiSH7's supervising producer.
　　The person behind Idolish Seven's SupervisorP. Because of his being responsible for iPhone-model games (Taiko no Tatsujin) at Bandai Namco, he is very learned when it comes to sound games for smartphones. It seems that this year, supervising the Idolish Seven team, he received the most giri-choco he'd ever received in his entire life.
(AN) Ayaka Negishi: IDOLiSH7's project producer.
　　The person behind Idolish Seven's GameP. Was hired by Bandai Namco Online in 2013. Her initial jurisdiction was games aimed at men, but after her planning documents for this project caught Shimooka's eye, she was put in charge of managing the project. Owns three cats.
(AT) Arina Tanemura: IDOLiSH7's character concept artist.
　　A mangaka possessing masterpieces such as "Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne" and "Full Moon o Sagashite". Currently releasing "TRIGGER -before The Radiant Glory-" as a short-term serialisation under Hakushensha. This project is her first time as a character concept artist. Spends every day being healed by the cats she keeps, Riku and Kai.
(KF) Kasumi Fukagawa: IDOLiSH7's character design artist.
　　Freelance handles the drawings for anime and games. Was the animation director for "Persona4: The Golden" and others. For this project, in addition to the character design, she also carries out the editorial supervision for the MV models. Her current interests include mystery novels.

THE PRODUCER'S WORK!?　　

【AT】　 Negishi-san is a producer, but she's more involved in production than the users think. Negishi-san drew "King's Pudding". With a mouse, even!

【AN】　 Yes. There are pseudo stamps in rabbit chats, and as a mascot we also have Takanashi Productions' mascot, "Kinako", but thinking that it'd be good if there were also a common product mascot like "King's Pudding" circulating in that world, I thought of something that would be easy to use as a stamp. My drawings are shoddy, but a designer from the developing company, geechs, made a clean copy and it became incredibly cute in the end.

【SS】　 When I'm pulling all-nighters and such I'll ego-search* "King's Pudding", feel warm and fuzzy inside, and think that I can do my best again today (LOL).

【AT】　 Not to mention the clothes, too! Regarding their regular clothes, after Fukagawa-san and I got quite excited, we heard that all of the characters' were created by Negishi-san (LOL).

【AN】　 That's right. At the time I thought that everyone was good, but regarding Ten-kun's regular clothes, after looking at the thoughts of the users, I thought oh I see, so they're lame, huh— (LOL). I worried a great deal over his civilian clothes for Part 2. But they're of a similar strain.

【AT】　 I can't help but wonder what sort of a face that Ten-kun was wearing as he bought those clothes (LOL).

【AN】　 When he takes off the cardigan, he's wearing suspenders so he has a cute-seeming appearance.

【AT】　 For the novel's end-of-volume 4komas, I was able to draw just a bit of his regular clothes, but I was very delighted. A tiny little bowtie! Also, this is the inside story on the illustrations from that novel, but when I drew them, I hadn't seen any of their other regular clothing. But for Riku-kun it was totally the same, a T-shirt and shorts, so I was startled.

【AN】　 His roomwear looked very similar.

【AT】　 But I wasn't expecting there to be omurice on his T-shirt.

【AN】　 I thought it'd be cute, but (LOL).

【KF】　 I believe that Negishi-san is a person with an incredible amount of sense!!

【AN】　 Not at all, it's just the result of me being allowed to do what I wanted!

【SS】　 We're proceeding with developing a variety of merchandise, but from the very beginning, we wanted to make everything easily recognisable so that the people creating the merchandise wouldn't feel troubled. Of course, there was preparing their settings to consider, but specifically speaking, we wanted the kind of recognisableness where if there were a black keyholder with a "1" drawn on it, you'd think "it's Iori-kun" and buy it without thinking. That's why we find the character colours, as well as their musical symbols, as well as the numbers in their names, to be incredibly handy. I don't particularly enjoy praising myself or my friends, but I think it's pretty awesome (LOL).

【AT】　 The users are hooked on the things Negishi-san spoke about just as intended, so watching from the sidelines is so enjoyable I can't help it. I find it incredible.

【SS】　 With this project, the number of people who will go beyond my estimations and put in 120% when they're asked to do something is very high....... On top of that, everyone will say "I can't take the credit". The fact that they'll say "I'm putting in everything I have, but I believe that everyone else will put in something beyond that, so" really does make me happy. I'm the one who does the least so I start to panic (LOL).

【KF】　 It's the job of a producer to tell people to stop, isn't it. But here that threshold is incredibly low, so the fact that I'm able to work this freely is something I'm truly grateful for.

【SS】　 I think the fact that the phrase "Leave it to me!" is said so often shows that we've gathered that many professionals. It's because we were saying "let's go gather friends!" at the very beginning. We'd bring in people who would go at it with sincere dedication as friends, and think those peoples' friends must also be people who would go at it with sincere dedication, in a through-the-grapevine scheme like that (LOL). At any rate we were thinking, let's work together with people who have passion. Also, since everyone would feel uneasy when they didn't know anything, we continued to say it'd absolutely sell well. The one who would take responsibility at the end would be me, so it'd be fine if you all worked while feeling at ease. It's patting myself on the back but I do think I said something rather cool, but it's also possible that the people participating in the project could see that and gain some confidence of their own (LOL). Were there times where I put a stop to things?

【AN】　 I believe there weren't.

【SS】　 There weren't, huh (LOL). But that's the result of how everyone worked so properly. If it were really something I didn't like, then even if it meant fighting I'd put an end to it. That means that there wasn't anything I disliked, then. Being able to understand even if I didn't say something is slightly different, and I believe that saying something, having it understood, and then properly understanding it together was something I did during the opening stages. I believe that thanks to that, right now the project in its entirety is moving in a lively manner.




UP next: VOICES AND MUSIC



------ t/n:

* Ego-search: "Egosurfing (usually referred to as Googling yourself and sometimes called vanity searching, egosearching, egogoogling, autogoogling, self-googling, master-googling, google-bating) is the practice of searching for one's own given name, surname, full name, pseudonym, or screen name on a popular search engine, to see what results appear. It has become increasingly popular with the rise of popular search engines, as well as free blogging and web-hosting services."

the more you know! in this case, I think shimooka is saying that he'll google "king's pudding" and since all of the results are i7-related he's like Ah yes, I am doing good work here, an effect is being made in society because of this pudding mascot