Gedo Senki (Tales from Earthsea)

12th June 2006

Number 101 - Space Battleship Ged Mix

The sound related staff are bunkered down in the central Tokyo studio, racing to get the mix done. The room at the studio in which they are doing the mix is massive, and the way the consoles are all lined up in front of the giant screen is just like the bridge of Space Battleship Yamato[1].
I suppose the sound mixer Mr. Takagi[2] is Daisuke Shima[3], sound effects man Mr. Kasamatsu[4] is Susumu Kodai[5], and the sound director Mr. Wakabayashi[6] is Captain Okita[7].

All that aside, I greatly admire the way they manage to keep on going, working day and night in that studio cut off from the outside world.

Recently, I've been going into the centre of the city a lot. The scenery of nothing but concrete and asphalt tires me out, and if I'm there for even two hours I start thinking things like how I want to get back to Koganei where there's some green and so on. I used to work in the city centre before and it didn't bother me then, so I suppose it's a question of habit. Or is it because of my age...
It's probably got something to do with the fact that the difference in temperatures between Koganei and the city centre is 2 degrees.

I think that if it was a studio that light and air from the outside could enter, this would be fine, but then the point of going to the trouble of working in a studio would be lost.

Translator's Notes

[1]: Famous anime which appeared in English as "Starblazers".

[2]: Presumably Tsukuru Takagi, Sound Mixer on Spirited Away and Assistant Sound Mixer on Princess Mononoke

[3]: Derek Wildstar in the English version.

[4]: Kouji Kasamatsu credited as 'sound designer' on Appleseed and Gundam movies.

[5]: Mark Venture in the English version.

[6]: Kazuhiro Wakabayashi, sound director for several Ghibli films, Patlabor: The Movie, Ghost in the Shell and more.

[7]: Captain Avatar in the English version.