Gedo Senki (Tales from Earthsea)

10th January 2006

Number 14 - Arakawa from NHK and Nayochin

At Ghibli at the moment, the production of an NHK program "Professional" about Producer Suzuki, means that an NHK interview crew has been coming nearly everyday.

The three man crew is composed of a director, cameraman, soundman. Starting with the 28 year old director Arakawa, all of them are young.

On the other side, under Mr. Suzuki is Kishimoto, who works as his assistant and goes by the nickname Nayochin[1]. He is 30 years old.

The interesting thing is the way Mr. Suzuki reacts to Arakawa. From taking notes of meetings to work involved in moving the office, he treats him just like Nayo. He doesn't make any distinctions such as this guy is a company employee and that guy is a reporter at all.

Because of this, Arakawa has gradually come into sync with Nayo. So much so, that Nayo comes out of the room after Mr. Suzuki gets angry at him and Arakawa, who is recording this, says deadly seriously, "Wow, I've really learnt a lot today".

Not just these two, Mr. Suzuki really seems to enjoy working with young people. Even while he thinks things like "This one's keen, but never gets results, and he makes mistakes - we can't use him", he still teaches them, scolds them...

He seems to be responding positively to Arakawa and his team, and how they seem to be enjoying their task every day... But that said, Mr. Suzuki loves wrapping people up in smoke screens. It is unsure whether the interviews are going in the direction Arakawa wants them to or not...

But Arakawa is no slouch either: "If we can capture even one minute of the real Suzuki, I win. I've got confidence." he boasted.

I will find out the date of the broadcast and tell it to you later, but if you watch it you will probably get an objective look at the "Tales of Earthsea" production in progress.
Look out for it!

Translator's Notes

[1]: I think this is some kind of slang. I couldn't find it in the dictionary.

Further Notes

"-chin" is a softer, gentler, more endearing way of saying "-chan"; my wife and her sisters often use "Erikku-chin" to get my attention. (Erik Nielsen)