From Volume 13 of the Monthly Satellite Times (Japanese video liner notes)
Translated by sumire
Spoilers have been written in white text on a white background; if you want to read them, click and drag to highlight the area.

--TRIGUN ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION, PART TWO--

--Hello, again. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to join us again today.

Onosaka: Really, last time ended just when things were getting good. (laughs)

--Sorry about that. We've kept you waiting about half a year.

Tsuru: Ah, it's been half a year already.

Yukino: It feels like it was just the other day we were having a roundtable discussion... Time really flies, doesn't it.

--Very well, then, let's get this discussion started. Compared to the first 13 episodes, the second half of Trigun took quite a large swing in the serious direction.

Kuroda: Once the Gung-Ho-Guns start appearing, the story gets serious and severe and stays that way, so Director Nishimura wanted to stretch out the light tone of the first half as long as possible.

--But Trigun's run was already set at 26 episodes, wasn't it?

Kuroda: That's right. So we couldn't put it off for too long, and I was saying, "Director, let's do it already." We fought over it quite a bit. Around episode 14, I said, "Director, please make a decision!" (laughs) and at episode 15, he made the final decision, and the serious story started to unfold.

--Of the serious developments in the second half, does anyone have an episode they find particularly memorable?

Nightow: For Hayami, it would have to be episode 23, "Paradise" ("Rakuen"), wouldn't it.

Hayami: That's right...

--The episode in which Wolfwood dies. It seems to have caused a big response from the fans, too.

Tsuru: We were crying at the studio.

Hayami: Even at the very first rehearsal.

Yukino: I cried when I read the script, I cried during the rehearsal, I cried during the recording, and I cried when I watched it on TV... I was crying the whole time.

Hayami: After Wolfwood's first appearance in episode nine, he talks less and less. Then, in episode 23, he talks a whole lot before he dies. (laughs)

Tsuru: He might have survived if he hadn't said so much. (laughs) Just kidding--but it really was sad.

Hayami: Milly was really good in that episode.

Nightow: She sounded like she really was torn up--her crying at the end.

Onosaka: That was absolute feeling--She (Yukino) was in that state from the moment she arrived at the session, and I thought to myself, Her emotion is really going to show in her performance.

Kuroda: The fans really got angry with us for that episode. They said it was cruel. (laughs)

Nightow: When I got the first draft from Kuroda, he had written on the first page of the script, "And now the time has come for Wolfwood to die."

Kuroda: Come to think of it, I guess I did...

Nightow: And reading it, I got all kinds of ideas--"Over here, let's do this," since he was a favorite with the staff, and I had strong feelings for him, too. But actually, for all that, we had decided, "Wolfwood's gonna die," at the first planning session. (laughs)

Nishimura: It really was a quick decision, wasn't it.

Nightow: For some reason, nobody felt like letting him live.

Kuroda: Yeah, the talk went right into "Where shall we kill him?"

Nightow: And, "Let's give him a big send-off!"

Hayami: But even after he died, he just kept popping up in flashback scenes. (laughs)

Yukino: In the last episode, he had more lines than Meryl and Milly, even though they were still alive. (laughs)

Onosaka: Really?

Hayami: You know, he was angry. At Vash.

Yukino: He even had new lines. "It's right next to you. Aren't you going to use it?!" (laughs)

Onosaka: Ah, that's right. He did have new lines. Now I remember.

Hayami: That wasn't a flashback. (laughs)

Nightow: Apparently, his lines were transferred to the Punisher.

Kuroda:...And then the fans got angry again because Vash didn't bring the cross (Punisher) back with him.

Nishimura: Visually, it just wouldn't have looked good.

Kuroda: Got this on this shoulder, and that on that shoulder--it would be really heavy. (laughs)

Nishimura: Or if he were to tie Knives to the cross and drag him, it would change the meaning, so we couldn't do that either. (laughs)

Hayami: Ah, you really considered everything...

Nightow: He leaves everything--his gun, the Punisher, Rem's coat--and just carries Knives back. Vash is really something. (laughs)

--(laughs) He is, isn't he.

Nightow: I remembered in the last episode... in the last episode, in the preview of the last episode, there was a shot of Knives and Vash, dressed in rags, smiling together against a blue sky. People who saw that said, "It ends with the two of them making up!?" "Did Wolfwood and Legato die for nothing!?" (laughs) It was "unforgivable!" to have all that fuss and then have them walk off together under the blue sky. I was surprised to learn that there were people so caught up in it, they'd jump to conclusions like that.

--That's how much fans loved it... Onosaka, was there a memorable episode for you in the latter half?

Onosaka: In the latter half... what was it... episode 18, "Goodbye for Now" ("Ima wa, Sayonara"). That part.

Nightow: That's the one for me, too.

Onosaka: That episode was the most moving.

Nightow: The parting haircut and stuff really get you.

Onosaka: I was extremely moved when I read it in the comics, too.

--It's the first story in Trigun Maximum.

Onosaka: More than Rem, I have strong feelings for Linna. After all, she's the girl who took me in when I was at rock bottom. With something like that, you can't help but feel that there's some kind of bond between you. I'd like to visit that house again sometime.

Nightow: Onosaka, I never would have guessed you were the kind of person who turns into your characters like that. (laughs)

--(laughs) So, was it hard for you to get into character?

Onosaka: Not at all. Because it was Vash the Stampede.

--(laughs) You completely turned into Vash?

Onosaka: Reading the script, this voice would come out of me without my even realizing it, and somehow, our personalities are alike in our darkness, or our worries. I'm not cool like Vash is, though.

--So what gave you trouble with your acting?

Onosaka: I don't know... slips of the tongue? (laughs)

Nightow: This is a dissertation on acting technique. (laughs)

Onosaka: It's because I had to mumble difficult words... Saying my lines clearly was no problem, but it's hard to speak while you're turning into Mr. Handsome. There are places where you can't get by with just technical skill. But I figure it's all right as long as I end up becoming Vash.

--Tsuru, how about you?

Tsuru: I did one test, got some criticism, and then... it was all clear after that. (laughs)

--Was there anything in particular that gave you trouble?

Tsuru: In particular? No. (laughs)

--What about your jibes at Milly? Was that conscious acting?

Tsuru: No, not at all... (laughs)

Nishimura: It was natural?

Nightow: They came out naturally?

Tsuru: Yes. (laughs)

--Oh, really.

Onosaka: Because, you know, she's usually like that.

Tsuru: Yes. (laughs)

Nightow: Like that?

--This is turning out to be unusually true-to-life casting.

Tsuru: Yes. I enjoyed playing the part.

--Yukino, did you have any difficulty in your acting?

Yukino: Things went pretty smoothly once I got the part. The first episode was the hardest, but I had a lot of dialogue in Episode 2, so I was glad when I was able to pull it off. Once I had mastered the part, it was like Milly was speaking, instead of me.

Kuroda: You ad-libbed a lot of gags. Was that deliberate?

Yukino: Oh, yes, that was intentional. (laughs) Some of them got rejected, though.

Nightow: What was ad-libbed?

Kuroda: "Batchiri ebichiri" and some others. (laughs)

Nishimura: Yukino did the most ad-libbing, didn't she.

Onosaka: I guess you're right. (laughs) She thought up about three, didn't she.

Kuroda: What, are my jokes not funny? (laughs)

(laughter)

Onosaka: The ad-libs recording director Honda rejected were generally said first.

Yukino: He would say "It's no good after all," when I was thinking "That was no good..."

--Did you think of ad-libs while you were reading the script?

Yukino: When I thought, "It might be more interesting like this," or "This might sound more like Milly," I would try changing the lines a little.

--Was it a shock when they were rejected?

Yukino: I just thought, "Oh, well." (laughs) Also, you know, in the episode before Wolfwood dies, I realized, "Oh, so Milly was in love with Wolfwood." (laughs)

(laughter)

Tsuru: What!?

Onosaka: That's supposed to be as soon as he appears!

Nightow: You might say she's the closest one, or that she hasn't realized it yet...

Yukino: Well... To me, she did like him, but...

--You mean it hadn't developed into love?

Yukino: It hadn't developed into love, and psychologically, she was still quite childish, so I thought, "It's not love." Then, around the time Vash said to Wolfwood, "Why did you kill him? That boy wasn't going to shoot," with just the word "Ah..."

Hayami: Heh, heh, heh...

Kuroda: You did about seven takes of that scene, didn't you.

Yukino: We did it a lot. (laughs) By the end, I didn't even know what was going on any more... After that, in the later episodes, I has a hard time internalizing the parts where Milly has matured psychologically.  I was wondering--she fell in love; how does she get over Wolfwood's death? I had to reveal a part of Milly that was different from before, and that was hard.

--How was it for Wolfwood?

Hayami: The very first time I played it, it had to do with tone. You know, Vash's tone is like that, so I'll try it like this. With Kansai dialect, there's more tension and the pitch is higher than in ordinary speech. At first, I couldn't calculate how high to make the ceiling of that key. Up until now, not to put too fine a point on it, I've mostly played my roles by shaping and holding something in reserve, so in my arguments with Director Honda, while I myself was calculating how far I should let it go, how did it sound to the objective viewer... things like that. Until about my second appearance, I was dragging.

Nishimura: Ah, that's right.

Hayami: However, I thought, "For the first time, I've got a role where it doesn't matter what voice I speak with. It's like, even if I have a cold or something, as long as Wolfwood talks, it's fine. (laughs) Up until then, I'd mostly had parts where I'd put them together one clearly-defined piece at a time, so I thought, "This is pretty good." (laughs)

All: (laughing) "This is all right."

--Do you mean you could put more of yourself into the character?

Hayami: I wouldn't really say that I put myself into it; I really felt like I was acting.

--So it was more like you were having fun playing the character, rather than agonizing through it?

Hayami: Yes... but that mix of internal monologue and spoken dialogue in the scene where I die in episode 23 was quite... I guess it was progress, for me. Because I did it in the psychologically tight space of a single page.

Nishimura: Since it turned out that we were made to request him to do that. (laughs)

--Did things go well for you as director?

Nishimura: As far as the flow of the film goes, taking the liberty of following Hayami, it went extremely well. If you just look at the way the film turned out, I need say no more.

Nightow: I think that carried over to other aspects, too. The strength of the acting, and in the music...

Hayami: The music was incredible, wasn't it. I was surprised.

Nishimura: The music for Wolfwood's death scene was written especially for that scene.

Nightow: Music Director Inoue brought in that foreigner and said, "He can sing."

Hayami: Trigun's music was really great...

Tsuru: It was great. All of it.

Kuroda: Imahori's music was teriffic.

Nightow: I didn't anticipate it. It's not enough to just jazz things up on one level. Even though I think it's more than my comics deserve. (laughs)

Hayami: Anime soundtracks aren't that fresh, but Trigun's soundtrack is a little suprising.

--It takes and uses genres of music you don't find in anime, like noise-type music.

Hayami: It's a new discovery, finding that that kind of music goes well with animation.

--Finally, now that this series is finished, I'd like to ask just what Trigun was to you.

Kuroda: That's a tough question. Can't we just send a message to the fans or something? (laughs)

--That'll be fine. (laughs) Well, since this is the last volume, if you could make something final about it. Let's start with Mr. Onosaka.

Onosaka: Let me see... hmm... It's been a long time since I worked this hard on a job. (laughs)

Nightow: Isn't that going to be misunderstood? (laughs) I mean, I'm happy to hear it, but...

Onosaka: No, I mean, I always work hard, but sometimes there are roles that aren't very good, or that you can't get into. Right?

Hayami: Right? How am I supposed to follow up on a comment like that?

Tsuru: But you might be right.

Onosaka: When you can't get into a role physically, there's nothing you can do, right? So I think playing Vash really has changed the way I look at animation, and it's changed the way I act a lot, too. Until Trigun, I had never thought I could play a handsome leading-man type--I was content just doing comic parts, so when I got the part of a hero, it took a lot out of me, but I've changed since I played Vash. It's not, "He's cool, so he's like this," I got into, sort of, the psychological aspect of the role... So I'm really glad I did Trigun. And I've gotten some other hero parts in CD dramas now. (laughs)

Nishimura: Your second one?

Onosaka: Yeah, a total hero. Nobody had ever said this to me before, but the girl who was playing my love interest said, "Do you always do these dashing-hero parts?" And when I said, "It's my first one," she was surprised. I guess Vash has definitely changed me. (laughs)

All: You're so cooool! (laughs)

Nishimura: You're even just dropping cool lines like that. (laughs)

Nightow: You've really changed, Onosaka. (laughs)

Hayami: So let's print that in big bold letters. (laughs)

Nishimura: "Vash has changed me." (laughs)

(laughter)

Onosaka: It's not an absolute given that animated series have to end in six months or a year, right? So, if the Trigun comics keep coming out and you're going to do a continuation or something, I definitely don't want to be left out... Trigun is a series I definitely want to do again.

--"Vash is all mine!" (laughs)

Onosaka: That's for Casting to decide, so I won't go that far, but... even if I were to get a little older, and my voice sounded older, if I came back to Trigun, I'm sure I could become Vash again. So let's do this again if we have the chance. (laughs)

--And Ms. Tsuru for Meryl?

Tsuru: Let me see... For me, I really love Vash's way of living, his masculine spirit, so I'm glad I was able to meet him. If someone like that really existed, I'd fall for him in a second.

Nightow: You'd have your hands full dating him.

Tsuru: I guess so... but it would be more interesting than dating an ordinary person. I guess I'm really glad I was involved with this show, and I'd love to do it again with the same people if I had the chance. That's all. (laughs)

--That's all? All right, Ms. Yukino.

Yukino: Umm... Up until now, I've always played parts the "natural" way, but this time, I made up my mind to create a character. It really was hard for me to go that far, though. That in particular--because Milly was a bighearted character who's afraid of the director, so... but all the more, because she's that kind of character, I was able to open my heart as I was doing it, and I was able to really feel happy. Even when the main story of Trigun gets really serious, it's like Milly and Meryl alone are in a different dimension. I was thinking, it's almost a crime (laughs)--being that untouched when it's so serious. And Ms. Tsuru...

Tsuru: Huh?

Yukino: You really liked Vash... For me, like, Wolfwood's vivid way of life, or the way he appears cool but has great passion within him... and the way he looks after Vash despite his protests--I really like that about him. It's like, if he were real, I would have fallen for him right away... That's what I was thinking as I was working on this show. (laughs)

Tsuru:...There aren't any men like that...

(laughter)

Yukino: It's so lonely... But, I'll go on living for today and keep looking for my Wolfwood. (laughs) And when there's another Trigun story or something, I'd like to do it again with the same members, so please don't leave me out. That's all. (laughs)

--Thank you. Now, last of all, Wolfwood's Mr. Hayami.

Hayami: I said it earlier, but playing this role that was Kansai dialect right down to the monologues (laughs), for the first time, other people in this business were saying, "I heard a rumor that it was you doing that role."

Nightow: Really?

Hayami: Yes, they said they hadn't known who it was. (laughs) A lot of people found out, "Yup, that's Hayami," when they saw the credits. Not only other actors, comic-book writers and other people, too. I was thinking, "Wow, since when have the ratings of this show been so high?" (laughs) I was surprised to hear that everyone was watching at that hour (Trigun was broadcast at 1:00 in the morning).

Nishimura: Because it was in that time slot.

Hayami: It was a show and character that provoked a surprisingly big response. It's not quite the same as what Onosaka was saying earlier, but since I've done Wolfwood, some Kansai-dialect parts have started to come my way, too.

All: Ohhh...

Hayami: Instead, it was like I was brainwashing the industry people. (laughs) Trigun was only 26 episodes long, but it has become a work that stands out in my life and career to date. I very much want to do the short story "Cross Punisher" from Trigun: Final Definitive Version (Saishuu Kanseikei, published by Tokuma Shoten). (laughs)

Nishimura: It was Kuroda who wrote that.

Hayami: Oh, it was Kuroda? Kuroda, right?

Kuroda: Huh?

(laughter)

Hayami: So, we should do it in a slightly different form as an OVA so people don't forget Trigun. And then some CD dramas every once in a while would be good, too. (laughs)

Kitayama: I'll bring up the matter of CD dramas with Inoue. (laughs)

Hayami: It's not that I want to go on doing it forever, it's like... when you have it for a while, it's a fun series. I think the fans feel the same way, so it's like I don't want the lights to go out on Trigun.

Onosaka: That's right.

--Isn't it. Thank you all very much for your pleasant conversation today.

All: Good work.

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