#audio commentary
Act 3–Mekakushi Chord
Translation of the second audio commentary that comes with the DVD/Blu-ray of Mekakucity Actors. Raw version here. Please consider purchasing the original copies and feel free to message me about possible corrections. If there happens to be any issues with the link, please contact me on my main blog!
Jin: Hello to everyone listening to the audio commentary of Mekakucity Actors Act 03 – Mekakushi Chord! I’m the original author and screenplay writer, Jin.
Kaida-chin: Hello, I’m Kaida Yuuko, the voice of Kido.
Suzuki: I’m Suzuki from Aniplex, the supervisor.
Everyone: We will be in your care.
Jin:So…
Suzuki: It’s begun.
Kaida-chin:*giggles*
Suzuki: The third episode.
Jin: The third episode’s audio commentary.
Suzuki: Jin-san, it’s your third time here, huh.
Jin: Third time!
Kaida-chin:Amazing, you’re totally used to it now.
Everyone:*laughs*
Jin: At first, I didn’t know the timing to introduce myself. *giggles* So I’d be oddly slow.
Suzuki/Kaida-chin:*laugh*
Jin: Even in the third one, I’m still like this. After the first and second episodes, this is my third time doing it, but there might be people who will purchase only this third volume.
Suzuki: That’s true.
Kaida-chin:Ah, I see.
Jin: This kind of thing happens. The ones who bought the first and second volumes in order have already listened to my incessant rambling, but…
Suzuki: That’s right, there might be people who will listen to it for the first time in this one.
Jin:Maybe.
Suzuki: The third episode.
Jin: “Mekakushi Chord”.
Suzuki: We have the voice of Danchou.
Kaida-chin:Yes.
Suzuki: Kaida-san is here with us.
Kaida-chin:Yes.
Suzuki: Thank you very much.
Kaida-chin: It’s a pleasure.
Jin: Thank you very much.
Suzuki:My, so this is how it begins, very full-bodied.
Jin: Yes. That’s “Mekakushi Chord”.
Kaida-chin: It’s the episode where I spoke the most.
Jin: That’s right!
Suzuki:Aaah.
Kaida-chin: The first one where I speak so much.
Jin: You sure talked a whole lot!
Kaida-chin: *laughs* Exactly. In the first and second episodes, I only said one or two lines. Before that, hum, I spoke in the commercial.
Suzuki: That’s right, they had you for the recording of the very first one.
Jin: Back then, we asked her to do that commercial, but I actually wanted to make the offer much earlier. When it was at that stage, we were like, “What kind of voice would be good for Kido?”
Kaida-chin:Hmm.
Jin: I came up with the character voices right away, but I’d been fretting really hard over Kido, like, “Who should I appoint to play her?” so I consulted with, Sidu-san, who is in charge of the illustrations and character designs, for advice. When I asked, “Who’d be good to play Kido?”, she gave me several suggestions, like, “There’s this person and that person” and had me listen to their voice. I was like, “I wonder about that”. It was then that I heard Kaida-san’s voice. She was like, “How about this one??”, to which I complied and asked for it to be you.
Kaida-chin: Thank you very much.
Suzuki: So Kaida-san’s voice was perfect.
Jin: Yes! I was like, “She’s the one!”
Suzuki: Oooh, I see. But Jin-san, we got quite a lot of predetermined images of each character from you and Sidu-san from the start, like, “They’re like this”. But you were stuck when it came to Kido.
Jin: That’s right, it was terrible… When I was shown the third episode, it made me think, “Kido sure talks a lot here.”
Kaida-chin: I’m glad you thought that way of me.
Jin: That was my mindset.
Suzuki: Indeed, Kido’s voice only comes to light for the first time in the commercial, like Kaida-san said.
Kaida-chin:Yes.
Jin: That’s right.
Suzuki: That was before we recorded the main story. So, from the very moment that you heard her…
Jin: Well, yeah. The moment I first listened to that CM when it was presented to me, I was like, “Oh, that’s sick!”, and actually, after that, when everyone had left and the staff stayed behind, some people whispered to me that “Kido-san was pretty sexy and cool wasn’t she?”
Kaida-chin: Ah, I’m so glad.
Suzuki: Oooh. So she was perfect.
Jin: To a T.
Kaida-chin: At first, I wondered if it was all right for me to voice someone so young.
Jin: No, that doesn’t matter at all!
Suzuki:*laughs*
Kaida-chin: When I first received the art, I did a bit of research and thought, “Am I really okay for this? Won’t she sound old?”
Jin: No, no, no! Hum, even in the novels, she’s a very cool girl. Age-wise, she’s set to be 17 years old, but she doesn’t give off the feeling of a 17-year-old girl.
Kaida-chin:Hmm.
Jin: She’s a character who has an older vibe. There are characters that make you feel this by having a husky voice or something like that. She’s got this kind of adult-like aura to her. In contrast, it’s difficult to balance this out. That was really what got me.
Suzuki:Hmmm…
Jin: If she ended up being too sexy, it wouldn’t go well with her age.
Kaida-chin: Yeah, she’s still in her teens.
Jin: And if she were too cute, it wouldn’t go well with her image.
Suzuki: It wouldn’t match. So it’s a tender line.
Jin: A tender line.
Suzuki: And Kaida-san’s voice fit perfectly between those two.
Jin:Yes…!
Kaida-chin: I’m so glad…
Jin: I didn’t think she would respond to our request.
Suzuki: Kaida-san, before recording the actual series, you also had to do something like a narration, right?
Kaida-chin:Hm.
Suzuki: And I think you probably watched the show with the art and characters included.
Kaida-chin:Yep.
Suzuki:When you saw something like Kagerou Project for the very first time, what was your impression of it? Did it pique your interest?
Kaida-chin: At first, I looked it up on the internet, how should I put it?
Suzuki:Eeh?
Kaida-chin: It was too… what was it again? A lot of things were happening and it was too big of a deal.
Suzuki:Aah…
Kaida-chin: Yep. I was like, “Eh, I can’t grasp any of this…”
Everyone:*laughs*
Jin: My deepest apologies!
Kaida-chin: Ah, no. Today—
Jin:Hum—
Kaida-chin:*laughs*
Jin: I’m also *laughs* still creating it through all sorts of media platforms, so it’s not finished. But we were going to broadcast an anime during that timing, so I was thinking really hard about how I should convey the story to everyone this time.
Kaida-chin:Aah.
Suzuki:Hmmm.
Jin: This blew me up during late nights, but since the characters can move now, it was easier to understand what was going on!
Everyone:*laughs*
Jin: It was pretty terrible…
Suzuki: Well, true. But there’s the musical side of it that you had made, Jin-san. The music had already finished its climax before the anime started airing and, well, the novels you’re writing are still being published the manga is still being serialized. So indeed, figuring out something that would make people understand it all perfectly just by watching it…
Jin: Was impossible.
Suzuki: Yep, I imagine it must have been very difficult. By the way, Kaida-san, what did you find when you were looking it up?
Kaida-chin: At first, I listened to the music.
Suzuki: Ah, I see.
Kaida-chin: But I thought just that wouldn’t be enough, so I bought the novels and read them.
Jin: Ah, is that so?
Kaida-chin: But the novels… the novels also… Hum, when I reflected on it after the anime was made, it was completely different from the image I had.
Jin: It was different…!
Everyone:*laughs*
Kaida-chin: I was like, “Huh???”
Suzuki: I see…
Jin: Well, I was the one who made the screenplay, but in the end, I’m probably the only person who understands this thing enough to write it. So, as expected, I do whatever I feel like with the course of events…
Kaida-chin: The bigger the possibilities are, the harder it is to grasp them.
Suzuki:Aaah…
Kaida-chin: Speaking of which, early on, Ji… Jin-san, I found out that the creator’s pseudonym was Shizen no Teki-P.
Jin: Yes, yes!
Kaida-chin: I was like, “Eh?” at that. What does it mean? Does the “P” stand for “producer”?
Jin: Well, some of the music, songs and whatnot that you most likely listen to or that are streamed on the internet are made by using a voice software called VOCALOID. And amongst the people who use it and upload these songs, the “elites” of the internet have this as… how should I put it? Something like an unspoken rule. It doesn’t have the meaning of “let’s make this and that”, but rather of “we’re producing this”. It’s the alias that the fans granted to us, like a professional name.
Kaida-chin:Aha!
Jin: And at first, when I, too, uploaded my own works, the a fan said to me, “It’s decided, you’re Shizen no Teki-P – how’s that?” to which I was like, “This is like a professional name, isn’t it? I get it, then. I’ll use it”. That’s how it happened.
Suzuki: So one of the users gave it to you.
Jin: That’s right. It’s like part of the culture of the people who make VOCALOID songs.
Kaida-chin:Hmmm.
Jin: So I named myself as such, but I have no idea who it was nowadays…
Suzuki: They might be lurking around now.
Kaida-chin:*laughs*
Suzuki: Like, “I was the one who named him.”
Jin: They might as well say, “I was the one who raised him.”
Suzuki:*laughs*
Kaida-chin: That’s one mystery solved.
Jin: Still, even at this point in the game, I’m too often asked, “What’s ‘Shizen no Teki-P’?”
Kaida-chin:*laughs*
Suzuki:Aaah…
Jin: I have to explain every single time! To top it off, I didn’t give myself this name due to it having a lot of meaning or anything like that.
Suzuki: Hm, hm, hm.
Jin: But lately, “Shizen no Teki-P” is gradually fading. I don’t talk about it when introducing myself, you see. I don’t say that I’m Shizen no Teki-P.
Suzuki: Hmmm… There’s lots of series where people are curious about this kind of thing and what the meaning behind it is. It’s a bit hard to completely understand something just looking at it, reading it or watching it straight off.
Jin:Exactly.
Suzuki: Right? On the other hand, as expected, I think there’s appeal in that too. And as for the development of the anime, Jin-san wrote the screenplay, Shaft produced it and everyone from the cast, starting from Kaida-san, gave their voices to it.
Jin: It’s an extreme honor for me…!
Kaida-chin: No, not at all. But, both for the second and third episodes, I received a big amount of materials.
Jin: Yes, yes.
Suzuki:Oooh…!
Kaida-chin: With them, I have the feeling that I was able to sort out a lot of things in my head.
Suzuki: Like materials about the setting?
Kaida-chin:Yes.
Suzuki: Of course. That’s probably it.
Kaida-chin: Were you the one who wrote them, Jin-san?
Jin: Exactly. I wrote it all down. Well, since we were creating an anime, I decided to tell you everything like this. Come to think of it, the setting might’ve been done entirely by me!
Kaida-chin: Aaah… *laughs*
Suzuki: That’s right, Jin-san. No one else can write this. *laughs*
Jin: I’m kind of… really sorry about that, but…
Suzuki: But in our case, even though we’re all looking at the same thing, we’re seeing it through a creator’s lens. As expected, there are things that we notice and realize when we look at them, so it might be quite interesting to read it normally as a book.
Jin: That’s right. The contents are quite complicated; enough to make me wish that there was some sort of clue somewhere to lead the viewers in a more proper way when they look at the animation. It’d be really great if they could pay close attention to it, is what I think. Plus, well, this is the worldview of the anime’s story.
Suzuki:Hmmm.
Jin: Kido really talks a lot in this one!
Kaida-chin: She sure does!
Suzuki:*laughs*
Jin: Kido’s talking so much!
Kaida-chin: She talks non-stop. *laughs*
Suzuki: In this third episode, the guys from Mekakushi-dan finally…
Jin: They finally meet.
Suzuki: Yep, that’s right. And start getting into action.
Jin:Exactly.
Suzuki: They gain screen time.
Kaida-chin: Up to this point, many of the people who watched the first and second episodes might have questions in their heads.
Suzuki:True.
Kaida-chin: But in the third episode, a lot of them are answered.
Jin: That’s right! Like, “Who are the people lined up in the opening?”
Kaida-chin/Suzuki:*laugh*
Jin: Half of them show up all around!
Suzuki: Indeed. But up to the third episode, they’re like partitions of the early stage.
Kaida-chin: Right, right.
Suzuki: And they connect with the terrorist attack of the first episode.
Jin: That’s right, like the backstage of it.
Suzuki:Yuuup.
Kaida-chin: I thought that was interesting.
Jin: Ah, thank you very much. Like it was refreshing?
Kaida-chin: If you just watch the first episode, you’re like, “Huuh?”
Suzuki:Indeed.
Kaida-chin: But there’s a backside to it.
Suzuki: Hmm. Like, this one thing happened so that this other thing could happen.
Jin:Right…
Suzuki: “Master”. So they’re going to…
Jin: To meet Shintarou and Ene.
Suzuki:Hmmm.
Jin: But really, Kido is such a big sister-like character. She’s like, “There, there” at everyone. She’s a pretty solid character, so naturally, she does talk a lot.
Kaida-chin:*laughs*
Jin: She gives explanations and speaks out.
Kaida-chin: You’d think she’s cool and tight-lipped.
Jin: Right, but she surprisingly talks a lot. Like, she’s the one who gives the follow-ups.
Kaida-chin/Suzuki:*laughs*
Jin: And probably, after this, hum… going forward a few episodes…
Kaida-chin:Hm.
Jin: …the “Kido of the past” will make an appearance.
Kaida-chin:Hm.
Jin: I think the people who will watch beyond this point might get to see her.
Suzuki:Hm.
Jin: The Kido Tsubomi of a different age.
Kaida-chin: Right? A while ago, the director imposed on me all the time about this.
Jin: He imposed…!
Kaida-chin: Like, “You can do it, right??” *laughs*
Suzuki:*laughs*
Kaida-chin:I was like, “I’ll do my best??”
Jin: Like, “The child version is coming~!” *laughs* “The child version~!”
Suzuki: Kaida-san does the child version of her too, right?
Jin: She does.
Kaida-chin: Oh, the age vibe isn’t just for one little kid. There’s two younger versions of her.
Suzuki: Ah, that’s right!
Jin: Age is a source of problems! A source of problems!
Kaida-chin:*giggles*
Jin: S-So you were imposed on.
Kaida-chin: Yeah. *laughs*
Jin: We sure made you wait for that one, like, “Look forward to it! Look forward to it!”
Suzuki: If we are to separate the little Kido into two types, there’s a slight gap between them and the current Kido.
Jin: That’s right! And their personalities are a bit different.
Kaida-chin: She changes completely.
Jin: Changes completely.
Kaida-chin: Like, she’s doing her best.
Jin: She is.
Everyone:*laughs*
Suzuki:Oh.
Jin: Ah, this is just exactly the other side of the first episode.
Kaida-chin:*giggles*
Suzuki:Hmm.
Jin: Hum, this is kind of… I mean, the fact that there were people staring from afar all the while when he was doing something awkward is so…
Suzuki: No, seriously! *laughs*
Jin: It’s hard!
Kaida-chin:*laughs*
Jin: Like, you think you’re alone, but your little sister is totally looking at you from a distance.
Suzuki: Pretty embarrassing, huh?
Jin: Pretty embarrassing!
Suzuki: My, to think this was happening behind the scenes…
Jin: That’s right. In the first episode, Kido surely seems like a very uncanny person.
Suzuki: Hmm, indeed.
Kaida-chin: Right… In the second one, too, she only speaks one sentence.
Jin: She’s totally “someone from some evil organization”.
Everyone:*laughs*
Jin: Surrounded by crows!
Kaida-chin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jin: She was surrounded by crows in that last scene. And on top of that, she also disappears! That’s pretty much it. She gives off the feeling of an evil organization but she’s a really nice big sister.
Suzuki: Hmmm. Kaida-san, during the recordings, of course, the animation isn’t yet finished.
Kaida-chin:Yep.
Suzuki: You give voice to the characters while it’s not yet done. So how was the completed animation when you watched it? Was it different from how you’d pictured it? Or was it like, “I didn’t think it’d turn out thisawesome”?
Kaida-chin: Oh, yeah, when I first watched it, I was surprised in the beginning.
Suzuki:Oh?
Kaida-chin: Hum, the way I’d imagined Shintarou’s room when I read the novels, I was like, “So it’s like this?!”
Jin: It’s different from how I’d imagined it too.
Kaida-chin: Aha, is that so? Is that so?
Jin: Of course, there’s also the fact that I said, “Please do whatever you want!” to the staff, so they wrecked it up.
Suzuki: Normally, since Shintarou’s bedroom is the bedroom of a shut-in, no one would imagine it to be like that! *laughs*
Jin: No one, no one!
Kaida-chin:*laughs*
Jin: Most likely, if Shaft-san were to make it an ordinary room, it might’ve turned out kind of…
Suzuki: “Kind of”…?
Jin: Kind of not enough, y’know?
Suzuki: That’s true.
Jin: So when I saw the first episode, I thought this was part of its charm.
Suzuki:Indeed. That’s Shaft-san’s art style.
Jin: This department store has a bicycle corner, right?
Suzuki: That’s right, a bicycle corner.
Jin: If anything, they have so many bicycles that they could call themselves Japan’s biggest bike store!
Kaida-chin/Suzuki:*laugh*
Jin: And yet, it’s just a department store.
Suzuki: So this is the backside from when Shintarou got caught.
Jin: Yeah, behind the scenes.
Suzuki: It was actually Kido, Mary and Momo doing this.
Kaida-chin: When there’s color and music added to it like this, the atmosphere indeed feels somewhat different from the recordings.
Suzuki: Hmm, true.
Kaida-chin: So halfway through the episodes, we can record while picturing that they’ll turn out like this, which is good.
Suzuki: Ah, I see, I see!
Kaida-chin: But at the beginning…
Suzuki: Right, if you’d watched them, you’d see that jaw-dropping bedroom.
Jin/Kaida-chin:*laugh*
Suzuki: And that freaking huge department store.
Jin: *chuckles* It… It must be hard to make plans in that spot.
Kaida-chin:*laughs*
Suzuki: They totally chose the wrong place, didn’t they? *laughs*
Jin: *laughs* Must be hard to make plans here!
Suzuki: Quite a bit.
Jin: Quite difficult.
Suzuki: It probably could’ve been somewhere else. A place more like…
Jin: There’s lots of places where they could probably fit into!
Kaida-chin:*laughs*
Suzuki: Quite a lot…
Jin: Quite a lot of them. Ah, by the way, Kido-san talks so skillfully.
Kaida-chin:*laughs*
Jin: Like, “This is the issue at hand”.
Kaida-chin:True.
Jin: She goes on explaining and taking up the best parts.
Suzuki/Kaida-chin:*laugh*
Jin: It’s the kind of character she is.
Suzuki: Feels like a leader.
Jin: That’s Danchou for you. She’s watching everyone from a step behind. And every time, the way she stands up is kinda like…
Kaida-chin: Yeah, it looks like a signature pose or something every time.
Jin: A signature pose.
Suzuki: It is what it is. So sharp.
Jin: When it comes to the characters…
Kaida-chin:Yes?
Jin: At the very beginning, I created Ene first.
Kaida-chin:Hmm.
Jin: Back then, I was publishing my self-produced work on the internet. That was the only means I had.
Suzuki:Hmmm.
Jin: That was Kagerou Project. So I was actually the one who made her design at the get-go.
Kaida-chin: Ah, is that so?
Jin: I wrote down things like “she’s this kind of character”, “wears a jersey” and whatnot, then asked a friend to draw her. And hum… the song “Mekakushi Chord”, which is the song of this episode, was my second piece for the project. So really, if the first was number one, this is the number two. The second song from back when the climax hadn’t yet reached its peak. That’s the song called “Mekakushi Chord”. Ah, and there’s Sidu-san, who made the character designs.
Kaida-chin:Hm.
Jin: The first character she made was Kido.
Kaida-chin: Ah, really?
Jin: And that’s when the word “Mekakushi-dan” first came to light.
Kaida-chin:Oooh…
Jin:It’s pretty packed with memories, huh?
Suzuki/Kaida-chin:Hmmm.
Jin: Kido was the first character of whom we created all of the features so quickly. My mother was very pleased about this scene, like, “Oh, that character is gonna make a move, isn’t she?”
Kaida-chin:*laughs*
Suzuki: Ooh, right.
Jin: My mother watches it every week too.
Kaida-chin: Oh, my. Now…
Suzuki: And here comes the insert song.
Jin: Ah, the insert song.
Suzuki: “Mekakushi Chord” is playing.
Jin: It’s like a secret plan scene.
Suzuki: Hmm. Sick, ain’t it?
Jin: It is.
Kaida-chin:Yep.
Jin: This is where we go back in time for a bit, as if to say, “That’s what was being discussed earlier”. Like turning over a sand clock abruptly. It’s like reminiscing to what was being said just a moment ago in the chronological order. But before we get to do that, it rewinds all of a sudden. Each of these little things about the direction were done so awe-inspiringly that even I have to watch it many times, or else it goes by in a second.
Suzuki: *laughs* True. As expected, the amount of information is pretty big, and actually, every single cut has a meaning.
Jin: Yeah. So the song that I made to be the theme song of Kido, the leader, as well as of the Mekakushi-dan, is now playing.
Kaida-chin:Hmm.
Jin:The number two song, “Mekakushi Chord”.
Kaida-chin: This isn’t VO… VOCALOID, is it?
Jin: It was created with VOCALOID, but in the anime, it’s sung by a singer.
Kaida-chin: I see.
Suzuki: It’s Yasagure Koneko-san.
Jin: Yasagure Koneko-san.
Kaida-chin:Hmm.
Jin: Wow, so cool.
Kaida-chin: The atmosphere changed again, huh.
Suzuki:Indeed.
Jin: That’s right. It’s theYasagure Koneko who makes so many people ask, “What in the world is Yasagure Koneko-san??”
Kaida-chin/Suzuki:*laugh*
Suzuki: Like, “Who is she?”
Jin: Yes. Just who is Yasagure Koneko-san?! Well, her identity is concealed.
Kaida-chin/Suzuki: I see.
Jin: There’s an air of secret identity to her.
Suzuki: Yup, yup, yup.
Jin:That person’s identity is a complete mystery. It’s like there is no Yasagure Koneko-san at all.
Kaida-chin: H-How did you decide for it to be her?
Jin: Well, firstly, I contacted her.
Kaida-chin:Eeeh…
Jin: Since her identity is unknown, it’d be a great match for “Mekakushi Chord”, right?
Kaida-chin:Hmmm…
Suzuki: Ah, I see.
Jin: Yes. The person singing…
Suzuki: …Is vital for the song’s mood. And as expected, the arrangement is completely different. This insert song is s-so cool…
Kaida-chin:Yeah.
Jin: Thank you very much. My… Ah, this is so awesome.
Suzuki: Totally putting the Mekakushi-dan’s Abilities for display.
Jin: Showing It All Off…
Suzuki: “…and then passing out, the anime”.
Jin: …And Then Passing Out, the anime.
Kaida-chin:*giggles*
Jin:Oh, it’s the ending.
Suzuki:Hmm.
Jin: Then, this is probably where the parts unite into one.
Suzuki: That’s right. Like, this is what happened in episode one.
Kaida-chin:Yup.
Jin: This was it. Speaking of which, Kido is a character who shows up a lot in several places, which is also thanks to her Ability.
Kaida-chin: Yeah. *laughs*
Suzuki:Hmm.
Jin: She can make everyone disappear too.
Kaida-chin: That’s right. *giggles*
Jin: Like she’s their guardian.
Suzuki:True.
Jin: She’s in that kind of position as a character. I’m so grateful to you for performing her so wonderfully.
Kaida-chin:No, no, I also had fun with it. I usually don’t get to do animations where I speak a lot.
Jin:Ueeeh…??
Suzuki:Hmmm.
Kaida-chin: In general, I always get either a mother or older sister who appears for one or two scenes.
Suzuki:Aaah…
Kaida-chin: This is my only main character. I get nervous speaking so much, though.
Suzuki:*laughs*
Kaida-chin:But I enjoyed it.
Jin: Ah, I’m happy if that’s what you think.
Kaida-chin: I get small roles. I even play the silly ones.
Suzuki:*laughs*
Jin: “The silly ones”…!
Kaida-chin:*laughs*
Suzuki: Feels like your usual age aura.
Jin: The aura of an older woman.
Suzuki: It oozes right out of you. So having Kaida-san meet up with a character like Kido is…
Jin: It was so fortunate.
Suzuki: Like fate, right? It’s really pretty fortunate.
Jin: I really think she’s a character that you can live together with.
Kaida-chin: Thank you very much. I’m also happy about it.
Jin: I’m glad it became a reality in this mutual way.
Kaida-chin:Hmm.
Jin: So, anyway, the third episode is over.
Suzuki:Right. And after the ending, there’s the after-credits.
Jin: There’s the after-credits. I’m quite fond of this ending song.
Suzuki:Well, it really is a good song.
Jin: Now the insert part.
Suzuki:So we have delivered episode three.
Jin:Yes.
Suzuki: Third episode, act 03.
Jin: The audio commentary of it.
Suzuki:Yep! It will soon be time to bid our farewells.
Jin:Yes.
Kaida-chin: So quick! It was a blink of eye!
Suzuki: Ah, yeah, yeah.
Jin: It was!
Suzuki: That’s how it goes by when we actually start talking.
Kaida-chin:*giggles*
Suzuki: So, we kind of talk about…
Jin: Our impressions, right?
Suzuki: Right, like a wrap-up. So Kaida-san, could you say something as a goodbye?
Kaida-chin: Yes. The recordings themselves are over, but I got the chance to talk to Jin-san personally and although this was my first time doing a commentary, I was a bit excited. Twenty minutes is a short time, but I got to spend it having fun. Thank you very much.
Suzuki: Thank you very much. Now, Jin-san.
Jin: Yes. I am once again hoping that I won’t be fired after this audio commentary.
Suzuki:*cackles*
Kaida-chin: You won’t!
Suzuki: Who’d do that??
Jin:I think I will be in the next one too, so I will be in your care there too. I enjoyed myself a lot talking to Kaida-san today.
Suzuki:Hmm.
Jin: I just… didn’t manage to talk about anything that interesting, though. *laughs*
Suzuki: No, no! N-Not at all! *laughs*
Kaida-chin: You shouldn’t be so depressed about something like that!
Jin: But it was fun~!
Suzuki: What are you saying? Getting to have such a fascinating discussion was great.
Jin: It was pretty fun. Thank you very much.
Suzuki: Thank you very much. Anyway, this was the audio commentary of Act 03.
Jin: Yes, yes!
Suzuki: Thank you very much.
Jin: Thank you very much!
Kaida-chin:Thank you very much.
Act 2–Kisaragi Attention
Translation of the second audio commentary that comes with the DVD/Blu-ray of Mekakucity Actors. Raw version here. Please consider purchasing the original copies and feel free to message me about possible corrections. If there happens to be any issues with the link, please contact me on my main blog!
[Episode 2 starts playing in the background]
Jin: Hello to everyone who is listening to the audio commentary of Mekakucity Actors Act 2 – Kisaragi Attention. I’m the creator and screenplay writer, Jin.
Nanamin: Hi, I’m Kashiyama Nanami, the voice of Kisaragi Momo!
Suzu: Yes, and I’m Togashi Misuzu, the voice of Amamiya Hibiya!
Suzuki: Eeh, I’m going to supervise the process this time too. I’m Suzuki Kenta from Aniplex.
Jin:*chuckles*
Everyone: It’s a pleasure! *clapping*
Suzu: Wow, it’s begun!
Nanamin:Wooow!
Jin: It’s begun.
Suzuki: Indeed, it’s begun.
Jin: Act 2! The continuation, Act 2!
Suzuki: Yep. Its audio commentary. First things first, as expected, let’s start from Jin-san’s greetings.
Jin:*laughs*
Nanamin: That’s right!
Suzu: So we’re taking turns.
Suzuki: We’re taking turns, of course.
Suzu: True, this is multi-role.
Suzuki: As for the other people who participate, we had Asumi Kana-san last time.
Jin: That’s right, it was Asumi-san.
Suzuki: We had Asumi-san, who voices Ene.
Jin:Yes.
Suzuki: And this time, we have Kashiyama Nanami-san, who voiced Momo.
Jin:Yes!
Nanamin:Yes.
Suzuki: And Togashi Misuzu-san, who voiced Hibiya.
Jin:Yes.
Suzu:Yes!
Suzuki: Let’s have some fun.
Jin: Let’s make this fun!
Suzu:Let’s!
Nanamin:Fun~!
Suzuki: Let’s have fun with this.
Nanamin:Yaaay!
Jin: Counting on you!
Suzu: We’ll be in your care.
Nanamin: Please take care of us!
Suzuki: It’ll be a pleasure. From the very get-go, Momo-chan is already…
Jin: Already running.
Suzuki:Yeeep.
Nanamin: She sure can run.
Jin:Kashiyama-san.
Nanamin:Yes?
Jin: Back at the very start, when I asked you to take this role…
Nanamin:Oh?
Jin: At the time, that was exactly the moment when I was wondering what to do with Momo in the novels.
Nanamin: I see! Yes, yes.
Jin: And when I heard your voice, I started writing your reactions into the novel.
Suzuki:Oooooh…!
Nanamin:EEEEEH??!
Suzu:Whoooaaa!
Nanamin: I’m glad!
Suzu: That’s great, isn’t it?
Nanamin: Yep, yep, yep. That makes me so happy.
Jin: You had a big part in making this second episode, where Momo is very active, into a reality.
Nanamin: Not at all! Jin-san, thank you very much!
Jin: I’m very happy about it.
Nanamin: Me too! *laughs*
Suzu: I mean, you were already into it, right?
Nanamin: Yeah, I’ve been enjoying this series from the get-go.
Suzuki: Ah, you don’t say.
Jin: Thank you!
Nanamin: I read the novels and listened to the music a lot, and the first song I listened to was Kisaragi Attention.
Jin: Ah, this is…
Suzuki: Isn’t it destiny~?
Suzu: Fate, right?
Jin:Destiny~!
Suzuki:Destiny~!
Everyone:*laughs*
Nanamin:Destiny~!
Suzu: Two opposites!
Suzuki: Indeed! One on the right and the other on the left!
Jin:“Destiny”, huh… we might need subtitles for that one.
Suzuki:Indeed…
Nanamin: I just love Momo-chan.
Suzuki:Aaah…
Nanamin:*laughs*
Suzu: So does Jin-san, right? You love Momo-chan.
Nanamin: That’s right.
Suzuki:Yeah.
Jin: Ah, true. On a personal level.
Suzuki: Whenever people ask which characters you like most, it’s always…
Jin:Momo-chan.
Suzuki: …Kisaragi Momo.
Jin: I adore her.
Nanamin: So happy!
Jin: I was extremely satisfied. For real, like, “Ah, i-it’s the real thing!”
Nanamin:Eeeeh???
Everyone:*laughs*
Suzu: Like, “She finally talked”?
Jin: “The real deal has spoken!”
Suzuki: “The real thing is right here.”
Jin: “SHE HAS SPOKEEEN!!” That was pretty much it.
Suzu: So while you were watching, you were like, “She’s talking to me, yo.”
Suzuki/Nanamin:*laugh*
Jin: “She’s talking to me, right?”
Suzu: “She’s talking to me!” I totally get it, totally get it.
Nanamin: “Look at me!”
Jin: “She’s looking at me, right?”
Everyone:*laugh*
Suzu: Holy crap!
Jin: The author is a creep!
Suzuki: No, no, no.
Jin: He’s a creep!
Suzuki: But she’s perfect for the role.
Jin:Yep.
Nanamin: *whispers* Thank you very muuuch.
Suzuki:Seriously.
Suzu: That’s wonderful.
Suzuki: And this was the opening theme, “Daze”.
Jin:Yeah.
Suzuki: It’s so cool.
Jin:Thank you very much.
Suzuki: Hmm, and the video clip too. It’s arranged pretty solidly.
Nanamin: This time, in the second episode, it’s playing at the beginning. In the first, it played at the end.
Suzuki:True!
Suzu: That was a special version of it.
Suzuki:Yep!
Nanamin: That’s right. Now in the second episode, it’s the first time…
Jin: The first time that it’s played as the opening.
Suzuki: And it’s slightly different.
Nanamin:Yes.
Suzu: There are many characters and, hum, many firsts in this episode.
Nanamin:Yep!
Suzuki: Aah, indeed.
Nanamin: It’s a lot.
Suzu:Yup, yup, yup.
Jin: Including the ordeal that’s about to go down…
Suzuki: It’s about to happen.
Suzu: The ordeal! The ordeal!
Suzuki: And when the time comes—
Everyone:*laughs*
Jin: It’s like we’re summarizing these mere few minutes.
Suzuki:Like, “Look forward to it!”
Jin: This isn’t even a sneak-peek of the next episode or anything!
Suzuki:True.
Jin: “If you keep watching, you’ll understand.”
Suzuki: “If you keep watching, the time shall come.”
Jin: Those who are quick-witted will speed it up and then come back to this moment.
Nanamin:Eeeeeh??
Suzuki: *laughs* And when theycome back to this bit, we’ll be like, “Welcome back.”
Suzu: They’re gonna watch what’s ahead first, huh?
Jin:Yeah.
Nanamin: There’s lots of characters that didn’t show up in the first episode.
Suzuki: Right? Indeed. Well, Momo is one of them.
Nanamin: Yes, and Kenjirou too.
Suzu:Kenjirooou~!
Suzuki: Kenjirou is voiced by Fujiwara Keiji-san.
Nanamin: He’s cool.
Suzu: He’s got a listless aura, huh?
Jin:Yeah!
Nanamin: So sharp!
Suzu:Yeeep.
Jin: Really, he looks like he sticks.
Everyone:*laughs*
Jin: The bad smell feels like…
Suzu: Like it’s been accumulating… Hum…
Jin: It’s amazing.
Suzu: It gets under your skin, doesn’t it?
Suzuki:Yep.
Jin: I was like, “He taaalked!!”
Suzu/Suzuki:*laugh*
Jin:Really…
Suzu: There it is! Momo-chan’s mystery pose!
Nanamin: Here it comes!
Suzuki: That’s right. Momo does that.
Nanamin: It happens quite a few times, huh? The mystery pose.
Jin: Momo-chan’s pose this time was incredible.
Suzuki:*laughs*
Suzu: She’s still doing it!
Suzuki: A kick with that posture.
Jin: If you look from the front and then from a general view, it doesn’t change much.
Everyone:*laughs*
Jin: She’s pretty much doing her best to do that pose.
Suzuki: Indeed, indeed.
Nanamin: Must be pretty hard to pull off that stance.
Suzu: But Momo-chan really moves around a lot.
Suzuki:Hmmm.
Suzu: It’s fun to watch.
Nanamin: Aaah. *laughs*
Suzuki: That’s true.
Suzu: She makes you feel energized.
Nanamin:Right~.
Suzuki: Well, when we were making Mekakucity Actors, I was wondering if Momo wasn’t going to be the number one bias of the anime.
Nanamin:Oh!
Suzuki: I guessed that once she gained movement, she’d become even cuter.
Nanamin:Aaah…!
Suzuki: That was the image I had. And that might be expressed through the mystery pose.
Everyone:*laughs*
Jin: She keeps making more and more mystery poses.
Suzu: She’s a little fool, after all.
Jin:Yeah.
Nanamin: I really want people to pay attention to her test’s paper sheet too.
Jin: Ah! The test sheet…
Suzuki: Kashiyama-san, as expected of you!
Nanamin:Hum…
Everyone:*laughs*
Suzu: They gotta pause, right?
Jin: They’d have to pause.
Nanamin: I so want them to pause and look at it!
Suzuki: We’d like them to pause.
Jin: We’d like them to pause.
Nanamin: It was so detailed…
Suzuki: They put many Easter eggs in it…
Jin: There was so much trivia, wasn’t there?
Nanamin:Yeah!
Jin: There’s lots of information bits about Shaft-san in this test sheet.
Nanamin: They can be found in several places. These Easter eggs, I mean.
Suzuki: First of all, in this background—
Jin:Aaaah!
Nanamin: Ah, there it is! There!
Suzuki: There you are, there you are.
Nanamin: Such great art skills. *laughs*
Suzu: Lots of things about it are so surprising…
Nanamin: No, I mean, this is dirty, yet the art is so awesome.
Everyone:*laughs*
Suzu: But what if there was a teacher like him?
Nanamin: Aah… it might be good. He seems fun.
Suzu: He’d be popular, wouldn’t he? For sure!
Nanamin:Yuuup!
Suzu: He’d be particularly popular with the girls.
Jin: Ah, is that so?
Suzu: That’s the feeling he gives off.
Nanamin: Ah, he would.
Suzu: He doesn’t have to come at the students so forcefully.
Nanamin:Hmmm.
Suzu: But he could give advice to everyone whenever they needed it.
Nanamin: He’s nice, right?
Suzu: Yep. He is.
Suzuki: Unfair, isn’t he?
Suzu: He isss!
Nanamin:Unfaaair!
Suzu: Such an unfair grown-up, huh?
Nanamin:Unfair!
Suzu: An unfair glasses dude, huh?
Suzuki: “Unfair glasses dude”!
Nanamin: Unfair glasses!
Suzu: Unfair glasses.
Jin: I like bitter old men.
Suzu:Ah, yes, yes, yes.
Suzuki: Ah, I see.
Jin: In many manga, you have these four-eyes, kinda decadent middle-aged male characters.
Suzuki: Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Jin: I really like them.
Suzuki: I see. So from that, you created Kenjirou.
Jin:Right.
Suzuki:Aaah…
Jin: The type that looks like he smokes a lot.
Nanamin:Aaah!
Suzu: Aah, true!
Nanamin: That suits him.
Suzu: It totally matches his image!
Jin: There’s an additional story where he stopped smoking because his daughter was born.
Suzu: AH, IS THAT SO?!
Nanamin:EEEEEEH??
Suzuki:Aaaaaah!
Suzu:Wow!
Jin: Surprisingly enough, there’s no story – even in the main one – that, hum, how should I put it?
Nanamin:Eeeh?!
Jin: That focuses on this aspect of Kenjirou-sensei.
Suzuki: Hm, hm, hm.
Jin: So I made several little sub-stories about him.
Suzu/Nanamin:Eeeeeeh???
Jin: About this character that I love.
Nanamin: That’s rare. A rare topic.
Suzu: This made me feel kinda warm and fuzzy.
Suzuki: Well, this is such an interesting topic.
Suzu:Right!
Suzuki: Of course, Jin-san is the only one who knows the details.
Nanamin: That’s right! The listeners must be surprised too.
Suzu: This scene was eerie…
Nanamin:I was in shock at this one!
Suzuki: The way it was animated…
Suzu: When I saw it during the recording… well, at first, I thought it was so surreal. But when the sound and animation was actually included in it, I was like, “Wow, this is terrifying.”
Nanamin: True. I was stunned.
Jin: That’s kinda…
Nanamin: Those things are called radio cassettes, right?
Suzuki: Radio cassettes, yep.
Suzu: It’s radio cassettes.
Nanamin: At first, we didn’t know those were radio cassettes in the recordings.
Suzu: Right, right, right!
Nanamin: “What’s in there? Ah, I wonder if those are people,” I thought, but what do you know? It was radio cassettes.
Jin: Right, radio cassettes.
Suzuki: Yeah, they were machines.
Nanamin: I was flabbergasted.
Jin: This flashback was entirely like this.
Suzuki: That’s right.
Jin: The past was represented by playback equipment. The guy from the agency and everyone else were radio cassettes, gramophones and whatnot.
Suzu: Ah, a gramophone!
Nanamin: Ah, that’s right, there was one.
Jin: It was scary…
Suzu: Ah, a little bit of propaganda.
Suzuki: You’re paying proper attention, huh.
Suzu: Unceremonious advertising.
Nanamin: If you take a good look, it’s right there.
Suzuki: As expected.
Jin: Thank you.
Suzu/Nanamin:*laugh*
Suzuki: This kind of Easter egg steals the spotlight from the story, as you’d expect, but of course, it’s interesting.
Suzu:Yes.
Suzuki:You find yourself wanting to look at the spot where it showed up for a second.
Jin: In the background.
Suzuki: Same with the test sheet earlier. You want to have a proper look at it.
Nanamin: That’s right. Yes.
Suzuki: There’s lots of stuff incorporated here and there.
Suzu: Like, “Something showed up over there just now!”
Nanamin:“Something”…
Suzu: But really, this is the kind of show that you can have fun while looking at every nook and cranny of it.
Suzuki: True. Shaft-san made it with these kinds of insertions.
Jin: For real, like… there’s details in places that not even I noticed.
Nanamin:Oho!
Jin: Also, I was sometimes told, “There’s something-something in that one spot”, to which I’d be like, “EEEH?? Really?!” and then, when I checked, it was actually there!
Suzu/Nanami:*laugh*
Jin: I’d be so frustrated because I couldn’t find it!
Nanamin: *laughs* You’d only notice it later.
Jin: Only later.
Suzu: There’s also one of these in the latter half.
Nanamin:Yeah.
Suzuki:Hmmm.
Suzu: Hm, here comes a scene that makes you go, “Now’s the time!”
Jin:My!
Suzuki:Ooh.
Suzu: Like, “Hm? Hmm?!”
Suzu/Nanamin:*laugh*
Suzu: That angle.
Nanamin: That angle!
Jin: That neck tilt.
Suzu: To think we’d see Kenjirou-sensei doing this.
Everyone:*laughs*
Suzu: That’s all we can see.
Nanamin:Honestly!
Jin:Thanks!
Nanamin: That’s rare stuff.
Suzuki: You can only see it in Mekakucity Actors.
Suzu: Only here.
Jin: Only in Mekakucity Actors.
Suzu:This is amazing! So good…
Nanamin: Ah, there it is, the oshiru cola!
Suzuki:Oh!
Suzu: There it is.
Suzuki: I hope oshiru cola turns into merchandize.
Jin: Oshiru cola…
Nanamin: Oshiru cola is incredible.
Suzu: I wonder how it’d be in real life.
Jin: Well, I think it’d taste really bad.
Suzu:*laughs*
Jin:Reallybad!
Suzuki:*laughs*
Suzu: You’ve said it, huh.
Jin: I wonder which it would be. Would it… hum, lean more to the p-pasty side?
Suzuki: Ah, I see.
Suzu/Nanamin:Aaah…
Jin: And about the flavor—
Nanamin: No, if it were pasty, it’d be too…
Jin: To please her palate, I think it’d have to be pasty.
Nanamin: Uwaah! Ah! *laughs*
Suzuki:Yeah, yeah.
Suzu:Hm, hm. But if there were no soda pop in it…
Jin:Right.
Suzuki: We couldn’t call it cola.
Suzu:Yeah.
Jin: That’s why I imagine that it’d feel hella stingy in the nose.
Suzu:Ah.
Nanamin:Aaah…
Jin: Like, as a sign that it’s a carbonated oshiruko or something.
Suzu: So like, you can sense something underneath it…
Nanamin:Aaaaah…!
Jin: And there’d be plenty of bean skin left in it.
Suzu/Nanamin:Aaah…
Nanamin:Waah…
Suzu:What, so it’s granulated bean paste? *laughs*
Nanamin: Bean paste! *laughs*
Jin: Granulated bean paste it is.
Nanamin: Granulated bean paste.
Suzu: Could probably put mochi in it.
Jin: Is that her?
Suzu: Ah, a call from her manager.
Nanamin: A call.
Suzu: For Momo-chan. A call.
Jin: Popular girl.
Suzu: As expected of a hot seller!
Jin: As expected.
Nanamin:Eh?*laughs*
Suzu: You did it!
Nanamin: But then again, at what time does she even work?
Everyone:*laughs*
Suzu: Stop, stop, stop.
Suzuki: Shh, shh, shh!
Nanamin: Ah, is that a minor detail?
Suzu: Just a minor detail.
Nanamin: Is that so?
Jin: We don’t see it but she does work.
Nanamin: She’s doing her best. Doing her best.
Suzu: Our Momo already has a packed schedule!
Jin: With photoshoots and the like!
Nanamin: Is that so?
Jin: She does a lot.
Nanamin: She has it tough. *laughs*
Suzu: Her CDs are selling too.
Nanamin: They are, right?
Suzuki: They sell like hotcakes.
Nanamin: The signboards were all filled with photos of her.
Suzuki:Indeed, at the beginning of the episode, right?
Nanamin:Yes!
Suzuki: They sure were.
Nanamin: A whole lot of them.
Suzuki: First of all, this place is amazing. This location.
Jin/Nanamin:*laugh*
Nanamin: That’s right.
Jin: This whole area!
Nanamin: That’s her school, isn’t it?
Jin: It is.
Nanamin: It’s sick!
Suzuki: The school’s music room.
Jin: That’s right. Awesome, isn’t it? This school.
Nanamin: Very! It’s an incredible school.
Suzu: But it kinda feels really quiet. Ah!
Suzuki: Here it comes.
Nanamin: Ah. This is…
Suzu: The serious part.
Suzuki:Hmmm.
Nanamin: It’s the past. A scene from the past.
Jin: When I was making this background music, since this was a dark scene, I tried to make it as such.
Suzu: That’s right, the soundtrack was also…
Suzuki: Made by Jin-san, yes.
Suzu/Nanamin:Aaah.
Suzuki: He’s the one who produced it.
Jin: This is the point where Momo-chan cries, so I felt a weird heat when doing it!
Everyone:*laughs*
Suzuki: Oooh. So that’s the producer side of Jin, right?
Jin: That’s right, the producer side of me. I was so like, “At this part, Momo-chan will be like this and that” and nodding to myself.
Everyone:*laughs*
Suzu: So lighthearted!
Jin:I was like, “Yessir!”
Suzuki:Hmmm.
Jin: This part is awesome too.
Suzuki:Yeaaah…
Nanamin: Ah, this part was kinda…
Suzuki: To think Momo’s feelings from back then would be portrayed like this…
Nanamin:Yeeep…
Jin: I didn’t include this in the novels at all, so this was an opportunity to depict it.
Suzuki: Hmmm, I see.
Nanamin:Right.
Jin: Hum, it was extremely gratifying. When I watched it, I was really like, “Aah, I’m so glad. I’m so happy that I was born.”
Nanamin: True. I didn’t think there’d be a flashback in the anime.
Suzu: Hm, hm.
Nanamin:When they told me I’d have to voice a little Momo, I was—
Jin: Aah, scary!
Nanamin: Ah, there it is, there it is, there it is!
Suzuki:Creepy, isn’t it?
Suzu: It’s terrifying! This one is so freaky!
Nanamin: Idol taboo.
Suzu: *laughs* “Idol taboo”!
Nanamin:*laughs*
Jin: ‘Cause it’s sitting on a chair, right?
Nanamin:Yeah.
Suzu: Man, this is pretty amazing… To think it’d be depicted in this kind of way.
Suzuki:Riiight?
Nanamin: It was a surprise.
Jin:S-Scary…
Nanamin: It makes a buzzy sound, doesn’t it?
Suzuki:Yeeaah…
Jin: It’s the first time that Momo’s mom shows up.
Suzuki: Aaah, true.
Nanamin: That’s right. The mom.
Suzuki:Indeed.
Nanamin: She’s super nice.
Jin: A secretive-style mom.
Nanamin:*laughs*
Suzuki: I see!
Nanamin:“Secretive-style”!
Jin: A secretive mom.
Suzu: Even though she gave birth to Momo-chan.
Suzuki:Genetics.
Jin: He hasn’t yet come about in this episode, but Momo-chan has an older brother.
Suzu: Ah! That one!
Jin: That one Onii-san.
Nanamin: Aaah, the rumored Onii-san! *laughs*
Jin: That one.
Nanamin: That one!
Jin: The infamous red Onii-san.
Suzuki: Red Onii-san.
Suzu: The red Onii-san.
Nanamin:*wheezes*
Jin: Hum, her Onii-chan has black hair. And that black color is taken after their mom.
Suzuki:Aaaah.
Suzu: Ah, that makes sense!
Nanamin:Aaah!
Jin: And Momo-chan’s father has a hair color similar to hers.
Suzuki: Like, a bit brighter.
Suzu:Eeeh?
Nanamin:Whoaaa!
Suzuki:Hmmm.
Nanamin: I see.
Suzu: So that’s how it is.
Jin: In short, the black color went to the older brother.
Nanamin: Ah, then Momo takes after her dad, right?
Jin: And this stylishness of hers went to the younger sister.
Nanamin:*giggles*
Suzuki:Oooh.
Suzu: Wait, that balance is too convenient!
Nanamin:Aaah…
Suzu: Nicely done, huh?
Jin:Yes.
Nanamin:*laughs*
Suzu:Did well, did well.
Nanamin:Waah.
Suzuki: We have lots of secrets being revealed here.
Nanamin: I know, right?
Suzu: Momo-chan in a school uniform.
Nanamin: That’s right. We can only see Momo-chan wearing her uniform in the anime.
Suzuki: This Momo-chan is…
Jin: Only here.
Suzu: Nowhere else.
Jin: Ah, this one is scary too, huh?
Suzu: Ah, that shadow is.
Jin:That shadow is scary.
Suzuki:Right~?
Nanamin: I felt like crying in this part. It’s so sad.
Jin: Ruffles your feathers, doesn’t it?
Suzuki:Yeaaah…
Jin: It does, right?
Nanamin: Aah, so sad…
Suzu: It’s bound to.
Everyone:*laughs*
Nanamin: “It’s bound to”!
Jin: “It’s bound to”~.
Suzu: Of course it does.
Nanamin: Ah, here!
Suzu: Makes you wanna cry, doesn’t it?!
Nanamin: Here! It was amazing, the way that tears came out of the painting.
Suzu: Makes you cry.
Jin: That shadow. It’s scary as hell!
Suzu:Yeah, really. There’s kind of… hum, a peculiar disconcertion to it.
Nanamin:Yup!
Jin: Like, there’s this vagueness when you’re a little kid, where you think things like, “I’d hate if this or that happened.”
Suzu:Yep, yep.
Nanamin:Yep, yep. It’s sad.
Suzuki: But, hum, for everyone in the Mekakushi-dan, this is a common point. Jin-san created them through going beyond these conceptions of having traumas and whatnot.
Jin: Like a complex.
Suzuki: Yes, like a complex. Well, as an example, we have Momo’s past being dug up. Of course, the other characters actually…
Jin: Yes, each of them has all sorts of complexes. Especially Momo. I kinda… wanted to see it in art form.
Suzuki:Uuuh.
Nanamin:Aaah!
Everyone:*laughs*
Nanamin: There’s his dearest wish!
Jin: Oya? Oya? Might this be my taste?
Suzu: His heart’s desire has been fulfilled.
Nanamin: She’s a good child. You can tell that she’s a good child here.
Jin:That she’s a hardworking and good kid.
Suzu: She has to be, right? Momo-chan’s got a lot on her plate.
Jin: Right, right, right.
Nanamin: She does.
Suzuki: Indeed. She’s amazing.
Jin: She’s like a bargain sale of character settings.
Suzu: Exactly, exactly!
Everyone:*laughs*
Suzu: A deluxe one at that!
Jin: Amongst her relatives, it’d be like, “Bargain sale of character settings – little sister, has a bit of a psychic power, is an idol.”
Suzu:*laughs*
Nanamin: And relatable!
Jin: “Also, relatable.”
Nanamin:*laughs*
Jin: “And energetic!”
Suzuki:Incredible…
Jin: She’d be that kind of bargain sale.
Suzuki/Nanamin:*laughs*
Suzu: From what we just heard, she shouldn’t be cheap!
Suzuki:Yeah!
Nanamin: I know, right?! Right?!
Jin: She’s filled to the brim with good qualities. Filled to the brim.
Suzu:*giggles*
Jin: My, she’s so cute.
Suzuki:Hmm.
Jin: And now, at the vending machine over there…
Suzu: Here he comes! Here he is!
Nanamin: Ah, here it is! *laughs*
Jin: That guy.
Suzu: That guy. The one who just showed up for a second. That one guy!
Nanamin: That one. When take a closer look, it’s like, “Huh?”
Jin: When you take a closer look…
Suzu: “When you take a closer look”? What you see on the screen is…?
Jin: You see… is it okay to say it?
Suzuki: Ah, totally. I think it’s completely fine to say it.
Suzu: It’s totally okay.
Nanamin: It’s okay.
Suzuki: He’s holding something.
Jin: He’s got something there.
Suzuki: Something just flashed.
Nanamin: It flashed.
Jin: This QR code is readable.
Suzu: That was a surprise to me.
Nanamin: I was surprised too!
Suzuki: This was actually an Easter egg too.
Jin: Another Easter egg.
Suzu: I did it. I took a pic.
Nanamin: I didn’t notice it at first.
Jin: To think nobody was ready for that one.
Everyone:*laughs*
Nanamin:Exactly!
Jin: Not a single person was prepared for that moment.
Suzu:Indeed.
Nanamin: It catches you off-guard.
Jin:Ah.
Nanamin:Ah!
Jin: And now! Here it is!
Nanamin:Ah~?
Suzuki: Here it is. Togashi-san, we sure made you wait.
Jin: We sure did.
Nanamin:Aaah…
Jin: Thank you for your hard work.
Suzu: Thank you very much.
Suzuki: He has arrived. Hibiya-kun is here.
Suzu:*Hibiya voice* AUNTIE!!
Nanamin: *horrified gasp*
Suzu:WHAT?!
Nanamin:*Momo voice* I got called “auntie”!
Suzu: THE HECK YA DOIN’?! *laughs*
Nanamin: Don’t say “auntie”!
Nanamin/Suzu:*laugh*
Jin: Togashi-san’s first appearance.
Suzu: Thank you very much!
Jin: He finally arrived.
Suzu: But I was shocked that he shows up right from the second episode.
Jin: Ah, really?
Suzu: In the manga, it’s later.
Nanamin: I was shocked too.
Suzuki: True, indeed. In the anime, this is how the course of events goes.
Jin: Ah, that’s right!
Suzuki: For Hibiya and Momo.
Jin: They meet at this part.
Nanamin: This is how their first meeting goes here.
Suzu: I read the novels and the manga, so I thought he’d show up closer to the latter half.
Jin: I see. Hum, if things happened like in the novel, he’s a character that comes about a lot later.
Suzu/Suzuki:Hmmm.
Jin: Actually, it’s not the latter half of it, but he’s the kind that shows up suddenly once the readers have already warmed up quite a bit to the other Dan members. That’s what it means to be the eighth member.
Suzuki:Hmmm.
Nanamin:Aah.
Suzu: That’s right.
Jin: Well, after this, it might be no good to call him the eighth.
Suzu/Nanamin:*laugh*
Jin: But while everyone stays curious about what exactly this means, they can get familiar with him as a character.
Suzu:Aaah.
Jin: He’s still a little boy and there’s an age gap between him and the others.
Suzu: Yep, yep, yep.
Jin: So he’s a character I’ve thought a lot about.
Suzu: But really, I also listened to the songs, and he had a 180-degree change from the image that he gave off in them.
Jin:*laughs*
Nanamin/Suzuki:Oooh…
Jin: I was pretty determined to break that down.
Suzu: Exactly! At first, when I read the novels, I was like, “Whoa, is that so? He’s this kind of kid?”
Jin: He’s a little—a little bit like that.
Suzu: A little bit like that.
Jin: Just a bit gross.
Suzu:*laughs*
Nanamin:“Gross”!
Jin: He’s precocious. A precocious young man.
Suzuki: The image he has in the songs might be different from that, indeed.
Suzu: I know, right?
Jin: He’s a little perverted.
Suzu: Kinda, kinda.
Suzuki: And now, the second episode’s…
Nanamin:Ah!
Jin: Ah, it’s already here?
Suzu:Yes!
Nanamin:Oooh!
Suzuki: …insert song.
Jin: The insert song.
Suzuki: It’s playing.
Suzu: And there’s a PV.
Suzuki: “Kisaragi Attention”.
Nanamin:Cute~!
Jin: “Kisaragi Attention”.
Suzuki: The vocals were done by Haruna Luna-san.
Suzu:Yep!
Jin: Haruna Luna-san was the one who sang it.
Nanamin: So cute~!
Suzuki: True. Originally, it was sung by the VOCALOID IA.
Jin: That’s right. I used a VOCALOID called IA.
Suzuki:In the anime, how should I put it? Well, it’s a strange way of saying it, but it’s sung by a human.
Jin:“A human”!
Nanamin:*giggles*
Suzuki: The vocals are done by a human singer. And again, you had to remake it and it turned out like this.
Jin: Right, I remade all the songs.
Suzu:Ah, you had to rearrange them.
Nanamin: That’s right.
Jin: Hum, we recorded enough songs for a whole album. I got fired-up when making them.
Suzuki: Exactly. That’s truly wonderful.
Suzu: So, hum, now that Kisaragi Attention has come up, the people who are watching this for the first time will probably be really looking forward to what’s coming next.
Jin: That’s right.
Suzuki:Yeeep.
Jin: Like, “I hope there’s more of this.”
Nanamin:Yeah.
Suzu: I think this is the moment where they realize that they’ll have one more thing to look forward to.
Suzuki: She’s sparkling…
Nanamin:*giggles*
Suzu: She is. She’s the kind that people admire.
Jin: She sure is sparkling… Momo-san is so good…
Suzu:Sorry for, hum, dashing off while holding her hand.
Jin: No, but for real.
Nanamin: Ah, sorry for taking yours.
Everyone:*laughs*
Suzu: Really sorry.
Nanamin:Ah!
Jin: You’ll get punished later.
Suzuki: Punishment for you later.
Jin: Severely punished.
Suzu: I’ll take it to the face!
Nanamin:Whoo!
Suzu/Nanamin:*laugh*
Suzuki: Your screen time will be reduced.
Suzu: Eh, no way!
Suzuki: Hibiya will show up less.
Nanamin: Oh, my! Oh, my!
Suzu: Auntie, I’m sorry!
Nanamin: Oh, my!
Suzu: Momo! I’ll call you Momo!
Nanamin/Suzuki:*laugh*
Suzu: So forgive me!
Nanamin: Do that! Don’t call me “auntie”.
Jin: Instead, I might make him the protagonist of a spin-off series.
Suzuki: Ah, I see!
Everyone:*laughs*
Suzuki:Like some sort of reward.
Jin: He’ll be a hot topic!
Suzuki:*laughs*
Suzu: Hold on!
Nanamin: “Maternity Spiral”, the spin-off.
Jin: “Maternity Spiral”.
Suzu: *laughs* “Escaping the Maternity Spiral”!
Nanamin: “Maternity Spiral”…
Suzuki: …The spin-off.
Jin: Let’s see… he began standing out in particular after the anime started.
Suzuki: Yup, yup, yup.
Jin: Hum, in the end, Hibiya-kun shows up very late in the original, so I wanted everyone to see him a bit more when making this. But in the timing of the anime’s broadcast, the movements of the characters come up really impressively thanks to the acting. So you just go all at once, “Hey, hey. Isn’t Hibiya-kun cute?”
Everyone:*laughs*
Jin: This would be like a dark force.
Nanamin: He’s cute~.
Suzuki: He is.
Nanamin: He was a cutie.
Jin: I got the opinions from older ladies on it.
Suzuki:Oooh.
Nanamin:Hmmm.
Suzu: Is that true? Older ladies in all of Japan?
Jin:Older ladies in all of Japan.
Suzu:Ehehehe!
Jin: They love you.
Suzu: Hehe! Hehe!
Jin: *chuckles* It’s Hibiya! Hibiya is here.
Suzu: This wasn’t cute! That’s bad!
Everyone:*laughs*
Suzu: It came out creepy! Ehehe! Ah, she’s crying.
Nanamin:Ah…!
Suzu: Bye, Momo.
Nanamin: Ah, and then…!
Jin:Ah.
Suzu: Ah, and then, after that…
Suzuki:Danchou…
Suzu: …comes the mysterious…
Suzuki: So cool…!
Jin: She’s so cool…
Nanamin: She’s in a pretty incredible place.
Suzu: I know, right?
Everyone:*laughs*
Jin:Hyper-shady.
Suzu:On a hyper-tall spot.
Jin:Hyper-shady.
Nanamin: The suspicious air to her is just incredible.
Suzu: She must like high places, huh?
Nanamin:Yeah.
Jin: And that’s a wrap.
Suzu:Oh!
Nanamin:Whoa!
Suzu: It went by so fast!
Nanamin: That was a blink of eye!
Suzuki: And from the second episode onward…
Suzu: That’s right.
Nanamin:Right.
Suzu:Ah!
Suzuki: …we have a song that, well, if we go by the reading in katakana, it has the same pronunciation as “Daze”.
Jin: That’s right.
Suzuki: But it’s “Days”, which means “days” in Japanese.
Suzu: Amazing. The opening and ending songs are both called “deizu”.
Suzuki:Hmmm.
Nanamin:Right?
Jin: I wonder what we’ll do if it plays on the radio.
Suzuki: Aaaaah, I see.
Suzu:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nanamin: Ah, indeed!
Suzu: They can only say “deizu”.
Jin: I didn’t think anything through!
Everyone:*laughs*
Nanamin:Aaah!
Jin: Like, “Which is which??”
Nanamin: I see.
Jin: “Is it the ending?”
Nanamin: If it’s not written anywhere, nobody can tell.
Suzu: Yep, yep, yep.
Suzuki: Interesting, isn’t it? Same sound but different meaning.
Jin: Isn’t play with words pretty common lately? In the internet and the like, you find a lot of stuff that you can’t tell the reading by voice, but instead by the switched ideograms. I made these lyrics while bordering a lot of expectations on this too.
Suzuki: I see. And the vocalist is…
Everyone:LIA-san.
Suzuki:Hmmm.
Nanamin: She’s heavenly…!
Jin: She purifies you! She purifies you…
Suzuki: And the video clip was produced by…
Everyone:Sidu-san!
Nanamin: Wow, this art is so amazingly touching.
Suzu: She also drew the storyboard of the opening sequence, right?
Suzuki: That’s right. In the end, Jin-san and Sidu-san came in with all their might.
Jin: Right. About Sidu-san, hum, I requested her a video of the inside of a train.
Suzuki:Yeah.
Suzu: That’s right, the background is…
Jin:Exactly.
Nanamin:Oooh…!
Jin: It turned out wonderful.
Suzu: But after watching this second episode, I got tearful at this ending sequence.
Nanamin: Me too. To think Hiyori would be the focus.
Suzuki:Right?
Suzu: Heh, Hiyori~.
Jin: Everyone’s still gonna be like, “Who on earth is this little girl??”
Nanamin: *giggles* True.
Suzu:Like, “What a crazy day”?
Nanamin:*laughs*
Suzuki: Time will be up soon.
Jin: Ah, time to end it?
Suzu:That’s sad.
Jin: So fast…
Suzuki: Let’s bid our goodbyes simple and quick, starting with Togashi-san.
Suzu: All right! Thank you very much for watching up to this point. Hibiya-kun will be active from now on too, so please look forward to it!
Suzuki:Kashiyama-san.
Nanamin: Yes! Thank you very much. I believe the course of events will stay interesting in episode 3 as well, so please keep looking forward to it. Thank you very much for today~!
Suzuki:Jin-san.
Jin: Yes, I think, erm, I’m probably going to be in the next audio commentary too.
Everyone:*laughs*
Suzuki: What’s with that? Isn’t it okay? Please be in it!
Nanamin:Right~?
Jin: Again, I believe we will talk about all sorts of things. I hope everyone will continue looking forward to the main story and to episode 3 as well. Thank you very much. We will be in your care.
Suzuki: This part C of the episode actually has a meaning too, right?
Jin: That’s right.
Suzu: This part is really important, isn’t it?
Nanamin: It is. Yup!
Jin: I hope everyone can pay attention to the part C as well.
Suzu: If anything, I want something like picture book of just this.
Suzuki: My, my!
Jin: Aaah, that’s great! A picture book!
Suzuki:Nice…
Nanamin: Hmmm, true!
Jin: A picture book would be great. Like, you could read this to children.
Suzuki: That’d be wonderful… Well, time will really be up soon, so let’s meet in Act 3.
Jin:Yes.
Suzuki: Thank you very much.
Jin/Nanamin/Suzu: Thank you very much~!
Act 1–Jinzou Enemy
Translation of the audio commentary that comes with the DVD/Blu-ray of Mekakucity Actors, episode 1. You can listen to the raw version here. Please consider purchasing the original copies and feel free to message me about possible corrections. If there happens to be any issues with the link, please contact me on my main blog!
[Episode 1 starts playing in the background]
Jin: Mekakucity Actors, Act 1. To everyone listening to this audio commentary, hello! I’m the creator and screenplay writer, Jin.
Asumin:*giggles*
Jin:Uh?
Asumin: Hello! I’m Asumi Kana, the voice of Ene!
Jin:*giggles*
Suzuki: Eeeh, and I’m the one who’s going to supervise the course of this commentary. I’m from Aniplex Ltd. Eh, my name is Suzuki Kenta. It’s a pleasure.
Jin: *chuckles* It’s a pleasure.
Asumin: It’s a pleasure! *laughs*
Suzuki: Now, this means a salary-man is going to be adding comments along the process—
Asumin: What a joke! Aaah!
Jin:*laughs*
Asumin: *giggling* What kind of commentary is this? It’s giving me chills!
Suzuki: —so it’s going to be a commentary that represents all of Japan.
Asumin:Yes!
Suzuki: Let’s see, this thing that’s showing on the venue’s screen, this *laughs* shaky thing. What do you call it? This indescribable—
Asumin: What would it be? It’s kinda—
Jin: What’s most amazing is that each of us is holding a single sheet of paper with not much written on it.
Asumin:Thereisstuff written on them!
All: *burst into laughter*
Asumin: We just can’t see anything!
Suzuki: Yes, our agenda is written on it!
Asumin:Hahaha!
Jin: All this cross-talking keeps going over the main story!
Suzuki: Oh, we’re talking over each other…
Asumin: That’s true…
Suzuki: Now, it’s begun. Jinzou Enemy, the first episode.
Asumin: First episode!
Jin: Episode 1, Jinzou Enemy.
Suzuki: The outset is this… mysterious place.
Asumin:Yep.
Jin: That’s right.
Suzuki: This is where it starts.
Jin: It’s where we throw in Shintarou-kun’s story.
Suzuki: Well, Jin-san, how do I put it?
Jin:Yes?
Suzuki: You’ve made a lot of things for your Kagerou Project.
Jin:Yes!
Suzuki: And this is the anime series, Mekakucity Actors.
Jin: Yes. Yes!
Suzuki: In which it was adapted into animation.
Asumin:Yeeep.
Jin:Yes!!
Suzuki: How is it, seeing this sudden start?
Jin: Well, a-at the beginning, hum… when I saw it for the first time, it was from this point, and I was like, “Whoooaa, it really became an anime!”
Asumin:*giggles*
Suzuki:Hmmm.
Jin: I felt this very keenly. And I was really jumping at shadows.
Suzuki:*laughs*
Asumin:Aaah…
Suzuki: So you were like, “To think this is really happening”?
Jin: I still don’t get what’s going on!
Suzuki: You still can’t believe it?
Jin: I can’t!
Asumin: When it comes to this kind of thing, we don’t believe it till we’ve seen it ourselves, right?
Jin: True. It’s really just like that.
Suzuki: It’s like, what if someone shows up with a “gotcha” banner or something?
Asumin:*laughs*
Jin: I was all the while wondering if someone wouldn’t just do that! After going through all of this, no less!
Suzuki: Indeed! That would’ve been one hell of a prank!
Jin: I’d be like, “Let’s do this, then!”
Suzuki: That’d be an amazing act to put up, wouldn’t it? For sure.
Jin: Or else everything would go to waste.
Suzuki: We could have Asumi-san participate too!
Asumin: *laughs* I’d just pop up out of nowhere.
Jin: And I’d just go, “Welp, let’s go with that!”
Suzuki:Hahaha!
Asumin: I mean, you’re in charge of the anime’s screenplay, right?
Suzuki: Yes, the one who did it was Jin-san.
Jin: Yes, I was in charge, in a way.
Asumin:Right~?
Jin: Well, I was like, “Is it really okay for it to be me?”
Suzuki: No, no, no!
Asumin: No, no.
Jin: That’s what I felt while writing the screenplay.
Suzuki: I see. But you also developed the music, novel and manga, and then they evolved into animation.
Jin:Yes.
Suzuki: In the end, Jin-san, you’re the source of all the other medias’ development, right?
Asumin: Yep, yep, yep.
Suzuki: So if you didn’t write the anime, it probably wouldn’t be Kagerou Project anymore. Therefore, I think having Jin-san write the anime was the right choice.
Jin: Ah, I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful. At first, Shinbou-san told me, “How about you try doing it yourself?”
Suzuki: That’s right.
Jin: And I was like, “Ha-a-ah, I’ll do my best! Eeeh, I’m so sorry!”
Asumin/Suzuki:*laughs*
Jin: This is what I remember.
Suzuki: That’s awesome.
Jin: But the most—Ah, Ene-chan showed up.
Asumin: She’s there! Aaah!
Suzuki: It’s Ene-sama, voiced by Asumi-san.
Jin:Ene-sama.
Asumin:Yes!The Super Pretty…
All three: …Dennou Girl…
Asumin/Suzuki:…Ene-chan.
Suzuki: *chuckles* By the way, Asumi-san, you were actually already involved with KagePro for a long time, right?
Asumin: Yes, yes, yes. That’s right. For about two or three years.
Suzuki: From the first album?
Jin: About this first album… Hum, by the time that the DVD that has this audio commentary in it comes out through Kadokawa—
Suzuki: How long would it have been since its release?
Jin: About two years. Almost two years ago, we released the first album, Mekakucity Days.
Asumin:Yes.
Suzuki:Hm-hm.
Jin: When we released it, she participated as the narrator. That was the first time.
Asumin: Back then, I was told that he wanted it to be an anime one day.
Suzuki: At the time when you were working as the narrator?
Asumin: Yes, yes. Back when I did the narration. And when I heard this information, I was like, “Yeah, that’d be amazing”, as if it had nothing to do with me! *laughs*
Suzuki/Jin:*laugh*
Suzuki: Like, “It’d be great if that happened”?
Asumin: Yeah. I took it as if it were someone else’s business entirely. Afterward, the process of adapting it to animation went on properly and the announcement was published, but I was like, “Well, I might end up not being in the cast, though…”
All three: *laugh*
Suzuki: Ah, I see, so that’s what you were thinking!
Jin: And when it happened, you were like, “How?!”
Asumin: For a while, I made sure not to let my hopes up at all *laughs* and did my waiting.
Suzuki: Eeeeeh… Is that so?
Asumin: Yeah. That’s why I was so happy about it.
Jin: Thank you very much.
Asumin: No, me too, thank you so much.
Suzuki: Indeed, from the start, Jin-san wanted Ene to be voiced by…
Jin: Yes, by Asumi-san.
Asumin:Eeeh~?
Jin: It was kind of a dream to me.
Asumin:Aaah…
Jin: When it comes to anime, back in my student years, one of my first experiences with it was Hidamari Sketch.
Asumin: Ah, is that so?
Suzuki:Hmmm…!
Jin: Nowadays, it’s totally one of those top-something animes to me.
Suzuki: And it’s by Shaft-san too, right?
Jin:Yes.
Suzuki: Both are Shaft works.
Asumin: Yeah, yeah. That’s why, when I heard that KagePro would be animated and that was going to be made by Shaft-san, I was like, “A-Ah, is that so??”
Jin:Really?
Asumin: I was surprised.
Jin: I see. I’m simply a huge fan of Hidamari Sketch, so I had this dream that when it became an anime, I wanted to leave it to Shaft-san.
Asumin:Amazing!
Jin: And I hoped the heroine would be voiced by Asumi-san.
Asumin: For real??
Jin: It’s awesome that so many of my wishes came true.
Suzuki: Well, in Hidamari Sketch, Asumi-san voices Yuno, the heroine, right?
Asumin: That’s right, I voiced Yuno. Haaah! But that was seven years ago!
Jin: “Seven years ago”?!
Asumin: That’s right!
Jin:Eeeeeh???
Asumin: Therefore, it’s no surprise that people like you might exist, right? *laughs*
Suzuki: So when you saw that this had happened…
Asumin: I was really in shock!
Jin: It’s such a legendary show.
Asumin:Yeaaah!
Suzuki: True that. Well, there was this connection, so it really was like fate. He saw Shaft and Asumi-san through Hidamari Sketch, and then, after some time passed, he earned an anime adaptation with both. That’s quite dramatic, isn’t it?
Asumin: Unbelievable, huh?
Jin: Yes, fortunately, my dream was realized.
Asumin: Then again, voicing Yunocchi was pretty different from doing this.
Jin: You were totally different as Yunocchi! When I watched it for the first time, I was like, “This person sure can talk a lot!”
Asumin: Yunocchi really…
Jin: Talked a lot, didn’t she?
Asumin: She sure did.
Suzuki: Right now, we’re in a new appearance scene in the anime.
Asumin: Yes, their meeting.
Suzuki: Their first encounter, right? Shintarou-kun and Ene’s.
Jin: Honestly, Shintarou-kun’s room is so huge!
Asumin:*laughs*
Suzuki: I know, right?? That’s true!
Jin: I was like, “How big!”
Asumin: Yeah, it’s too stylish!
Jin: “His room is so sophisticated!”
Asumin:Riiight?
Suzuki: Haha! You can’t tell if that’s his own house or if it’s rented.
Jin: No idea if it’s rented, but…
Suzuki: But it seems like the fees would be outrageous!
Jin: They’d be absurd!
Asumin: He lives in such a cool room, doesn’t he?
Suzuki: Stylish as heck.
Asumin:Yeaaah…
Suzuki: Hum, one thing I thought to be really good is that… All the walls of the room are monitors, aren’t they?
Jin:Yes.
Asumin: Yep, yep, yep.
Suzuki: That way, Ene looks huge when she comes up. So he can talk to a big Ene not just when she’s in his phone or computer. The staging seemed really good in that aspect.
Jin:True.
Asumin: Her movements are extremely detailed, which I was happy about.
Suzuki:Hmmm.
Jin: They sure were.
Asumin: She’s like an old man, though.
Suzuki:*laughs*
Jin: The duality is just incredible, isn’t it?
Asumin: That’s true!
Jin: She was cute when they first met, but…
Suzuki: I wonder how Ene would be like if she actually existed. She’d be…
Asumin: So loooud…
Jin: Aaah, I’d rather not have that!
Suzuki/Asumin:*laugh*
Suzuki: But you were the one who created her, Jin-san!
Jin: When I said that I wanted Asumi-san to voice her, I did mention that I’d be glad if she made her cute, but…!
Asumin: Well, I mean, it might actually depend on the dynamics of her relationships.
Suzuki: I see, I see.
Jin: True, true.
Asumin: She totally makes fun of Shintarou and is all pranks with him.
Jin: Like a toy in her hands.
Suzuki:Ahaha!
Asumin: Hehe! If it were someone that she gets along with a little better, it might be fun.
Suzuki: Indeed, that’s true. Like…
Asumin: If the relationship is compatible…
Suzuki:*laughs*
Jin: She’d talk normally, huh!
Asumin/Suzuki:*laugh*
Asumin:Right.
Jin: Ah, the staging is so incredible.
Asumin:Yeeeah…
Jin:He lives in such a good house.
Suzuki: Yeah, seriously. This room is so…
Jin: You’d think even the CEO of a company would have a bit more restraint than this!
Suzuki: My, that’s so true.
Asumin: Right? But Shintarou is like that. Hum… he’s a shut-in and you can definitely tell from the first episode that his lame side is always showing.
Jin: That’s true, yes.
Suzuki:Hmmm.
Asumin: But even while being like that, isn’t he always at his wit’s end and accomplishing quite a lot?
Jin/Suzuki:*laugh*
Asumin: So we speak till we pass out.
Suzuki: That’s the deal. You’re talking the whooole time in this exchange between Shintarou and Ene.
Asumin: Yeah, the first episode was like that.
Suzuki: Yup, yup, yup.
Jin: They were having a conversation all the while.
Suzuki: And so, the shut-in has to go outside.
Jin:Right.
Asumin: Ah, that’s right, he’s already going.
Jin: The NEET is going to stand on top.
Asumin:*laughs*
Jin: Also, Terashima-san is amazing too.
Asumin:Yep!
Jin: He managed to perform the twitchy and cowardly Shintarou so well.
Asumin: Ah, yeah, yeah.
Suzuki:Indeed.
Jin: On the other hand, as expected, Ene-chan contrasts with him.
Suzuki/Asumin:*laugh*
Jin: She’s so mean! Like…
Suzuki: That sure is great.
Jin: It’s pretty raw…
Suzuki: Like she comes in to spice things up!
Asumin: It’s easy to get into it. Like, she’s easy to talk to.
Suzuki: Asumi-san, I might be backtracking on the topic a bit, but…
Asumin:Yes?
Suzuki: KagePro has music, novels and manga.
Asumin: Yes, yes.
Suzuki: And I believe you have come in contact with them.
Asumin:Yes!
Suzuki: So, when you did, what did you think of it and how did it make you feel?
Asumin: Aaah… If I’m not mistaken, I was shown the song “Kagerou Days” first of all.
Jin:Ah…
Suzuki:Hmmm…
Asumin: That… music video? I received it as material.
Suzuki:Oh.
Asumin: And then… ah, w-what was it again? How should I put it…? A part of me really thought that just that one song was enough to get someone hooked into this project series. Like, it draws you in.
Suzuki:Hmmm…
Asumin: Yep, that’s right. And amongst the people who are watching it, it keeps growing more and more.
Suzuki: That’s true.
Asumin: Yep, yep.
Jin: I wonder about that…
Suzuki: Indeed, it started with the songs that Jin-san created, then Sidu-san’s illustrations became part of it, and so it gradually evolved into all sorts of media, still spreading out amongst the fans of KagePro.
Asumin: Yeah! How should I put it? Normally, when it comes to official releases, we often have this pattern where the anime comes first, then we get music and a lot of other stuff with the characters in them, and then it gets turned into a manga, right? So isn’t this the complete opposite?
Suzuki:True.
Asumin: Right? This way of doing things is really…
Suzuki: If we were to pinpoint it, the music is the source material, isn’t it?
Jin: That’s right, if we go by order, the music came first.
Suzuki:Hmmm.
Asumin: That’s true…
Suzuki: I wonder if there’s been anything like this until now. It’s not coming to my mind at the moment, but maybe there hasn’t. An anime adaptation like this, I mean. In this multi-media form.
Jin: To be honest, while I was making Kagerou Days…
Asumin:Yes?
Jin: …I was also working at an ordinary job.
Asumin:Aaaah…!
Jin: I was doing that and writing the songs.
Asumin: Ah, so, how should I say it? They were a hobby for you.
Jin: A hobby, totally. I didn’t particularly think, “I’ll definitely make these songs into an anime in the future!” or anything like that.
Asumin:Figures~!
Jin: It’s just that there was a time when I wanted to take the songs I had created and make them into animated videos.
Asumin: And in just a few years, it turned into something like this!
Suzuki: Right~? That’s amazing!
Jin: It sure is, huh?! I was also surprised!
Asumin:*laughs*
Suzuki: No, no, no!
Jin: This kind of thing is really possible!
Asumin: W-Well, it is!
Jin: Like, “They sure gave me good times, huh!”
Suzuki:*laughs*
Jin: That’s what I think when watching them nowadays.
Asumin: Oh, my…
Suzuki: And now, the NEET has arrived at the department store.
Jin: Ah, he has.
Asumin: He did his best to get there!
Suzuki: To buy a keyboard or something…
Jin: To buy a keyboard.
Asumin: He really went there just for that!
Jin: Just for that.
Asumin: That’s truly his only driving force.
Jin: The only one.
Asumin: He wants to use the computer at home.
Jin:Just because he wants to use the computer at home.
Suzuki: Honestly… he’ll die if he can’t type!
Jin: He will!
Asumin: Yeah. He has to do his best, then.
Suzuki: “I can’t do without this,” he says!
Asumin:Hoooh…
Jin: If I’m not wrong, this was also written in the novel.
Asumin:Yes.
Jin: Like, if I were to talk about Ene-chan, for example…
Asumin:Yes?
Jin: She can operate electronic devices and stuff like that by voice command. Didn’t this happen just now?
Asumin:Yes!
Jin: In many moments.
Suzuki: Yes, yes, yes.
Jin: That being said, hum, you might think it’d be best if he asked Ene to take care of this for him, but he most certainly can’t.
Asumin:Ah…!
Suzuki: I-It wouldn’t go as he wanted…
Jin: After thinking about all sorts of possibilities, he decided to go shopping for it.
Asumin:Uh-huh.
Suzuki: Judging by his face, he’s pretty bad at dealing with the outdoors.
Jin: He’s no good.
Asumin:Yeah.
Jin: Here, it’s happening again.
Suzuki:Wooow…
Jin:Aaah…
Suzuki: But I guess that’s just how it is. If someone who always stays at home suddenly goes outside, they do get concerned about being stared at, just like this.
Jin: No, but even then… Looking at it from the sidelines, Terashima-san’s voice can be heard, but you can only listen to Ene’s voice through the earphones.
Asumin:*laughs*
Suzuki: That’s right.
Jin: So if you mumble so much while you walk, of course people are gonna stare a lot!
Suzuki:*laughs* Indeed!
Asumin: True! The people around you might think that it’s best not to get too close to you.
Suzuki: Like, they look at you just a little bit.
Jin: Just a tiny little bit!
Suzuki: And then avert their eyes, as expected.
Asumin:*laughs*
Suzuki: It incites stares.
Jin: Ah, there it is, right here.
Suzuki: So cool…
Asumin: Ah, their first meeting.
Suzuki:Danchou…
Jin: Danchou-san makes her appearance.
Asumin: Anyone would get startled by that, even if it weren’t Shintarou.
Suzuki:Pfft…!
Asumin: The look in this person’s eyes is a bit…
Jin: Intimidating, wouldn’t you say?
Suzuki: Indeed. Cool as heck…
Jin: Cool, isn’t she~?
Asumin: She is. *laughs*
Jin: And then she’s gone.
Suzuki:*chuckles*
Jin: I-It’s been going downhill all this time. But, well, Ene was like that too just now. This is what makes me go, “Animation is truly incredible”…
Suzuki: Oh, oh, oh.
Jin: Hum, when it’s in the novel, I just write a bunch of stuff, comma after comma.
Asumin: *laughs* Figures.
Suzuki: Aah, I see.
Jin: So there isn’t anything as stylish as this in it.
Asumin:Aah, I get it. There isn’t any way to portray something instantaneously like this.
Suzuki: Indeed, when it’s through a lot of different medias, even if they’re depicting the same scene, there are differences between them, as you’d expect.
Jin: It’s completely different.
Asumin: By the way, is there any reason for you to have named the anime anew like this?
Jin: As “Mekakucity Actors”?
Asumin: Yes, yes.
Jin: It’s nothing much, but that’s something I can talk about.
Asumin:Hoh?
Jin: Hum, back then, erm… at first, hum… I had said that I was going to keep it as “Kagerou Project”, since everyone was calling it that.
Asumin:Hm.
Jin: But before I started it, I had no title for it. For the project itself, that is.
Asumin: I see, I see.
Jin: And, in a broad sense, I just wanted to create that kind of story with that kind of worldview, without thinking much about anything in particular. Even if just through music, for instance. Well, there was, of course, no proposal to publish a novel at the time. But, hum, don’t we have things like blogs on the internet nowadays?
Asumin:Yes.
Jin: So I thought to myself, “I could make use of that stuff and write a little bit for the time being”.
Asumin:Aah…
Jin: I was like, “First things first, I wanna try making lots of characters for this story’s world-building!” and that was the beginning of it.
Suzuki:Hmm.
Asumin:Oooh…
Jin: And from there, I got some attention, and around the time when the novel was going to come out, I had to give a name to the series.
Asumin: Ah, right, the series had to have a name…
Jin: That’s right. So just when I was kinda like, “What should I do?”, there was this thing called “my list” on a site named NicoNico Douga.
Asumin:Yes.
Jin: It’s where I upload the songs.
Asumin: Yes, yes.
Jin: So it has this “my list” thing. It’s a playlist of all the videos that you post as a series.
Asumin: I see.
Jin: And you can give a title to this list yourself.
Asumin:Ooh…!
Jin: It had songs that I’d uploaded, like this one, Jinzou Enemy. Back then, I was at Souzou Forest.
Asumin:Yes.
Jin: When I was wondering what this series should be called, I decided to just use “Kagerou Project” as a temporary title and think seriously about it later.
Asumin:*laughs*
Jin: That’s what I thought, but then people were like “KagePro this”, “KagePro that”!
Asumin: Ah, so it was surprisingly catchy.
Jin: Hella catchy!
Suzuki: Like, it was impossible to turn back.
Jin: It was no use at that point! So I was like, “M’kay, this is Kagerou Project now”!
Asumin:Heeeh…
Suzuki/Asumin:*laugh*
Jin: But when the novel was released, to be honest, I actually wanted to name it “Mekakucity”. The novel was going to be “Mekakucity-something”, and, well, to tell the truth, the music series was also going to be “Mekakucity-something-else”. And the anime was going to be “Mekakucity Actors”. Therefore, I thought it’d be interesting if this were a series of several “Mekakucity-whatever’s” in all sorts of medias, and that’s what I had in mind back when there was the first proposal for it to be turned into novel and manga. But at that time, “Kagerou Days” was very popular, so I thought it’d be best to leave the title as that.
Asumin: To preserve everyone’s image of it…
Jin: Even the bookstores said, “Wouldn’t it be easier for the public to accept the title as ‘Kagerou Days’?”
Asumin: Aaah, I see.
Jin: I was like, “Dammit, I wasn’t strong enough…!!”
Asumin/Suzuki:*laugh*
Jin: So when the anime came around, I guess it was a chance for me to avenge this grudge.
Asumin: Yes, yes. So the “Mekakucity” was already a thing.
Jin: That’s right. I wanted to use the word “Mekakucity”.
Asumin: I see.
Suzuki: It was your long-time wish.
Jin: A long-time wish, yes. That’s “Mekakucity Actors”. Well, this “Actors” thing is from the first CD I released.
Asumin:Yes.
Jin: A CD with this title came out at the same time as the anime.
Asumin/Suzuki:Ooooh!!
Jin: This title has so many of my feelings in it. Since the anime is the grand stage, this title is the one that sounded best to me – the one I that made me think, “I’m gonna make this the title of the show” most strongly.
Asumin:Haaaah!!
Suzuki: How dramatic.
Jin:Haha!
Asumin: Amazing! There’s a lot of history to it.
Suzuki: Yes, truly.
Jin: That’s right. So I really ended up creating this difficult equation for everyone, where “Mekakucity Actors = Kagerou Project”, and I’m sorry about that, but…
Suzuki: But at the end of the day, Jin-san, you thought that this one was the best.
Asumin: Yep, yep, yep.
Suzuki: The title will properly get through to everyone.
Asumin: And there’s this big bundling that is “KagePro” in the minds of the fans, after all, so perhaps they do completely understand that “Mekakucity Actors” is included in it.
Jin: Indeed, there’s the novels, the music and whatnot other than the TV series, so it’s really like the anime is in the very middle of a huge bundle.
Asumin:Yeah!
Jin: So I’d be happy if everyone finds that out somehow.
Suzuki: There, there.
Jin: That’s what I think, kinda.
Suzuki: Already showing up from behind.
Asumin: He’s already here?!
Suzuki: Kano-kun makes his appearance.
Jin: The terrorists came before we realized.
Suzuki: The terrorists have arrived.
Asumin:Yeah!
Suzuki:They’ve infiltrated, huh.
Jin:They have. Ah, s… so cool…
Asumin: This exchange was kinda funny too.
Jin: Enter the punchline!
Suzuki: I was just thinking that too! *laughs* Makes the background pique your interest, doesn’t it?
Asumin: Haaah! Eh, what kind of idiom is that?
Jin: It’s an abbreviation for “video”.
Suzuki: Like “CEO”. But this one refers to television.
Jin: It’s as if it’s saying, “You can watch TV here”.
Asumin: Oh! I-Is that machine jargon?
Suzuki: It is. It’s got nothing to do with the main story, though!
Asumin:*laughs*
Jin: Absolutely nothing!
Asumin: I see, I see.
Jin: It really has nothing to do with it.
Suzuki: H-Hum, it’s like a corner that you’re watching from the TV appearing in this scene.
Jin: Yeah, a corner!
Asumin: Ah, is that what it is…?
Suzuki/Jin:*laugh*
Jin: That’s right. *giggles*
Suzuki:Around this part, too.
Asumin: Yeah. It showed someone’s feet a little, right?
Jin: Yeah. It was Mary’s. From the first to the third episode, it’s all three sides of one story.
Asumin:Right.
Suzuki:Yeah!
Jin: That’s how we structured the plot. I hope people can see that it was like this from one point of view, and from another, it was like that.
Suzuki:But, well, this is what people see first, so when episodes 2 and 3 come up, it will be like, “This is what was actually going on in that part”.
Jin: Everyone will know why this and that happened. The mystery will be revealed, and they’ll be able to figure it out little by little.
Suzuki: So we’d like everyone to keep watching from now on.
Jin: By all means.
Asumin: Yeah! We’d like everyone to take their time to watch and have fun while thinking things like, “Oh, so this is what was happening”.
Suzuki: Wow, Shintarou. Uwah.
Asumin: Well, Ene sure isn’t playing around, is she?
Suzuki:Indeed.
Asumin:*laughs*
Jin: I’m truly sorry for this, seriously.
Suzuki:This part makes you restless, doesn’t it?
Asumin: It does, it does!
Jin:Really makes you go, “So that’s what she was doing in the first half of this scene!”
Suzuki: She’s gone and done it!
Asumin: That’s right! She was really showing off, huuuh. Ah, he yelled. Shintarou yelled.
Jin: Oh, this is where it begins.
Asumin: But we were told that he wasn’t supposed to look cool here.
Jin: That’s right.
Suzuki: *laughs* I see.
Asumin: “Please shout without making him seem like a hero” was the request.
Suzuki: I see, I see. But that’s more “Shintarou-like”, so to say. It was as if… he were mustering up all his courage.
Asumin: Yes, squeezing it out of himself.
Suzuki: Yep. Squeezing it out.
Jin: Also, it’s not like this scene is about Shintarou-kun doing his best and looking cool.
Asumin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Suzuki: Hm, hm, hm.
Jin: Hum, it’s more like him taking a little step forward.
Suzuki: Ah, that’s right.
Jin: Rather than him “doing a transformation and taking out the enemies”, he just managed to plant a step on the ground. It was just the equivalent of a shut-in going out of his room for a bit. Something like that.
Suzuki:Indeed.
Jin: He doesn’t look particularly cool.
Suzuki:Hmmm.
[Sounds of Shintarou panting hard]
Jin: He sure can run.
Suzuki: He’s running a lot.
Asumin: Hm, the colors here are quite like Shaft-san.
Suzuki: Right? It’s like – how can I put it? These are Shaft-san’s “studio colors”.
Asumin: Yep, yep, yep.
Jin:True.
Suzuki: It’s part of the staging.
Jin: Ah, Ene.
Asumin: There she is.
Suzuki: Ene’s come up.
Asumin: Ene does a lot here, doesn’t she? *giggles*
Jin: She kind of can do anything.
Suzuki: And then, Shintarou…
Jin:Collapses.
Suzuki: He gets shot.
Jin: And immediately falls down.
Suzuki: I watched this one alone at home, and during this scene, hum, when I saw that there was a bullet mark across the monitor, I whispered to myself, “How stylish…”
Asumin: *laughs* “Stylish”!
Jin: It’s sooo stylish!
Suzuki: So much style even in the way he falls! And now…
Jin: There we go.
Suzuki:The location has changed again.
Jin: It has. And it’s still like, “Where’s this?!”
Suzuki: “What is this place?!”
Jin: Like, “Where am I?!”
Asumin: “Huh, wasn’t this a classroom?”
Jin: A classroom. It was made to look like one, but…
Asumin: This is so incredibly artistic…
Jin: It sure is…
Suzuki: And then time winds back. In the end, everything here has a meaning.
[Daze starts playing]
Asumin:Ah!
Suzuki: And here it is!
Asumin: It’s playing.
Suzuki: It was placed at the end this time, but that’s actually the opening theme.
Asumin:Right!
Suzuki: Jin-san, please introduce the song.
Jin: Ah, the song? Hum, this is the opening of episode 1. The title of this theme song is “Daze”.
Suzuki: Ah, it’s so sick…
Asumin: It sure is! The first time I listened to it, I was like, “Huhu~!”
Jin: Ah, thank you!
Suzuki/Asumin:*laugh*
Jin: Thank you very much.
Asumin: Each one of them shows up very prominently here, one after another.
Jin: Yes, like an ABC, in other words.
Asumin:Yeah!
Suzuki: Even just the image of it is opening theme-like.
Jin: That’s right! The song itself was made so that you can really boast to other people about how awesome it is. I tried my hand at making a cool song with my guitar and a band unit. As for the animation, the storyboard of this opening video was made by Sidu-san, who always makes the music videos, and the production was carried out by Shaft-san.
Asumin: Ah, hm, it was kinda like a collab!
Jin: Yes, yes, yes.
Asumin: The collab of your dreams.
Suzuki:Yep.
Asumin: So I’m sure that everyone will always be cheering for you. And for KagePro. I mean, I’m sure they’ll always be thinking, “This is it!”
Suzuki: It’s like each and every cut of this opening actually has a meaning of its own.
Asumin: Right?! Makes your heart race a bit, doesn’t it?
Suzuki:If anyone happens to think, “What’s this?!”
Jin: Like, “What’s going on in this thing?”
Suzuki: We’d like them to use all sorts of means to look it up.
Jin: Please, please! Do some research on it!
Asumin:Yeah~!
Suzuki: Now that all’s been said and done…
Asumin:Yes?
Suzuki: …we’re getting to the ending soon.
Asumin:Yes!
Suzuki: The time to bring this audio commentary to a close is approaching.
Jin: Time to end it, huh?
Asumin: This was surprisingly quick, wasn’t it?
Suzuki: That’s right!
Jin:True!
Asumin/Suzuki:*laugh*
Suzuki: I’d like each of us to do a simple outro. Well, next is Asumi-san.
Asumin:Yes!
Suzuki: Please go ahead.
Asumin: I kinda… think that this was a funny audio commentary.
Suzuki/Jin:*laugh*
Asumin: We had members that you don’t see together at all.
Suzuki: True, that.
Asumin: Please look forward to the commentaries to come, as well as to what’s going to happen from now on. Thank you very much.
Jin: Thank you very much.
Suzuki: Now, Jin-san.
Jin: Yes! Erm, anyway, this has been the first episode. Hum, my wish has come true, the story that I’ve been working on was adapted into an anime, which has just started. So I’d be happy if it piques everyone’s interest a little bit. We’re counting with your support.
Suzuki: Thank you very much.
Jin: Sure thing.
Suzuki: Well, this will now connect with the second episode, “Kisaragi Attention”, so let’s meet over there.
All three: Thank you very much!
John Rogers: Hi, This is John Rodgers, Executive Producer, with a pint of Guinness, this episode of Leverage. And next to my right is?
John Harrison: John Harrison, I’m the Director.
Rebecca: I’m Rebecca Kirsch, I’m the Writer.
Chris: Chris Downey, Executive Producer.
Aldis: This is Aldis Hodge, your resident Hardison. And you are watching The Gone Fishin’ Job.
[Laughter]
Rogers: Uh, Becky, tell us how the origin started for these scummy guys doing this thing?
Rebecca: Um, I found out some crazy research online. Apparently back in 2006, the IRS outsourced some of their debt collection practices to some private debt collectors. So instead of using people who were covered by the government and under the government laws to collect money from taxpayers, they took on people who had incentives to get as much money from people as possible using the nefarious routes.
Aldis: Just makes me sick.
[Laughing]
Chris: And we got- we got a little heat online from some people about the accuracy of this. And, and isn’t it that the truth is actually much worse than this?
Rogers: Yes.
Rebecca: Much worse.
Rogers: They were using full on horrible debt collector means of lying to people, faking phone calls, saying they’re gonna take the house, you know.
Rebecca: Absolutely.
Harrison: Intimidation. And all that.
Rogers: Intimidation, yeah. This is- this is stuff that goes on. It was also interesting when people said, you know, who- who would just pay someone just because they said they’re from the IRS. And I hate to say it- American culture, we are hardwired for authority. You know, if a white dude in a suit shows up and says you owe money to the government, 9 out of 10 people gonna assume that they owe money to the government.
Chris: And in this case you, they do.
Harrison: Especially if it’s the IRS.
Rebecca: Absolutely.
Rogers: They do, yes.
Chris: In this case they- this person actually did owe money to the government, which is something that really only the government would- should know.
Rebecca: Exactly.
Rogers: Should know! In theory. Unless you- yeah.
Harrison: Like this scene there, where she actually hands over her credit card.
Rogers: Yeah.
Harrison: It’s- when I first read it, I thought, ‘Is this real?’ But then you think, man, if an IRS guy came to me-
Rogers: Yeah.
Harrison: That’s one group that I really don’t wanna mess with.
Rebecca: Absolutely.
Rogers: It was- it’s a horrible abuse of power. And one of the incredibly depressing things that we stumble across every year as we write Leverage.
[Laughing]
Rogers: It’s really- it’s just a parade of, “Oh man, that sucks!” That’s the writers room all day long.
[Laughing]
Rogers: The actress playing our victim here is?
Rebecca:Marissa Price.
Rogers: Excellent job.
Harrison: Yeah.
Chris: Mmhmm.
Rogers: Really good, really good sympathetic job with the-
Chris: Local actress from Portland.
Rebecca: Absolutely.
Rogers: Yeah, she was.
Rebecca: And her daughter, Sara Fanger, did a really good job. We had a good night together.
Rogers: Was that her real daughter?
Rebecca: Uh no, the- I’m sorry. The actress playing the daughter.
Harrison: Yeah. She was terrific. And it was the last shot of a long, long week.
Rebecca: Exactly.
Harrison: And we got it all in time because these guys-
Rogers: That’s why it was at night, right? It was originally written during the day.
Harrison: Yeah, yeah.
Rebecca: That’s exactly right.
Rogers: We just burned out the- burned through daylight. Chris, now however, the scummy, scummy plot was married to The Defiant Ones.
Chris: Yes.
Rogers: And why don’t you talk about how that had been on the board for a while?
Chris: We did, we had a card on the board for a long time that we wanted to handcuff Eliot and Hardison together and have them chased through the woods.
[Laughter]
Chris: And it became a challenge to figure out- to build a story around that. You’d think that that would be enough. That that would- that that story just writes itself.
Rogers: No, that’s just an occurrence, that’s really-
Chris: You need to find a reason for them to be chased through the woods.
Aldis: Now where did that idea for us to be handcuffed together come from?
[Laughter]
Rogers: It comes from-
Chris: Well it’s a classic movie, The Defiant Ones.
Harrison: Yeah.
Aldis: Yes.
Chris: You know, we did have to take a little bit of heat as to why the bad guys would decide to handcuff these two people together instead of handcuffing them separately.
Rebecca: Right.
Rogers: But, I will note, that instead of just tossing you into the woods with some made up bullshit story, we waited two years to figure out a legitimate reason you are handcuffed to each other!
[Laughter]
Aldis: Exactly. Well my true question is: why me and Eliot?
[Laughter]
Rogers: Oh, I’m sorry, we did have the plot where you and Beth were handcuffed together and were running through the woods.
[Laughter]
Aldis: I’m just saying.
Rebecca: Whole other season, season 5.
Aldis: Give the audience the spice- you know we could’ve stayed in the woods for a few more days.
Rebecca: They did enjoy it.
Rogers: But it turns out that the majority of the audience might prefer that more, but the 10% of the audience that preferred this version tends to pay more for advertising.
[Laughter]
Rogers: So, you were this close to being shirtless in the woods, so stop bitching.
Aldis: Dag!
Chris: We got plenty of stories about the woods coming up, oh boy.
Rebecca: Absolutely.
Aldis: Oh yes, we do.
Chris: I love the pinata bit that you did here.
Rebecca: You were always a fan of that, thank you.
Chris: I was a very happy- you know it’s just a little bit of business for the actors.
Rebecca: Yup.
Chris: But it was- I thought it really made the exposition of the scene, kind of, give it a nice funny framework.
Harrison: Except for the noise of the crinkling paper all the time through the scene, that was-
Rebecca: Exactly.
[Laughter]
Rogers: Oh that’s sound, who cares about sound?
Harrison: Sound, right.
Aldis: Yeah, ADR.
Harrison: Well I didn’t want to ask all these guys to dub their lines.
Rebecca: Exactly, well that was a concern about that-
Rogers: Oh they love dubbing their lines, they love dubbing entire scenes; the actors live for that.
Aldis: Hey, hey, I cooperate when it comes to ADR.
Rogers: You do, you’re fantastic.
Aldis: I cooperate; I have no problem when it comes to ADR.
[Laughter]
Rogers: When you do- but when you have five humans in one set it is important to find a little bit of business. Why you see Beth eating soup, or, you know, everyone- there’s usually what happens is one person peels away with a physical prop.
Harrison: And she had all this worked out, I didn’t have it. She just came up with all that stuff.
Rogers: Oh, that’s great. That is great.
Chris: Oh here we go.
Harrison: Except for Eliot tearing the head off, which was fun.
[Laughter]
Rebecca: I think we went through about three pinatas for that.
Aldis: By the way guys, sexual chocolate!
Rogers: There- thank you .
[Laughter]
Rogers: That is- you guys were not here when he did the first episode.
Aldis: Yes, I’m just saying it’s kind of necessary, just-
Rogers: Now I will say that this might be, though an accurate portrayal of Hardison, you are quite the outdoorsman. You went up to Portland.
Rebecca: Is that true?
Rogers: I saw a lot of you when Edwin was up there, you were out hiking.
Chris: Yeah, that’s right.
Rogers: You sent us photos of you out hiking with Edwin.
Aldis: Yes, I hike a lot.
Chris: Speaking of shirtless.
[Laughter]
Aldis: Do the river rafting, pretty- when you’re up in Portland it’s like not much more to do but go be a part of the woods, because that’s all there is, so why not be a part of it?
Rogers: And a lovely art scene.
Aldis: There’s a beautiful art scene.
Rebecca: That’s true, good coffee shops.
Aldis: Portland’s a great town for that, but I’m just saying that there’s- you got like three options. You know go to the movies, go to the woods-
[Laughter]
Harrison: Go to the coffee shop.
Rebecca: Go to Powells.
Aldis: Or go to the coffee shop, yeah or to the bookstore.
Chris: Yeah.
Rogers: No, this was also this was fun. We learned an awful lot about money laundering. We really-
Rebecca: I think too much, I think we could do a very good job, frankly.
Rogers: We could do- well there was one time we were breaking- Apollo Robbins, our professional thief consultant came in to consult. And he was watching us break an episode, he said, “You guys are now a fully functioning crime crew.”
[Laughter]
Rogers: He said, “I have seen professional criminals who put less thought into their crime than you guys.”
Rebecca: Can I put that on my resume?
Chris: There’s the great Clancy Brown!
Harrison: There’s the great Clancy Brown!
Aldis: Clancy Brown!
Rogers: Oh, man.
Chris: This was not the first time you’ve worked with Clancy?
Harrison: I’ve worked with Clancy a bunch of times.
Rogers: We both have.
Rebecca: Of course.
Harrison: I mean he’s-
Aldis: Actually we all- I have as well.
Chris: Oh yeah?
Rogers: What’d you do?
Harrison: You-?
Rogers: What did you do with Clancy?
Aldis: Clancy and I, we did a cartoon series for two years. It’s called A.T.O.M.: Alpha Teens on Machines.
Rebecca: I didn’t know that.
Harrison: Do you know he’s on Spongebob Squarepants?
Aldis: Yeah well there were several other guys from Spongebob. Tom Kitty who plays Spongebob, yeah. What did you guys work with him on?
Rogers: Oh there’s the evil look, I loved. I did two things-
Aldis: Clancy Brown!
Rogers: One, I wrote a pilot for USA, which should be on the air, called Red Skies about a Chinese female ass-kicking cop who comes to America and Clancy Brown is her FBI- it sounds cool even when I say it now!
[Laughter]
Harrison: Yes it does!
Aldis: So cool.
Rogers: Clancy Brown was her FBI handler. And I tell you there was, it was actually a funny moment because he’s such a genial guy, and he’s so terrifying on screen, but he’s such a sweet guy. But there’s one moment that during draft drift, we’d taken the character out of the scene, but forgot to cut one line of dialogue, so we were doing the table read. And he suddenly finds that one line of dialogue and says it, and there’s you know, “Oh that was weird.” And then at the end he comes over and goes, “John you’re going to take me out of that scene aren’t you?” I was like, “Yes, Mr. Brown! I’ll take you out! Please!”
[Laughter]
Chris: “Whatever you say, please stop talking!”
Rogers: “Please don’t take out the giant sword and kill me for my life energy! Please!”
Harrison: The first time ever worked with him was on Earth 2, and I was so-
Rogers: That was a great little show.
Harrison: So intimidated to go work with him, because he has such a strong personality on screen. And I went to talk to the other actors first, and well, you know, ‘What’s it like to work with Clancy? I’m really nervous to work with Clancy.’ And he was the sweetest guy.
Rogers: Yeah.
Harrison: And he’s got a great sense of humor, he’s hysterical on this set!
Rebecca: Absolutely.
Rogers: The other time I worked with him, he was Captain Black on Jackie Chan Adventures.
Harrison: Yeah.
Aldis: Yes.
Chris: Ohh.
Rogers: He was the voice on that, and did that for five years.
Harrison: Dean and I did a show with him called Blank Slate.
Rogers: Yes.
Harrison: Where he came in, and Dean loved him, so when he asked me to come up and do this episode and I found out that Clancy was in it, it was like- how quick can I get on the plane?
Rebecca: Exactly.
Rogers: By the way, Gina in a business suit drinking scotch is hotter than I remember.
Chris: Oh yeah.
Harrison: I like it!
Rebecca: I was gonna say that that outfit in addition to the Eliot and Hardison outfits are some of my favorite costumes this season. I thought that Nadine did a fantastic job.
Rogers: Nadine Haders- always a great job, always a great job.
Aldis: Applause to Nadine Haders.
Rogers: It might be this, and the limo driver in Ho Ho Ho.
Chris: Oh yeah.
Rebecca: Oh I haven’t seen that, is that a good one?
Rogers: Yeah, she looks pretty great in it.
Aldis: What about the two stripper outfits in the season finale?
Chris: Oh no spoilers!
[Laughter]
Rogers: No no don’t ruin it!
Rebecca: Ahh hey hey!
Rogers: No spoilers.
Harrison: Gotta wait for those.
Rogers: I had a thong specially made.
Aldis: Not me. That’s next season guys, next season.
Chris: And this is just two fantastic actors, just mono y mono in the scene, I mean that’s what-
Rogers: This was actually great staging, is the flipping the eyelines back and forth between how are we gonna do the con, and actually executing the con.
Harrison: Right.
Rogers: It’s really tricky. We have an enormous amount of pipe in these episodes, and figuring out ways to break up that information is a real challenge. And you’ll notice that again, the challenge is shooting five actors but also in getting information out, we split them up into two’s a lot more this year.
Chris: Yeah.
Rogers: Than we used to.
Harrison: Which is great. I mean for director to be able to see the thing unfold, and you’re able to- instead of trying to get everybody in a room and do a big blurt out, you can find a way to stage it creatively.
Rogers: Now we did get a little- there’s the militia guys. We did get a little heat from some people.
Aldis: Look, I will have you notice-
Harrison: Did you?
Rogers: I’ll tell you-
Aldis: In this scene, that all the red dots are on sexual chocolate.
[Laughter]
Aldis: I’m just saying.
Harrison: Yes, they are.
Chris: How’d that work out?
Aldis: I’m offended! I’m just saying.
Harrison: What’s the significance of the crow, though, I wonder?
[Laughter]
Chris: Well there’s an act break for you, right there.
Rogers: There’s an act break people are gonna-
Chris: And now they are handcuffed together!
Rogers: There you go! We’re in! And beginning of act 2 we know what the episode is.
Aldis: Yeah.
Chris: Now I’ll say there was a big debate when we were breaking this story about where the woods part was gonna be, remember?
Rogers: Yeah.
Chris: I mean that was a big- we were- it was a big- it was tricky part because we had sort of an urban part of the story-
Rebecca: Right.
Chris: -that was the money laundering con, and then there was the bank part of the story. And at one point they were gonna actually be in Portland, and three thousand miles away. And then ultimately-
Rebecca: Oh yeah we got a-
Chris: -we decided we needed to bring everyone together at the end.
Rebecca: Yeah we were gonna have them in Washington, I guess.
Rogers: Or Alaska, we talked about Alaska for a while.
Rebecca: I forgot- you’re right.
Chris: Alaska we talked about.
Rebecca: You’re right, I had forgotten about that.
Harrison: It feels totally real though.
Chris: Yeah.
Harrison: The relationship here all feels-
Rogers: Yeah, the spatial relationship-
Harrison: The spatial relationship feels totally real.
Aldis: For the audience, I mean you guys- we’re usually somewhere different every episode, as far as geographically- making geographic decisions. How much does that play into your thought process of actually writing the story?
Chris: Well, we had to figure out in the ending, could we end it with you guys three thousand miles away just solving your own problem? And them, you know, and them back in the urban part of the story, and we ultimately decided no we need to bring everyone together at the end, they need to be three hours into the woods. That was really kinda the breakthrough we had that finally-
Rebecca: I think you’re right.
Chris: Finally figured out how we can finish it.
Rogers: Well a lot of it is, you can die three hours into the woods. That was also thinking about it.
[Laughter]
Rogers: It’s like, you know, three hours into the woods is pretty damn deep into the woods. They find dead hikers in the California hills- you know, mountains, fifteen minutes off the trail all the time, you know.
Chris: Yeah.
Rogers: And this crime story, how we money launder, actually was Chris’ idea.
Chris: Well, and Christine Boyland actually had a big breakthrough, cause we needed a money laundering opportunity for the guy. Once he knew his money was vulnerable in this rural bank-
Rogers: Yeah.
Chris: We needed to present him with a way to launder money. And we were just knocking things around the room and Christine Boyland, one of our writers, said what about a gym? And when she said that it was like the skies opened up. It was like of course you could launder money through a gym! Because gym membership rolls- most people don’t go!
Harrison: That’s the great point of it right there.
Rogers: The key to money laundering, for those of you who wanna do some research.
[Laughter]
Rebecca: Take notes.
Aldis: This is criminal lessons 101.
Rogers: Criminal lessons.
Rebecca: Pen and paper.
Rogers: The key to money laundering is no inventory. That’s why, if you ever in New York City, or any major city, and you’re looking around and wondering what all those neighborhood video stores are, like who the hell uses those neighborhood video stores? Well it’s something- a place that charges for service.
Chris: Yes.
Rogers: That you can’t track, that you never have to move inventory in or out of, there’s no way to count how many things you’ve actually sold. So a lot of those places are actually money laundering for the Russian mob.
Harrison: Yeah.
Aldis: John, is that why you started a video store?
[Laughter]
Rogers: I have a great little video store here in LA. It deals specifically in alternative and cult films, I think you’ll really-
Aldis: It’s called Roger’s World.
Rebecca: Very innovative.
Aldis: On tape.
Rogers: What were we gonna say? Yeah we got- we got a little heat when- we’re gonna go back to militia in a minute, because some people, you know, kinda buy into the whole bad side of Thomas Jefferson. They never quote the letter to the Danbury Baptists, it’s always the ‘blood of the tyrants’ line. But, you know, it’s tricky because whenever we talk about a group, we’re talking about the most extreme part of the group.
Harrison: Yeah.
Rogers: When we talk about the government, we talk about specific bad people. And if you believe you should go live in the woods, and you should not be bothered by the government, that is cool. What these people are based on are the hooteries [sp?]. Which were-
Harrison: The Tim McVeighs.
Rogers: The Tim McVeighs.
Aldis: Yeah.
Rogers: There was- literally right before we wrote this.
Rebecca: A week. I’m gonna say a week before; it was incredible timing.
Rogers: A week before we wrote it, a bunch of these wingnuts were caught who were planning on killing cops.
Chris: Yeah.
Rogers: And using Iraqi insurgent techniques to kill cops. And I don’t care what your political bent is conservative or-
Chris: I think it was at the funerals wasn’t it?
Rogers: It was at the funerals.
Rebecca: They were gonna kill one cop.
Rogers: They were gonna kill one cop, wait till a bunch of cops showed up to the funeral and kill them at the funeral.
Rebecca: Exactly.
Aldis: Yeah.
Rogers: I don’t care if you’re conservative or liberal. Guys who kill cops are bad guys on TV shows.
Harrison: Especially, yeah, setting them up and luring them in and so they can pick them off. Give me a break.
Rogers: Yes. And also, like, most of these guys probably drove there on federally funded highways, but that’s fine! You know, ignore that.
[Laughter]
Harrison: They’re probably living on-
Rogers: Let’s just take our lesson from the murderous, cop killing, bad guys.
Chris: Now this. Tell us about the woods here.
[Laughter]
Chris: What don’t we know about what’s going on here?
Aldis: First of all, as you can see, it’s not much clothing that we had on.
Rebecca: No, it was a little cold.
Aldis: Portland; woods; it was raining.
Rogers: What time of year did you shoot this?
Harrison: It was April; late April.
Rebecca: It was April; you’re absolutely right.
Aldis: The cameras we use, the RED cameras are so great they provide such clear images. It rains lightly but you can’t really pick it up, you can’t really tell. But it was- we could tell!
[Laughter]
Aldis: Sitting there in the scenes, it was very cold. And those little heaters - those little heat warmers that- the little portable heaters they, you know, they’re good as far as you can take them.
Rogers: So that campfire isn’t warming you at all?
Chris: It’s not making you toasty?
Rebecca: No, the crew gathered there ever time we took a break between shooting, it was absolutely-
Chris: Look at that breeze. Oh I feel the cold right now!
Aldis: Oh the beautiful breeze.
Rebecca: It rained for every moment of this shot.
Chris: Oohhh.
Aldis: 12 hours a day, in the woods, for a week. Oh joy.
Rogers: Who’d you do that for Aldis? Did you do it for the fans?
Aldis: Did it for the fans.
[Laughter]
Rogers: There you go.
Aldis: Cause we love you guys.
Chris: Our bad.
Rogers: There you go.
Aldis: But this was actually a great scene, a fun scene because-
Harrison: It is, yeah.
Aldis: You’ll see later, Christian and I, we start running away and I’ll show you the exact point. We had trouble actually running, being stuck to one another. And we were sliding, it was rainy, it was muddy, the whole bit. And one time we ran, actually, into a tree, but we didn’t know which way to go so we split the tree-
[Laughter]
Aldis: But we were handcuffed together so we both yanked back because we hit the tree.
Rebecca: Please tell me there’s footage of that somewhere.
Chris: Is there footage of that?
Aldis: Oh there is. Yeah, I hope it’s in the bloopers, but it’s actually- I mean they use- it was right there. We slid and hit right in the tree.
[Laughter]
Harrison: The thing that’s cool about that scene though Aldis, is the way that you guys lay the pipe for what you need to know later on.
Aldis: Yeah.
Harrison: And it’s not, like, in your face; it’s not, like, ‘Okay, pay attention to this thing about the cigarette.’ I think it’s really a nicely done scene for that reason.
Rogers: Kirsch did a lovely job.
Rebecca: Thank you.
Aldis: She did, she did.
Rebecca: And I have to say, having- not done a lot of experience, personally, in the woods, in the rain, I have to say that you and Christain did an incredible job. As far as I don’t- we were there for two days, it rained every second of it. I didn’t hear one peep of complaining; you guys were the most ultimate professionals, and it was something that inspired me to not complain.
Aldis: Oh, thank you.
Chris: Right.
Rebecca: And try to keep going, it was very impressive.
Chris: We knew this episode should have been saved for July, we just didn’t have anything else.
[Laughter]
Rogers: Really didn’t have anything else to shoot?
Chris: Had nothing else; this was it, we’re doing it.
Aldis: It’s like-
Harrison: Yeah, but then you would’ve had all the bugs.
Rogers: That’s true.
Rebecca: Oh my god, you’re right.
Aldis: Let’s shoot all the summer episodes in February, more running.
Chris: Oh here we go! This was what was in mind the whole episode was conceived.
[Laughter]
Harrison: Here’s The Defiant Ones.
Rebecca: Here, I’m gonna tell you exactly what we heard in the writers room for about a week when we were writing this: more bloodhounds. This is from Chris Downey: more bloodhounds.
[Laughter]
Chris: I said more bloodhounds.
Rebecca: Release the hounds; we need more bloodhounds.
Aldis: Those bloodhounds, by the way, were the sweetest dogs in the world.
Rebecca: They were-
Rogers: Except when they’re hunting you.
Rebecca: They were cadaver dogs.
Chris: They were cadaver dogs! Yeah.
Rebecca: These were cadaver dogs that were trained to go to this woods and to, god forbid, find someone.
Harrison: Is that right?
Rebecca: That’s what they did, and their trainers were the most incredible people. And they were really the loveliest dogs. And I remember sending you a few photos of it and your absolute childlike excitement about it, because you wanted those dogs!
Chris: I did. And I love the rock paper scissors.
Aldis: We almost broke our ankles getting up this hill right there.
Rebecca: It was so- it was so steep.
Rogers: I’m trying to remember the rock paper scissors was in-
Chris: It was in Snow Job.
Rogers: It was in Snow Job. And that-
Rebecca: The very first one?
Rogers: That throw away that we gave you, the tell, has paid off in more scripts than I care to mention.
[Laughter]
Aldis: Yes, yes.
Rogers: That’s one of those little bits where it’s like, that’s the fun of doing a TV show, is you get to do stuff over the course of a couple years.
Aldis: Beth once again in a suit, and I call it sexy Beth.
[Laughter]
Rogers: Sexy Beth in a suit.
Rebecca: I like it.
Rogers: Beth wears a suit well.
Aldis: She does.
Rogers: When she does the FBI thing, it’s no wonder McSweeten has a crush on her.
Rebecca: Can’t blame him.
Rogers: Yeah, there you go.
Chris: Let’s see. Oh, the old proverbial book.
Harrison: The old book out of the-
All: Ohhhhh!
Chris: I love that!
Harrison: Book sticking out gag.
Rebecca: We got so lucky with that. No, I think that the prop work in this back room was incredible, I think we had a really good-
Rogers: Now wait, did we build that wall? Or did some dude have a trap there? Cause I’m spooked now.
Harrison: No that’s a-
Rebecca: The actual wall itself? Was- no, I think that there was-
Harrison: That’s a flap.
Chris: This was a beautifully dressed set.
Rebecca: Really well done.
Chris: Evil room of evil.
Aldis: It’s Dean’s office, you don’t know-?
[Laughter]
Harrison: You don’t know anything about Dean, do you?
Rogers: This is not anything of a prop. This looks a lot like my garage, I gotta admit.
Aldis: A secret room back there where he keeps all his old scripts and everything.
Rogers: I’m not gonna lie, a lot of my office stuff is in there, a lot of conspiracy stuff. I mean that’s- and you know, it’s kind of interesting, there is a legitimate world to- there’s a legitimate way to look at the world and realize, you know, that sometimes things are out of control, corporations have too much power, or the government has too much power. It’s- because I kinda hang out in those- that place on the internet, it’s very easy to see where it goes into crazytown. Like the line to crazytown is always right there.
Aldis: You realize you’re telling on yourself, John. When you wanna go crazy in 10 years and blame it on-
Rogers: Dude, I assure you my browser history is on a CIA file somewhere; there’s no way it’s not.
[Laughter]
Aldis: I’m just saying.
Rogers: Clancy looking dubious.
Rebecca: We’re about to have-
Harrison: You’re a fan of the Jesse Ventura show, right?
Rogers: Exactly, Jesse knows what he’s talking about.
Rebecca: I’m looking forward to the evil speech of evil on that. Such a good shot.
Chris: Clancy is riveting, even when he’s reviewing documents.
[Laughter]
Harrison: You know, it’s also the voice, you know? All he has to do- that voice is so booming and so authoritative.
Rogers: Yeah.
Rebecca: And actually that structure about the flag was also Christine Boyland’s idea. She did the research on the history about that one, and I think it gave it a really nice touch.
Chris: She did, she did.
Rogers: But that’s the fun thing about our writing staff, too. I mean, it’s interesting. I have a lot of British friends that don’t really use writing staff in England, and they’re all kinda ‘gimme’ about it once they come and see how it works. Because when- Chris says this all the time, when you’re putting together a writing staff, you never know who knows something.
Aldis: Right.
Chris: Yeah.
Rogers: You know, you never know- like when we were writing the one- Boyland’s episode about the lost [unintelligible].
Rebecca: Right, right.
Rogers: I’m the one who went and found that cause I had heard of some little thing about it. You know, everybody has some little bit of information they can throw into an episode. Everyone has a different fixation.
Rebecca: Absolutely. I really love the tension in this scene. I thought that they all really worked very well with each other.
Rogers: Well it’s a bunch of good actors. I mean, that is fun. We were doing the commentary on the Double Blind Job and we were talking about how many of those scenes in that episode are just actors talking, and the writers were going to the director, Marc Roskin, “Wow, must be really tough to shoot these.” And he’s like “No, these are my favorite!”
Harrison: Yeah exactly, when you’ve got that kind of talent to work with.
Aldis: Every scene with me, right. Got it. Good times.
Chris: Then you’ve got the tension of going on in the woods.
Rogers: Yeah.
Chris: And, you know, being able to- we needed to have a juxtaposition between a very sort of serene corporate environment and the woods, to make the woods pop.
Rebecca: Absolutely.
Chris: And again, the woods stuff here, I feel like is one of our more- most cinematic looks we’ve ever had in an episode.
Rebecca: All that rain made it the most beautiful.
[Laughter]
Rebecca: Truly it did! No, I really mean it!
Chris: Took one for the team!
Rebecca: It was incredible!
Aldis: All that rain, all that rain.
Harrison: I have to say for the writing table for everything else, the thing that I liked about this script and about the show in general, is you have a lot of heists and so forth, but you pay attention to detail. It doesn’t feel like you really ask for too many gimmies in these shows.
Rogers: It’s only ever one gimmie, every episode, that’s all we allow ourselves. There’s usually one fudge, you know, one-
Harrison: But that’s what makes it fun.
Rogers: One ledger as we- yeah.
Rebecca: Ledger, orange box.
Rogers: No, most of these would work. I forget what one it was first year where Chris’ friend who worked in the US attorney’s office, he called him to get advice about something.
Rebecca: Oh, that was great!
Rogers: Was it The Jury Job?
Chris: I think it was Jury Job.
Rogers: And he heard the thing, he went, “Well holy shit, that would work.”
[Laughter]
Rogers: Like yes!
Chris: ‘You’re gonna broadcast this?’
Rogers: ‘Don’t- don’t tell people about this.’
Harrison: ‘Don’t give people ideas!’
Rebecca: You need to get a lawyer.
Aldis: I feel these commentaries are more and more dangerous.
[Laughter]
Rogers: And now you’re an accessory after the fact, Aldis.
Aldis: Dag gum!
Harrison: This is great, because we now know that the boys are in trouble out there.
Chris: Yes.
Harrison: And it’s really great on all the- everybody’s part, the rest of the team. Which is why I think it’s great that you kept the geography close, so that the team could be reunited at the end.
Chris: Yes, yes, that was-
Rebecca: Good point.
Harrison: So everybody’s together.
Chris: Now this the interesting thing- act three, for those of you aspiring writers out there, has always been a hard act. And it’s a hard act in every show, cause it’s the middle part of the show.
Harrison: Yeah.
Chris: And our act four is the short act, it’s always a lot of action. But act three, you know, we struggle to make sure that there’s not running in place. This is one of my favorite act threes I think we’ve ever done, and it’s so good that when we were at Comic Con and we had to show a piece of the episode upcoming episode, we showed all of act three.
Rogers: Yeah.
Aldis: Haha, I remember this scene.
[Laughter]
Aldis: Me and Christian went at it.
Rogers: You got rubbed on a lot. Christian stayed clean.
Rebecca: This was one of the most fun ad libs that I’ve ever seen. You two just- every take was different, every take was something golden.
Harrison: Every take was different, yeah.
Aldis: It was such a good time.
Aldis: Well Christian and I- as soon as we got- we saw the script, we were both very excited because of the fact that- we saw the full opportunity to just go nuts. You know, Hardison and Eliot, they understand who they are and what they do and how they work with one another, and it was like alright we gotta go crazy, we gotta do us. When we saw this scene, I remember right before we shot I said “Christian, I’m- I’ve got something.” He’s like “No no no-”
[Laughter]
Aldis: “Just do it man; just do it. And we- I’m gonna feed off of you.” I’m like, “Aight Kane, we got this.” So we came in and yeah, every time we did it we, you know, tried to throw something different.
Rebecca: Absolutely.
Aldis: Because it’s fun for us, but it’s fun for the audience as well.
Rebecca: And the crew was in hysterics the entire time. We had such a great afternoon that day, we really did.
Chris: Yeah, what was it? The hushpuppy? What was the-?
Rebecca: Oh yeah!
[Laughter]
Aldis: Oh, fish- catfish in biscuit.
Rebecca: Catfish!
Chris: Catfish in a biscuit?
Aldis: But the thing is we were provided with a great platform to do so, and that’s all because of what you guys set up for us in the writers room, and what you did, Becky. So we appreciate that, because we had- we just had a ton of fun with this. Running around the woods. That’s why we didn’t complain - we were having so much fun.
Chris: Yeah, look at this, look at this shot.
Rogers: That’s a great shot. That’s again- and also it was one of the great payoffs is we established- again, on a throwaway in the airplane job, in the Mile High Job first season, how the comms work through the phones.
Rebecca: Right.
Harrison: Right.
Rogers: And that’s what allowed us to have the plot twist where they got back into contact in act three.
Harrison: Yup.
Rogers: It’s- thank god we have- actually Kirsch, up until this year, her job was to pay attention to that stuff.
Harrison: And it’s great cause they’re out of contact here, and everybody- that really has got good suspense in this act. Because nobody knows what happened.
Rebecca: Exactly.
[Laughter]
Rogers: Whose idea was that?
Chris: I think Michael Colton and John Aboud had the scary cat photo.
Rogers: Yeah, I think that was their thing.
Rebecca: That was most definitely their idea.
Harrison: I didn’t even know what that was until I saw that.
Chris: And there was that thing where we could have easily had them- story-wise, had the two guys find a train, right?
Rogers: Yeah.
Chris: And a train runs through the woods. And I think it was a big development that- what if we- how do you hack a train to get a train to them? And that gave us-
Rebecca: Without Hardison.
Chris: Yeah without Hardison, without any of the, you know, without any of the computer stuff. How do you do it over the phone? And that gave the third act some real, some real juice. Cause it gives them a mission back in the corporate world.
Rogers: Well it’s-
Aldis: And they made us climb a tree.
Chris: You had to climb a tree?
Aldis: Yes.
Rebecca: I think that was our first shot of the episode, if I’m not mistaken. I think that was- again, with the rain, it was definitely a little bit of a precarious climb, it was about 10 to 15 feet off the ground on the great rig that they had set up, and you guys were troopers.
Aldis: Yeah, we didn’t really have to climb all the way up, but it was fun.
Rogers: Well it’s hard because every episode- it begins with a con and has a heist somewhere in the middle. And this was one of those ones where it ends with a con, so the heist of the train is that spot.
Chris: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rogers: And it’s- when you develop the template for the show, the template for the show will often save you.
Chris: Yeah.
Rogers: Yeah, it’s like, “Well what do we do here?” “Well what do we usually do here?”
Chris: Right.
Rogers: You know, some different variation on it. It’s a lovely color on her.
Aldis: It brings out the rosiness of her cheeks.
[Laughter]
Rogers: It’s one of those things where, unless you’re looking at a 40 foot screen you never really notice.
Chris: And we had a great actress playing the depot-
Rebecca: Oh, Kit Koenig.
[Laughter]
Rebecca: She did- she gave a heck of an audition.
Harrison: We let her go a little overboard, it was-
[Laughter]
Rogers: It was great!
Harrison: It was fun, yeah.
Rebecca: She had so much fun with that. And, you know, unfortunately we were in a great rush that afternoon, and she had, I think, one take for every thing. And she- spot on every time, and we were very grateful for that, because she did a great job.
Harrison: We got a rock slide!
Aldis: Also a local actress.
Chris: Also a local Portland actress.
Rebecca: Yes, yes indeed.
Harrison: And this is great production design, too, because we had very little room to do this; this is a tiny little two wall set in the studio.
Chris: Oh, looks fantastic.
Rogers: Oh, seriously?
Rebecca: We had about 10 minutes there.
Harrison: Yeah we had one way, and one the other way. And that’s basically- the graphics and everything else we made it work.
Aldis: You built that yourself with your own two hands. right?
Harrison: I did.
Aldis: Yes
Harrison: It was one of my jobs as a director: build the set.
Rogers: Hewed the set from the woods that you ran through.
Rebecca: And Chris, I knew you were a huge fan of the monitors behind her. You were very specific about what you wanted in that. I hope you were happy with it, because I think Derek Frederickson did a really great job on that.
Chris: They did a great job.
Rogers: Yeah Derek- he’s the fifth Beatle. Derek is-
Harrison: He is the fifth Beatle.
[Laughter]
Rogers: He’s- man the computer graphic stuff he gives us. Because again we have so much pipe, so much exposition to get on this show.
Harrison: And he does it so fast!
Rogers: Yeah.
Harrison: You can ask him for something, and he goes off and has it in an hour!
Rogers: Here’s the first appearance of the train.
Chris: Yeah, but was this stock footage?
Rebecca: That was stock; that one shot was stock.
Chris: We asked the stock guy, “We need a shot of a train going across a- something changing the direction of the train.”
Harrison: A switch.
Chris: A switch, yeah.
Rebecca: It took a few days, but he got it, and I think it worked very well.
Chris: Looked great.
Harrison: I think the only interference here with the stock footage is I think Franco put in a- the switch changing.
Chris: Oh yes, yes.
Harrison: From red to green.
Rebecca: Oh is that what it was? Was that not there previously?
Harrison: Yeah.
Chris: Oh here we go.
[Laughter]
Rogers: The interesting thing about the train is it’s one of those things that we had talked about doing for ages, it’s like, well it’s ridiculous and expensive. We can’t-
Rebecca: There’s no way we can do it.
Rogers: And then it turns out this guy owns a train line up there. He let us use his train. This was a real train!
Harrison: Yeah, this was unbelievable.
Rogers: This was unbelievable.
Chris: And look at this shot! This was a movie shot right here.
Rogers: This was a giant shot.
Aldis: That was fun.
Rogers: And here comes the train.
Harrison: Reminds me of Stand by Me, or something.
Rebecca: That’s exactly what I was thinking, yeah.
Rogers: What’s cool is what happened was that Amtrak was closing down the local line, and there’s an obscure federal law that says they have to offer up the rail at cost.
Harrison: Really?
Rogers: To someone to buy it before they can rip out and destroy it.
Rebecca: I didn’t know that.
Rogers: A local rail enthusiast who had been in the business, who had been in a different part of the steel business, bought it. Kept the trains and now does like the last mile run.
Rebecca: Wow.
Rogers: So he’s turned this thing the government couldn’t use into this incredibly profitable local train route. And he was kind enough to- because he’s a local Portland guy, and a big booster of the area, is kind enough to let us use his trains. So trains went from-
Chris: Here’s the- this is the smug militia guy, and I love the ending of this scene that you guys have.
Harrison: Yeah, right there.
[Laughter]
Rogers: Boom!
Aldis: Get outta here!
Rebecca: I think a lot of people were shocked at the ferocity of that, the sound effect of the kick is really strong, it’s a great moment.
Harrison: Yeah, it was a good mixing job.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Rogers: This is a tough scene. Actually, I remember talking about this.
Harrison: Yeah.
Rogers: This is the decision point. Because you don’t want to make it look like Eliot wants to bail on people in danger.
Rebecca: Right.
Harrison: Yeah.
Rogers: But you have to make clear is he’s trying to keep Hardison alive.
Chris: Yeah.
Rogers: That’s his priority, and he’ll come back and deal with this later. And probably leave an unspeakable number of bodies in the ground.
Aldis: Yeah, exactly.
Rogers: This to a great degree is- to me, it’s always something that they will do and never talk about. Like they don’t- they didn’t even really tell the rest of the team what they wound up doing in the woods.
Harrison: Not until after it was done.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Rogers: Yeah, exactly. It’s one of my favorite scenes this year.
Harrison: But then Hardison has this great argument.
Rogers: Yeah.
Harrison: About why-
Rogers: How did you kinda dig in on this?
[Silence]
Aldis: Oh, I thought you were asking about-
Rogers: No, yeah, you.
Aldis: Oh, I actually loved the argument there. The statement, you know, and what it showed overall was challenging because when I first read it, I was kinda like where is Eliot coming from with his-? Cause usually he’s the gung ho guy that’s all about, ‘Hey, let’s go handle it now.’ But he was doing his best to preserve what he knew, first. And which was his teammate. But we both still were on the same page with- sacrificing our own welfare for the better- you know, for the lives of everybody else, because that gets back down to the base foundation of what the team does is: we we put ourselves out there to make sure everybody else at home can sleep better at night. Or at least we try to. But I thought that was a very commanding moment for both characters, because-
Harrison: Definitely.
Aldis: It put- it pushed- I mean they both could have just hopped on the train. It pushed their- I’d say their potential for growth, in a hopefully different direction.
Rogers: Oh you’re talking-
Harrison: It’s a nice role reversal, too, cause you’d imagine Christian saying, ‘I’m the one to go- let’s go kick ass’, and Aldis saying-
Aldis: Hardison’s like, ‘No.’
Harrison: ‘No, we’ll come back later.’
Aldis: Exactly.
Rogers: You can imagine 15 years ago on some battlefield, Eliot having that conversation with his commanding officer.
Chris: Right.
Rogers: You know, from the other side.
Harrison: Yeah, from the other side.
Rogers: Yeah, that was an important character beat. It’s- we talk about- you talk about protagonists in fiction a lot, and my favorite heroes are not the heroes who are probably gonna pull it off, it’s the heroes who are fairly sure they’re not gonna be able to get out of this alive.
Harrison: But they’ll do it for anyone.
Rogers: But they’re gonna do it anyway. That, to me, is a hero. And that’s where those guys really stepped on it.
Chris: That was another kind of moment in the script development that we came sorta late. You know, I think in the room we wanted to make sure that there was that decision point. Cause, you know, the team so often goes to these saving people.
Rogers: Yeah.
Chris: That we sometimes miss a decision point moment like that.
Rebecca: No, it’s a good point.
Rogers: Yeah, these are not- these are people who don’t have to do this.
Chris: Right.
Rogers: You know, and because you’re in the template and you’re kinda watching it every week, you start to accept it. And it’s nice to remind the audience, and nice- you don’t wanna remind the audience like you’re nagging, but more like reinforce the contract with the audience, that you are watching people who are worth your time.
Harrison: And I like the jeopardy for our characters, here. I mean two of the team might not make it.
Aldis: Yeah.
Rogers: And this was-
Aldis: This was the- the rest of this was-
Rogers: I actually was up directing, I came down for like the last bit, and Chris is like, ‘Alright, the script’s done, but we need your Boy Scout bullshit.’
[Laughter]
Rebecca: Actual Boy Scout.
Chris: I said, ‘Look, I’m not an Eagle Scout; there’s only one Eagle Scout in the Executive Producer ranks.’
Rogers: Get there and give us-
Chris: ‘Come on, give me something.’
Rogers: Yeah.
Chris: ‘I’m from Queens.’
[Laughter]
Aldis: I got to chop some wood.
Chris: And we talked about this, this is the Home Alone sequence.
[Laughter]
Chris: Let’s be honest.
Rogers: Well it’s a weird mix of Rambo and Home Alone.
Harrison: It’s right there.
Rebecca: I think that was one of the things that I was told to watch before writing this one. Go watch Home Alone.
Chris: Go watch Home Alone.
Rogers: A lot of the fun-
Harrison: I think Jackass stole a gag from this episode.
Rogers: I think they did, actually.
Harrison: The hand thing.
Rebecca: Oh, very good point.
Harrison: Comes right from Aldis.
Rebecca: Just a quick note, the elevator that Beth is in during this is actually another two wall set that she had a lot of fun with.
Harrison: Yeah.
Rebecca: Remember that one? That was also, I believe, our last day right before we went to the- to Marissa’s house.
Harrison: This was insane because we were jumping from scene to scene, from the beginning to the end of the script, to this location to that location, just- that’s television putting out all the pieces.
Chris: I didn’t like the pace of this, John.
Rogers: Fast enough for you?
Harrison: Oh god. Actually, you know, there’s something really appealing about it, because you could- you never have time to sit and agonize over it. You know how to do it, and if you get it done you- at the end of the day, you say, ‘Actually, I know how to do this,’ and you can see it relatively quickly.
Rogers: That’s a lovely little three shot.
Aldis: It is, yeah.
Rogers: The- and that’s also a four story building, that’s the fun of that.
Harrison: Oh yeah.
Rogers: It’s like, you know, you’re watching the elevator tick down, and you’re trying to make it look giant, and it’s four stories. You could hop off the roof and maybe twist an ankle.
[Laughter]
Chris: Great Hitler hair on him by the way.
[Laughter]
Rebecca: Our friend Garland Lyons.
Harrison: Nice and greasy.
Rogers: I was really looking for that.
Aldis: His look brought a lot to the character.
Chris: It really did! He showed up with his hair looking like Hitler.
[Laughter]
Rogers: This was not- also good, cause this was a speech based on a friend of mine who had been in the service, who talked about like when he’d actually seen the little- and you know talking, and some of the stuff he had said, he’s actually passed away now unfortunately, and he’s- it was nice to be able to put some of his stuff in this. Cause this was- this is the way he talked about it. Like, you know, you just- there’s no such thing as being prepared.
Harrison: Right.
Rogers: You’re just scared and fast.
Harrison: And hope that your skills will get you through.
Rogers: Yeah, exactly.
Rebecca: We had a lot of fun with Kevin Jackson here and all of the fight choreography. This was- and I think the music, which unfortunately, as we’re watching we can’t hear right now, the music is really good in the montage.
Rogers: The Joe LoDuca score on this is-
Harrison: Yeah, Joe LoDuca.
Rebecca: This is a really fantastic moment. It has that moment of being very tense because you don’t know if they’re gonna make it, but at the same time it’s very playful. I think it’s a little bit of a turning point where we realized that our characters are going to be ok, because they are who they are, and they made this decision. So it kinda has that fun moment to it as well as being tense.
Rogers: Christian filled with rage, by the way, he wasn’t allowed to emerge from the lake.
[Laughter]
Chris: There we go!
Harrison: Jackass, eat your heart out!
Rogers: And “Science, it works”?
Harrison: Yeah, that’s great.
Rebecca: Yeah beautiful.
Harrison: Great line.
Rogers: “Science; it works, bitches.” That is an xkcdtrack.
Rebecca: And we do love them in the writers room.
Rogers: We do love xkcd.
Aldis: It works, bitches!
Rebecca: We need a Penny Arcade reference in there somewhere, maybe season 4?
Rogers: I think we got a Penny Arcade reference.
Rebecca: Did I miss it?
Rogers: I don’t know; we’ll have to check.
Rebecca: Ooh, that’s rough.
Rogers: We love our Penny Arcade boys. If I could get an Order of the Stick in there I’d be happy, but I think that’s too obscure, even for us.
Rebecca: That’s a little obscure.
Chris: Now the bad guy’s rushing to get his illicit funds out of the bank.
Harrison: This was another wonderful local actor-
Rebecca:Jerry Basham.
Harrison: Who- almost something out of like those 1940s movies, you know?
[Laughter]
Rogers: He’s like one of those great character actors-
Harrison: Yeah, exactly.
Rebecca: He did a great job, he really did.
Rogers: Put on my killing hat.
Harrison: ‘Oh yes sir, yes sir. I’ll help you, right away sir.’
Rebecca: And we haven’t mentioned Gavin Hoffman, who I think did a really great job.
Aldis: Oh yeah, he’s another local actor, yeah.
Harrison: The militia guy.
Rebecca: Yeah, absolutely wonderful to work with, a real pleasure. And he- I think he really brought a lot to it, we had a lot of fun.
Harrison: And he’s not as nasty as he looks;
Chris: And not nasty, right?
Rebecca: No, he’s a perfect gentleman.
Aldis: Very brave, he’s a good guy, great guy.
Rogers: Well you see, Christian got hit there, Aldis; we didn’t hit you in that scene.
[Laughter]
Aldis: Yeah see uh huh, cause for a minute I was getting my butt whupped consistently.
[Laughter]
Rogers: Well, they were gonna shoot you first. They’re gonna kick his ass, and shoot you first.
Aldis: Exactly, see, now the guns are still on me!
Harrison: Now here’s where the cigarette pays off.
Chris: Nothing goes to waste.
Rebecca: And we had a lot of fun- no exactly, every part of the buffalo, as we say in the writers room.
Chris: Every part of the buffalo.
Rebecca: During this, actually we filmed this scene up in Camp Collins in Gresham and it was owned by- the land was owned by the YMCA and all the members of the YMCA at camp were standing on a hill overlooking the explosion. They couldn’t have been more excited to see the pyrotechnics; it was a lot of fun.
Aldis: They claimed they wanted to make sure a tree didn’t burn down.
Rebecca: Oh I’m sure, absolutely.
Aldis: But they just wanted to see a fireball.
Chris: There’s nothing better for YMCA kids to learn than how to make a makeshift bomb.
Rogers: Yes, exactly!
[Laughter]
Harrison: Yes, exactly.
Rebecca: I think it was off season.
Rogers: An improvised explosive device.
Rebecca: There weren’t any kids at the camp when it exploded, how about that.
Aldis: The big yellow Hummer, that’s just great.
Harrison: I loved staging this scene, because you could really play with the idea that it was just him putting the briefcase down. And it was just a matter of him forgetting his keys, and so we shot in a bunch of different angles, just to misdirect.
Rogers: Yeah.
Aldis: Well it’s again- it was raining through this entire scene.
Rebecca: Did we mention that yet? I wasn’t sure, I’m sorry.
Aldis: Did we mention the rain?
Rogers: Oh man.
Rebecca: I seem to have forgotten.
Aldis: It’s damn near pouring, but you can’t see it.
Rogers: You can see it a little bit there, see way back deep.
Aldis: Yeah, a little.
Rogers: High five for morale.
Chris: High five for morale, that’s another-
Aldis: And I love the fact that when we shot this scene three, four, five, times-
Chris: Well now you can see it. Now you can see it.
Aldis: And we all had to lay down on the wet ground.
Rebecca: Multiple, multiple, times.
Aldis: Multiple times, roll around in the mud, get comfortable it’s like, ‘Oh, awesome.’
Rebecca
