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There are several Mamoru Oshii book lists on the Internet, but they do not provide detailed descriptions of the contents. My collection of Mamoru Oshii books is not yet complete, but I would like to write a short summary for each of those books.
I apologize in advance for any grammatical errors or incorrect information.
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title: 天使のたまご 絵コンテ集
(Angel's Egg Storyboard)
release: 1985 (enlarged and reprinted in 2013)
publisher: Tokuma Shoten (reprinted by Fukkan.com)
[contents]
image board by Yoshitaka Amano
storyboard by Mamoru Oshii
Destiny of Pop Culture: thoughts on the storyboard, by Hayao Miyazaki
comparison between the storyboard and the film
staff list
Far Homeland, Sitting on Another "Angel's Egg": interview with Mamoru Oshii (enlarge)
[review]
This is the full version of the storyboard for Angel's Egg. It includes a comparison section between the storyboard and the movie, but there are only minor differences.
The text in the storyboard contains some interesting details. For example, in the scene where the girl is sitting by the water (cut 146), the text says this:
"The girl pees. Ripples spread silently on the mirror image of the water's surface. Magical atmosphere. *But please do not put pee sound effects!"
In the scene where the girl screams (cut.374 - cut.376), the text says,
"Is not only the degree of decay different but also the style of the building."
Many people, including myself, miss that detail, but the location and time setting change after the egg crushing.
The book also contains a comment from Hayao Miyazaki in 1985. Miyazaki first met Oshii when Urusei Yatsura Only You was released. In the second interview, Oshii criticized Miyazaki's film, showing his own theme with Beautiful Dreamer. Miyazaki's comment was recorded after that one.
"It was after this interview that I came to like Oshii. These days, we talk frankly about many things. Our goals are different, but we have a common theme in the current situation in Japan."
However, Miyazaki is also worried about Oshii's new style in Angel's Egg.
"He shouldn't be an 'auteur.' Some people say that because so much anime is being made these days, we should have more auteurist directors. However, that would only isolate us from other creators."
"Animation creators should turn their pure imagination into comprehensible ideas or take them to their graves."
Curiously, people don't talk much about the connection between Miyazaki and Oshii. It's a significant part when we think of their creativity.
The enlarged edition includes an interview with Oshii conducted in 2013.
*The film was produced by Toshio Suzuki. Suzuki also made the title and logo.
*Oshii reused the core ideas from his Lupin the Third project.
*Angel's Egg is one of the few Oshii anime that Kosuke Toriumi praised. (Toriumi was Oshii's mentor at Studio Pierrot.)
*At first, Angel's Egg was a slapstick comedy about a group of men waiting for the ark at a convenience store. They meet a girl with a mysterious egg. When Yoshitaka Amano drew up the character design board, Oshii thought, "These characters need a more serious fantasy." Amano's characters don't look Japanese at all, so Oshii changed the plot.
*It was challenging to draw Amano's character. One day Oshii heard that an animator called Yasuhiro Nakura was able to draw in Amano's style. When they met, Nagura said, "I knew you'd need me.
*When Oshii made the film, he learned how to control the layout from a background artist called Shichiro Kobayashi. That is the starting point of Oshii's directorial style.
In the interview, Oshii also shared some new information.
*Oshii once read the storyboards of Future Boy Conan. He tried to imitate Miyazaki's style, but it did not work. He could not understand the reason. After learning from Shichiro Kobayashi, he realized that Miyazaki's style requires a kind of intuition. Miyazaki knows where to draw the lines without calculating the perspective. So, Miyazaki's perspective is not accurate. Miyazaki's instinct is to make it look fine. Kobayashi's explanation of perspective, on the other hand, is very logical.
*Because Kobayashi was unfamiliar with the mechanism of camera lenses, Oshii worked with the animators to develop a pseudo-lens technique in the Patlabor series.
*The smooth animation of the hands in the introduction has no symbolic meaning whatsoever. Oshii just wanted to make the hand movements look realistic. He did the same thing in "Innocence. In the scene after the convenience store battle, Batou checks his arm. The same experiment can be seen in the introduction of Patlabor 2. It juxtaposes a labor's hand, Noah's hand with a motion-tracking controller, and Asuma's hand. P2 also has a symbolic ending with Shinobu and Tsuge holding hands.
The interview took place when Oshii was working on Garm Wars. Oshii himself is aware that there are similarities between AnegL's Egg and Garm Wars. Oshii says, "Angel's Egg is my core, so I cannot get over it." That is the reason why the title of the interview is Another Angel's Egg.
