"Anime Head Writer Takeshi Shudo on Nostalgia, Childhood Fantasy, Why Ash Never Grows Up, and What Happened to the Real Animals"

The following is excerpted from Takeshi Shudo's blog entry #143, which you can read at http://ift.tt/2f1Bbzp directly relates to the bit I translated yesterday regarding the show's potential final scene, depicting an elderly Ash reminiscing about a fantasy from his youth: http://ift.tt/2ghYtGk the game version of Pokémon, just after the introduction, the movie of Steven King's novel Stand by Me appears, and I decided to bring its theme into the anime version of Pokémon unchanged.「スタンド・バイ・ミー」は、生涯２度見るべき映画と言われていている傑作で、ご覧になった方も多いと思う。Stand by Me is considered a masterpiece of a movie worth seeing twice across one's lifetime, and I believe it's been widely viewed.どこかにあると言われている伝説の死体を捜して、ささやかな旅に出る数人の少年たちの姿を描いている。In the search for a corpse that is rumored to be somewhere, several young boys are portrayed going on a modest journey.ミステリーでもホラーでもない。It is neither mystery nor horror.根も葉もない言い伝えを信じる少年達の旅は、大人から見るとたあいがないが、少年にとっては大冒険である。The journeying boys believe in this totally unfounded rumor; from an adult's perspective it is not sound of mind, but as far as a young boy is concerned it's a great adventure.その少年たちのある時期の冒険を、大人になった彼らが、あらためてしみじみと懐かしむという形で描かれている映画なのだ。Since the time of those boys' adventure, they have become adults, and the movie assuredly portrays their earnest nostalgia.テーマは少年時代の誰もが持っている、一時期の根拠の薄い冒険心と友情とその時代への懐かしさである。The theme is something everyone has in their childhood, that era's foundation of a light adventurous spirit and friendship and nostalgia for that era.その映画の最も印象的なシーンが、線路の上を少年達が歩いて行く場面なのだ。This movie's most impressive scene is definitely the one in which the boys walk along a railway track.僕は子供達が体験する懐かしい冒険の一時期を描くのがポケモンの世界だと思った。I planned to portray the era of children's experience of nostalgic adventures in the world of Pokémon.毎回、その懐かしさをアニメで持続させるため、ほとんどの話数に大人の悪役のロケット団のムサシとコジロウとニャース（どうやらニャースも大人のようである）が、月日を経ても、歳を取らず大人の悪役として登場する。In order for the anime to sustain that nostalgia every time, the adult villains of Team Rocket, Musashi and Kojiro and Nyaasu (Nyaasu seems to be an adult) are in almost every story; even after years pass, the adult villains appear unaged.子どもにとって大人は悪役である。As far as children are concerned, adults are the villains.思いどおりにしたいことをいつも邪魔をする。Always interfering with what you want to do.だが、そんな子供もいつか大人になる。However, the child will also someday become an adult.人間だれしも、ピーターパンのように、大人になりたくないと思う時期がある。All humans, like Peter Pan, have a time when they think they don't want to grow up.だから、アニメ版のサトシは歳をとらない。Therefore, the anime version of Satoshi never ages.[Here I'm skipping a few sentences about Team Rocket and depicting adults as bumbling oafs]おそらくサトシにとって、『ポケモン』の空想の冒険世界に旅立ったのは、少年期のほんの一瞬なのかもしれない。Perhaps Satoshi entered into the fantasy world of Pokémon for a mere instant during childhood.子供が最も冒険心に満ち溢れていた一瞬だ。It was the moment when the child was fullest with adventurous spirit.その世界では、ロケット団以外の大人も、子供から見た大人しか出てこない。In that world, with the exception of Team Rocket, the other adults are only seen from a child's point of view.登場する大人は、協力者か、ロケット団以外の悪役は類型的な子どもの考える悪役である。The adults that appear are cooperative helpers, or with Team Rocket as the exception, stereotypical children's villains.アニメ世界の警官はいつでもジュンサーという名前で登場するし、ポケモンセンターの女医はジョーイという名前でしか登場しない。The anime world's police officer always appears called by the name Junsaa [Jenny], and the Pokémon Center's doctor never appears with any name but Joy.この人たちは登場するたびに、その土地土地で違う人間のはずなのだが、名前も変わらず年齢も違わない。Each time these people appear, they are definitely different from place to place, but their name and age never change.様々な人がアニメに登場するが、誰も歳を取らない。Various people appear in the anime, but nobody grows older.ただし、ポケモンだけが進化という名で成長していく。But Pokémon alone grow [to adulthood], under the name "evolution".『ポケモン』の世界では、ポケモンだけ時間が経っていくのである。In the Pokémon world, time passes only for Pokémon.アニメ版『ポケモン』の視聴者は、歳を取る。The viewer of the Pokémon anime grows up.しかし、アニメ版『ポケモン』の世界は歳を取らない。However, the Pokémon world never grows up.つまり僕は、『ポケモン』の世界を、サトシ（ひいては視聴者）の少年時代へのノスタルジーにしたかったのである。That is to say, I wanted to make the world of Pokémon a childhood nostalgia for Satoshi (not just the audience¹).『ポケモン』の世界には、ポケモンしか出てこない。Only Pokémon do not come out of the Pokémon world.サトシの中の空想の『ポケモン』世界なのだから、当然である。Since the fantasy world of Pokémon is assuredly from inside Satoshi, this is only natural.ポケモンは、想像されたものであり、実物の動物ではない。Pokémon are imaginary, not real animals.ゲームの操作のやり方次第で、プレーヤーの思いどおりになる。The game's players get what they want depending on how they operate it.手間はかかるが、プレーヤーに逆らったり、実際に死んでしまうこともない。Effort is required, but the player is not resisted or actually killed.失敗してもリセットが可能である。Reset is even possible after a mistake.そして、事と次第によっては友達になってくれる。And, gradually you make friends you take with you.動物のペットでも、まして人間でも、現代の子供たちの間ではこうはいかないだろう。But pet animals, to say nothing of humans, will not work as subordinates² for today's children.ポケモンが生き物だとしたら、これほど思いどおりになる生き物はない。If we take Pokémon as living creatures, there is no living creature that so thoroughly becomes exactly what one desires.子供にとっても、いや、大人にとっても『ポケモン』は理想的な生き物だと言える。It's very easy to say that for children, no, for adults, Pokémon are ideal creatures.ところで実物の動物は、『ポケモン』の世界では絶滅していて、言い伝えとしてしか出てこない。By the way, real animals are extinct in the Pokémon world, only appearing in legends.そのことについては、僕はアニメ版『ポケモン』の小説の中で簡単に述べている。I briefly mention this in the Pokémon anime's novel.³いつの間にか普通の動物はいなくなっているのだ。The fact is that ordinary animals disappeared unnoticed.ただ、残念なことに実在の動物そっくりのものが画面に出てくるときがあるが、それは、実物の形そっくりのポケモンだと思っていただきたい。Nevertheless, unfortunately things that look just like real animals do appear on screen; about this, I'd prefer if you think of these as Pokémon that look exactly like real things.実際は、作画の方の勘違いなのだが……。Actually, the real reason is that the person in charge of drawing messed up...サトシの出てこない、人間の出てこない『ポケモン』のストーリーもあるが、『ポケモン』が登場するかぎり、その世界のどこかにサトシは存在するのである。There are Pokémon stories in which Satoshi doesn't appear, no humans appear, but as long as Pokémon appear, Satoshi exists somewhere in this world.画面に映ってはいなくても、そこはサトシの『ポケモン』の世界なのだ。Even if he doesn't appear onscreen, this is Satoshi's world of Pokémon.[Here I'm skipping a bunch of stuff about Pokémon battles.]つまり、このアニメは、思い出の空想の中のポケモン世界の冒険なのである。In other words, this anime is an adventure in the Pokémon world inside the imagination of memory.主人公のサトシより年齢の若い視聴者にとっても、たとえそれが自分の未来の世界の冒険でも、昔見たような空想の世界の冒険だと感じられるようにしたかった。For the audience younger than the protagonist Satoshi, I wanted it to appear as an allegory for adventures in the world to come, made similar to the adventures I had in the fantasy world I saw in my own past.¹Could also be "consequently the audience".²The word Shudo used is "kouhai". You know what "senpai" means, right? It's the opposite of that.³The novel is Pocket Monsters: The Animation. It has been partially translated by fans, including several bits concerning real animals and their disappearance.I want to make clear that I do not believe Shudo's statements nullify the significance of Satoshi's/Ash's adventures as simple delusions. Consider classic stories such as Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, and Peter Pan, and their modern descendants such as Spirited Away and Over the Garden Wall, which depict children going on impossible adventures and subsequently returning to the everyday world changed by their experience but potentially forgetting these adventures as they grow older. Wonderland may have been Alice's dream, but it wasn't at all "fake" within the story's canon, nor was the imagined world of Fantasia in The NeverEnding Story... I'm sure you can think of plenty of other examples. For a good view of Shudo's philosophy toward childhood fantasy, I would recommend looking at the 1982 anime Magical Princess Minky Momo, which shares Pokémon's head writer Takeshi Shudo and director Kunihiko Yuyama. The main heroine is a magical girl from Dreamland with the power to transform into an adult with the heart of a child, and she uses this to help people who have stopped believing in magic and lost sight of their dreams. Dreamland has drifted far away from the Earth because people have stopped believing in their dreams, but she never gives up hope that Dreamland and its magic will someday return. I would especially encourage people to watch the short Minky Momo OVA "Bridge Over Dreams", which is a real masterpiece of short animation and incidentally contains several elements Shudo would revisit in the Pokémon episode "The Ghost Pokémon and the Summer Festival" ("The Ghost of Maiden's Peak").Regardless, we can probably see all this information as having fallen by the wayside anyway. As early as Mewtwo's Birth Shudo introduced Dr. Fuji, an adult who certainly doesn't fit the as-seen-by-a-child pattern described here, and one of the main themes of the third movie, which Shudo wrote most of himself, was the acceptance of reality over a more comfortable fantasy. And, of course, Shudo left the show in 2002 and died in 2010, so if any of this seems to ruin the fun of Pokémon for you I'd encourage you not to worry about it. via /r/pokemon http://ift.tt/2gh5qYe