(This is a repost of my translation of the special interview with Daigo Okumura, character designer of Tales of Berseria characters Rokurou and Magilou. Original post: https://not-sophie.dreamwidth.org/13776.html)
As an employee of Bandai Namco Studio (BNS), you’ve been involved with many of their works before now. To start with, could you tell us about your involvement with the Tales of series?
When I was a new employee, I was first involved with Tales of Eternia. I drew the Greater Craymels in that game. The opportunity came after I submitted a lot of anime-style art in my portfolio for the job application process, and then Okamoto (Shinichirou Okamoto, Tales of series producer) asked me if I could do it. That was my first job drawing illustrations for a game. After that, there wasn’t anything for a while. I think the next time was designing Tabatha in Tales of Symphonia. Instead of being designed from scratch, though, it felt more like I refined a design Namco Tales Studio had already created. From that point, my involvement in the series was heightened.
In Tales of the Abyss, you were involved in overseeing the artwork as a whole.
It became necessary for there to be someone who oversees all of the illustrations, so I became fully involved. My role was to see the balance between all of them, and make corrections to the more curious parts to make everything more complete. I gave my opinion regarding the illustrations created by the Tales Studio folks, made revisions, and designed things myself when they were lacking. For example, the rappigs originally had the appearance of some kind of monster, and it made me think, “No one could love this!” so I changed the design into a cute one. That reminds me, I also designed the Katz for Tales of Eternia Online. The plump Katz design from Symphonia was good, but I made them much cuter.
It sounds like you were given a lot of freedom for that job, since you had to make sure all of the characters had a unified feeling.
Yeah. I also thought about the color schemes of Mr. Fujishima’s characters. Since Tear was an assassin, she had black as her main color despite also being the heroine. Tales Studio rejected it, even though I stubbornly insisted, “Black is definitely going to be better!” Plus, if the heroine was wearing black, that would complement the protagonist, Luke, who wore white. The name Luke means light or brightness in the first place, so that was part of his image. And to contrast with Asch’s hair and his dark red tips, Luke’s hair tips were given a faded, lighter color. Putting the various characters next to each other, I had to figure out how to get a good balance between everything. That’s how I can to think about their color schemes. But because of that, there were actually some parts of designs that I misunderstood. I thought the lines on Guy’s pants were belts, so I colored them as if they were. Mr. Fujishima didn’t say anything about it, so I’m choosing to interpret that as him thinking it was okay (laughs).
You were also involved with the artwork in Tales of Vesperia, it seems.
Yes, I helped with coloring and deciding color schemes. Iwamoto was overseeing all of the illustrations, but that was difficult work, so I helped with the color schemes for characters like Raven and Rita.
Iwamoto is your junior at BNS, correct?
That’s right. Vesperia was his first project at BNS.
Next, let’s talk about Tales of Xillia. Here, you were the Art Director.
There were talks of continuing the pattern from Vesperia of using cel-shading (a rendering technique to make 3D CG look similar to anime), but it’s difficult to make something really look like anime, and you need a good sense of the style. It’s simple to make it look decently anime-esque, but I think tackling a more genuine look is really hard. So we went with a style where it looks like some of the textures were drawn in. Then I decided on a rough idea of the colors, and the designs were made from there. I also designed sub-characters.
For Xillia 2, you were in charge of designing the protagonist, Ludger.
I asked Baba (Hideo Baba, Tales of series Brand Manager and Producer) and Okamoto countless times, “Isn’t it about time I get a chance to draw a main character?” I owe it to Okamoto for ultimately agreeing to it. Okamoto was also the one who told me to give character design a try with Symphonia. Even now, I haven’t forgotten that.
When you were in charge of the art, you developed a desire to design your own characters, then?
Yes. Starting from Abyss, I started thinking more and more that I’d like to draw characters in my own way. Fortunately, I still got small jobs like designing sub-characters, and thanks to that I was able to see that, not only did the players not reject my characters, they actually were high ranking in popularity contests. That was encouraging.
Were you nervous to draw a protagonist character?
Not particularly. I thought that as long as the design wasn’t actively bad, everyone would accept it. It’s not a mothership title, but I did also have the experience of being in charge of the hero and heroine in Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World.
Next was Tales of Zestiria. Here, you were also in charge of some character designs.
I was in charge of Alisha and Dezel. Zestiria was planned from the start to be set in a traditional fantasy world, and so I imagined them thinking about fantasy kingdoms. We talked about how the design of the cities shouldn’t be very unconventional. Dezel’s sleeves were also adapted from an old European style of bulging sleeves. Though, the result of all that just ended up having the typical fantasy feeling the Tales of series usually has. Rokurou has a Japanese style, and Magilou is a type that’s different from the framework of this universe, so the connections to Zestiria that can be felt are very subtle. But that let me design in a more unrestrained way.
When you were involved with the work as Art Director, what was the back and forth with Ms. Inomata and Mr. Fujishima like?
At first it was just about the character setting, and as the conversations went on, we started to get into the designs themselves. There were even times when they used ideas I suggested, like Milla having a part of her bangs curl around.
Where do you think the appeal of the two’s character designs comes from?
Ms. Inomata’s characters are flashy. No matter what, there’s a flashiness to them. I think that’s what it comes down to. Out of all of Mr. Fujishima’s characters, I like the ones in Phantasia the most. Even though the designs are simple, the attention to detail is tangible. There are ideas behind those small details, and that also lets you see the various goals behind the designs.
What are your thoughts on Iwamoto?
Iwamoto’s designs have a lightness to them. The use of colors is good, the designs themselves are good, and it’s all really clean. I think that’s very much his style. If I were to put our styles in terms of generations, Mr. Fujishima and Ms. Inomata are the 80s, I’m at the end of the 90s and the start of the 2000s, and Iwamoto is just a little bit after that. I think you can clearly tell whose mind the art comes from with the age and generational differences. Having people from different generations creating character designs is another one of the interesting points of the Tales of series.
Starting with Xillia, Mr. Fujishima and Ms. Inomata worked together to design multiple different protagonists. Was it difficult to have both of them making designs?
During Xillia, I worried, “Is this really going to be okay?” But I was able to adjust the colors and balance the designs, so it wasn’t really a problem. When the proposed design for Jude first came in, the size of his head looked extremely small next to Milla’s, so I talked to Mr. Fujishima and told him, “we want the size of his head to be around here.” But that’s the kind of thing that happens even with only one person in charge of designs, so it wasn’t especially difficult.
The result of having both of them work on designs was very befitting of the 15th anniversary title.
It really was. I think it was the right decision to have both of them do it. It felt like a celebration to commemorate 15 years. The work’s producer, Okamoto, was able to sense that. As expected, he’s very smart.
Now, please tell us about your role in the current entry in the series, Tales of Berseria.
My role was purely a character designer. I was told about the setting and how it’s in Zestiria‘s world in its past, and I was handed a summary. Everything else I heard from speaking with Iwamoto. Even though we’re both part of BNS, I didn’t get to see the script or the game mid-development. I really was involved solely as one of the character designers.
Did you draw your designs after seeing the designs made by Ms. Inomata and Mr. Fujishima?
I didn’t see their designs at all. Iwamoto would let us know if we needed any adjustments to balance things out. I wasn’t told a lot in terms of details, so I was able to design relatively freely. Though there were still things like “Magilou’s facial expression is off” that I had to go back and adjust.
Between male and female characters, do you think one is easier to draw than the other?
Both are the same for me. The important thing is whether or not I’m able to come up with a theme and idea. As long as I can get sucked into that, I can draw without issue regardless of gender.
When do ideas usually come to you?
When my hand gets moving. Without that, things don’t come to mind very well. Instead of thinking, I start off by trying to draw a lot of different things. I originally thought I’d give Magilou something along the lines of an eyepatch or a monocle, but while drawing that, ideas naturally came to me that made me think, “I should try doing something like this.” Instead of starting by forming a mental image, it feels like ideas come to me more while I’m drawing.
When doing the rough designs, do you do it analog, or digital?
For illustrations, I draw digital from start to finish. In terms of analog drawing utensils, I don’t have even a single ballpoint pen. Basically, I always draw on a tablet. My commute time is longer these days, so when I’m on the train, I doodle a lot on my tablet.
And while you’re drawing on your tablet, ideas start to come to you.
Yeah. Also, the key color is also essential. If you have just the color scheme, you can kind of understand that character. Symbols, motifs, colors — I consciously think about the balance between them. For me, colors and ideas are more important than the silhouette, so I design based off of them.
Please tell us about your fastidiousness regarding the character design’s entirety.
It’s hard to describe it with words, but I intentionally try to draw while holding onto a sense of rhythm so the individual parts of a drawing don’t end up connecting in an abrupt way in my head.
A sense of rhythm?
Yeah. It might not make sense right away, but there’s a feeling of rhythm in my mind. It’s important to draw along with that.
Now then, please tell us what your impressions are of the characters that the others designed.
Velvet is flashy. Her evil aura and the chuuni feeling of her sealed left arm are the best. I think it’s very appealing to its target audience, the players. But with her hair and cape being so long, when it came time to create her 3D model, it seems the 3D animators had a pretty rough time of it (laughs). If I had designed it, I’d have been asked, “Can you please make this shorter?” (laughs).
What about Laphicet and Eizen, the characters Iwamoto designed?
I think Laphicet is a design that’s very characteristic of Iwamoto. The one that made me think “Oh, interesting,” the most was Eizen. The shape I gave to Dezel’s sleeves when I designed him in Zestiria got incorporated into Eizen’s design. It’s also a very Iwamoto-like design.
And Mr. Fujishima’s Eleanor?
The shape of the boots is good, and so is her outline. This is a design that’s more packed with Fujishima-style aspects than any of his other designs. Her hair ornaments are also eye-catching.
It seems you’ve been involved with the Tales of series since you were a new employee, but are there any other series that you’ve done work for?
I worked on Element Hunters and Yumeria. One of my ambitions in life is to become more remarkable and create Yumeria 2 (laughs). Of course, that’s just a silly fantasy.
Having been involved with the Tales of series for a long time, do you think it’s changed? Or has it stayed the same?
I don’t think it’s changed in any essential way. Everything is expressed in a more modern way now, but it all comes from the root of Tales of Destiny‘s time. That might bring with it a sense of comfort, but I’d like to see it change more. We should be able to do a lot better with both the game design and visuals. I think it can be more clever, and cooler. The staff creating the games might have changed, but mysteriously, the games themselves haven’t. A fantasy RPG with an anime style… using that image for each game and creating it with that idea might always make them seem similar to each other. It could also be that when anime and manga lovers say, “Let’s make a game with this kind of theme,” it’s always going to settle into this form. Well, it’s the tried and true method, in any case.
But that’s also what the fans want.
I think that’s a good thing in the sense that it’s aligning with the result everyone is expecting. But there are also drawbacks to never being able to escape that same pattern. The joy and surprise of discovering something unexpected becomes very sparse. I think there should be times where we can experience that joy and surprise, so I hope the series can break out of that mold a little more. The best thing would be for there to be a title that has that tried and true comfortable feeling, while also being fresh and giving that, “Wow, there’s something like this?!” feeling of surprise. That’s the Tales of series that I want.
Berseria took a distinct route, so it gives off a fresh impression.
I haven’t played it yet, but I hope its novelty is tangible.
In this year’s Tales of Festival‘s opening day, Magilou and Rokurou, the characters you were in charge of, appeared in a skit. The performances of the voice artists were amazing, and it seemed like the audience liked it a lot. Did you see it?
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend the event this year. But when I am able to go, I follow the line of people looking to buy merchandise with my eyes, all the way from the front, offering a prayer of gratitude in my mind as I do so (laughs). Looking at each and every person’s face, I think, “I am so grateful.”
A moment ago, you told us about how, as long as you can come up with a theme and idea, both male and female characters are equally easy to draw for you. Tell us about if there is a type of character you personally find fun to draw, and what kind of character you’d like to try designing next time.
I haven’t had many opportunities to, but I like drawing small girl characters. During Zestiria, even, I wanted to be able to draw Edna. As for what I’d like to draw next time, I think at the end of the day, I want to be put in charge of drawing the hero and heroine who carry the core of the story.
[note: The following comments on the character reference sheets and 3D models are not explicitly part of the interview, but were from the bottom of the same pages the interview was on.]
Character Reference Sheet for Animation: Rokurou
Looking at the character sheet, I discovered some places where I thought, “I see, I should have drawn it this way.” Where I was bogged down in details that weren’t that important, the anime designs feel light and effortless. Ease of drawing is the top priority for anime, but I end up drawing without thinking about that for the game. The anime versions are clean and easy to understand.
3D Model: Rokurou
When designing Rokurou, I thought, “He shouldn’t be very attractive, and he should have a big mouth…” but he turned out unexpectedly handsome in the 3D model (laughs). I guess characters do have to have a certain level of attractiveness to make the players happy. I think he has a much gentler look compared to my illustrations.
Character Reference Sheet for Animation: Magilou
She looks breezy and easy on the eyes. Her face in the anime version has a better blend of youth, mischief, and cunning. Even the shorts hiding behind her skirt of grimoires was accurately adapted. But like with Rokurou, she seems like she might be hard to animate. I’m sorry for making the animators’ jobs difficult…
3D Model: Magilou
Her bangs were originally more connected, but it seems like it’s easier to animate them more separated like this. It might be better if the grimoires that make up her skirt were even shorter, since she’s wearing shorts underneath anyway. But I guess that might have caused other issues. I’m glad they even adapted the fluff at the base of her neck into the model cleanly.
Date of interview: 2016/7/28
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