Layout and Genga Set - Rough Layout, BG Layout, Character Gengas/Partials
Marmalade Boy
Episode #34, Cut 33-1 - Breakup Premonition/"Halloween Party Conspiracy"
Toei Animation
First Aired October 30, 1994
Runtime Location (approx.) - 00:18:45:12 (Transition Effect) -> 00:18:48:25 (Apparent End Frame)
Two Characters - Left: Miki Koishikawa, Right: Suzu Sakuma
Episode Director: Hiroshi Shidara
Animation Director: Mitsuru Aoyama
Rough Layout
Notice how poorly the portrait and stair rail are drawn here compared to the Background Layout below. On the other hand, the characters are fairly well drawn, if a bit simplified.
"Follow 1F/2.5mm" With a line an oblique line and circle at the upper right end. The line-and-circle appears on other sketches in the set. This must be a movement directive for something, but what? Is it the camera?
Background Layout/Art Board
Something like this is rather unusual to find for Marmalade Boy. A sketch of the bare background, or rather the lower left portion of it, with notes about how the scene is to be assembled and filmed.
If you look over some of the notes, you will see something you might not have expected-I didn't. The notes in red ink have been translated into English. I did not do this, nor would I deface production art materials like this if I could translate it.
As for the notes, we will start with the ones in pencil that we can read directly in English, except for the first one. Were the notes in blue added by the same background artist who drew the portrait in blue pencil?
Beginning in the upper left, we see a single kanji circled, presumably "Night" from the red ink note above it. Now, is this talking about the entire scene or just the portrait on the wall? I think the former-this scene does take place at night. Further on to the right, we see the word "Follow" in a circle. What is being followed here?
The #34 means the finished background is for use in Episode 34.
I think 33-1 is the cut number, but what does the -1 part mean? Someone maybe a fan of Super Mario Bros? Seriously, what does this notation mean?
A bit further down, the word "Book". I am guessing this means that there are going to be cels (of Miki and Suzu) in between the background and the stair railing.
Now to the notes in red ink. To be clear I did not add those notes, nor would I. I am not conversant enough in Japanese to translate anyway.
"Suzu's House" is pretty much self-explanatory.
"Staircase of Entrance/Side up[?]" I cant read the lower words completely. I think they meant "Entrance to Staircase", or rather "The Bottom of the Stairs". From looking at other scenes, this portrait is placed near the bottom of the staircase.
"picture and [??] time" Have no clue.
The portrait in blue is impressively detailed compared to the surrounding environment. Even a bit surprisingly so considering what the finished sequence looks like.
Character and Camera Setup Genga A1, (Partial Diagrammatic)
It would seem this sketch was once taped to one or more sheets of paper, not counting the registration tape job at the bottom. This was probably the worst one of the bunch. While repairing it, the bottom strip came loose and I had to guestimate where to tape it back. Oh well, it just happens sometimes. The connected boxes are a panning diagram for the camera for the sequence. It does not look like this exact diagram is how the sequence worked out.
The note at the top. "Make sure timing of up and down movement should not be matched." I read that as, "Please ensure that the up and down movements of the characters are not synchronized with each other." Makes sense-having Miki and Suzu bob up and down in unison as they climb would look very artificial.
Suzu has the notation "GUEST CHARACTER" stamped next to her on the A1 Genga. Wow, so Suzu was not even considered part of the main cast at all? That is very interesting-she was somewhat more visible in the show's marketing than you would expect a "Guest Character" to be. Is this a reference to the Setup Data?
I suppose there is some irony in having Suzu labelled as a "guest" character, when series lead Miki is in fact a guest in Suzu's house in this scene.
"BOTTOM PEG" This piece had a set of registration holes taped onto the bottom. Western animation studios seem to prefer registration holes at the bottom, but it is very unusual to see this on Japanese animation.
The character「下」 means "bottom" or "lower" here. It has several possible readings, with varying but related meanings.
Probably the most interesting mark up is the detailed timing chart above each character, labelled "UP/DOWN ACTION" in English. These charts deserve there own close-ups.
Notes for Miki
Wait, was that a song from the original Mary Poppins? *ducks*
Notes for Suzu
In addition to an up and down motion, these two characters move side-to-side a bit as well. I think these annotations encode that information, but I cannot read them. In terms of how this scene was conceptualized to be animated, these charts are the most interesting in the set. Indeed, they are among the most detailed in my entire collection.
1 F(circled T) Not sure, is it a camera directive, or a character movement directive?
Character Setup A2 Genga (Heads Missing??)
This genga looks like something out of Washington Irving. The headless look seems rather fitting given the occasion. Actually, I expect the genga artist was just redrawing their poses and placement for A2, and this was meant to say. "The heads are the same from the A1 Genga."
Yellow Genga - A1 (Partial/Miki Only)
"ONLY MIKI in A(1) & SHIFT (T)" What does this mean? I mean, I get the only Miki part, but what is "SHIFT [circled T]" mean?
Yellow Genga - A2 (Partial/Miki Only)
Notice a similar note to the A1, but the English handwriting is different. Maybe someone else handled English notation on this one?
Stack Error - Pay No Attention to The Girl Behind the Genga
As you can see, it is not the best idea in the world to photograph these sketches on a stack of others like this. If you are wondering what is going on directly under this A2 Genga, I am not sure *sheepish grin*. It is not from anywhere in this episode. It must be something the seller threw in to pad out the set.
I am a bit embarrassed, as I actually do not know exactly where that sketch is from. I am certain it is Miki on that sheet, and she seems to be upset about something. If you have watched more than one episode of Marmalade Boy, you know that does not narrow it down much. I have in mind eventually finding out where it is from, although there may not be enough there to write about it.
Anyhow, back to matter at hand-this staircase sequence.
Finished Production Shot
Normally I can find either the right frame or one very close to it to stand in for a production shot. That is not possible here, at least not and satisfy the background position specified in the layout. In fact, the full layout as drawn does not directly represent any particular frame that exists in the finished sequence. From her upper body position in the screenshot, it looks like this may be the first occurance of Suzu at B1, but I am really not sure. From the character genga, there might be enough space between Suzu and where Miki should be off-screen that Miki should be lined up with the portrait pretty close to her position in the rough layout.
This is by far the most frustrating sequence to break down I have come across yet. To top it all off, someone had the brilliant idea to begin this scene with a iris-opening transition from the previous scene: a freeze-frame of Miki's finger about to ring the doorbell. The animation of the staircase sequence begins while the iris is opening over the last frame of the doorbell ring. I think it actually starts at the same time as the iris effect. It is as if the first second or so of this sequence were obscured behind the iris and the bulk of the doorbell freeze-frame.
About the Animation
First, a video of the sequence startin with the first frame of iris open, ending on frame before fade transition frame to Suzu's upstairs. Speed = 29.97 FPS, NTSC Broadcast Speed
Marmalade Boy Ep 34, Cut 33-1 = Staircase Climbing Sequence (Full Speed, Half Speed, Approx. 1 FPS)
Mitsuru Aoyama was both Animation Director and Key Animator for this episode. While I do not know if he drew the layout sketches, I expect the character genga was by his hand.
This is a very short sequence, lasting roughly about 3 seconds. I have to wonder though, how was this animation constructed? Are Suzu and Miki painted moving across a truckload of cels, or are they looping on the same set of cels as the camera moves them further into the shot? I count a total of six railing bars visible during the sequences, though a seventh may have been obscured during the early phases of the transition. It looks like the background and railing foreground are moving at the same rate relative to each other. Closer inspection of Miki's movement reveals her arms swinging slightly every few frames. Suzu, being further to the right and more completely in the shot, shows some arm and leg motion as they progress up the stairs.
Oopsie in the Background
Studying the animation very carefully, I discovered an error in the background painting. The iris transition mostly hides the skyline portrait seen in the background layout; however, if you look closely in the very first few frames of the cycle, you can see that the portrait is not painted all the way up the shot as it should be. This is what the matching background would look like in that spot if you held it in your hands-assuming of course, Toei had not trimmed it down at some point.
It is such a small, quick little thing, and your attention is meant to be focused on the girls as they climb the staircase. If this little oopsie escaped through to final production unnoticed, this may be the first time in almost 25 years (and millions of pairs of eyes) that anyone has ever picked this up. I suspect though that someone at Toei caught it fairly late in production, and that the iris effect was added in an attempt to cover it up.
While I am only offering a theory, note that none of the English notes in any of these sketches reference this transition effect.
Even not considering this error the background layout shows the portrait in question much more completely than in the finished animation. Correction: You can see a bit more of the portrait to the left during the iris transition, but not a whole lot more, and still nowhere near what the "passe-partout" on the BG Layout calls for.
The Layer Stack
I am going to guess the layers work like this.
BG (unknown number) (Background Layer, likely very oversized and made in a diagonal shape)
A-Layer - Miki
B-Layer - Suzu
C-Layer - Railing cels in front.
The Finished Product Does Not Jibe
One thing that has me very confused. The camera panning diagram on the A1 setup genga specifies that Miki and Suzu should be roughly centerred in the shot at some point during the sequence.
From watching the finished video, it looks like the camera starts top right, then pans down and to the left as the cel animation runs under it. Based on this, I would say that the setup genga calls for Miki's upper half to be completely within the camera's field of view as the sequence ends. In other words, Miki should not be cut off by the left side of the screen, but for some reason she is.
There is a possibility that the video file I have is missing more of the original video around the edges than was originally shipped as finished video by Toei. I seriously doubt it would amount to this much.
Deciphering this is further complicated by the fact that Miki and Suzu are "in-motion", being animated themselves while the camera is moving. This makes tracking the camera's movement through the sequence next to impossible for an animation ignoramus like myself.
As fas as character position goes, this is as close as the sequence comes to matching the character genga, as far as "amount of Miki on-screen" goes. Note that the portrait is nowhere in sight.
Condition
There is some wear and damage amongst the pieces, as well as at least one tear.
When I bought the set, a couple of sketches had tape on them. *Sigh* lots of tape. Ugly, acidic tape. Lots of ugly, acidic tape. Did Tomo Takino tape them up like this?
*Pixel's eyes grow distant.* So much tape...Why the heck did they need so much tape?
With a 1/2 cup bottle of Eucalyptus oil, I went to war on the tape. As best I can tell it is all off now, though sadly some adhesive residue remains. Sometimes it just will not come off. Celotape adhesive like this is acidic when chemically active, and over time "burns" into the paper, which you can see here. What you see above are a mixture of before and after shots. Photographing this set proved to be very difficult for some reason.
I do not have a complete set. The tape burns on the diagrammatic genga tell me that at least one other piece was once taped to it on the top-right corner. The core information seems to be here though.
Facial Expressions
I think it would instructive to look at the facial expressions in this sequence. Miki's smile is very small. Perhaps she is hiding a bit of concern under there, but she is cool enough and polite enough not to show it. She seems to be displaying typical Japanese decorum when visiting someone's home. It would indeed be prudent for Ms. Koishikawa to be cautious.
Aw, Suzu is so cute. Look at that wide-open grin. She must be so happy to have a friend over, right? Hardly-underneath that adorable smile bubbles a cauldron of white-hot schemy nastiness. This little "sweetie pie" is up to no good. When I look at Suzu's expression, I read a warped sense of glee as the wheels of her plan continue to turn as she expects.
Summarizing the Surrounding Context
I hope maybe I can be a more succinct than I was last time I dealt with this Suzu character, but the machinations here feature a lot of moving parts.
In the previous article concerning Suzu, I wrote at length about her view of the relationship between Miki and Yuu, as well as how her own desires distort her perspective. In particular, she concludes on her own that Miki is intentionally "cheating on him" with Yuu's would-be rival Kei-kun. Miki has not handled things between herself and Kei very well, but Suzu still has her wrong on initial intent. Suzu seems to have picked up the emotional tension between Kei and Miki, and amplified it for her own convenience.
By the end of Episode 33, Suzu is determined to break up Miki and Yuu. In fact, that moment is the subject of my previous article.
Here in Episode 34 Suzu begins to set her plans in motion, laying an ingenious trap for Miki to walk right into. Halloween is coming up, and the Sakuma's throw a lavish masquerade party on the occasion.
To be only about 10 years old, Suzu-chan has somehow become a master manipulator. Within just a few minutes of screen time, she succeeds in the following--
Talking her doting father into setting up a meeting between his architecture colleagues and aspiring architect Yuu, the same day as the Halloween Party. This ensures Yuu will be in place for her plan.
Using her plan to invite Miki to extract an agreement from Kei-kun into playing the piano for her party. Now the rival too is in position.
Calling up Miki to invite her to the party. All the while, implying that Yuu wanted to be there for the fun of it, rather than as part of furthering his own ambitions.
Disturbed that Yuu was partying down with Suzu when he was supposed to be tutoring her, Miki takes down directions to her house during the call. Suzu kindly (!) offers to let Miki choose a costume for the party. The pieces are moving into place, will they all end up where Suzu wants them?
As you read, please bear this in mind. Yuu is (as far as is shown to this point) completely oblivious to Miki having anything to do with Suzu's party.
The Scene in Context
NOTE: This description is a bit condensed, skipping over a few scene swaps that should not have any significant effect.
A bit later on, Miki makes her way to Suzu's house. As soon as her finger goes for the doorbell an iris transition begins, directly into the scene covered by this sketch set. Miki and Suzu walk up-stairs, neither of them speaking until Suzu reaches the top.
When she reaches the top, Suzu points Miki to a room-"Kochi! Kochi!" (Over here! Over here!).
Suzu's voice is so cute it almost hurts.
She tells Miki to pick out a costume, shoving her unceremoniously into the room. Suzu says she will be waiting downstairs.
NOTE: While Suzu is pointing Miki to a room, a portrait is visible on the far wall beside the stairwell. I do not think this is the same one from before, as this one is located too high to have been in the right position at the start of the climbing sequence. It also looks a bit different in composition.
The room in which Miki finds herself appears to be at least as large as Suzu's own room, and is filled with costumes. It would seem Suzu likes to play dress-up. As I looked over the room, I noticed a costume type or two missing that I sort of expected might be there. Oh well.
A Quick Aside - Suzu's Costume
To point out the obvious, the green outfit Suzu is wearing is her costume for the party. The helmet with antenna really sets the outfit off. When I first started checking out the finished scene, I though the antenna on her helmet did not move as she climbed the stairs. On closer inspection, it does bobble just a bit. Kudos to the animators, a very nice touch.
This costume is overall very cute. More about that later.
Suzu Springs the Trap
Ultimately Miki chooses a Western-style witch's costume, complete with a wig. Would have fit Suzu's personality better, but whatever. Near the bottom of the stairs, Miki pulls the hat down over her face. At the costume party, she recognizes a number of very famous people. After a few uncomfortable moments weaving among the fringes of the crowd, she spies Suzu dancing with a figure in a "Frankenstein's monster" costume. The gentleman is wearing a full headmask.Yuu is shown a while earlier coming downstairs holding the same headmask. I think we all can see where this is going. Suzu offers the figure to sit down by her on a nearby sofa. Once on the sofa, he pulls the hot mask off-revealing that (to our great surprise) it was Yuu dancing with Suzu. Miki is both shocked and horrified, though one wonders if she should have been surprised.
"Oh look at you, you're covered in sweat." As if on cue, Suzu wipes Yuu's brow, a cheerful grin on her face. Poor Miki slumps along the floor dejected. "Yuu was sure having fun with Suzu." She mutters to herself in heartbroken disbelief. Just then, the strains of a gentle piece of charm waft her way. The sound is that of a piano, and the melody is a softer form of one the show's standards-"MOMENT".
Miki heads for the piano, and who does she find there? Why, Kei-kun of course, exactly as Suzu planned. I have to admit this arrangement of MOMENT is particularly lovely. Marmalade Boy suffers none whatsoever from a lack of excellent music. This song was composed by Rie Hamada, who was heavily involved in the show's music.
Miki and Kei begin talking. She finds herself laughing at something he said. She playfully pushes him, supposedly endangering the quality of his playing, but of course, as this is a standard instrumental recording layered in with the dialogue, the music shows no indication of the bobble. They both begin laughing.
The scene switches to Suzu and Yuu on the sofa. Yuu is drinking what I am guessing is a bottle of soda. Suzu chooses that moment to direct his attention toward the piano. While Yuu was uncomfortably aware that Kei-kun was at the party, what he is about to see surpises him greatly.
The music fades quickly into an (mostly) instrumental version of the brisk opening theme "Egao ni Aitai", which is often used to "lower the boom" on a designated character. This time it just happens to be Yuu.
Miki is standing between Yuu and the piano, her back turned to him. She walks around the piano, still laughing at her silliness with Kei. Now standing in Yuu's line of sight on the other side of Kei, Miki lifts her head.
It took writing this down for me to gain this particular bit on insight. The key for Suzu's plan to succeed was for Yuu to be totally unaware of Miki's presence at the party-until just the right moment. Had Miki worn her own costume, He stood a good chance of recognizing it and intercepting her before Suzu was ready. The fact that Suzu could easily more easily recognize one of her own costumes would be a nice bonus for her.
From Yuu's viewpoint on the sofa, the camera zooms in a rough fashion toward Miki's face, the colors changing to a pastel palette shortly after stopping in a close up.
Customarily a trap closes with a loud snap. In this case however, a very different sort of sound is heard.
"Miki??" Yuu's face slides into the shot. Now it is his turn to be upset. Do you suppose that he even considered that Miki saw him dancing with Suzu? No of course not, he is too gobsmacked to see his Miki fraternizing with Kei. It is nowhere in his ability to fathom that Suzu orchestrated much of what he has just seen. This is one of a number of reasons I do not like Yuu-he is utterly clueless. The expression on his face after swapping back and forth between shots of him, and Miki with Kei is priceless. Is he thinking that Miki came to the party with Kei behind his back?
After a couple of more transitions, the episode ends with a close up of Suzu, starting from what looks like the same sort of open-mouthed grin, and ending with a close-mouthed smile and a slight jog of her head camera-leftward. Wow, what a mean little snipe.
*sigh* Does this all sound the least bit contrived?
No Photos Included
I typically like to include photos of the seiyuu/voice actors that back the characters shown in peices about which I am writing. I have decided not to this time, in part because there are so many graphics to sift through already.
Miki's Seiyuu
Mariko Kouda, who had been in the industry for a couple of years or so by this point, was cast in the role of Miki Koishikawa. Another noteable credit of hers is Yuri in Dirty Pair Flash.
When I talk about voice actors, I prefer to keep lists of roles fairly short. In the case of Kouda-san, I will round out the list with a few more- Yuki in Nintama Rantarou, Kaya in One Piece, Suzu in Gestalt, and Sakura in Pokemon and Pokemon Chronicles.
Wait a minute, Kouda-san voiced characters named Suzu, and Sakura??? Well, that is very interesting.
Kouda-san's Miki is excellent. She has a fairly high, very cute voice. Miki worries constantly over the stability of her relationship with Yuu, and Kouda-san portrays this insecurity with laser-precision. Delivery is maybe a bit over-the-top at times, but like some others I have seen, Marmalade Boy at times requires such vocals to match the regularly teen angst-ridden atmosphere.
Miki is not always about impending catastrophe, thankfully. She has plenty of jovial moments too, and seems to enjoy teasing her ex-quasi-boyfriend Ginta about his newfound interest in Arimi. While Miki's teasing seems rather cruel and unfair given her history with Ginta, Kouda-san turns it around and makes it very enjoyable. I have often found myself bursting into laughter over her playful, gently sarcastic picking. These are proabably my very favorite Miki moments, somehow both mildy irritating and irresistibly charming.
Her voice gets really high when Miki is angry or upset, and it can grate a little bit. I find that to be true of any voice-actor with a voice that tends to favor the high-end, including of course American voice-actors.
I mentioned Yuki in Nintama Rantarou. Yuki has actually had two voice actors. Kouda-san was first, and would eventually reprise the role years later. In between those years however, another seiyuu would take on the role. Actually, another seiyuu from Marmalade Boy.
Suzu's Seiyuu
I try to remember when writing that not everyone has neccesarily read my other articles, so I find myself more-or-less repeating certain information just in case. This may very well not be the last time it happens either, that is just how it is when writing up pieces like this. With that in mind, please read on.
Coming back to Suzu's alien costume for a moment. To me, it looks a very much like a simplified version of something CardCaptor Sakura might wind up stuck wearing.
I suppose is rather appropriate in a sense-as that is who is voicing Suzu.
Well not the Sakura-san on the screen, but rather the one behind her microphone-CardCaptor Sakura's lead vocalist Sakura Tange. Instead of going through a list of roles as usual, I would rather talk about the fact that she is the one who replaced Kouda-san as Yuki in Nintama Rantarou. Yuki would be hers for the rest of the 90's, while she was also recording other voicework.
While Yuki could be considered something of a lead character, she is not overall series lead on the same level as Sakura Kinomoto. I would say that Yuki is a cute little thing with either seiyuu backing her, though I do not really know much about that series.
I am guessing that the reason for the original swap was that Kouda-san was busy recording regularly for Miki. I find this to be quite a switch; I noticed fairly quickly that these two seiyuu sound a bit like each other in certain parts of their ranges, sometimes convincingly so.
As for Suzu, she mellows a lot over the course of series-even becoming something of a charmer in her later appearances. She eventually gets some of the trouble she caused right back on her, with the best part being that the party giving it back to her had no intention whatsoever of doing such a thing.
Not that I consider myself any sort of authority on Japanese voice acting, but I think Tange-san performed very well in this early role. I wonder if Suzu could have used a bit more hard-edged snark in places during this particular episode. On the other hand, maybe the subtle approach was best after all. Suzu is much more clever than she lets on, and a heavy dose of snark toward Miki or Yuu might dash her carefully constructed plans. Maybe I am just hearing things, but there are times I think I might have heard her contempt for Miki underneath the thick layer of cheerful cuteness. Her method of addressing Miki on the phone is rather abrupt in places, and from what I can gather abruptness in Japanese can be very much like it's own form of contempt-especially if the speaker is obviously well-aware of how the language works.
On its face, Suzu Sakuma may seem like a rather thankless role. She is a major player for only a few episodes going into the middle of the series. Apparently, Toei only thought of her as a "Guest Character".
Perhaps not strictly a villain per the usual idea, the initially antagonistic Suzu comes across as rather difficult to like at first. In any event, Marmalade Boy seems to have been very popular for a time, figuring pretty heavily in anime during the middle 90's. I have seen evidence that Tange-san's involvement would be recalled in her favor some years afterward, especially prior to CCS.
Recording the Vocals (Speculation)
Going back to this sequence on the stairs specifically, I wonder about something. Neither Miki nor Suzu speak during the sequence, but immediately following they each have a few words before Miki is shoved into the room with the costumes. In Miki's case, they are more like vocal effects or short interjections than words.
Were Kouda-san and Tange-san actually standing next to each other in the recording studio watching this sequence play out, getting set up to record the dialogue that followed? I rather expect more voice actors were handy for this, as it is likely more cost effective to bunch them up together an ask them to step up to the mic and read/record as needed.
It was very possible to have a number of seiyuu in the studio at once, even though some of them might not record for several minutes at a time. I wish there was some detailed information about exactly how this was done, but it seems doubtful any is extant in this specific case.
Final Thoughts
I am fairly pleased with the set overall, though not pleased with the massive amounts of tape that had to be removed. I have not come across that many mid-level sketches from Marmalade Boy, and Suzu is one of the rarer characters to find represented. Rarer still to find her and Miki in the same shot. There are only a handful of places in the series where Suzu and Miki are shown together by themselves.
I wish I at least had a douga from the finished sequence, but the amount of information here is just mind-blowing. All the English notation is a treat indeed.
