Jan-scott Frazier interview

(Editor's note: Today we present a break from the comedy for a super-long indepth interview with Japanese animation ass-kicker Jan Scott Frazier. If this bothers you, well, you are doubtlessly a terrorist. This interview is mirrored at Evin's blog for those of you who may have a hard time reading it.)

Quick: who's the most loved North American in anime? Monica Riel? Good hair, and a nice person, but not quite. That one voice actor from Gundam Wing who I once had prank call my mom at Anime Central? Nah, a lack of sleeves and a cowboy hat will always disturb me, goofy voice or not.

Robert Woodhead? Insert joke (here).*

If you're going to bet dollars to donuts here, people, I put my money on Jan Scott Frazier. Jan moved from Colorado to Japan in the mid-80's to follow her passion: weird foreign cartoons. From there, the life of Miss Jan evolved and mutated in a way that is, simply put damn wild! From sleeping in parks and reading manga via path light, to being shot at in Beijing, to running her own studio in Thailand, Jan's definitely done a turn or two in the industry. Yet unlike a lot of industry types, Jan isn't exclusive or faux-diplomatic. When Jan gets excited, Jan gets excited. When Jan gets a little miffed, Jan gets a little miffed. Just like, ee gad, real people! It's nice to talk to somebody who doesn't seem like they're on a press junket. A lot of fun to talk to, I tell ya!

Anyway, a decidedly thorough and impressive run-down of JSF (by the gal herself!) can be found at this address. It moves like a "Gone With the Wind" for geeks, and is both funny, harrowing, a little sad, and inspirational at the same time.

I've seen a few interviews with JSF over the years, and frankly I'm always left wanting because there's just so much to cover. So I said "screw it, I should write up a prime list of questions I want answered and just see if she wants to answer them sometime." The result is a meaty little interview that you can tear into like a cannibal on an Italian actress at a Ruggero Deodato film shoot. Once again, much thanks go out to JSF for the patience, understanding, and good humor she threw our way. And be sure to visit janscottfrazier.com for Jan's con appearance schedule!

* = This is purely personal here, but I have no love lost for Animeigo. Rude emails, bad service, and a staff so condescending that I'm going to buy their stuff second-hand to avoid supporting them. Ask me about the "shipping Macross to me in 2003" fiasco. And nary an apology to be found.

...

Would you describe your life in the 80s before anime?

I graduated from High School in 1983 and spent my summer in Army Basic training. After some more advanced training I went to school at the University of Wyoming in Laramie but moved back to Denver because of some family problems. All that was by the end of 83. I worked for Village Inn (like a Denny's) as a Dining Room Manager then worked for Radio Shack for a few years. While I was at Radio Shack I met John, the guy who brought anime into my life. I also went to gunsmithing school for a while and taught people how to shoot safely.
Any preferred weapon of choice for shooting?

I haven't shot a gun in quite a while but I used to like heavy revolvers as they were very accurate, reliable and fit into my large hands well. If I couldn't finish what I needed to do with 6 .44 magnum rounds then I would have been in huge trouble anyway.

What about the old C/food people in Colorado? Do you ever holler at those folks?

Last weekend was Nan Desu Kon so I saw the few who were left in Colorado. I see John about once a week but most of the other people I was close with have scattered across the earth.

In the pre-internet/message board days, you used to trade tapes and make friends with folks from all over the country via Sci-fi newsletters and whatnot. Do you think this phenomenon has been damaged or aided by the use of the internet?

Does trading still exist? We would hunt for months to get copies of some OVA or TV series but now anybody can go out and download any new show and after a year, if it's popular, it might be on TV here.

Does this make you as insanely jealous as it does me?!?

I have a couple friends who are still very much into raw anime right from Japan and they are constantly downloading things. I'm not jealous anymore but to the me of 1986 it would have been like manna from heaven.

You did six months of language study in Tokyo before dedicating yourself fully to animation studies. How did you "ramp up" to operating level? Any suggestions? I'm studying 3 hours or so a day, and I still feel like an infant...

When I was in the US, I studied kanji and conversational Japanese from the book Japanese For Busy People. When I was in Japan, I studied my textbooks and translated a lot of manga and anime comics, which helped a lot. Also, since there was nobody around me who spoke English well, I had extra incentive to learn so I could eat and get by. I have a facility with communication which is hard to describe and that helped a lot too. (I've been able to teach people how to paint cels and animate without being able to speak their language and without a translator.)

It's not so much the amount of time that you put into it but what you learn from it. I found that learning things which were immediately useful to me helped me keep very focused on it.

Do you have any Mamoru Oshii stories you would like to share? Did you ever get your Angel's Egg book signed? :)

I didn't get it signed unfortunately. I do have a bunch of stuff he signed that I got for publicity reasons and when the company changed, ended up keeping.

I took Ishikawa (the president of Production I.G) and Oshii to a restaurant that was just down the street from Disneyland when we were all in LA. This place, Belisle's, had huge portions of everything and huge drinks and huge cakes in the showcase out front. Japanese folks are always amazed at American portion sizes because they're so much larger than portions in Japan and I wanted to take them to the most excessive place possible. When his chicken fried steak came, Oshii said, "This is bigger than my dog."

I live in Japan now. I love it, but that story is making me sad.

You first went to Japan in 1986 and visited a lot of studios and whatnot. This was during a period that many fans, such as myself, see as the "golden age" of anime. Do you recall their being a major shift in the way studios worked/appeared between 1986 and the time you formally left Japan?

In 1987, most decent TV series episodes had 7,000 sheets of animation, many of which were done in Korea. (The more sheets of animation you have the smoother and better movement you get and you can also do more action shots.)

In 1999 the average TV series had 4,000 sheets of animation, mostly done in China (for half the price of the Korean studios in 1986). Directors use a lot of digital effects to get movement in there and sometimes it's great.

Content was very different too. In 1986, much of what was coming out was progressive semi-optimistic heroic stories, some of which were epic in content and length. In 1999, people were much more focused on dark interior pieces that were very quiet and lonely and had sad endings and most were 13 episode late night TV series.

What was shopping for anime like back in the 80's in Tokyo? Did people often think you were lost?

There were a few Animate* stores around and they built one just down the street from the first studio I worked in so that made my life a lot easier.

An anime shopping day would take me to Ikebukuro, Shinjuku San-Chome, Kichijoji and sometimes Shibuya. I would pore over anime magazines and hunt down any shop that advertised and friends showed me more.

* = chain of anime stores throughout Japan. The biggest, of course, are situated in places like Akihabara in Tokyo, with multiple floors and whatnot.

Do you think with the shifting barometers of Japanese fandom (late night anime (if any on TV at all!), less crosspromotion, an emphasis on longer TV projects coming from manga) that fans are getting worn down?

I think that the number of hardcore otaku stays relatively the same but the number of average fans, their ages and what they're interested in fluctuates constantly. When the economic bubble popped the average fans gave up in a few months but it took the otaku a couple years to decide to stop spending all their money on it. I think that there is a lot of other stuff out there that captures the fan dollar (or yen) now like games.

You went from working on Orange Road to doing a Digital Comic with Izumi Matsumoto. Was it strange, daunting, exciting, or disappointing in some way when
you made that leap?

I didn't know what to expect before I met him. I was supposed to meet him in Narita airport on the way to LA for Anime Expo 1994 and after I wandered around the terminal it was pretty easy to figure out who the artists were. I talked to them but I didn't learn everybody's names. I knew he was one of the group but not which one. We hung out and then talked some more on the plane and I got along really well with one of the guys. I found out the next day that he was Matsumoto. I was glad that we had become friends before I knew who he was. He was one of the closest friends I had over there.

Did you ever ask him how that whiny girl could even compete with Madoka in KOR?

We never really had a conversation about the dynamics of Orange Road. We talked a lot about technical issues and he told me interesting stories though.

What are your thoughts on Matsumoto-san's battle with cerebrospinal fluid disease?

I'm so glad to hear that he's doing better. I want to see his manga dealing with the disease. He got sick and I visited him once after that then he moved back to where his family was and I moved back to the US so I lost track of him for a few years.

Have you ever met somebody you considered to be a real influence and felt dejected? As you've stated yourself, the anime world is filled with odd characters. Did you have a problem clicking with people?

Sometimes that happens. I met the director/co-creator of Evangelion, Anno, once very briefly and then some years later I met him again at I.G and he didn't recognize me and thought that I was telling people stories so he never liked me. Okada, the one time president of GAINAX didn't like me because I said that Otaku no Video wouldn't sell at all and it was a mistake to bet the company on it. (They went bankrupt because of it.)

The only two anime people who I never met but still would like to
were artist and character designer Mutsumi Inomata and director/designer
Yoshikazu Yasuhiko.

In part 6 of your biography, you state that "During the spring of 1988, I had a horribly unhappy thing happen which I may describe on another page at length but let’s just say that it changed everything for me and I became even more determined to make my dream come true." Can I inquire as to what this event was?

A girl who I wanted to help very badly killed herself.

As hard as this may be, can you offer advice for anybody who may end up in that kind of position? I know a lot of people worry about the mental health of their friends and family, but don't know what to do about it.

My mistake was that I waited too long to do something. When somebody is suicidal, they're not in a rational space and things that may seem nice might have unexpected emotional charges for them. Never fight with a suicidal person and don't be too pushy. Be a good listener and a good friend.

It's very hard to love somebody who is suicidal and it's very hard to be suicidal. If you think somebody is suicidal, tell somebody else who cares about them. The more people who are aware and can help them - without passing judgment - the better. Not having judgment involved is very important because suicidal people have to deal with a huge amount of internal judgment going on and more will just push them harder towards a bad end.

You've been shot at. How'd that work out for you?

I learned that I am very allergic to bullets, even when it's just close proximity. I do my absolute best to stay away from them now!

In your opinion, does the industry (both American and Japanese) still hold animus towards people that are fans of animation? Truth be told, yes, they do work in and around animation every day, but does that implicitly mean that they cannot enjoy it?

The US industry doesn't seem to care so much anymore. Anime is too
pervasive to judge people on now. In Japan I don't know.

People who make anime get burned out on anime pretty quickly. The newbie dog work of the first few years in a studio can be very rough and it feels like it has nothing to do with the anime that one loves. Sometimes when that happens to someone who really really loved it they quit or freak out or melt down or wreck a car, which can happen in the middle of a tight schedule. (I've seen all of those.)

If someone is dedicated to the art, for whatever reason, and they stay and become dependable, it won't matter if they're a fan.

You once checked 7,500 cells in one day. How badly did you want to kick somebody in the nuts after that?

I was not yet a non-violent person then so I had quite a craving for that.

I had to sit in a small unventilated room filled with ethanol and benzine fumes for days. When I walked out I was speaking in Thai but thought I was speaking in Japanese. Everybody thought I had gone crazy. The hangover lasted 3 days.

You graduated from doing production work to eventually opening your own studio (Tao) in Thailand. I know a lot of sweat and grunt work went in between the two, but I must admit that I'm interested in how the studio came about, because it almost seems like "one second I was walking around with Ishiguro and the next I'm in the middle of the freedom riots." Can you reflect on some of the building process and reasoning that went into the circumstances surrounding TAO's establishment?

I contacted the woman who translated for me and she talked to her aunt, who was a business owner and she got me in touch with a lawyer. I would fly to Bangkok and stay in a hotel and meet with the lawyer and scout locations and find tables, chairs, desks, bookshelves, filing cabinets, lamps, brushes, bowls, locks, airconditioners, a submachinegun, software and so on.

The lawyer hooked us up with an accountant and some potential office spaces. We also had some friends looking for office space. I had to buy all the stuff for the studio and either move it there or get it delivered.

Before that I had to clean the entire building, which was filthy, strip all the gunk off the floors, kill a couple cobras, figure out where to store things, paint the whole place, get eh air conditioning installed, and find where all the local places to shop and eat were. I had my office manager put an ad in the paper and we did interviews.

I did this all on non-immigrant visas until we had been incorporated long enough for me to get my work permit.

I lived in an apartment in central Bangkok and commuted by taxi and later bus to the studio.

A lot of the people who I trained before came to me for jobs. I wouldn't hire anybody away from the company that I worked at before because it was unethical but they folded about 2 months after I opened so I got their staff and bought their desks, paint and stocks.

Wait, "submachine gun" and "kill a couple cobras...", that's damned impressive. Did you use one for the other? Any tips on offing a really scary snake like that?

I did once use a submachinegun to kill a very big cobra. It wasn't necessary but it sure did the job. When you see a cobra, run. I had one in my studio utility room once and that was scary.

One of your rules for living in Thailand is Never, ever trust anybody. Didn't have a good time, did ya?

Isn't that terrible? It's unfortunately true though. There are so many scam artists and so many people who want to take your money that if people come up to you, it's usually with some agenda. There are fake boy scouts who panhandle.

I had a guy come up to me and say, "Hey! Remember me from the other day?"

"No."

"I was on the same flight as you were. We talked in the airport."

"We did? When was this? Tuesday?" (I had been in Bangkok for 92 days continuously at this point)

"Yes! You remember me right?"

"Oh sure." <-stupid

"Remember I told you about that opportunity I had?"

"not very well."

"I want you to meet my partner, come with me."

"No thanks. I'm busy."

"But you have to come!"

If I had gone I would have been robbed and probably beaten. Obviously all people aren't like this. It's very hard to tell sometimes. After a while you will figure it out but don't get caught in anything in the meantime.

I'd like to quote you from the Wild Violet/Birthday Blue interview you did with Chuck Shandry:

"The best thing that can happen is if U.S. companies start producing their own shows, keeping the parts that anime is weak at, like scripting and storyweaving, to themselves and letting all the visuals be done in Japan and through subcontractors."

I have to admit, and this is just my opinion, but I don't neccesarily see how US animation companies are stronger with regard to scripting and storyweaving. Granted, all tv shows tend to work Aristotle 3-part arc thing to death, but I just don't see Spongebob Squarepants being stronger than, say, Kimagure Orange Road or even Crayon Shin Chan. Perhaps I'm just not privy to enough good stuff though. Could you explain this comment?

I must have been pretty mad at the show I was working on (or whatever I was doing) when I wrote that. I was also writing a lot of scripts then and the majority of my competition was regurgitating the same old thing with the same old stereotypical characters with the same old dialogue with the same old plot devices and the same old way of presenting the drama.

Anime concepts are often amazing. The visuals are stunning and the designs are interesting. The scripts can sometimes be very weak - characters behave in stereotypical ways, the endings suck and the dialogue is dry, etc.

When I wrote that, I was thinking more of the independent writers out there who write movies, TV, and books, who would also write animation if they had the opportunity. That pool is easily accessible in the US but there isn't nearly as much diverse talent available in Japan. I think that for the most part US animation scripts are crap and US companies produce crap. The Japanese produce their share of crap as well.

I do have to say I think that Spongebob is a lot stronger than Crayon Shin-chan. Spongebob is pretty well written and often presents ideas like tolerance and compassion whereas Shin-chan is hack humor (going for the absolute least common denominator) telling kids only that poop is funny.

(Point taken, Jan. Um, you may not like the podcast though! -EV)

Have you considered putting some of the Comic On stuff on your site? What happened with the magazine?

I think 4 of them came out in total. I do have a little bit of my story on my site but it's not linked in anywhere because the art is so ancient.

(ED note = http://janscottfrazier.com/transcend.htm )

What are you currently doing for work? What pays the bills?

I do body art (henna and tattoo design), teach yoga and occasionally translate manga. I'm in the process of writing a book (about my strange life) and it will be out in the second quarter of next year. I'm also learning to teach yoga, which is a passion of mine.

In 2007 I'm going to go back to school and getting my counseling
license.

What form of counseling?

I'm working on the details of that right now. I want to help people and working as a counselor or therapist would be good for me.

So you've taken a courageous step in your personal life.* I'm speaking of course about changing your hair color. Seriously, do you think people are more averse to you now? Do you encounter more "roid rage" on a daily basis from folks bent on causing disruptions?

If people can't tell (which is the way it usually is), they treat me a lot better than I used to get. People let me into line ahead of them, open doors for me, smile, greet me, talk to me when we're standing on line or on the plane and will sometimes give me extra food or extra cosmetic samples or whatever.

If people can tell, which is becoming rarer, they are more judgmental about me but those who get to know me tend to really like me. (That sounds so narcissistic.) When really narrow-minded people with their heads stuffed full of programming see me they feel it's necessary to make me know that I'm not welcome where they are and they yell at me, throw rocks at me, shove me or beat on me. The reaction depends on where I'm at, Denver is a nice city because even if people can tell, they don't care. Dallas, on the other hand, seems to care a lot and people show it by shouting out car windows, picking fights and loudly insulting me.

Thankfully I only have two or three really bad experiences per year so it's not that much trouble.

* = Jan used to be Scott. Now Jan. Yep.

Should I feel bad for calling you "dude?" If I have offended you, please feel free to give me a wedgie next time you see me, although preferably nothing over a "3" on the 1-10 Wedgie scale.

It's a matter of how it's used.

"Dude, you should see this. Dude!" = yay

"Hey! That's a dude!/You're a dude!/Are you a dude?" = boo

Would you care to shine a little light on Anime 54? Let us know what's poppin' over there, would ya?

Anime 54, the most amazing party experience in the known universe, is currently at two conventions, Shiokazecon (formerly Kamikazecon) and Ohayocon. We used to put on huge con parties with dancing and singing and we've had everything from anime con guests to heavy metal musicians to Chinese lions to strippers to bellydancers. So far the furthest we'd have somebody drive just for the party was from North Carolina to Baltimore and we've had people fly in just for the parties. Our largest had over 100 people in attendance but we ended up with so many people wanting to come that we couldn't manage the crowds and got in trouble a couple times because of it.

Favorite A54 moment?

There are so many!

At Katsucon 2002 we had some people come in with a Chinese lion (like at festivals) and that was a surprise.

Being consistently said to be the best kisser out of a couple hundred
people made me happy.

At the Otakon 2003 party we had 115 people dancing simultaneously in the house. We were packed in pretty tightly and it was incredibly hot and humid so some people took their clothes off and we all squirmed around in each other's sweat to disco music.

My real favorite moments were when somebody would come up to me and tell me how coming to the party changed their life in a good way. Some people said they became more open minded. A couple relationships were healed and one person told me it saved his marriage.

You know when I get back to that states that I'm in on the next one, right?

:) Ohayocon or Shiokazecon. I'm not sure about other places yet.

It seems from some of your writing that you're "overt the anime hump."* Do you still enjoy animation? Still watch new stuff? Still find it appealing as a fan and not neccesarily as somebody who would dissect it from a filmmaker/animator point of view?

I watch anime movies still sometimes, especially if they're by Oshii, Otomo or Miyazaki. I still get pretty analytical when I watch anime but I look at more the way that they do it than pick out flaws in how it came out.

I still like animation. I watch Family Guy and I love Robot Chicken. Every so often my Tivo will pick up something like Watership Down or the Secret of N.I.M.H and I will watch those. I like Charlie Brown movies too.

*= period where one realizes that there are other things in life besides Patlabor, Speed Grapher, Gundam, and comics about cute high school girls. IE "grown-up time."

So when kids come up to you at cons rattling off about Fruits Basket and Full Metal Panic, do you just smile and nod?

Sometimes, yes. At the cons I pick up a lot of information just by hearing people and seeing costumes and such. I know all the Final Fantasy characters and a lot of music but I've never played any of the games. I hear about the shows from voice actor and director friends who work on them as well so sometimes I know the endings and secret stories before I've seen the shows.

Could you give us an idea of some of your personal favorite works?

The original 3 Mobile Suit Gundam movies - I love the story and the characters and the third movie is so well directed.

Laputa - my favorite Miyazaki film.

Castle Cagliostro - my second favorite Miyazaki film.

Angel's Egg - most people get bored but I love it because it's so weird.

Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer - this film made me want to work in anime.

Bobby ni Kubittake (Bobby's Girl) - my favorite anime of all. It's a short film from Project Team Argus which was a group of amazing creators who worked with Madhouse. It's very beautiful.

Hi no tori - a modern presentation of a classic Tezuka manga. I like the music.

Macross Plus (movie) - made me cry.

Grave of the Fireflies - brilliant. Made me cry a long time.

Any interest in seeing the new Zeta Gundam movie reworkings?

I just heard about these a couple days ago. I want to see them. I'm hoping that the third one is like Gundam III and is mostly new animation but we shall see.

Your split with IG seems to be both heartbreaking and (ultimately) based on things that seem circumstantial. Do you have a hard time reflecting on it? Were there things you'd do differently? Ever try to mend fences?

There's more to that story than what's on my website. Even if I would have stayed, the computer room supervisor hated me and wouldn't give me a keycode to the door so I always had to call up. He wouldn't schedule any work in the computer room for me, which left me with nothing creative to do until directing jobs came up.

They invited me to the Blood wrap-up party and I went and talked to people but it wasn't the same.

I've kicked my own ass with this a good number of times. It's hard to think about it sometimes. As I mentioned earlier, I'm writing a book and when I got to that and wrote out the whole truth it still seems that I was crazy but in the end it was for the better. My life is so much better and happier now than it was then that I don’t see it as any real loss. To get to I.G I pushed myself mercilessly and I paid for it with a kidney. Now I am relaxed and I sleep peacefully at night and smell the flowers.

Like high school again, huh?

High school was long grueling torture for me and I was very happy when it ended. Despite the occasional suffering, anime has been pretty rewarding. I learned a lot from it and through it I met the most amazing people in the world. The industry has changed in the past few years though and there really isn't a place for me in it now.

What I ended up really wanting to do, to tell my own stories and say what I wanted to say, required so much red tape and politicking and begging for money and having to give up so much of what was originally there that it wasn't worth it to me in the end. Although originally envisioned in 16:9 HDTV Widescreen I can tell the story I wanted to tell in a book that I don't have to give up any control of. I don't have to listen to producers cut my story to pieces and add in mascot characters and dumb down characters or add in action because they think that the audience is incapable of listening to people talk for more than a minute straight. Maybe some of their ideas would make it more popular or more salable but in the end, I'd rather have it out there the way it came out of me, even with the mistakes. I've thought about doing comics for a long time but my mind has shifted from visual to written expression over the last 4 years so I will need to work with an artist on it.

I'm writing a book about my life right now, as I probably mentioned before, and I do a panel/show at cons where I talk about my experiences and answer questions from the audience. People really love it and they make me talk until my voice gives out, which I am happy to do. Between those and compulse (www.janscottfrazier.com/compulse) all my artistic needs are met now.

Has JSF ever:
-Referred to JSF in the third person?

So many of my friends call me "Miss Jan" that I do it myself sometimes when I talk to myself. "Miss Jan, put that pudding back in therefrigerator!"

-Done yoga to the point where JSF hurt?

Many times. One is not supposed to hurt because of yoga but I had a bad tendency to push too hard. I have become much more compassionate and now I never hurt after a yoga session.

-Seen a fan drawing and not died a little inside?

I've seen some really amazing fan art in the artist alleys of cons now. I'm glad that people are working more in their own styles, their own riffs off of anime/manga, than copying straight.

-Made a list of favorite con restaurants?

Yeah.

Steak and Shake is my favorite restaurant to go to during cons.
The Cosmic Café in Dallas
The Jewish Mother in Virginia Beach, VA,
Mortons in San Diego
Ruth's Chris in Washington D.C.
Café Istanbul in Erlanger, Kentucky
Medieval Times in LA
Tandoor in Richmond, VA
The Jerusalem Restaurant - Denver
Fire & Ice - Boston
The Fort - Denver
Giordano's - Chicago

-Been to Europe?
Once. I spent 10 days in Amsterdam. I would love to travel Europe.

-Realized how much we appreciate JSF taking the time to do this?

No problem!

...

And there you have it! We would like to thank Jan for being awesome and dealing with our many emails and questions!