An interview article with Sato Tatsuo was distributed at Comiket 78. He talked about Basquash! project, which was widely publicized as Kawamori Shoji’s new project but wrecked into confusion by the dismissal of the director Itagaki in the middle of the series.
He complained that the scenario he wrote was completely re-written in the storyboard. “I had put the hometown of Dan at the center of the story and described the moon just as a symbol because I didn’t want to complicate the background.” But in the anime, Dan went deeply into the mystery of the moon. “It’s common that episode directors make minor changes in the lines and the characters, but it should not happen that they completely alter the composition of the scenario.” In order to keep the consistency of the story, Sato had to come up with new lines during the voice recording.
He also pointed out the flaws in the concept of “Basquash” game. “We put too much emphasis on the feeling of speediness and neglected the reality as an athletic game. We didn’t even fixed the rules of the game.” Sato got stuck in the story-making, but the characters kept on taking their shapes.
“In the preliminary stage of the project, the characters were much matured. But they turned into naughty kids in the storyboard. Then, the three idols were brought up to the main to fill the empty story with romance.”
He concluded “It had a potential to be a masterpiece. After all, Basquash had made a bridge to the anime in the next generation, I think. Please see what the people involved in Basquash will create next. It will be interesting, in various meanings.”
Sources: Scan of the article, Scan2
