Ichirō Ōkouchi best work

[yugioh54]

Ichirō Ōkouchi is famous for Code Geass, and with Grendizer U recently finished up, I'd like to know thoughts on this screenwriter, seems to have a mixed bag as a resume , he did the Negima adapation! but has some solid mecha on his resume

[Seto Kaiba]

Ichirō Ōkouchi is famous for Code Geass, and with Grendizer U recently finished up, I'd like to know thoughts on this screenwriter, seems to have a mixed bag as a resume , he did the Negima adapation! but has some solid mecha on his resume

Screenwriters don't actually have much input in the creative decisions for a series. Their role is essentially to take what's been set down in the story treatment and other initial development works like storyboards and expand it into a screenplay that'll fit the runtime.

If you want the measure of their actual creative ability, look to their credits for "series composition" and/or "scenario"... that's where the actual story is created.

As is true for any screenwriter, his filmography is a mixed bag. Looking at his recent, non-adaptation works, I'd say he's a pretty uneven writer. He has absolute trainwrecks like The Witch from Mercury to his name, but also unqualified successes like Lupin III Part 5.

[yugioh54]

So who are considered the best mecha writers outside of Tomino, Kawamori, Hideako Anno, granted there directors. Keiko Nobumoto of Cowboy Bebop, but then Watanabe did prove he could fufilll his vision with Samurai Champloo writing more on that show.

[Seto Kaiba]

So who are considered the best mecha writers outside of Tomino, Kawamori, Hideako Anno, granted there directors. Keiko Nobumoto of Cowboy Bebop, but then Watanabe did prove he could fufilll his vision with Samurai Champloo writing more on that show.

I'm really not sure why you're so fixated on the screenplay and script writers. Writing for TV or a movie is not like writing a novel. A novelist working on an original fiction story typically has the freedom to decide the setting, scenario, characters, and so on by themselves or with feedback from their editor(s). A TV writer working on a screenplay or script for an episode of a TV series has no such freedom. They may or may not be involved in the development of the setting, scenario, characters, etc. (many aren't) but when the time comes to write the screenplay for an episode those details of the story have already been decided by the production committee and the writer's job is to string those details together into a coherent narrative.

Many productions - especially long-running ones - end up producing a reference document (sometimes called a "series bible" or "writers bible" in the west) which gives an overview of the setting, explains the characters histories and personalities, and often also provides a list of things that are not allowed in scenarios being drafted for episodes of the series. (I collect these sort of documents, they're often fascinating looks at the early stages of production for a series. Or if you're reading the Star Trek ones, a frequent reminder that Gene Roddenberry was a dirty old man.)

If you were looking for celebrated writer-creators in the mecha, that short list would be folks like Tomino, Kawamori, Anno, Nagano... the folks who basically created the "real robot" genre. If you extend out to super robots you also get folks like Tezuka, Yokoyama, Nagai, Yatsude, etc.

If you were talking just actual writers, folks like Kenichi Matsuzaki, Sukehiro Tomita, Noboru Ishiguro, Hiroshi Ohnogi, Hiroyuki Hoshiyama, etc. But these are not people who made a specific practice out of mecha anime... just writers who happened to be renowned for their work on specific very well-received mecha titles that generally involved one or more of the writer-creators mentioned above. The same way you have animators who are infamous for their work on certain mecha titles, but did not by any means limit themselves to mecha like Ichiro Itano.

[Kuruni]

So who are considered the best mecha writers outside of Tomino, Kawamori, Hideako Anno,

Asaki Nakama. For being the writer of Daimidaler manga. You just can't compete with the guy end the whole saga with "tadaimanko".

[Seto Kaiba]

So who are considered the best mecha writers outside of Tomino, Kawamori, Hideako Anno,

Asaki Nakama. For being the writer of Daimidaler manga. You just can't compete with the guy end the whole saga with "tadaimanko".

Nah, if we're talking sticking the ending it's gotta be Shoji Gatoh, the original writer of the Full Metal Panic! light novel. Dude chose to end his epic story on a f***ing Knight Rider reference.

[Deacon Blues]

Screenwriters don't actually have much input in the creative decisions for a series. Their role is essentially to take what's been set down in the story treatment and other initial development works like storyboards and expand it into a screenplay that'll fit the runtime. If you want the measure of their actual creative ability, look to their credits for "series composition" and/or "scenario"... that's where the actual story is created.

Where exactly are you getting that they don't have much creative input? Sure, back in the early days of Sunrise, most creators such as scriptwriters, editors, and animators were self-employed freelancers (only management and accounting were full-time employees) so I could see that "sort" of being the case, but a whole lot of that changed over time.

You do know how the sit-down meetings go with the director and other staff, right? You have to spitball ideas before you even start formulating ideas of where to go with a story. Screenwriters are the ones creating the story for the show based on a very rough plot outline (many times, one they help create in the first place, based on the initial pre-production proposal). How is that NOT being involved with the creative process? If it comes down to things like setting base or setting research, then no, all that filler stuff typically doesn't fall to them (though some certainly help), but to other staffers the scriptwriters may turn to (if something is already established) for assistance in writing episodes. Case in point with this, Liu Goto relied on others for technical matters when writing for SEED FREEDOM (not just the novels, but the script, too). Still, Western scriptwriting isn't all "write a script and sell it off" entirely anymore (well, for some shows/movies, that is).

But, for every Gundam television series (except those directed by the grandmaster Tomino), one of the scriptwriters is responsible for the overall series structure. The "scenario" is just the initial version of the script. This includes dialogue and brief descriptions of the actions (the final version is the recording script). Once a final draft is approved, then it goes to storyboarding. You don't storyboard before you have a final script; otherwise, you're just making more work for yourself. Perhaps you thought of image boards? However, those aren't entirely common practices either, as Tomino used them to illustrate his ideas/key scenes. I don't see how you can say that just whipping up a "series composition" is a better judge of creativity than coming up with the actual bloody script for the show itself.

If you look at Zeta Gundam as an example, Tomino started with some liner notes. Taking those, the scriptwriter (like Endo) would create a plot structure. The team, in turn, would have a meeting with Tomino over what was created, feedback would be given, and tweaks would be made before the actual script was worked on. Sometimes, you'd have two or three drafts before it was complete and sent off to Tomino, who would take over from there.

Basically saying that Okouchi didn't have a hand in the creative process for something like Witch (or even Valvrave or Geass) is just plain wrong.

People also forget that Okouchi wrote for ∀ Gundam (his debut) and also created the Gundam War card game.

[Mafty]

I'd wondered what a "Scenario Writer" did...

While the input probably varied , I do remember reading some translated interviers suggesting staff at Sunrise sometimes had input into the process

For example in Votoms , a staff member (I cannot remember what her position was) suggested the wheeled mechs after rollerblades.

Also during the production of ZZ

Spoiler

A staff member suggested they should have Leina survive, given how distrubing having both 10 year olds die would have been , it was the right call IMO.