Studio Trigger 10th Anniversary Panel: Live Blog

The time has come! You might not believe it but Studio Trigger is now 10 years old. The studio is responsible for creating some of the biggest hits in anime from Little Witch Academia to BNA and Kill la Kill to name a few. Now, the studio is hitting up Anime Expo to celebrate its big anniversary and dish tons of new info on fans!

Trigger Continues Into the Future

Trigger’s team keeps on stage to celebrate its anniversary with fans. Now, the director of of Gridman and Dynazenon confirms a new movie is in the works with both mecha. However, it will be released in only Japan. Let’s all try to fix that! If the movie does well and has enough buzz, it can come overseas… but fans have to prove they want it. 

Rounding Cyberpunk Out

The CDPR team promises the show is one of the grittiest they can think of, and there will be a lot of “butts and boobs” from men and women. 

As for Trigger, the team says Imaishi was meant to be here, but he is burnt out from working on the Cyberpunk series. Yoshinari said the director did all the key animation of the show’s opening, so that shows how much he was into it. However, the artist did have to fix a lot of it. 

Wakabayashi says the tone of Cyberpunk has a very intense tone compared to its last project. They want fans to take it as a new era for Trigger and allow this to refresh the team who worked on it. He went on to admit he oversaw the music line on Cyberpunk Edgerunners, so Wakabayashi wants fans to look forward to the music especially. 

Imaishi recorded a message for fans. The video shows the director as she says it was refreshing to work on an anime based on a game. It helped turned this series into something very different from Kill la Kill or Promare. 

Cyberpunk Edgerunners Expanded

Trigger admits its team was partially inspired by Blade Runner when it came to designing Lucy. The group wanted to give the character a more mature look as opposed to those found in previous titles with students, kids, and more. And as a whole, Trigger believes its whole 1cast of characters are attractive. 

David’s English actor is revealed. It is none other than Zach Aguilar, the dub voice of Tanjior in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. And now, we can add Cyberpunk Edgerunners to his portfolio. 

The Trigger team comments on the anime’s English dub. Wakabayashi liked how both dubs sounded whether in English or Japanese. And as for the opening animation, well – we get to see it live here at Anime Expo! And to confirm, the opening is epic! Expect lots of gorgeous color and explosions!

Trigger Refines Its Vision

Studio Trigger and CDPR worked together to create Night City, and the studio wanted to feel the series in every way – the good, the bad, the ugly. The details in the series are the exact same and famliar to gamers. CDPR was even surprisied by how Trigger replicated the series since it is an open world, but they kept wanting more and more screenshots to replicate the city as seen in the game. You can almost replicate certain scenes in the game from the anime because it is so attention oriented. 

Yoshinari also shares some early designs during the planning process of Cyberpunk Edgerunners. The first illustration is shown, and of course, it is gorgeous. David is the star, and the show’s staff says they fell in love with the character. His jacket is said to be very symbolic and shares his complicated and colorful character. In fact, CDPR didn’t even need to revise the art of David because it was a hit from the start since Trigger was vibing with the project. 

Trigger was also worried about having to do revisions, and Yoshinari was glad to have nailed it the first time around. They did play with his hairstyle a bit as they tried to find his usual look. But when it came to finalizing the design, it took Yoshinari some time. At Trigger, it is common to brainstorm a lot of idea, and what generally happens is that we go with the first idea we came up with. Wakabayashi goes on to show the first design the team did of Lucy, the show’s female protagonist, and Yoshinari refined the design from there. 

Trigger’s Attention to Detail

Studio Trigger and CDPR worked together to create Night City, and the studio wanted to feel the series in every way – the good, the bad, the ugly. The details in the series are the exact same and famliar to gamers. CDPR was even surprisied by how Trigger replicated the series since it is an open world, but they kept wanting more and more screenshots to replicate the city as seen in the game. You can almost replicate certain scenes in the game from the anime because it is so attention oriented. 

Yoshinari also shares some early designs during the planning process of Cyberpunk Edgerunners. The first illustration is shown, and of course, it is gorgeous. David is the star, and the show’s staff says they fell in love with the character. His jacket is said to be very symbolic and shares his complicated and colorful character. In fact, CDPR didn’t even need to revise the art of David because it was a hit from the start since Trigger was vibing with the project. 

Trigger was also worried about having to do revisions, and Yoshinari was glad to have nailed it the first time around. They did play with his hairstyle a bit as they tried to find his usual look. But when it came to finalizing the design, it took Yoshinari some time. At Trigger, it is common to brainstorm a lot of idea, and what generally happens is that we go with the first idea we came up with. Wakabayashi goes on to show the first design the team did of Lucy, the show’s female protagonist, and Yoshinari refined the design from there. 

Testing the Game Out

Yoshinari explains how the studio reacted to the anime pitch. The game was not out yet, but he knew Cyberpunk was a huge idea. His impression was pretty immaterial as he did not know much about how the game would turn out. However, he loves the genre of Cyberpunk, and so did the director Imaishi. However, in Japan, you don’t get much opportunity to work on the genre despite its popularity. So when CDPR offered this chance, Imaishi was excited when they were approached to do the exact thing he’s interested in. 

As for CDPR’s back-and-forth with Trigger, the team said Imaishi wanted to play through the game itself before ever touching pre-production. The anime was meant to start production after the game came out but some issues got in the way. However, CDPR then brought a secret laptop to Trigger to make sure Imaishi could play. He used the hammer a lot despite the game being a shooter, but he loves melee weapons. So look forward to that in the anime. 

Yoshinari responds to seeing Cyberpunk as a prototype. He did get to play the draft, and he had an idea that Cyberpunk was all about deliquents and thugs. However, his impression was changed. The idea of Cyberpunks are interesting because are more like vigilantes. 

Post Premiere

You can look forward to the full review of Cyberpunk Edgerunners’ premiere on ComicBook soon. Now, the team is bringing out some more guests. CD Project Red is present and the Yoh Yoshinari, character designer at Trigger, is also on stage now to talk about the series. He was responsible for the main character design and lead animation. 

Saya Elder is on stage from CDPR alongside one of the show’s writers. Obviously, the pair are excited to see how much fans loved it. 

CDPR speaks about how the anime began, and the company has a huge anime community and its creator loves Studio Trigger. CDPR was the one whoh approached Trigger about the project. Cyberpunk was meant to be an homage to the pillars of cyberpunk-theme anime like Akira or Psycho-Pass. Trigger’s bombastic art style was perfect for the Cyberpunk series to explore and expand. 

Introductions

The panel begins with Hiromi Wakabayashi as one of the heads of Studio Trigger. The studio begins the panel with Cyberpunk Edgerunners as the first episode is aired. Be back shortly!