SPOTLIGHT: Linebarrels of Iron

Ahhh, Linebarrels of Iron!

Back in 2008, for Anime Insider mag, I interviewed series producer Hiroyuki Birukawa and director Masamitsu Hidaka about the title; since that mag's now defunct, I'm guessing there's no problem sharing it here since FUNimation over in the US this month released the DVD box-set of the first 12 episodes.

Ask veteran Pokémon director, Hidaka, about his involvement helming the Gonzo series, Linebarrels of Iron (鉄のラインバレル, Kurogane no Rainbareru) and his response comes across as excited as it is free-wheeling.

“The story within the original comic consisted of exciting battle scenes and the fascinating stories of each character,” he explains. “So, I’ve placed a special value on those points when creating the animation version. I’m always trying to work out how I can showcase the cool and coquettish mecha battle scenes - both by employing a sharp sense of speed and presence, and by including contemplative action scenes in the animation. And while I’m aiming high for the twin ideals of beautiful and cool, it’s still, beneath it all, cute mecha-anime! I just hope you enjoy it, and that it’s fun for fans to watch.”


In most celluloid productions it’s the director who dreams, creates the art, and has his head in the clouds. The producer is the grounded financier who stabilizes the ship, handles the organizational side of things, and sees the big picture a little clearer. They’re often also the people who see the production through - from a scrap of note-paper to the screen version.

So it seems with Linebarrels of Iron series producer, Hiroyuki Birukawa, who has been with this particular anime title since Day One.

“I know the chief editor of the monthly magazine, Champion Red, published by Akita Shoten here in Japan,” Birukawa informs me.

“He and I have known each other for quite a long time, and one day he showed me the latest manga they did - and it was Linebarrels of Iron. The moment I saw that sample comic, I knew that this was something I wanted to create as an animation, and asked them for the rights to create it.”

Birukawa previously dabbled with another famous Gonzo production, Last Exile, and is quite clearly the man to talk to when you want a concise explanation of the storyline behind the studio’s new series.

“The main character, Kouichi Hayase, was an ordinary kid in high school, who was constantly teased but had a dream of someday becoming a hero,” recounts Birukawa, with the heroic patience of a man perhaps used to dealing with less focused types.

“The first cool point of this anime may be how this character develops through many events, including a parting with good friends, to become a true hero. The second cool point is the mecha action. As you may have seen in the past, all 3D robot-action scenes always had a rectilinear movement, which was quite unreal. The director, Hidaka-san, and I have talked about this quite extensively - and we’ve gone back to how 2D robot-action scenes were shown, in order to include that point within our 3D robot-action scenes for Linebarrels of Iron.”


Birukawa’s fascinating lesson, which threatens to put this writer out of a job, is far from over. He has more about the new series that he’s keen to share - and enlighten us with along the way.

“If you’ve seen the series trailer, Linebarrel strikes a particular pose, before stabbing ARMA, the enemy robot. It’s like kabuki, wherein you adopt one pose before you give it movement.

"We actually call it tame in Japanese. We believe tame and kire - fast action moves after tame - are the most important points when showing cool mecha action. And Hidaka is a pro at robot action.

“Also luckily for the 3D action scenes, we have Itano-san [Ichiro Itano, the director of Blassreiter and veteran planner of The Super Dimension Fortress Macross], who is fantastic at checking these kind of scenes and translating them into action.”

Adding to the superlative mecha developments is the teamwork involved in the series structure, scripts, and ideas.

“The creative producer, Goro Taniguchi, has so many excellent ideas about the animation he wants to include, while Kiyoko Yoshimura is fantastic at including these, as well as expressing character descriptions in the story.”

Despite his professional nature and assured eye on the whole production, you can almost see Birukawa blush when it comes to talking up his favourite character in the series.

“It’s Emi Kizaki,” he admits. “She is cute, sexy, and also smart! There’s a Japanese slang word, tsundere [meaning a volatile personality that ends up being good-willed] and she has that perfect tsundere factor...”



© 2008 Eiichi Shimizu,Tomohiro Shimoguchi, Akita Publishing/GONZO/Linebarrel Partners

I Want My Fugu!

There’s a question on my mind, and it’s one I’ve mulled over for years, ever since Homer Simpson demanded fugu (河豚) at a Japanese restaurant, that time when the sushi chef was out canoodling Ms. Krabappel on the backseat of her car. Cue assistant chef’s stressful splicing and dicing of the deflating delicacy.

For those precious insular types without an operational TV who may’ve missed this episode, and double-up on the offense by having no access to Wikipedia or even a moth-eaten edition of the Encylopædia Britannica, fugu is the Japanese name for blowfish, and the majority of these fish have extremely high levels of a neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin in their ovaries, liver, intestines, gonads and skin.

These little fellas, with a penchant for getting sizable relatively quickly, in fact get honorable mention on both Wikipedia and in the Britannica for being the second most-poisonous vertebrates in the world. There’s also no antidote. That doesn’t seem to faze the Japanese, though - apparently some 10,000 tons are consumed here each year.

When I first came over from Australia, I really had no choice but to play Homer and indulge in the expensive dish, and the best way to have fugu is sashimi-style, sliced exceptionally thin and raw, and served with a special dipping sauce called ponzu (a canny blend of citrus juice and soy sauce).

You can also have it deep fried or conjured up in a nabe (hot pot), but for me it’s sensational as sashimi, combined with fugu hirezake: Toasted fugu fin served in hot saké. It smells a wee bit fishy, but has quite the celebratory kick to it.

You can usually tell the fugu eateries by the huge store-front tanks full of the fish: Swimming, carousing, looking a little the worse-for-wear, and occasionally floating listlessly upside down.

The allusion of those bottom up types runs a little close to home when it comes to fugu.

Both in fiction and reality the fish has had a huge impact on the culture of this country. While it’s the foodstuff of kings (but not the emperor, apparently), lauded in haiku, and all Japanese office workers with big annual bonuses aspire to tuck into the aquatic delight, there’s a hint of the morbid and suicidal involved, along with some mention of egos quashed. Fugu, while outrageously priced, is the Russian roulette of the wining and dining set - and fatality is, after all, the great leveler.


Theatrical rumor has it that the flamboyant Chairman Kaga (played by actor Takeshi Kaga), of Iron Chef notoriety, died of fugu poisoning after the series ended in Japan, but kabuki star Bando Mitsugoro VIII really did die (of paralysis and asphyxiation) just hours after a stint in a Kyoto restaurant in 1975 - having thrown care to the winds, boasting invulnerability, and tossed down four of the fish’s highly-toxic livers.

And then there’s that question I hinted at earlier, the one that’s followed me ever since I saw Homer carted off to hospital with suspected fugu poisoning.

The origin of the fish’s consumption in Japan remains unclear - it definitely goes back centuries, and there’ve been possible fugu table scraps found in burial mounds that date back to the Jomon Period, over 2,400 years ago.

The question for me is this: Who were the very first people who decided to snack on this exceptionally unattractive fish, and how on earth did they work out which bits were OK for consumption, and which other parts would grant them slow, excruciating death?

Were short staws involved? Furry dice? Some kind of class-system pecking order? Or just manic rounds of jan-ken-pon (rock-paper-scissors)?

Personally, every time I eat fugu (which has actually been only twice), I canonize the experience - then spend the rest of the night fretting that I’ll die in my sleep, much like the unluckier pioneers of aquatic vertebratic cuisine before me.