Finally, I’ve found time to get some of this done! Back in April, there was a huge interview with fripSide in the first volume of Sony’s newest magazine リスアニ! Listen to Animated Music!! This is just the first page. There are still two more pages of this section, then six with just the producer (and he discusses older music too, so I’m looking forward to it).

Unrelated side note, only 3 days until the big live at Animelo!

Listen to Animated Creator’s Voice from Toaru Kagaku no Railgun

―How did Nanjo become a member of fripSide?
Sat→I heard Nanjo’s voice through her voice acting and thought, “That’s a great voice. But, I wonder if she can sing well too.” I came to know her manager, who let me listen to her singing. I thought “this matches my sound, doesn’t it,” and invited her to join.
Nanjo→I was surprised.

―How did everyone react when they heard that only my railgun ranked 3rd on the Oricon?
Nanjo→ I can’t explain it very well, but I was happy I had the pleasure to work together with the staff up till then, for all our fans, family, and friends.

―During the final episode of Railgun, both only my railgun and LEVEL5-judgelight- played.
Sat→The director (Tatsuyuki Nagai) seemed to be really pleased with those scenes. I’m really grateful
Nanjo→During recording, the cast, director and everyone else, were talking about them and Nagai said things like “I saw the PV” and “Is Magus Shinji a friend of yours?” It amazed me that they were discussing the theme songs to such an extent,  so I think very warmly of those scenes every time I see them.

Magic with Science, and Illusions!? Behind the scenes of the commotion the PV has created

(Illusions refers to the magic that magicians do, tricks and illusions. I didn’t want to repeat magic twice, so I kept it as Magical in the post title and changed it here ;D)

―I’d like to talk about Magus Shinji’s PV scenes (laughs). How did this idea start?
Sat→It came from the PV producer and director. After that, including the record company’s producer, the 4 of us said “That kind of thing would be amusing, wouldn’t it?” We discussed it over drinks at the time, but didn’t decide who we needed to call. So we sent a perfectly written, proper business proposal to Magus Shinji, when I thought, “Hmm, did we really just do that?” (laughs)

―What is this Kijutsu’s side called, in the vain of the original Kagaku/Majutsu’s sides? (laughs)
Nanjo→Something like Ear-Gun (超電耳砲). Though his tricks aren’t exclusive to the PV, I feel like everyone will really enjoy that part.
Sat→I’m very happy. I think we could cause a little movement [from this]. Speaking of Railgun, fall animes are considerably large works, so there was a natural need to make great songs. Besides, it’s always a plus when you think, “This isn’t over, I don’t want this work to end.” This was really the consensus of all the staff members involved in this project.
(Kijutsu is the ‘magic’ I noted earlier. The title of such a spin-off would とある奇術の超電耳砲 or Toaru Kijutsu no Ear Gun!)

―Nanjo, weren’t you a little confused?
Nanjo→I thought, “ah, this kind of atmosphere” while I was reading the first draft of the PV, and I kept reading until halfway through when the last line I read said “A leader-like being appears. He’s actually Magus Shinji!”I was like “wha?!” (laughs) It was fun imagining how that would turn out.

―Esper Ito is in LEVEL5-judgelight-
Nanjo→I thought only~‘s PV felt fun and something I’d watch over and over. Though judgelight had a little flair and impact of only my railgun, I wanted to betray that image in a good way. At the time, I thought Esper-san would be the one to do it.
Sat→As fripSide, we have all the elements we need to make our artist image. In addition to our kijutsu side (laughs). We have no worries about trusting our production team to our more delicate side.
Nanjo→[This time] we were really just looking forward to the finished PV.

―Filming took place overseas.
Sat→I was actually the only one obsessed with filming overseas.  It’s not to say I don’t think filming domestically is good, but I think that, for the follow-up of the previous work, I wanted to include elements that were nonexistent in  only~. I was thinking along the lines of, “Since our previous PV was popular, we should take these guys’ style with us and film them overseas” and so we dragged Esper along with us (laughs). Looking at the finished work, it’s great we were able to get beautiful video without filming in Japan. The production team felt the same way.

―The buzz around the anime, music, and PV gathered a lot of attention, but that’s the trend, isn’t it?
Sat→Even though I think I’ve established that the PVs have nothing to do with the anime, of course, we are anime song artists. We think about what kind of things our listeners wish to see, and this time, we were able to experience how valuable that is.

◊◊◊ To be continued ◊◊◊

So, they included a magician to sort of contrast against the scientific, magical world of Railgun. This whole time I actually thought he made a cameo in judgelight, but it turned out to be the comedian Esper Ito (I watched the PV maybe twice and didn’t really pay much attention)… honestly, it would have been a boring, but gorgeous, video without him. Will either of them have a cameo in future gazer, or will someone new step in? This interview makes it sound like these appearances may become a staple in their PVs.

Speaking of the new PV, it was filmed overseas again a couple weeks ago according to this blog entry, so I hope a preview comes out soon! Especially with September just around the corner.

PS: I think I need to organize the tags better >_>