Solo UpgradeThe producer spoke about the unprecedented challenges the team faced while creating the animated series, especially given its fame among overseas audiences.
Solo Upgrade producer Sota Furuhashi and PR coordinator Kazeto Amako spoke about the series’ development in a recently published interview with Old website. Furuhashi shared that the series aimed to be a global hit from the start, introducing unprecedented difficulties into production. This involved doing two voice-overs and making sure they used English for the backgrounds, status screens, and other places.
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Furuhashi said, “Because the character names are different in Japan and abroad, we made two dubs, one for the Japanese version and one for the foreign version, which we have never done before.” Sung Jinwoo became Shun Mizushino in Japan, while the Korean names were kept for foreign audiences. While the production team could have chosen to use Japanese names throughout and let the English dubbing team use Korean names, “Japanese voice actors are popular overseas,” Furuhashi said, “so we were “Aware of people watching anime with subtitles, that’s why we changed the characters’ names during the dubbing so they wouldn’t feel out of place.”
Despite these considerations, Furuhashi warned: “There are some things that should not be changed. We try not to worry too much about foreign markets when we’re making the film. We tend to try to make films that are more international in nature regardless, but we’ve been thinking about what it means to do this in Japan. We tried to emphasize the strengths of Japanese anime while incorporating the preferences of foreign anime fans in a well-balanced way.
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Earlier last year, CG producer Nao Kudo also revealed the challenge of creating Solo UpgradeThe fight scenes between Jinwoo and Igris. Igris’ pack of knights required many moving parts at once, with Kudo describing the hand-drawn approach as a huge burden. Staff used motion capture devices and created a small number of movement patterns. “By assigning an appropriate number of soldiers to each [template] and by arranging them, and staggering the timing of characters performing the same movements, we were able to create a natural fight scene where each character appears to be moving independently,” Kudo said.
With Solo Upgrade Season 2 premieres on January 4, fans may also remember Furuhashi’s comments from last year. During his appearance on Aniplex After Hours, hosted by Sally Amaki, he revealed that season 2 will put more emphasis on supporting characters; this was a criticism of season 1 and the source material in general, which some felt wasted the side characters’ potential by focusing solely on Jinwoo. Season 2 will stream on Crunchyroll, which describes the series: “They say whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but that’s not the case for the world’s weakest hunter, Sung Jinwoo. After been brutally massacred by monsters in a high-ranking dungeon, Jinwoo returned with the System, a program that only he could see, which advances him in every way. Now he is inspired to discover the secrets of his. powers and dungeon which surrounds them.
In a world of gifted hunters and monsters, a weak hunter, Sung Jin-Woo, gains extraordinary powers through a mysterious program, leading him to become one of the strongest hunters and conquer even the most powerful dungeons .
- Release date
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January 7, 2024
- Creator(s)
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Chu Gong
- Cast
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Aleks Le, Justin Briner, Rebecca Wang, Dani Chambers, Michelle Rojas, Kent Williams
- Seasons
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2
- Studio
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Photos A-1
- Creator
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Chu Gong
- Writers
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Noboru Kimura
- Directors
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Shunsuke Nakashige
- Main actors
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- Based on
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Manhwa
Source: Old website