SHIBUMI Goro Mizuno The second chapter of Digimon Tamers was the Digital World story arc, in which they follow the conventional fantasy plot of an adventure in another world to fulfill a specific quest. I thought that in that case, they would need a guide and mentor. Originally, there was going to be a scene in episode 23 ("A World Apart") in which one of the MIB working under Yamaki reveals that the trickster who first spread the Blue Cards (SHIBUMI) was already dead. However, a special song entitled "Kaze (Wind)" was to be played at the end of that episode, and so the script had to be shorter than usual. The scene was cut. As a result of this change, we were able to make SHIBUMI the mentor and guide waiting for Takato and his friends in the Digital World. SHIBUMI's personality and image were created by Mr. Hiro Masaki, who wrote episode 34, "Shibumi Speaks". SHIBUMI's mocking, slightly cynical personality was rather unusual in a modern "mentor" role. By an odd coincidence, both Mr. Masaki and I had the same actor in mind as a model for SHIBUMI. He was Mr. Taro Suwa, a very famous actor and an integral part of modern Japanese film. In my past live action films "Door 3" (Live Action Motion Picture, Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Screenplay by cjk )and "Voodoo Snake"(Live Action Motion Picture), my characters had been greatly expanded and brought to life through Mr. Suwa's performance. I asked Mr. Nakatsuru to watch a video of "Door 3" and base his character designs of SHIBUMI on it. Thanks to the hard work of Casting Director Kohama, we actually did get Mr. Suwa to play SHIBUMI. I was very happy. At the time, Mr. Suwa had never performed a voice for an animated series before. He seemed very awkward in the recording studio at first. However, Ms. Masako Nozawa, who is both a veteran voice actor and the voice of Guilmon, was an excellent leader and made him feel at home. Mr. Suwa later told me that he was worried at first, but grew to enjoy himself as he played the role of SHIBUMI. This was a comment he made in the latter half of the series, once SHIBUMI was a regular character.