by ensmallen » Mon Jul 03, 2023 10:21 am
Another interview with Nishi-Ogikubo's director:
https://animeanime.jp/article/2015/03/08/22261.html
https://animeanime.jp/article/2015/03/09/22267.html (actually a two-parter but only the first part goes on about the short at length)
(translated throught DeepL)
--When I first heard about the short film project that Director Maeda was going to make, I thought it would be something science fiction-like or something fantastical like "Genius Party". However, I was a bit surprised by the title, "20-minute walk from Nishi Ogikubo Station, 2LDK, 2months key money, no pets allowed," and the storyline, which also incorporates an everyday perspective. Did you have a theme in mind for this film?
Director Masahiro Maeda (Maeda)
Not really. The softness of the subject matter came from Mr. Honda (Yu), who was the original conceptor. It was after the Japan Anime (Tater) Trade Fair project was launched and I was asked if I could do something. Mr. Honda said, "I want to do something like a girls' manga from the 1980s," and that's how it all started. That directly led to the softness of the subject matter.
--How did you decide on this team of two big names, Director Maeda and Yu Honda?
Maeda.
I have always had respect for Mr. Honda, and I always said, "Let's work together. However, the timing was never right. (laugh).
The only time it happened was when I had him do a lot of work as animation director on my feature film debut, "Blue No. 6. This time, I happened to have a good opportunity. I don't know what Mr. Honda thought about it (laughs).
--I can really understand the touch of the drawings when you say it is a shoujo manga from the 80's. Why do girls turn into cockroaches in those shoujo manga?
Maeda.
Sorry. (laughs)
First of all, when we were planning the project, Honda-kun said, "I want to do a proper giant. Why?" I asked him, and he replied, "In 'Evangelion: Q,' they didn't have enough Titans. There is a lot of spectacle and action in "Q," but it was different from the action and weight of a large object seen from the perspective of a life-size person. So I said, "I want to do a Titan. I want to draw them." I wanted to draw a giant. And then I got that and shoujo manga mixed up, and it just kind of came together.
--When you wake up, you suddenly become an insect, which reminds me of Kafka's "Metamorphosis.
Maeda.
I didn't have that in mind. It came up in a chat with Mr. Honda that it would be fun to make it into a cockroach. There are many fantasies in which the characters are small. There are fairies in Wonderland that somehow come into contact with everyday life. Such a world could be a prewar Western-style house, and it could have an atmosphere. That's fine.
But this time, we thought it would be great to have a story about the descendants of dwarfs living in an ordinary housing complex, and we agreed that the sense of displacement would be very good.
So we thought about what kind of story could be told in the limited space of a room in an ordinary modern house. We thought about what kind of stories could be told in a limited space in a normal modern house: a little girl having a little adventure, an action story, "going up and down," "the huge feeling when you look up," "maybe there is a cat in the room," "maybe they have a hamster," "the robot vacuum cleaner strikes back! And so on. But in the end, this and that didn't fit in, and at the end of the grinding down process, I said, "Maybe a cockroach in a reasonable size. Aren't you afraid of cockroaches?" And he said, "No, I'm not afraid of cockroaches.
I said, "No, it would be more interesting to make a girl equal to a cockroach than to have a cockroach attack her or to be friends with a cockroach." And that's when the idea popped up.
--What exactly is interesting about the idea?
Maeda.
This is where the theme of this work finally comes into play: discommunication. It is something that cannot be jumped, something that becomes clearer the closer they are to each other, even though they are the two people who are closest to each other all the time.
In order to express this in a comical way, the story "He seems to see me only as a cockroach," and "My voice does not reach him," and this gap is not resolved until the end of the film.
--One more thing, and this is probably on everyone's mind, but why are the girls naked?
Maeda.
Because nudity is one of the most important elements in the tradition of Nihon Anime (Ta) Trade Fair, and with the rise of director Yoshizaki's "ME! ME!" by director Yoshizaki, nudity is now the most important element of the show. (Laughs.) That's a complete lie. (Laughs).
(Laughs.) I didn't do it while being conscious of the side of my body, it just happened naturally. If I woke up and found myself smaller, I thought the clothes would be a good contrast. Being in what I was wearing was the best way to make me feel "Oh, I've become tiny. That's about where we left off.
As for Mr. Honda, I think it was easy for him to portray a plain human being. The characters are simple. Rather than erotic elements, I wanted to depict the free and unrestrained movement of the body and how it moves.
--There was a lot of running, flying, and jumping. Was this the director's idea or a request from Mr. Honda?
Maeda.
I did what Mr. Honda asked me to do. At first, I wanted to include a little more dialogue, but he said, "No, not that way. But he said, "No, not that way." It was obvious that he wanted more movement, so I thought, "I see." On the contrary, I decided to cut down the dialogue to the utmost limit and move it around.
--The original artists are all amazing. How did you achieve this?
Maeda.
That is the highlight of this work. It's like, "Here comes the trade fair!" Like, "Here we are at the trade fair! There is no other work where you can see such a wide variety of background animations by such a splendid group of animators! This is the point.
It is the virtues of Mr. Honda. Mr. Honda has been active in various theater productions, so he has a thick pipeline among animators. Mr. Honda approached me, so I was able to participate in the project despite my busy schedule.
They were also rather interested in the idea that their drawings would be directly put on the screen. At first, Mr. Honda and I talked about how we wanted to show the quality of the lines. The lines you are seeing this time are the lines of the original drawing itself.
Normally, after the original drawing, the animators organize the lines in the animation process. Of course, the animator is also a professional, so he or she picks up on the nuances of the original, but even so, the nuances may change slightly because the original is not the same as the original. In this case, we did not binarize the original drawing as it was, but left the cool grayscale parts of the original for the video.
--I thought that the touch of the picture was very similar to the technique used in "The Tale of Kaguyahime".
Maeda.
They are almost the same. Think of it as a slightly slimmed-down version of "Kaguyahime. The person who did the video inspection was Mr. Nogami, who worked on "Kaguyahime. I asked him to teach me.
--Is the background separate in this work? Is the background part of the original picture?
Maeda
It depends on case by case. Mostly they are separate, but in some places there are parts of the background video. However, in the animation part, I put textures drawn by various art directors. The cinematographer also worked very hard.
--The action increases in the second half of the film, and the picture becomes wilder. How did you come up with that?
Maeda.
That is exactly the highlight of the film. Shinji Hashimoto and Shinya Ohira did it. It is a dream double header. Moreover, the concept was to keep the pictures as they were, so the live pictures are on display.
--The dynamic nature of the work was not planned, but was it just the way it was when the pictures came out?
Maeda
We had meetings about the drawings. Moreover, to a certain extent, we had high expectations. I thought that the style of Mr. Ohira and Mr. Hashimoto would be good here, so I asked them to create a slapstick scene with high tension in the action, and they came up with something even more amazing than I had imagined.
Neither Mr. Ohira nor Mr. Hashimoto have much animation in the middle. They were all filled with their own drawings, and it was as if they could move if they were filmed as they were.
As you can see from Mr. Ohira's drawings, that mild touch is really more than just lines. It's a soft pencil rubbed with a finger, and there are grays on it. So the result is more like a drawing or a croquis, which is really cool.
When I saw the finished product, I thought it was perfect for me and Honda-kun. We decided to go with it without making any changes, and that's how it turned out.
--The story is rather flat at the beginning, but has a climax in the latter half, and has a beginning and end, even though it is a short story.
Maeda
The only clear dialogue is at the end. I brought everything to that part in order to make the characters say it. That's also why the character climbs up to a high place. At first they are looking up, then they are flying, and then they go up higher and higher, and finally they go higher than the human eye level, and from there they jump up to the face. It goes up to the face, but it still can't reach the words.
--The theme of the show was "discommunication," but in the end, I feel that we were able to communicate with them somehow.
Maeda.
No, I drew the film with the intention of not being able to reach the end. The gap cannot be bridged. She probably lives with a boy. But she usually can't say, "I'm here! But usually she can't say, "I'm here! So in the dream she is active, she takes action, she throws things, it's all the opposite of what she wants.
Finally, she wakes up, but she is still dreaming and has a bit of sympathy for the cockroaches. But the boyfriend crushes it without a second thought, again, this is also dis-communication. Her boyfriend smiles with a big smile and a "100% me, good boyfriend" look on his face. Again, there is no bridge here.
Another interview with Nishi-Ogikubo's director:
https://animeanime.jp/article/2015/03/08/22261.html
https://animeanime.jp/article/2015/03/09/22267.html (actually a two-parter but only the first part goes on about the short at length)
(translated throught DeepL)
[spoiler]--When I first heard about the short film project that Director Maeda was going to make, I thought it would be something science fiction-like or something fantastical like "Genius Party". However, I was a bit surprised by the title, "20-minute walk from Nishi Ogikubo Station, 2LDK, 2months key money, no pets allowed," and the storyline, which also incorporates an everyday perspective. Did you have a theme in mind for this film?
Director Masahiro Maeda (Maeda)
Not really. The softness of the subject matter came from Mr. Honda (Yu), who was the original conceptor. It was after the Japan Anime (Tater) Trade Fair project was launched and I was asked if I could do something. Mr. Honda said, "I want to do something like a girls' manga from the 1980s," and that's how it all started. That directly led to the softness of the subject matter.
--How did you decide on this team of two big names, Director Maeda and Yu Honda?
Maeda.
I have always had respect for Mr. Honda, and I always said, "Let's work together. However, the timing was never right. (laugh).
The only time it happened was when I had him do a lot of work as animation director on my feature film debut, "Blue No. 6. This time, I happened to have a good opportunity. I don't know what Mr. Honda thought about it (laughs).
--I can really understand the touch of the drawings when you say it is a shoujo manga from the 80's. Why do girls turn into cockroaches in those shoujo manga?
Maeda.
Sorry. (laughs)
First of all, when we were planning the project, Honda-kun said, "I want to do a proper giant. Why?" I asked him, and he replied, "In 'Evangelion: Q,' they didn't have enough Titans. There is a lot of spectacle and action in "Q," but it was different from the action and weight of a large object seen from the perspective of a life-size person. So I said, "I want to do a Titan. I want to draw them." I wanted to draw a giant. And then I got that and shoujo manga mixed up, and it just kind of came together.
--When you wake up, you suddenly become an insect, which reminds me of Kafka's "Metamorphosis.
Maeda.
I didn't have that in mind. It came up in a chat with Mr. Honda that it would be fun to make it into a cockroach. There are many fantasies in which the characters are small. There are fairies in Wonderland that somehow come into contact with everyday life. Such a world could be a prewar Western-style house, and it could have an atmosphere. That's fine.
But this time, we thought it would be great to have a story about the descendants of dwarfs living in an ordinary housing complex, and we agreed that the sense of displacement would be very good.
So we thought about what kind of story could be told in the limited space of a room in an ordinary modern house. We thought about what kind of stories could be told in a limited space in a normal modern house: a little girl having a little adventure, an action story, "going up and down," "the huge feeling when you look up," "maybe there is a cat in the room," "maybe they have a hamster," "the robot vacuum cleaner strikes back! And so on. But in the end, this and that didn't fit in, and at the end of the grinding down process, I said, "Maybe a cockroach in a reasonable size. Aren't you afraid of cockroaches?" And he said, "No, I'm not afraid of cockroaches.
I said, "No, it would be more interesting to make a girl equal to a cockroach than to have a cockroach attack her or to be friends with a cockroach." And that's when the idea popped up.
--What exactly is interesting about the idea?
Maeda.
This is where the theme of this work finally comes into play: discommunication. It is something that cannot be jumped, something that becomes clearer the closer they are to each other, even though they are the two people who are closest to each other all the time.
In order to express this in a comical way, the story "He seems to see me only as a cockroach," and "My voice does not reach him," and this gap is not resolved until the end of the film.
--One more thing, and this is probably on everyone's mind, but why are the girls naked?
Maeda.
Because nudity is one of the most important elements in the tradition of Nihon Anime (Ta) Trade Fair, and with the rise of director Yoshizaki's "ME! ME!" by director Yoshizaki, nudity is now the most important element of the show. (Laughs.) That's a complete lie. (Laughs).
(Laughs.) I didn't do it while being conscious of the side of my body, it just happened naturally. If I woke up and found myself smaller, I thought the clothes would be a good contrast. Being in what I was wearing was the best way to make me feel "Oh, I've become tiny. That's about where we left off.
As for Mr. Honda, I think it was easy for him to portray a plain human being. The characters are simple. Rather than erotic elements, I wanted to depict the free and unrestrained movement of the body and how it moves.
--There was a lot of running, flying, and jumping. Was this the director's idea or a request from Mr. Honda?
Maeda.
I did what Mr. Honda asked me to do. At first, I wanted to include a little more dialogue, but he said, "No, not that way. But he said, "No, not that way." It was obvious that he wanted more movement, so I thought, "I see." On the contrary, I decided to cut down the dialogue to the utmost limit and move it around.
--The original artists are all amazing. How did you achieve this?
Maeda.
That is the highlight of this work. It's like, "Here comes the trade fair!" Like, "Here we are at the trade fair! There is no other work where you can see such a wide variety of background animations by such a splendid group of animators! This is the point.
It is the virtues of Mr. Honda. Mr. Honda has been active in various theater productions, so he has a thick pipeline among animators. Mr. Honda approached me, so I was able to participate in the project despite my busy schedule.
They were also rather interested in the idea that their drawings would be directly put on the screen. At first, Mr. Honda and I talked about how we wanted to show the quality of the lines. The lines you are seeing this time are the lines of the original drawing itself.
Normally, after the original drawing, the animators organize the lines in the animation process. Of course, the animator is also a professional, so he or she picks up on the nuances of the original, but even so, the nuances may change slightly because the original is not the same as the original. In this case, we did not binarize the original drawing as it was, but left the cool grayscale parts of the original for the video.
--I thought that the touch of the picture was very similar to the technique used in "The Tale of Kaguyahime".
Maeda.
They are almost the same. Think of it as a slightly slimmed-down version of "Kaguyahime. The person who did the video inspection was Mr. Nogami, who worked on "Kaguyahime. I asked him to teach me.
--Is the background separate in this work? Is the background part of the original picture?
Maeda
It depends on case by case. Mostly they are separate, but in some places there are parts of the background video. However, in the animation part, I put textures drawn by various art directors. The cinematographer also worked very hard.
--The action increases in the second half of the film, and the picture becomes wilder. How did you come up with that?
Maeda.
That is exactly the highlight of the film. Shinji Hashimoto and Shinya Ohira did it. It is a dream double header. Moreover, the concept was to keep the pictures as they were, so the live pictures are on display.
--The dynamic nature of the work was not planned, but was it just the way it was when the pictures came out?
Maeda
We had meetings about the drawings. Moreover, to a certain extent, we had high expectations. I thought that the style of Mr. Ohira and Mr. Hashimoto would be good here, so I asked them to create a slapstick scene with high tension in the action, and they came up with something even more amazing than I had imagined.
Neither Mr. Ohira nor Mr. Hashimoto have much animation in the middle. They were all filled with their own drawings, and it was as if they could move if they were filmed as they were.
As you can see from Mr. Ohira's drawings, that mild touch is really more than just lines. It's a soft pencil rubbed with a finger, and there are grays on it. So the result is more like a drawing or a croquis, which is really cool.
When I saw the finished product, I thought it was perfect for me and Honda-kun. We decided to go with it without making any changes, and that's how it turned out.
--The story is rather flat at the beginning, but has a climax in the latter half, and has a beginning and end, even though it is a short story.
Maeda
The only clear dialogue is at the end. I brought everything to that part in order to make the characters say it. That's also why the character climbs up to a high place. At first they are looking up, then they are flying, and then they go up higher and higher, and finally they go higher than the human eye level, and from there they jump up to the face. It goes up to the face, but it still can't reach the words.
--The theme of the show was "discommunication," but in the end, I feel that we were able to communicate with them somehow.
Maeda.
No, I drew the film with the intention of not being able to reach the end. The gap cannot be bridged. She probably lives with a boy. But she usually can't say, "I'm here! But usually she can't say, "I'm here! So in the dream she is active, she takes action, she throws things, it's all the opposite of what she wants.
Finally, she wakes up, but she is still dreaming and has a bit of sympathy for the cockroaches. But the boyfriend crushes it without a second thought, again, this is also dis-communication. Her boyfriend smiles with a big smile and a "100% me, good boyfriend" look on his face. Again, there is no bridge here.[/spoiler]