In the B part of episode 10, Tsubasa is moving in a very strange way.
Because I was in charge of the B part. I also wanted to do the original drawings, and I remember that Nobutaka Ito, the animation director, asked me to take responsibility for that part and do the original drawings.
In addition to being in charge of storyboarding and animation direction for episode 11, I was also in charge of the original drawings for the action scenes in episode 10.
It tells how crazy our style of studio work was at the time…
I don't know how I was able to do it.
I guess everyone was out of their minds from the middle of the project.
It's hard to understand our sense of time back then. (laughs).
They move unnecessarily and Arima is depicted with a funny face in episode 11.
In the name of "experimentation," no one knew how far they were allowed to go.
We just went along with the idea that if Anno said it was okay, then it must be okay.
There is a scene where they sing "Humanoid Monster Bem" at karaoke.
In episode 11, you have mastered moving celluloid animation. After all that, Episode 19.
We started to experiment with animation, and then we felt that we were tired of the normal lines.
I remember that he suggested me to do "Yokai Den Nekome Kozo".
But if I had made "Yokai Den Nekome Kozo," I would not have been able to draw a storyboard.
In other words, I could not use all the techniques to attract the viewer with the interesting movements of the characters.
We would only be able to create a play based on the feeling of actually moving the puppets with our hands. So I was really worried that I wouldn't know how to do it. As a result, I was allowed to use paper animation.
But we decided to do a gekimation for a couple of scenes.
At that time, everyone was really doing Kamishibai at GAINAX.
We were filming that. The director of that episode was Ryuichi Kimura, who directed "Aikatsu!" and "Kemono Friends 2".
He was a classmate of mine from college. I asked him to join us, "I'm going to do an episode that's a little different, and I need your help directing it."
We made an independent film together in college, so he should know all about paper animation. (laughs).
Can we consider this a legendary episode?
I don’t know...When I was suggested to do "Yokai Den Nekome Kozo," I was going to do my best to go wild.
But I don't know how I would have reacted if I had been told to "go wild" to that extent (laughs).
So I thought Anno was a truly amazing person.
It's amazing that he can break things to the point where you can't break things this much.
I think the reason he wanted to include a little bit of gekimation was because he really wanted to break the normal anime-like aspects of the work.
Why does he want to do that?
Ask Anno about that (laughs).
I admire Anno the most for that.
Since the days of DAICON FILM, I have admired his stance of trying to destroy animation and special effects, and yet going to interesting points.
I have great memories of episode 19 because I got to color it.
Ha ha ha! You painted it with colored pencils.
Anno instructed me on how to apply color.
You got instructions on how to paint with color pencils?
Ha ha ha. You can be proud of that.
I feel that many ideas came about because of the work done by energetic newcomers like you in response to Anno's desire to "break it down".
In what ways has your experience with "Kare Kano" influenced your career?
My experience at that time was rather fundamental.
With "Eva," I was an inbetweener, so I wasn't involved in the work to the extent that I was deeply involved in its content.
With "Kare Kano," I could see exactly what I could and could not do, and that was a great learning experience for me.
And the environment where young staff at that time were allowed to work in a very creative way (laughs).
That was the starting point for me.
I don't know how the viewer felt, but I had a lot of fun at the studio. It felt like an after-school activity.
I think that if I were to draw the original picture that went out of control in "Eva" without permission, I would probably get scolded and told "that's not what I meant".
But with "Kare Kano," I remember that most things were tolerated.
The limits of what you can create based only on your own decision, and the limits of what you are not allowed to do. This is a work that has been able to go to that limit.
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