“CHERRY AND VIRGIN” Director Masayoshi Kawajiri x Producer Sato Aiming for A24 in anime! [Director's Interview Vol.129]

Director Masayoshi Kawajiri's ``A Japanese Painter Boy'' won the 40th Pia Film Festival Second Grand Prize and the 23rd Japan Media Arts Festival Animation Division Excellence Award. Director Kawajiri will make his full-length commercial film debut after making this film, which was made using a method called ``rotoscoping,'' which involves turning live-action into animation.

The title of this work, which is currently in production and is aiming for completion in early summer 2022, is ``CHERRY AND VIRGIN.'' It's a love story between a man who is a commercial erotic manga artist and a fujoshi who draws BL manga as a hobby. Like ``A Japanese Painter Boy'', it will be produced using a mixture of manga, live-action, and animation. It looks like it will be a different work in the context of recent domestic animated films.

“CHERRY AND VIRGIN” ©2022 Toei Video

The person behind this innovative project is producer Gen Sato. ` `I saw the sky '' (12), `` 100 Yen Love '' (14), `` 14 no Yoru'' (16), `` Inuzaru '' (18), and `` Underdog '' (20). A person who has created a series of ambitious works that are not bound by concepts. For this work, they are actively working on raising advertising costs through crowdfunding.

What are these two planning to do now as they set out on the ocean of commercial animated films? Along with a discussion of the films of director Kawajiri, who has watched a wide range of films from `` Magnolia '' (1999) to ` `Under the Silver Lake '' (18), we will introduce their challenges while unraveling the artistry.

Index

• I fell in love with “Magnolia” in 6th grade.
• Encountering director Keiichi Hara's work, he embarked on the path of anime.
• Follman and Linklater... Directors I admire
• I want to break free from the current situation regarding the audience for animated films.
• ``Making movies that will be seen in movie theaters'' is our pinnacle.
• Surprising benefits of "rotoscoping" from live-action to animation
• The scale of domestic anime can roughly be divided into three patterns.
• The aim is A24. Balancing commerce and art!

I fell in love with “Magnolia” in 6th grade.

Q: Director Kawajiri listed "Magnolia" as one of his favorites. How old were you when you saw it?

Kawajiri: I was in the 6th grade of elementary school.

Q: It's fast!

Kawajiri: However, I didn't feel like I was standing up straight watching it. The first movie that I thought was ``an adult movie'' was `` Good Will Hunting '' (1997). My parents are divorced, and my father would come visit us about once a year and we would go to the movies. At that time, I went to see Alien 4 (1997), and I still had time, so I watched it. Looking back on it, it's a masterpiece, but at the time, I may have felt that it was something to be watched on a whim.

But that's what movies are all about. On the contrary, “ Mars Attacks! ” (1996), I felt like I had to watch them properly (lol). As for ``Magnolia'', the preview looked very interesting. When I was in elementary school, my all-time best was ``Magnolia.''

"Magnolia" preview

Q: So you've been watching a lot of movies since you were in elementary school.

Kawajiri: I grew up in a rural area in Kanoya City, Kagoshima Prefecture, and I wasn't very athletic, so the only entertainment I had was drawing or renting videos. Movies can be associated with life, and I would watch rental videos with my mother and talk about, ``This is what it's all about.'' Previously, when Sanma Akashiya appeared on Shinobu Otake's radio program ``Shinobu Otake's All Night Nippon GOLD,'' she said, ``I decided to divorce after watching the movie `` War of the Roses '' (1989). However, I also have some very similar memories. After I got divorced, I watched ``The War of the Roses'' with my mother, and she said to me, ``Moms divorced to prevent things like this from happening.'' (laughs)

Sato: (laughs).

Kawajiri: There is a direct connection between movies and life. I also feel that this equates to a good movie. Also, my older brother had dubbed movies with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jackie Chan, so I learned about the action genre from him.

Q: Director Kawajiri's ``A Japanese Painter'' takes the character's name from ` `Kids Return '' (1996), right? I think he has a deep knowledge of Japanese movies as well...

Kawajiri: No, no (lol). The theme of the work is ``It's a story about going back to The Game a child'' → ``It's 'Kids Return''' → ``Then let's make it Masaru and Shinji'' (lol). Of course, among Takeshi Kitano's works, I like ``Kids Return'' the most.

Encountering director Keiichi Hara's work, he embarked on the path of anime.