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

Follman and Linklater... Directors I admire

Q: Your style changes completely from "Stella Girls' Academy High School Division C3" to "A Japanese Boy Artist." What was the trigger for this?

Kawashiri: When I was a university student, I read a research book on children's drawings, and I had wanted to do it ever since. The reason I decided to do an independent production was that it would be difficult to work as a staff member in the anime industry, or to become a director with my own project, and even if I did get work, it would probably be based on a popular manga at the time, so when I imagined doing something original that I wanted to do, I thought it would be too monumental, and I thought that independent production was the only option.

I think it's the same for everyone in the anime industry, but there are a lot of people who want to make their own anime, but if they're working, they get too busy and give up. But in my case, the studio was on the verge of collapse and staff reductions were being made, so I decided, "I can't stay here anyway, I have no choice but to make it."

Q: So that innovative expression was born out of that. I heard that after making the film, you watched " Boyhood " (2014) and " The Congress " (2013) and were shocked by them.

Kawashiri: I even thought, "If there are such amazing works, why make this one?" (bitter laugh). I was influenced by " Waltz with Bashir " (2008) and the fusion of live action and animation by director Ari Folman in "The Congress."

"The Congress" Trailer

Q: Director Linklater has also made animations such as " Waking Life " (2001) and " A Scanner Darkly " (2006).

Kawashiri: It's rotoscoping (a technique for creating animation based on live-action footage). I don't remember it well, but there was a line in "Waking Life" that said, "A film should be shot based on the people in it, rather than the script." This directly relates to the way he shot the " Before " series and "Boyhood," so I felt it represented Linklater's own ambition as a writer.

This is also connected to what director Bong Joon-ho said in his speech at the 92nd Academy Awards ceremony: "The most personal is the most creative." -- a quote from the great Martin Scorsese. I myself feel that movies should be directly connected to life.

Q: From there, your style that combines live action, manga, and animation developed.

Kawashiri: When I tried to make it into something like a personal history, I started to think that the 30 years I've lived are the history of manga in the Heisei era. I wanted to make it so that people could roughly understand the trends in boys' manga that occurred during the Heisei era by watching these 20 minutes. I guess it's also because of Linklater's admiration for subculture films. (laughs)