Interview with "Dance with Devils" Director Ai Yoshimura on the making of the musical anime

Ritsuka Ritsuka is a second-year high school student at the Four Emperors Academy. One day, Ritsuka receives a call from the student council president. In fact, the student council members, including the student body president, REM Hukanuki, are actually Akuma. They approach Ritsuka with the purpose of acquiring the "Forbidden Grimoire," a grimoire that will allow the one who obtains it to rule the world. Soon, Akuma, the vampires, and the exorcists begin to have their own agendas, and Ritsuka is swept up into the vortex. Dance with Devils," currently airing, is an original musical anime created by three companies: Rejet, which handles game content for women; Elements Garden, a music production brand; and Avex Pictures, a video production company. It is produced by Brains Base of "Natsume Yuujinchou" and directed by Ai Yoshimura of "Ao Haride" fame. There have been many animated films with music as the theme, but it is rare to see a work that is squarely about musicals. We asked director Yoshimura about what he considers when creating a musical anime.

Director Yoshimura's proposal for a "musical

─ How did you come to participate in "Dance with Devils"?

Yoshimura: Originally, Rejet, Avex (Pictures), and Brain's Base were working on the project, and I was asked to be a part of it. When I joined the project, we already had the characters and story line created by Rejet, and we started by discussing how to incorporate them into the animation. I suggested that if we wanted to attract female fans, it would be better to give the animation a more shoujo manga-like flavor. We also planned to ask Tomoko Kanaharu to compose the series, so we thought it would be a good idea to have her bring her own unique flavor to the project.

─ ─ At what stage did you decide on the musical animation?

Yoshimura: When we started production of the animation, we were told that we wanted to make it not only an animation linked to a game, but also a comprehensive entertainment project that could be developed in a variety of ways. One of the elements we wanted to include was music. I, on the other hand, love musicals, and I had been thinking about the possibility of incorporating musicals into an animated TV series. I thought this would be a good opportunity and said, "Let's make it a musical!　If it's not a musical, we won't do it! (laughs) I presented the idea with such vigor (laughs).

─ ─ (laughs). So it was Director Yoshimura's idea. In the first act, the ensemble's "Yami no Bride" (Bride of Darkness) and Ritsuka Ritsuka Tachika's (CV: Himika Akaneya) first song "Kaze no Yuko (Hunch of Wind)" played as avant-titles and seemed to convey the "musical-like" quality that this work was aiming for.

Yoshimura: If we were going to do a musical, we wanted to do an ensemble. In a musical, the songs sung by each cast member are fascinating, but it is the ensemble that supports the work. So I knew I couldn't miss it. The song "Hunch of the Wind" has been well received by many people, which makes me very happy (laughs). (Laughs.) I think Ms. Kinshun's lyrics are also very good, as she sings about everyday life while also expressing a maiden's feelings.

The lyrics were written by the scriptwriter because it is a song within a story.

─ ─ The lyrics were written by the scriptwriters, including Mr. Kinshun.

Yoshimura: That's right. When I think about what is interesting about musicals, I think it is the fact that they are sung within the story. Each character has a character song, and each single has elaborate lyrics by Daisuke Iwasaki (Iwasaki). I thought it would be better to ask the scriptwriters to write the lyrics since they would be part of the story at that time.

───Do you decide at the script stage where to sing the lyrics?

Yoshimura: In the first half of the series, I would first decide in the script, "This is where I will sing this song. Then we order the songs. The personalities of the members of the student council were already fleshed out in the anime, so I would suggest the direction of the song, such as "flamenco for this character" or "flamenco for this character. Then, when the song is finished, we add lyrics that fit the story.

─ ─ "Temptation ♡amor" sung by Urie Chugami (CV: Takashi Kondo) in Act III and "VANQUISH" by Meji Nannajo (CV: Subaru Kimura) in Act V had a strong impact.

Yoshimura: The lyrics were written in parallel with the character song ver. written by Mr. Iwasaki. I thought it would be better to make a clear difference between the character song and the insert song, so I was conscious of lyrics that were not too cool, and that would be memorable even if they were a little uncomfortable to listen to. I think that is another interesting aspect of musical songs. Come to think of it, the first lyrics written by Ms. Nakase (Rika) were pretty cool and normal, but Mr. Kinshun said, "Let's fall down together with me," and asked her to make them more like lines (laughs).


───On the other hand, in Act IV, Rikka Lindo (CV: Wataru Hatano) sings "Your Only Guardian Knight (Exorcist)," a straightforward song about his love for his bloodless sister.

Yoshimura: There are several rules that were naturally decided upon when creating insert songs, and one of them is "to be honest and emotional in the song. One of them is "to show emotions honestly in the songs." What makes "Dance with Devils" different from other anime adaptations of otome games is that the anime precedes the game. With the game, there is an order to show all the characters, but this is not the case this time. Therefore, we decided to focus on the love triangle between Ritsuka, Rem, and Lind as the drama, while giving an impression of each character's individuality. So I asked Lindo to sing in the fourth act, but I never expected her to sing that much (laughs).