The Challenge of a New Genre of "Family Animation"-- Interview with Director Seiki Takuno of "Udon no Kuni no Kinmari

Set in Kagawa Prefecture, the heartwarming anime "Udon no Kuni no Kinmari" is about the main character, Sota Tawara, and a raccoon dog boy named Poco. Director Seiki Takuno is responsible for this work, which has a warm atmosphere with its watercolor style artwork. The film, which was created after careful location scouting, has a mature finish with an emphasis on human drama. This was the director's long-cherished style of direction. We interviewed him about the production process in his new genre.

Repeated location scouting in stages resulted in a depiction that even the residents of Udon Prefecture would approve of.

─ Recently, many animations with a local flavor have been produced, and "Udon no Kuni no Kinugi Kemari" is set in Kagawa Prefecture. Where are you from, director?

Takuno: I am from Kyushu. I'm not necessarily a Kagawa person, but I can relate to the main character, Sota, who came to Tokyo from the countryside to work. He had been working as a web designer for 10 years and was just starting to make his way in the world when his father died, so he changed his way of life and came back to his hometown. In my case, I wanted to get out of my hometown, so I went to a university far away from my hometown, and after graduating from university, I joined an animation production company, then went to a vocational school for live-action filming, and after that, I worked at other jobs. I felt very sympathetic to Sota.


─ ─ How did you imagine how to visualize the work when you made the animation?

Takuno: First of all, I thought about how to translate the atmosphere of the work into images. One thing I wanted to do was to pursue the softness of the original work by Nodoka Shinomaru and the watercolor style of the color manuscript in the anime as well. Another was to pay attention to the Kagawa language and local sounds since the story is set in Kagawa.

─ I feel that you are very particular about the depiction of Kagawa Prefecture, the setting of this work.

Takuno: I visited Kagawa Prefecture a total of four times while working on this project. The first time, I went there before the series structure was completed and saw the local atmosphere, which was reflected in the series structure that I worked out with Ms. Natsuko Takahashi. I also rode the Kotoden (Takamatsu Kotohira Electric Railway) and visited the Kazura Bridge, where the story takes place. The third storyboard was created after the scenarios for episodes 11 and 12 were completed. We had already finalized the structure of all the episodes before working on the scenarios, but as the meetings went on, the final landing point gradually changed. In the end, episodes 11 and 12 were set in Kagawa and were about a certain big event, and we went on location to take pictures for that material.

─ ─ And the fourth time?

Takuno: It was an advance screening the other day. I talked with the audience, and although it is difficult to feel this way when you live in Tokyo, for the locals, it is quite a joy to have the place they usually live in turned into an anime. There were even people who live near the places featured in the anime. I even received an endorsement for my dialect (laughs).

─ ─ One of the features of the anime is that the characters speak in Kagawa, even in the anime. How did you go about directing this?

Takuno: Masateru Manabe supervised the dialect. He sometimes appears as a voice actor in the main story as well. Everyone enjoys acting in dialect, but when the sixth episode takes place in Tokyo, they were purely focused on acting, so I thought it must be tough to balance dialect and acting.


─ ─ What was the biggest change in your impression of Kagawa Prefecture before and after you went there?

Takuno: It may not be a big deal, but the shape of the mountains is unique. If you paint them in your imagination, you might think they are just ordinary mountains, but the mountains over there are pointy. This was my first visit to Shikoku, and I was very surprised. I was also impressed by the Japanese-style houses with black roof tiles, which are different from those in Tokyo.

───The accumulation of such details creates a reality that even the local people can understand, doesn't it?

Takuno: I would be happy if people saw it that way. Another thing I was particular about was the depiction of udon. People in Kagawa Prefecture are very strict about udon, so I knew I couldn't cut corners on this one (laughs). Compared to Tokyo, Kagawa's udon is longer. I didn't know this before going to the location scouting, and the udon Sota is eating at the beginning of the first episode was too short, so I had to retake the scene and have the noodles lengthened. Perhaps as a result of that, at the advance screening we held in Kagawa, the local people looked at the work very favorably (laughs).