Animation Industry Watching No.35: Why Cupnoodles animated "The Witch's Delivery Service" for its commercials

Cup Noodle's "HUNGRY DAYS Aoharu kayo." The main characters are Kiki and Tombo from "The Witch's Delivery Service," who are now 17 years old and take place in Japan. The characters, created by manga artist Eisaku Kubonouchi, have a grown-up feel, and the meticulously drawn backgrounds are realistic. The cherry blossom trees, the swimming pool, the fireworks, and the sunlight peeking through the clouds...... and the sizzling, richly rendered pictures are sure to impress anyone who has seen the film.
But why was "The Witch's Delivery Service" chosen in the first place?　Why did they decide to make an animated commercial?　We spoke with Toshihide Okazaki, chief of the Advertising Department of Nissin Foods Holdings Co.

A "parallel world" that is different from the original story and from past video works

───This commercial is an animated video, but was it decided from the beginning that you would make an animated commercial?

Okazaki: No, it was not decided from the beginning. We had an orientation session and were told, "This is what we are thinking of for this year's Cup Noodle commercial," and it just so happened that the animation commercial project was chosen from among the proposals that came up.

─ I heard that it is based on "Kiki's Love," the fourth volume of the original "The Witch's Delivery Service" books?

Okazaki: That needs a little explanation. After many meetings with Yusuke Sato, a creator at Dentsu, we decided on a project to depict youth in a parallel world that no one knows about yet, based on the theme that "everyone has their own adolescence. We chose "The Witch's Delivery Service" as the subject matter for our first project. The fourth volume of the original book, which depicts Kiki's love as she grows up to be 17 years old, was certainly a major inspiration for the idea. The project was based on the "if" world of "what if that Kiki were a high school student living in modern Japan? So, I had meetings with the original author, Eiko Kadono, and we worked out the image of the 17-year-old Kiki and the plot. For example, in the original story, Kiki and Dragonfly are in a long-distance relationship, but in this film, they attend the same school, which is a unique situation not found in the original story, past animated or live-action films. So please think of it as a completely new "The Witch's Delivery Service", a kind of another story born from the original book.


─ ─ What was the reason for choosing Hidesaku Kubonouchi as the character designer?

Okazaki: The theme of this commercial was "youth," so I looked for someone with a style that would fit that theme. Kubonouchi-san got his big break with the manga "Tsurumoku Bachelors' Dormitory," and he still has many young female fans as an illustrator, so I thought he would be accepted by men and women of all ages. However, since she has a delicate pencil touch, I heard that the production staff had a hard time keeping Kubonouchi's character designs intact and avoiding a sticky texture when it came time to make the animation.


───So, putting aside the question of whether or not the characters would be easy to animate, did you decide on Kubonouchi-san as the original designer of the characters and then look for a production company?

Okazaki: We were looking for an animation production company at the same time, but this time we had a very tight production schedule. We concluded that Tatsunoko Productions was the best company that could maintain a high level of quality within that schedule.

───The images are of very high quality, but the director, Sho Yanagisawa-san, is not an animation specialist, is he?

Okazaki: Mr. Yanagisawa is a front-line commercial director who also worked as an oil painter and has a deep knowledge of animation. Yusuke Sato, the creative director and CM planner, solidified the planning part of the project, and Mr. Yanagisawa-san decided on the specific direction on site.