The world of dreams, freely depicted - TV animation "18if", interview with Koji Morimoto

The theme song collection CD for the TV anime "18if" will be released soon.
In conjunction with this release, we are pleased to present an interview with Koji Morimoto, who was in charge of supervising this work as well as directing, writing the script, storyboarding, directing, and drawing the 10th episode, "Alpha Dream Dimension.

18if" is the story of the main character, Haruto Tsukishiro, and the women who have fallen victim to "Sleeping Beauty Disease.
The "Sleeping Beauty Disease" is a disease that causes women to reject reality and to sleep in a deep sleep, and in their dreams they become witches and rule the world freely. Haruto, who has the ability to slip into other people's dreams, dives into the witch's dream world and removes their problems and suffering together with Katsumi Kanzaki (called Dr. Cat in the dream world), who studies the "dream world" that exists between the real world and dreams, and a mysterious girl, Lily.

The most distinctive feature of "18if" is that each episode is directed by a different director, and the worldview differs greatly depending on the number of episodes. For the creators, it is a work that offers a high degree of freedom while preserving the basic setting. The ending theme also changes with each episode, and the theme song collection includes a total of 15 OP&ED songs, including bonus tracks.

Mr. Morimoto says he joined the project because he was attracted by the "freedom to create whatever I wanted. As a creator who is well versed in music and has collaborated with numerous artists, he created a mysterious world in episode 10, "Alpha Dream Dimension," with imaginative images and music. We also asked him about his involvement in "18if" as general supervisor.

Since it is a story inside a dream, I was careful not to keep it small.

──First of all, please tell us how you came to be involved in the "18if" TV anime.

Morimoto: It all started when Mr. Ishikawa (Shinichiro) of GONZO told me that he had a project that I could work on freely, and that it would be a complete episode, with a different director for each episode, so I thought it would be okay to do at least one.

─ ─ Why did you participate not only as a director of each episode, but also as a general supervisor?

Morimoto: I was asked to do this as well. My friend Tetsuya Mizuguchi was working on the original game "[18] Kimito Tsunagaru Puzzle", and I thought it would be interesting to see what he was working on. I thought it would be interesting if he were to work on it. Then, as a general supervisor, I was asked to watch all the scenarios.

─ Was your job as general supervisor mainly to check the scenario of all the episodes?

Morimoto: Yes, that's right. But basically, I wanted the director and scriptwriter of each episode to do what they wanted to do.

─ Specifically, what parts of each episode did you check?

Morimoto: Everyone took it seriously at first, so I thought it would be okay to skip a few more stories. I told them that since it was a dream, anything was possible, and that they could change the style as they went along. If there were any problems, I would ask them to fix them. In any case, I was careful not to make it too small.

─ So you were in an environment where you were allowed to do that.

Morimoto: The original side requested that we only follow the world of the game at the beginning and end of the series, and that we could do whatever we wanted with the episodes in between. Witches from the original story were also included in the series, but I asked each director to create the characters they wanted to portray as witches.


─ Were you involved in the production of the opening theme and the ending theme for each episode?

Morimoto: No, except for the ending theme for the episode I was in charge of. However, TeddyLoid offered to use Miichi Yoneira for the opening theme. I felt that it would be a waste if that was the only song, but TeddyLoid seemed to think so, too, so I just suggested that he sing something else, and he did.

─ So director Morimoto's suggestion also led to Yoneira's appearance in the ending theme song?