Interview with Director Ei Aoki of "Re:CREATORS

Re:CREATORS" is a story about various dramatic characters from other worlds who save the real world. When we interviewed director Ei Aoki, who delivered the final episode of the series, he candidly shared his thoughts as a creator, including his attitude as a creator and his determination in depicting the relationship between creator and receiver, which is unique to the theme of this work. If you watch the film again after reading this article, you will be able to feel the thoughts and feelings that he put into each of the characters.

Depicting as a Simulation, Not Metafiction

─ ─ When you first received the "Re:CREATORS" project and read Hiroe-sensei's original proposal, you were very interested in it.

Aoki: The structure of the entire work is a metaphor for manufacturing. I found that very interesting and thought I would like to make something like that. The first work I read was almost the same as "Re:CREATORS NAKED" ( # ), which is currently available on the Web. At the time, Hiroe-san was still going through the process of trial and error, and I suggested some parts that needed to be rearranged or added or deleted in order to make a series structure for the anime, and we discussed the scenario based on these suggestions.

─ Did director Aoki make any suggestions for further deepening the characterizations?

Aoki: I had the impression that the characters were almost completed when I received Hiroe's draft, so I did not have many suggestions to make. I made a few changes to the order of the episodes and made some additions. ...... I also asked Light Works, a literary company, to create a solid backstory based on the original draft. For example, in the case of "Infinite Divine Machine Monomagia," we had to expand on the original story within the play to come up with the titles of the episodes, as well as the staff composition.


─ So there was a real Nakano Kane. What were you particularly conscious of when directing this work, which contains such metafictional elements?

Aoki: It certainly has a metafictional structure, but I didn't really think of it as a metafictional story. It is more like a simulation. If the characters actually came to this world, how would they feel about it and what kind of actions would they take? I felt that this was the theme, especially in the first half of the episode. The 13th episode of the compilation is a metafictional story, but the rest of the story is purely a story about the characters, which I hope the audience will enjoy.

───Is it correct to say that director Aoki's style is to weave a story by depicting how the characters think and act in their world, and not just in this work?

AOKIOKI: Yes, that's right. Recently, I am often asked to work on action films, but I believe that the basis of a story is the characters. I want to portray the characters through action in such works. Re:CREATORS" has a metaphysical structure, but my interest was in the character story. There have been works in which characters come from the story world, but in most of them, the protagonist is a person from the real world, and the character who appears in the story is merely an object. In this work, however, the perspective is reversed: the protagonist is the object from their point of view, and it is the characters who take the initiative in their actions. I thought it would be interesting to rediscover the world we are living in now from the perspective of the characters, focusing on their surprise when they arrived in this world.


─ In the story of "Re:CREATORS," the character of Setsuna and the circumstances surrounding her incorporate what is happening in real life, namely, the secondary creation of characters through the Internet. How do you see the expansion of this environment?

AOKI: As was the case in the days when the only media for becoming a professional artist was paper-based coterie magazine, submission and secondary creation were not necessarily the gateway to becoming a professional artist. These days, there are various media such as "pixiv," "Nico Nico Douga," and "YouTube," but it is not as if becoming famous there and getting a contract with a professional organization is the goal for them. I think it is genuinely interesting that because they have become famous as YouTubers, they do not want to use that as an opportunity to turn into TV personalities. That broadens their range of expression, and I watch them while thinking about the many different values they have.

─ Did you actually see these aspects when you were depicting them in this film?

I don't know that much about it, but I do watch pixiv, and I also watch some YouTubers on a regular basis, so I really understand how they feel. I used to draw fanzines myself, so I have firsthand experience with the joys of derivative works.

───So you understand Sota's feelings of frustration and Setsuna's sudden rise to stardom.

Aoki Yes, that's right. What I admire about Mr. Hiroe is that he not only describes the positive aspects of monozukuri, but also the negative elements of jealousy, and brings them into the drama. And I have felt the joy of summarizing this in a story ever since I first read the book.