Shigeyuki Miya, director of "Onihei," talks about his "motive for creation" - creating animation for "people in the corner of the class" [Watching the animation industry Vol. 43

Onihei" (2017), an animated adaptation of Shotaro Ikenami's novel "Onihei Hankacho," is currently being rebroadcast every Friday late night starting this April on a channel specializing in period dramas.
The director and character designer, Shigeyuki Miya, comes from an animation production progression background. However, he is not a hard-core animation enthusiast, but rather a man who drifted into the animation industry. Director Miya, who is currently preparing for a new film, tells us about his drifting life in the industry.

At first, I was going to be a teacher - when I entered the animation industry.

─ You made your directorial debut at the age of 26 or 27.

Miya: At first, I was a production assistant at Studio Deen. Originally, my family was all teachers, and I went to college with the vague idea that I would become a Japanese language teacher myself. However, my personality was not suited for teaching, and after thinking about what I really wanted to do, I entered the world of animation.

─ So you were interested in animation?

Miya: I was not particularly interested in animation alone, but I studied scenarios as part of my Japanese literature class, and I have loved drawing pictures since I was a child. However, I didn't enter an art college or an animation school, so I was accepted at Studio Deen among a variety of other jobs.

─ So you started out as a production assistant and then switched to being an animator?

Miya: Well, it wasn't as spectacular a transition as it sounds. When I was a production worker, I had a number of accidents with my car. Fortunately, no lives were lost, but the producer asked me if I was quitting. I didn't want to cause any more trouble for the people around me. I thought seriously about what I could do back home. People often say, "If you don't have a job, you should drive a cab," but I couldn't even drive a car. When I was struggling, Kazuhiro Furuhashi, the director of "Mobile Suit Gundam UC," said to me, "Miya-kun, why don't you try drawing pictures? He said, "Miya-kun, why don't you draw a picture? At the time, Mr. Furuhashi was directing an OVA of "Rurouni Kenshin" ("Rurouni Kenshin - Meiji Swordsman Romantic Tan - Reminiscence"), and I was allowed to do a little original drawing for that film. Mr. Furuhashi said to me, "That's good, you can do that." Since then, I have been involved in the creative side of animation.

─ ─ You didn't start with animation, but rather with original drawings?

Miya: That's right. I couldn't even read a timesheet, so I had a hard time later on. It would have been a good story if I had established a master-student relationship with Mr. Furuhashi, but that never happened. However, Mr. Furuhashi was the one who left me in the industry after all, even though I had been stuck in the industry for so long that I was not able to get anywhere with chopsticks or sticks. I was very grateful.


─ After you became an animator, you started to write some storyboards, didn't you?

Miya: I wrote my first storyboard for "Kyogoku Natsuhiko: Korosetsu Hyakumonogatari" (2003), for which I was given the opportunity to design the original characters. After I wrote it, the producer complimented me on how good it was.

─ So you didn't learn how to write storyboards from someone else?

Miya: In my case, I never learned anything from anyone. Just as everyone has a different way of speaking, the grammar they use is also different. In the end, I think that what I had learned and the movies I had seen before that time are reflected in my films.