Interview with Director Kenji Setou of "Ramen Loves Koizumi-san" "Proud to have gained weight for Koizumi-san"

A beautiful girl eats, and eats, and eats ramen from popular restaurants; the winter 2018 TV anime "Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-san" delighted viewers' eyes and stomachs as a late-night "food terror" anime, with a variety of ramen dishes making an appearance in every episode. To commemorate the release of the Blu-ray Disc of this work, we spoke with director Kenji Setou. He talked about "Koizumi-san," including his thorough coverage of almost all the restaurants that appear in the film, his methodology for making ramen taste great in anime, and his belief that "ramen is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Is "Koizumi-san" a love triangle anime?

───First of all, please tell us how you got involved in the "Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-san" anime adaptation.

Director Kenji Setou (hereafter, Setou): I was approached by the president of Studio Gumi, Tomonori Shibata, and that's how it all started. I had originally read the original story, and I also love ramen, so I was attracted by the fact that my favorite restaurant would be featured. But at first I wondered, "Can we really make it into an anime?" I thought. There have been an increasing number of gourmet food anime recently, but there has never been one in which ramen is the only thing that appears in so many episodes (laughs). (Laughs.) I never thought that I would end up serving more than three bowls of ramen per episode when I first took on the job of director.

─ ─ What did you think about when you were trying to express the charm of "Koizumi-san" in the anime?

Setou: The original manga is shorter than most manga in terms of page length. When I asked the editor at Takeshobo why, he told me that they aimed for a volume that could be read in the three minutes it takes to pour hot water into a bowl of instant ramen. So we thought that if we were going to faithfully visualize the story, a short animation would be better. The result was a 30-minute animation, but there was no problem as long as it was in the "Sazae-san" format, with several episodes interspersed according to the length. From there, we selected episodes from the original work.

─ What criteria did you use to select the episodes?

Setou: For the anime, I tried to create a sense of the seasons of spring, summer, fall, and winter by switching the order of the episodes. Manga Life STORIA, the serialization magazine of the original work, is a bimonthly magazine, so if the episodes were arranged in the same order as the number of episodes, the seasons would be scattered. I discussed this with Mr. Takahashi (Tatsuya), who is in charge of series composition, so that the viewer can enjoy the feeling of the four seasons flowing by. Also, I placed importance on the sense of distance between Mr. Koizumi and Yuu as they meet and gradually become friends. In fact, "Koizumi-san" is also a work about the love triangle between Koizumi-san, Yuu, and Ramen.

─ Is it a love triangle with Ramen?

Seto: Yes. Yuu loves Koizumi-san so much that he always tries to eat ramen with him. So to speak, Ramen is his love enemy. But in the last episode, "Reunion," Mr. Koizumi catches a cold and can't eat ramen for two weeks. That's when Yuu realizes that he shouldn't mess up the reunion between Koizumi-san and ramen, so he backs off for the first time. I thought it would be most appropriate to end the series with Yuu giving Koizumi-san to Ramen. Well, in the end, he is following her, so I am not sure if the love triangle has been settled (laughs). (Laughs.) The series structure was adapted accordingly, and episodes were changed from the original story to give the feeling of getting to know each other through ramen.


─ ─ The ramen that Koizumi-san eats in the final episode is at Harukiya in Ogikubo. It also appears casually in the first episode, but why is that?

Seto: I wanted to tie the story together by having the same ramen at the beginning and the end. And Harukiya is a restaurant that serves traditional soy sauce ramen. It is one of the oldest restaurants in "Koizumi-san" and has its roots in ramen. I decided on Harukiya because I thought it would be an appropriate place to end the work with a bowl of ramen.

─ What were you conscious of when directing the dining scene?

Setou: The live-action drama version that started in 2015 had a big influence on me. Because it was live-action, we naturally served real ramen as it is. In terms of the taste of ramen, it's hard to beat the real thing. There was even a proposal to use live-action only for the ramen in the anime (laughs). In the anime, we focused not only on the appeal of the ramen, but also on the characters such as Koizumi-san and Yuu, showing them eating the ramen in a delicious way.
I was particularly particular about the way they slurp their ramen. In live-action, it is difficult to eat ramen in one gulp like in the manga, but in anime, even if you eat vigorously, the juice doesn't fly out and you don't have to worry about getting your costume dirty (laughs). (Laughs.) There were advantages unique to cartoons. The chewing sound was also recorded with a lot of ingenuity, because the food looks more delicious when it is comfortably slurped. I think the voice actors had a hard time with this because it was a performance not seen in normal animation.


─ What kind of instructions did you give to the cast?

Setou: I didn't give them much direction, and I got the impression that they were all able to get into their roles very easily. The casting of "Koizumi-san" is very close to the voice actors' true selves, and it is somewhat similar to the character they are playing. Ms. Ayana Taketatsu, who plays the role of Koizumi-san, is famous for being a glutton, or rather, a meat lover. She has also released a CD titled "Hey! Calorie Queen" (laughs). (Laughs) I had an image that Ms. Sakura (Ayane Sakura), who plays the role of Yuu, also has a strong love for the things she loves.

─ ─ In our last interview with Ms. Sakura, I heard that the director asked her to "do it as if you were talking about your favorite actress, Kana Hanazawa.

Setou: Yes (laughs). When Ms. Sakura was a guest on Ms. Hanazawa's radio show, I heard her speak enthusiastically about her feelings toward Ms. Hanazawa. I could tell that Mr. Sakura was very excited and I thought to myself, "That's just like Yuu! I thought, "That's just like Yuu! So I boldly told him, "Please do it like that. But I also felt bad because I had stepped into your personal side. Since then, I feel that the way she looks at me has become a little cold. ...... If we decide on a second season, I will be the first to apologize at the first recording session (laughs).