I hope people will enjoy watching how robots communicate with each other" - Interview with Yasuhiro Irie, director of the anime "Eden"!

The Netflix original anime series "Eden" will begin exclusive worldwide distribution on May 27, 2021 (Thursday). The series is already creating a buzz.

Eden" is a science fiction fantasy series set thousands of years in the future.

Two agricultural robots living in "Eden 3," a lush, robot-only world where humans have disappeared, meet a baby "human" girl, an ancient mythological being that is forbidden. From there, the two robots begin to question the robot doctrine, and secretly begin to raise the girl, named "Sarah," outside of Eden.

Eventually, Sarah uncovers the mystery of "Eden 3." ......

The production of this film was directed by Yasuhiro Irie, director of "Fullmetal Alchemist FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST" and other well-known works. We asked him about the genesis of the project and his intentions in creating the film.
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Signed goods! Not only voice but also facial expressions and mouth openings are recorded! An interview with Marika Takano, who plays Sarah in the anime "Eden," which has attracted attention for its realistic 3DCG expressions and heartwarming drama between robots and humans!

It was a genre and worldview that I had never done before.

Q: How did the project come about?

Irie: Mr. Hasegawa, who is a friend of mine and a co-producer of "Eden," said to me, "Justin, the producer, is looking for an animation director. Are you interested? That is how I got involved in this project.

At that point, I read Justin's description of the world of "Eden" and the general flow of the story, and I thought it was interesting. It was a genre and worldview that I had never done before, so I wanted to give it a try and decided to participate.

Justin, you already had a worldview in mind, and you built the story from there, didn't you?

Irie: That's right. In the first text, I had written the historical part of the story: 100 or 200 years from the present time, there will be an event like this and the world will become a robot-only world, and hundreds of years from that time, the story will be told at ....... He explained to us that we were going to animate this part of the story, and then Kimiko Ueno, who wrote the script, joined us and Justin and I discussed and developed the story together.

From there, we focused more on the human character Sarah and created a story centered on the communication between Sarah and the robots.

Q: "Eden" is a science fiction film, but I got the impression that the story is not as much about science fiction as I had imagined, but more about family love.

Irie: I myself have read and seen light SF works, but I have no background in the works of legendary authors such as hard SF...... Robert A. Heinlein. I thought I would be better at depicting the flow of emotions and communication between characters, rather than trying to fully exploit the appeal of hard science fiction.

So, although there is a science fiction setting in the background, I made the decision to focus on the characters as the direction of the work. Justin felt that this was a very good thing to do, and so the work has come about smoothly.

Q: Nowadays, there are many works that depict the future far into the future.

Irie: What I personally found fascinating was the strong description of the ethics or rules of the robot side in the first text.

I thought it was very interesting that you took that approach to the work, because it was something that I had never thought of before. For example, if it is a rule on the human side, I think it is a common understanding that "this is important," which goes without saying. However, there are not many works that dare to create rules for the robot side. It is interesting that each robot has its own role to play and that each role has its own set of ethics and rules.

I thought it was very interesting that even though they are robots, there are individuals who do not conform to the rules of society.

Irie: I think that the more highly developed a program becomes, the more likely it is that some of its behavior will deviate from the rules, even though it is not a bug. I think that's what I feel.

I can sense the existence of such highly developed programs, but I had the impression that you didn't dare to explain them in detail. I think they left some room for imagination. I think it was very good that they left room for imagination. Did you do that on purpose?

Irie: The total length of the film was set at four 25-minute episodes. We had also decided with the 3DCG company to limit the number of cuts to 300 or less per episode, so we chose which parts to focus on and decided that it would be more beneficial to the work if the audience was interested in the parts we wanted to draw, without having to explain too much about the other parts. We decided that it would be more beneficial for the work if the viewer would be interested in the way we wanted to portray it without having to explain many other aspects. As a result, I think that the work also created a lot of imagination for the viewers.

How was the world of Eden created? It was fun to imagine from various scenes how the world of Eden was created and what position the doctor held in the Eden Project.

Irie: I don't think that everyone's imagination will be wrong, and I don't think that there will be any misunderstandings, but it is fun when something comes up that we didn't expect.

Q: I wondered if there were many places where you imagined what it was like for Sarah to grow up all at once.

Irie: That's right. Sarah went from being a small child to her early teens all at once, and from there to the age of 18. In the scenario meeting stage, we had many ideas about how we could do more things in her early teens.

However, if we had done that, we would not have been able to reach the resolution of the story, and so we used a short, pointillistic approach to shorten the story up to the point where Sarah grows up.

Irie: As I mentioned earlier, the AI must be so highly developed, but why does it have such a function?

Irie: I 'm sure there were things that happened in places that were not depicted. I don't describe them, but I'm sure there were animals and so on, and they may have been chasing after them, so I think you can have fun imagining that (laughs).

A production team of various talents

Q: Was there any difference in the way you designed the 3DCG animation compared to the 2D work?

Irie: If there were any design restrictions for the 3DCG work, there was only one: we wanted to avoid long hair, hems, skirts, and other long items that would affect the body. That is where Toshihiro Kawamoto (Character Design. I told this to Mr. Toshihiro Kawamoto (character designer, whose representative works include "Cowboy Bebop" and "Bloodline"), but other than that, there were no design restrictions.

Q: Why did you ask Mr. Kawamoto to do it this time?

Irie: Justin and Mr. Kawamoto have known each other for a long time, and Justin had wanted to work with him someday, so he was the one who made the offer. I myself was an acquaintance of Mr. Kawamoto's, having worked with him before, so I had nothing to worry about. I was just happy that he was going to do it!

The design of the robot is also unique, isn't it?

Irie: The robots with Sara were designed by Christophe Ferrera, a French illustrator and cartoonist. He wanted to approach the robots as industrial products, not as something with a face like in Japanese robot animation, and I wanted to work in that direction as well, so I told him to keep on drawing and we proceeded.

Irie: The robot design is cute, isn't it?

Irie: The silhouettes themselves are drawn differently for each character, some are square and some are round, and Christophe added the colors at the image board stage. The colors were also added by Christophe at the image board stage. I think the design has a very friendly and approachable feel.

Q: I heard that there were two voice recordings this time, what was the process like?

Irie: In the case of hand-drawn animation, we create the pictures, the animators and directors create the timing, and then the voices are added to the timing.

In full 3DCG animation, however, we first need a voice to guide the animation, and then the animation is created to match the voice. Once we were close to completion, we did another postrecording. From there, we made further fine adjustments to the animation.

Q: Did you use any of the voice recordings from the first prerecording?

Irie: We may have used some parts, but I think that the audio was re-recorded after the video was almost completed to a certain extent.

Q: Marika Takano, who plays Sarah, mentioned that you also shot footage of her face.

Irie: When the characters speak their lines, the voice actors make various facial expressions as they speak, such as the way their eyes widen or their eyebrows frown, so we used those facial expressions as reference for the animators.

The acting of Sarah's parents is very exquisite; they seem to be her real parents and also robots. How did you direct this line?

Irie: Kentaro Ito as E92 and Kyoko Hinoue as A37, two very talented actors, made the characters very enjoyable.

From our point of view, the language function started up when it first encountered Sara, and from there, as it communicated with her, the robot accumulated information and learned more and more about communication. The language function and communication function are progressively developed, so the more we talk with her, the more human she becomes, and that's what we ordered.

Q: In the beginning, when the robot is trying to protect the baby Sara from the guard robot, I thought she might really be a human being, and although it might be a program, it was very cute.

Irie: I was making the robot as a result of its rational decision to act to protect humans, and I was hoping it would look comical from our point of view (laughs).

I felt like there was a part of me that wanted to think that the actions were the result of a program, but that it had feelings (laughs). I think Koichi Yamadera, who played Zero, also had a difficult role.

Irie: He really played a variety of situations. It was important to know how he was feeling when he was saying the words, and how he balanced the words. I felt from the moment I heard the dubbing that even though he was an inorganic robot, he had a personality at the core of his character.

Q: And the music for the play was also very impressive. Even in scenes where the characters are being chased or in a hurry, the music has a certain elegance to it.

Irie: Kevin Penkin created the music in the form of film scoring while looking at the rough footage. I feel that Kevin's unique sense is that he chooses music not for the intense parts of the film, but for the elegant parts. I think this helped to define the smell, flavor, and elegance of the work. I think his choices were very good.

Q: I felt that the way you added the music was something you don't see in Japanese anime, and I also liked the song played at the end of the film.

Irie: Thank you very much. That is a song that Kevin also liked, so I think he will be very pleased. Kevin said there was an approach he wanted to take, and I think he got it (laughs).

Q: Finally, what do you hope people will take away from watching the anime?

Irie: "Eden" contains various elements, and as a result, you may have the impression that it is linked to what is happening in the real world, but I am confident that you will enjoy this work to the fullest as a simple 25-minute x 4 serial entertainment work. I would be most happy if you could enjoy watching it while wondering what kind of girl Sarah is and how robots communicate with each other.

(Interview and text by Junichi Tsukagoshi)