Director Shingo Natsume of "Sonny Boy" talks about his commitment to the artwork and music.

Among the anime that will begin airing in the summer of 2021, "Sonny Boy" is a work that I have personally been particularly interested in.

This is an original anime work by director Shingo Natsume, whose previous works include "Space Dandy," "One Pan Man," "ACCA 13th District Inspector Section," and "Boogiepop Won't Laugh," and whose reputation as a director continues to steadily increase.

As he said during the interview, "The morale of the production team is high, and everyone is actively working on the work, which is very gratifying." It is a challenging anime with many tricky elements that may seem cool at first glance, but in fact it is a "hot" anime that contains a tremendous amount of passion.

Akiba Research Institute interviewed the director, Mr. Natsume. We found out the secrets of this work, which has various hooks.

The theme song is "Shonen Shoujo" by Ginko BOYZ. I was struck by the freshness of the song the moment the introduction started playing at the end of the first episode. The director has always been a fan of Ginko BOYZ, as mentioned in an interview on their official website, and many other artists' songs were also used in the film. This is due to Mr. Shinichiro Watanabe (*Director of "Cowboy Bebop" and "Apollon of the Slope," etc.; also known as "Space Dandy"), who is credited as a music advisor. Did Mr. Watanabe introduce you to the director of "Space☆Dandy" and Mr. Natsume was the director and Mr. Watanabe was the general supervisor)?

Natsume Yes, I did. He asked me, "What kind of music do you like?" I mentioned the names of Ginko Boyz, Mitsume, and toe, and he started to tell me, "You like this kind of music, don't you? I was given many names other than those who had actually participated in the project, but they were all exactly right for what I was listening to! I thought, "That's what a music advisor is for!

I felt like a sommelier (laughs).

Natsume: Mr. Watanabe said he listens to everything except Enka, so he is familiar with music of all genres and ages.

I think it is both amazing and difficult for you to keep exploring music, since you tend to listen to the artists who made an impact on you when you were a student, or the artists you like.

Natsume: It is true that there are times when you stop in the middle of a piece.

Kaze Fujii's music somehow has a whiff of 90s pop music, which makes me wonder if the times are changing.

Natsume That may be true. I am also attracted to people who are new, but still in the same vein as the past. I have always liked "Yum Yum Yum Teikoku," but recently I have been really impressed with a band called "Odottorezutsu Kunitachi" that I wish I had known about a little earlier (laughs). (Laughs.) It's also good that you recommend genres that are close to subschools and such. Sometimes I find something that fits perfectly.

It's great, but there is also a part of me that wants to be contrary to that (laughs).

Natsume That's true (laughs). I feel like I'm being manipulated.

I think that anime can also be a window to new music. In my case, I recently learned about "Official Bearded Dism" through the anime "Hinomaru Sumo," and I became interested in jazz through "Cowboy Bebop" and "Apollo on the Hill.

Natsume The same may be true of "never young beach" who sings the theme song for the movie "Words Like Cider" which is now in theaters. I think they use new music on a regular basis. I guess we have an affinity or a good match.

Q: In that sense, I thought "Sonny Boy" would be another animated work that opens the door to unfamiliar music. I would like to talk more about the music in the second half, but first, please tell us how you came up with the idea of making an original anime.

Natsume: I first worked with the producer of this work on "Space☆Dandy," and he treated me very well at that time.

When a producer comes to me with a proposal, he usually has a blueprint of what he wants to create, but for this project, the producer said, "Just do whatever you like, Natsume-san," and the project was almost a blank slate. That kind of thing doesn't happen very often, and since I was given an opportunity that may or may not happen once in my life, I thought I would like to do what I liked and what I liked straight away.

Q: So you were more interested in making what you wanted to make, rather than what the audience wanted?

Natsume: My character has always been someone who wants to be praised by all kinds of people, so what I wanted to express was in that area, and I honestly felt that I was making the work while always paying attention to what people would think.

I was always concerned about what people would think of me, and I would listen to their opinions, and then I would dare not listen to them, or I would incorporate what I thought was interesting, and I would create to the extent that I did not compromise my originality. I tried to find the right balance between the two.

I didn't want to leave the viewers behind, and that's how it is now. ...... (laughs).

You were aware that it was very edgy (laughs).

Natsume: But I think I am trying to keep a good balance!　I make my films with the thought that they will please and that they will understand me.

Q: I watched the first episode (the interview took place after the first episode aired), and while I thought the work was edgy, I got the impression from the reactions of viewers on social networking sites that many were curious to see what would happen next. It's true that I don't really know the whole story, but I thought it made me really want to see the rest of the story.

Natsume: I think that viewers these days are actually highly visual literate. I also think that it is right for me to be interested in something even though I don't really understand it, and I wanted to create a work that could not be described in a single word.

I wanted to make a work that could not be described in a few words.

Q: Was the high level of visual literacy something you sensed from the reactions to the works you have made so far?

Natsume: Yes, that is true. For "Space Dandy," I made it as easy to understand as possible, aiming for foreign audiences, and for "One-Punch Man," I aimed for a good tempo and a pleasant sensation of nuke. In "ACCA 13th District Inspector Section" and "Boogiepop Won't Laugh", I regret that I over-explained things a bit. ......

Space Dandy" was difficult in some ways, but it was a film that was more interesting from a visual point of view! I was watching it with great vigor, in the spirit of "Don't think, just feel!

Natsume: Nowadays, people watch anime in fast-forward (1.2x or 1.5x speed), and I think that's great. Conversely, I think it's fine to fast-forward through a movie so that you can get a vague idea of what's going on. Of course, I made "Sonny Boy" so that it would make sense, and I have a strong sense that viewers these days understand that as well.

When I do an ego-search of the works I have been involved with, I find that there are many more people than I had expected who have a good grasp of the work, and they understand the work better than the staff. I have high expectations for this kind of thing.

Q: The ease of gathering information is one of the advantages of SNS, but if you follow the hashtags, you can get the impressions and interpretations of various people for each scene, so in terms of understanding, you can get a lot out of it.

Natsume: There are times when it goes into a flow that I did not intend, but I think that is just the way it is. I think that once it is out in the world, we have no choice but to let it go with the flow. But everyone is very precise. I sometimes get a thrill knowing that they understand what I'm doing.

I know there are people who feel nostalgic about Hisashi Eguchi's original designs for the characters, but how do you think they would resonate with today's anime fans?

Natsume: Everyone has a different impression of Mr. Eguchi's drawings. Those who think they are nostalgic are because they have met him once, but I think that if younger people see his work, they will find it surprisingly new. They are in a completely different vein from recent illustrations.

I did not add much gradation, and I did not use any optical or digital processing to make them work as illustrations. I asked Mr. Eguchi to create this work because I like his drawings, and I think some people will respond that it is nostalgic, but I also hope that the younger generation will find it fresh and new.

Q: Did you use Eguchi-san's characters as the basis for the overall color scheme of the work?

Natsume: I wanted to give the work a sense of originality. For the background (art), I consulted with Mari Fujino of Studio Pablo, a hand-drawing studio, and we worked together to create the background. Inevitably, this led to a simple, straightforward approach of showing the colors of the paints, such as blue.

The layout is not based on space, but rather on area. I was concerned about how much blue was on the screen, which is why I ended up with this color palette.

However, that was also the style of Masaaki Yuasa (director of "The Night is Short, Walk away Otome" and "Don't Mess with the Film Lab! ) had been working on, and I was influenced by him a lot, so I think that's why I ended up with such an eccentric screen composition.

Q: I was also impressed by the use of black in the film. It was a scary expression that showed that there was really nothing in the space.

Natsume: We were aiming for zero black. This is an expression that is not usually used in animation.

Q: Are you saying that all the RGB values are zero?

Natsume Yes. When we converted the data, some values were added, but we aimed for zero blackness as much as possible. It is said that this zero black is a color that would cause a broadcasting accident if broadcasted for more than 5 seconds, and I wanted to express black in such a way. My intention was to have black as something unknown and unobservable, as a cosmological approach, but this black is full of possibilities, and I thought of the composition as a challenge to it. In this way, we always put our own intentions or excuses into each and every element of the work.

Q: Could you tell us why you chose to make the character a junior high school student? Some of the characters didn't seem like junior high school students.

Natsume: Rajdani is unusually smart, and Cap is an old man (laughs).

(Laughs.) The reason I chose junior high school students is because I was in my third year of junior high school, a somewhat impressionable age for me. It was a time when I was preparing to choose a career path and felt anxious about what was going to happen to me, and I wanted to portray such a child. Of course, I wanted the younger generation to see this film, but I also wanted adults who have experienced this to see it as well. I also wanted to make a film about drifting, because I had the image of "The Drifting of the Fifteen Boys," which I had read as a child.

Q: So it looks like we will be able to enjoy the growth of each character in the future.

Natsume That's right. You could say that's what I wanted to depict.

Nagara, the main character, has a lot of potential for growth.

Natsume He only has room for growth (laughs). Rarity is the opposite. I guess I want to create something like a rite of passage.

Q: And speaking of music, when I saw the first episode, I thought the lack of background music was novel, or rather, a direction that I have rarely seen in anime.

Natsume: That may be true. Basically, we did not make any accompaniment for the story this time, but used songs written by artists in the form of insert songs for each episode. Simply put, we play an insert song during scenes in which the characters' emotions change.

Q: So when the music is played, it is a signal that the scene is important for the character?

Natsume: Yes. This time, I had meetings with all the artists and asked them to write songs for these scenes. Artists are very sensitive. Even when I didn't think I had explained myself very well, the music that came out was right in the middle of what I wanted.

In the latter half of the song, the lyrics were also very helpful because they expressed the character's feelings in just the right balance, not in direct words but in a good balance. That was also a big help to us. We worked to cut down the dialogue in the scenes where the music was playing. The power of music was really significant.

Q: Because there was no music playing, when it did, it had a big impact on the scene.

Natsume: It is true that sound stands out more when there is no music. Moreover, this time, the sound effects were done in a very realistic way, and the ocean sounds were recorded in the ocean in a very realistic way. So if you listen to it with headphones, you may enjoy it even more.

The sound of the toilets was also very realistic, though (laughs).

Natsume: Yes, it was. ...... (laughs).

Q: I thought the voice actors' performances were also very realistic.

Natsume: I asked them to keep it as natural and natural as possible, and since we chose such a cast, it went very smoothly.

Q: Was there a significant flow of ideas from "Boogiepop Won't Laugh"?

Natsume: When choosing the cast, we wanted to ask people we had worked with in the past who we thought would be a good fit for the characters. As a result, many of them came from "Boogiepop," but that was partly because I was aiming for something natural in that work as well.

Q: I felt it was very realistic, and as for Nagara, I really don't know what he's thinking, and I'm curious about him.

Natsume: Maybe it's also because we didn't use monologues in this work. It is made in such a way that the viewer can only gauge the character's feelings through his/her actions and words. But Nagara's behavior itself will change in the future, so I hope viewers will pay attention to that.

Q: It's also fun to see how the character develops as the episodes go on. Is there anything else you would like people to look out for?

Natsume: I was very careful about the composition. It is an original work, so I am conscious of changing the angle each time so that the audience will continue to watch it.

Q: Do you find something new when you watch it over and over again?

Natsume: Yes, that too. I think there are new discoveries when you look at it from a bird's eye view after seeing it through once.

Although we say that we change the angle each time, we sometimes continue the same thing in the latter half of the film, so I think the composition has a sense of randomness and unpredictability. I mentioned earlier that we do not use monologues, but there are some monologue-driven episodes in the second half, so I think you can enjoy the sense of betrayal in a strictly bounded setting.

Also, the producer asked me to make a pull in each episode as much as possible, so I made sure to make a pull in the first half of each episode.

I personally found Hoshi to be too suspicious. His voice changes suddenly, and I was wondering what he was going to do.

Natsume: He is nothing but suspicious (laughs).

Incidentally, are you going to take the subtitle from something else in the future? For example, the title of the second episode, "Aliens," is the name of a song by "Kirinji.

Natsume This is my own preference. Even if it is not exactly the same as the content, I try to use subtitles that are titles of books or songs that I like, or that have something to do with the content.

Q: Lastly, what are some of the highlights of the upcoming episodes?

Natsume: The atmosphere changes a bit from episode 3, and there is a climax in episode 6. The children clash with each other and things get a little awkward, so I hope you will watch and see how things go. The atmosphere changes dramatically from episode 6 to episode 7, and it feels like the start of the second part of the show, so please look forward to that as well. I think the cast was a bit surprised that we jumped a week. The cast members were also puzzled, saying, "Did we just skip a week?

Lastly, we did not use an all-animation director system for this work. For this work, I thought it would be good to have the individuality of each episode, and I wanted to aim for a home run in every episode rather than aiming for an average, so I took full swings, even if it meant striking out. As a result, I think I was able to hit home runs in the second half, so I hope you will continue to believe in me.

(Reporting, text, and photographs by Junichi Tsukagoshi)