Part 2 of an interview commemorating the release of the movie "JUNREI JAR"! From a neighborhood hero to a full-fledged hero film - "Junketsu Jar," the first feature film by Hiroshi Butsuda, special effects director of the Super Sentai and Kamen Rider series.

Hiroshi Butsuda has been the special effects director for the Super Sentai & Masked Rider series for many years. Director Futsuda, who has also been wielding his skills in numerous special effects scenes in the current broadcasts of "Kikai Sentai ZENKAIJAR" & "Masked Rider Saber," took the megaphone for his first feature film "Junkai Jar" with full anticipation.

Although he has occasionally had the opportunity to direct full-length films in Super Sentai, this is his first feature-length film. From the surprising offer to the filming episode with Junryuke, he talks about the charm of "Junryuke Jar" with his "Butsudan-busi" bursting forth!
⇒ Part 1 of the interview to commemorate the release of the movie "Junryuke Jar"! The longed-for movie appearance realized because of the Corona disaster!　The four members of Junryuke talk about the inside story of "Junryuke Jar" [Presenting an autographed checkee!

From a neighborhood hero to a full-fledged hero movie!

--How did you come to direct this film?

Futsuda: I received the offer from Toei Video producer Tsuyoshi Nakano. It had already been decided that the project would be a movie starring Junryoku, and I first heard from one of the members, Kazuyoshi Sakai, that he wanted Director Futsuda to shoot the film.

--Was that a request?

Butsuda: That's how I see it. Maybe someone else turned it down and it came around (laughs). (laughs) Well, that was a joke, but I was surprised at first. I was surprised at first. I had done special effects for a long time, but this time they wanted me to shoot everything, including the drama. So, I met with Mr. Nakano and asked him about the whole idea, and he said, "Well, I guess I'll give it a try. I guess that's how it all started.

--Did you go through any changes before settling on the current form?

Butsuda: Sakai and the other three had experience as heroes in the past, right? Gogami-kun was the only one who had no experience. At first, Sakai-kun said, "I really want Gogami-kun to transform into a hero. So I thought it would work if I made Gogami the hero and the other three retired heroes. It would be very difficult to transform all four of them. If we talk about the actual situation, it would require modeling.

--But that is something you understand because of your long career.

Butsuda: Yes. If we were to do it properly, the enemy organization would be too large, so we didn't want to broaden the worldview too much, so we planned to make it a "neighborhood hero. Instead of transforming into a superhero with superpowers, he would transform himself into a "Spiderman"-like character with handmade costumes and exterminate thieves who were raiding the hot spring resort town at night. At first, we were thinking on that scale, but after a few meetings, Sakai-kun said, "We're all going to be transformed! No, I want to! (laughs). (Laughs.) We were like, "Yeah, all of us? (Laughs). (Laughs.) And then he said, "I want to make a powerful enemy appear, too! (laughs).

--The scale of the project grew larger and larger (laughs).

(laughs). Butsuda: That would have been very difficult. In fact, it was a lot of work (laughs). (laughs). But the producers began to change the direction because they thought it would be more interesting. Sakai-kun is a good talker, isn't he? When he talks in a funny way, everyone gets carried away. I was more on the side of stopping him, but as a result, that's what happened (laughs).

--Speaking of enemies, there has been a lot of talk about the use of enka singer Sachiko Kobayashi as the last boss.

Butsuda: Usually in our films, the last boss is a monster in a suit. However, Junrueger is also in a suit, and I thought that if we used the same suit for both of them, the picture would be the same and would not be a good substitute. So I made a proposal. For example, a giant Sachiko Kobayashi-like figure would wear Kohaku costumes and attack the audience while singing. It would be more interesting to do something like that. Then Sakai-kun said, "I'll go ask him! And he said, "I'm going to ask him.

--And it really came to fruition?

Butsuda: In a sense, this was a throwaway idea. People on the Internet have been calling me a "rascal" for a long time. So I thought, "It would be great if we could really make it that far. About a week later, I think I had already talked to the producer, and I received an e-mail from Sakai saying, "Sachiko Kobayashi has agreed to be in the movie! I got an e-mail from Sakai saying, "Sachiko Kobayashi has agreed to be in the film! That made me realize that I had no choice but to do it (laughs).

Director Butsuda, what is your fondest memory?

--As a director, how was it directing the four members of Junrei?

Futsuda: First of all, Gogami-kun. Sakai-kun told me at the beginning that Gogami could not act at all, but even if he told me he could not act, it was not good enough for me (laughs). I myself am good at special effects, but I am not that experienced at directing dramas, so it would be a problem if he said he could not do it at all. I discussed this with Gogami himself and he did his best, but after taking this into consideration, we decided to have Ayako Kobayashi play the other character. I told her, "Gogami-kun is a newcomer, so please train him.

--That was another great casting decision.

Butsuda: I said, "Let's ask him," and he actually asked me, and he agreed to be in the film (laughs).

(Laughs.) After all, if Gogami was a newcomer and we were newcomers here and newcomers there, it would be difficult to keep track of things. As expected of Ms. Ayako Kobayashi, who has a wealth of experience, I think she was able to draw out the best from them.

--Back to the topic, what about the remaining three members?

Butsuda: The leader, Sakai-kun, is a skilled speaker, and he took the leadership in the scenes with the four members, so I was able to concentrate on directing without worry. Odai-kun was always ad-libbing, and it was fun to watch them interact with each other. Shirakawa still looks the most heroic of the four, with his fearless face. He is also good at action, so we set up bare-faced action scenes and had him do them to his heart's content. All four of them transformed this time, but in everyday scenes they acted as Junrei-kun as they usually do, and they all seemed to enjoy their roles.

--What do you think of the Junrei Jar as heroes?

Butsuda: At first, I was going to make him a "bath hero. For example, he would have a washbasin on his head and a towel around his waist (laughs). (Laughs.) Otherwise, he wouldn't look like a bath hero. The design was drawn by Tsuyoshi Nonaka, formerly of Bandai, and it was really cool when he drew it. So now everyone was drawn in that direction (laughs). I thought, "Isn't that just an ordinary hero? But when I looked at Twitter, I saw that there were homages to Kamen Rider Zolda, Gaoblack, and Kabutraija, and people were wondering what the batten on Green's face was. and so on, and it seems that the tokusatsu fans were pleased with it. So I guess I'm happy with the direction it turned out to be. The only thing I have left to say is the faucet on Green's arm. They wanted me to put that one thing on (laughs).

(laughs) -- That faucet was utilized in the action, but each of the characters' actions were also quite twisted. It was different from the hero works on the main road, and it was worth seeing.

Butsuda: I had a lot of fun working with Michihiro Takeda, the action director, while sharing ideas on how to fight the enemies. The blue gun action was inspired by Yusaku Matsuda. I like that image of Mr. Takeda. Well, most of the Showa-esque stuff is Mr. Takeda's (laughs). Violet's microphone-stand spear was also Mr. Takeda's idea. There is a sauna with hot stones called "Lowryu," isn't there? Actually, at the end of the film, we filmed a technique in which the sauna is bathed in hot air using the waxing technique (*a sauna bathing method in which water is poured over heated stones to generate steam), but we had to cut that part out due to the length of the film. That was unfortunate.

Also, I had Red make a speech like "Momotaro Samurai" when he was standing around, but Mr. Takeda doesn't reveal his moves until the very last minute (laughs). (Laughs) I tried to get Yuya Nawata, the suit actor, to say "Hitotsu, Nanka" on the set, but Nawata is of a different generation and doesn't know it anymore. I would say to Nawata, who was looking at me with a blank stare, "Just say it anyway! It was fun to watch the two of them play with each other (laughs).

--(Laughs) - I got the impression that you were also particular about the setting of the story, where each of the girls can transform into a goddess of hot springs by mingling with her (i.e., Ohfrodite).

Butsuda: I don't really understand the logic of the encounter scene (laughs), but I decided to omit it and put it on the Junrei song, and it turned out to be a fun scene. The setting itself was Tsukada's idea. As I mentioned earlier, I was going to go with a hero from the neighborhood, and I didn't have that idea until about halfway through the film. After Sakai's opinion had changed the direction of the film to fantasy, Tsukada said at a script meeting, "It's not like Jojo's stand, but it would be better to have some kind of sidekick. Tsukada-kun said, "It's not a JoJo stand, but it would be better to have some sidekicks. I was like, "Oh, you're casting four people? (laughs).

(Laughs) -- Yutaka Nakajima, a blue off-rodite, and others had worked on "Gekijo! Murder Fist," starring Shinichi Chiba, and "Truck Boss: No Opinions," which you seem to be quite fond of (laughs).

(laughs) When the casting of the goddesses began, there were four of them, so we had to differentiate between the bewitching and the funny ones. I thought, "Oh, I wonder if Yutaka Nakajima would do it," and when I mentioned it to her, she said, "I'll ask her! And he decided to do it. I didn't have a chance to talk to her much because I was busy on the set, but she told me many stories about those days in between recording sessions, which became my fondest memory (laugh).

Sachiko Kobayashi descended as the last boss in her own costume.

--I was surprised to see special effects scenes in the film, since Mr. Butsuda was the director. I didn't think that even mecha would make an appearance (laughs).

Butsuda: As I recall, that was the first scene we shot. I happened to have a miniature of a completely different work that I had used in the past, and I told them to add a water tap, a shampoo bottle, or whatever they wanted (laughs). This was before Mr. Nonaka, the designer, joined the project, so I simply drew the miniatures and handed them to Yoshi Matsuura, the art director, and asked him to get everything from a 100-yen store (laughs).

(Laughs) -- The miniature of a building district that was shot in the open was also used as the beginning of the film.

--Speaking of singing scenes, there are also some musical-style scenes.

Butsuda: You mean Gogami-kun and Arisa Deguchi, who plays the fortune teller. In the scene where the two of them are playing the role of ......, they went to the trouble of writing a song especially for that scene. We were able to get the three members to join in the scene as well, and we were able to shoot an interesting dialogue between them. Also, I wanted to use Omorizaka as another theme. You might not understand "Omorizaka" unless I annotate it (laughs).

--Omorizaka is a famous landmark within Toei's Tokyo Studio in Oizumi. If you go back far enough, you can even see it in a dramatic film from the 1930s, and Hiroaki Murakami's "Next Week! It is a familiar place that has appeared in numerous tokusatsu productions up to the present day, such as the trailer for Hiroaki Murakami's "Masked Rider (New).

Butsuda: Yes. It was significant to film Junrei there (laughs). We shot it as a night scene, lighting it up and making it look like a musical. During the shoot, the old producers and directors came to see the scene, and Sakai and I had a great time reminiscing. No, that was one of the scenes that I am glad we were able to realize. Junrei is a singer, so we were particular about the singing scenes in addition to the ones I just mentioned. That's something we usually don't get to do in our hero works, so I hope people will look forward to it.

--I hope that people will enjoy it.

Butsuda: When her appearance was announced on the Internet, Ms. Kobayashi said in an article, "This is just a monster. I thought about turning it down" (laugh). When I first went to the office to greet him after he decided to appear in the film, he said, "You just have to make it huge, don't you? At that point, I was in a "I'll do whatever it takes" mode. In other words, he had already made up his mind. Even on site, he would say, "Yes, can I put the beam out of my hand here? "Yes! He was very nonchalant about it. So it was very easy for me to work with him. When you think about it, you have been active since you were a child actor.

--You were a guest in Toei's "Kikaider 01" (*Episode 35), and recently you were in the live-action version of "Devil Man," for which you were the special effects director (laughs).

Butsuda: You are famous for that, but you were also in Daiei's "Zatoichi" (*"Zatoichi Nidan-kiri" / 1964). You also co-starred with Katsushin (Shintaro Katsu), so that was a surprise. On the set, Sachiko asked me, "Director, what kind of badass do you want me to be? I said, "If I were to say Toei's Queen Hedorian, or ...... Machiko Soga," and she knew who I was talking about. He said, "Oh, you are Soga-san, aren't you? I told her that I was sorry to hear that she passed away, but she performed the play in her own style, and I felt that she had a great range. Also, I borrowed her own costumes for the dress and crown, so I was able to create a very gorgeous image including them.

--As for the big-name guests, Kiyoshi Maekawa, another great figure in the world of song, also appeared in the film.

Butsuda: His role is an indispensable one for the squadron. Do you understand?

--For example, he is like Chiyonosuke Higashi in "Battle Fever J" or Hiroshi Miyauchi in "Choryoku Sentai Oranger", right?

Butsuda: Yes, that's right. What I had in mind was Chief Arashiyama played by Mori Kishida in "Taiyo Sentai Sambalukan" (laughs). (Laughs.) And then someone asked me, "How about Kiyoshi Maekawa? I said, "Well, I'll ask him."

-In every case, the casting was exactly as I had imagined, but that's not easy to do, is it?

Butsuda: No, we were really blessed in terms of casting. I asked Mr. Maekawa to play a rather strange role. In the script, he was supposed to be "snoozing" at the counter of a super public bath, but that was not interesting enough, so I asked him to pretend to be dead with his white eyes peeling back while chewing on a rice cracker (laughs). (Laughs.) But they understood my intention, and I am very grateful for that.

It is a film in which we did some serious joking around!

--How do you feel about the film as a director now that it has finally been released to the public?

Butsuda: At the screening that was held prior to the release of the film, everyone came out to the lobby after the screening smiling and discussing their impressions of the film, so I was relieved to hear that people enjoyed the film. The story itself is not a difficult one, and with the charm of Junrei and the guests, I think it came together reasonably well for the first feature film we shot, and I think it turned out to be a gorgeous and worthwhile work. That's right, I haven't talked about the Four Heavenly Kings yet (laughs).

--Well, since we're here, please tell us about them. Three out of the four members of the Four Heavenly Kings are former riders: Hiroaki Iwanaga as Masked Rider Barth, Kyoyasu Matsumoto as Masked Rider Snipe, and Atsushi Shiramata as Masked Rider Kurokage.

Butsuda: Like Mr. Odai, I don't meet the Rider actors on set because I do a lot of post-processing CG work with them. I don't get to see them that much in Sentai either, but we still get together when we shoot the transformation bank. But I did have a chance to go up on stage and greet them at the launch, so they knew who I was. Iwanaga-kun, for example, I'm sorry for making a joke about your muscularity (laughs), but everyone got into the groove, and I'm glad we were able to work with gusto this time.

--Now, please tell us about your work for the readers of Akiba Research Institute.

Butsuda: This is a film that was made by me, Mr. Takeda, and other veterans who have been doing this for a long time, welcoming Junrei and making a serious joke of it. Oh, this "seriously goofing around" is a pretty good catchphrase (laughs). That's exactly the kind of film I hope you will enjoy!

(Interview and text by Tomohisa Toyota)