Interview with Yasuhiro Yoshiura (original story, screenplay, director) and Ichirou Okochi (co-writer) for the film "Let Me Hear Ai Sing".

Yasuhiro Yoshiura, known for his meticulous visuals and sci-fi mindset in works such as "Time of Eve" and "Sacasama no Pathema," has written the original story, script, and directed the feature film "Let Me Hear You Sing, Ai" which is currently in theaters nationwide.

Ai no Utau o Kikou wo Kikou wo Let Me Hear Ai" is a happy and joyful original theatrical film in which the clunky "AI" makes people around her happy. The singing voice of "AI" Zion, played by Tao Tsuchiya, is an important element of the film, and the way she makes her classmates happy, including Satomi, who is very important to Zion, is one of the highlights of the film.

We will discuss the origins of this work, the construction of the story, and its worldview. We asked Yasuhiro Yoshiura, writer/director of the original story and screenplay, and Ichirou Okochi, screenwriter (in charge of series composition and screenplay of "Princess Principal" series and "Planetes"), to talk a lot about Zion's singing voice above all.

⇒ " Open to the Public Today! The film is about the acting of a young girl who is a member of the "Princess Principal" series and "Planetes" series! Interview with Haruka Fukuhara and Asuka Kudo for the movie "Let Me Hear You Sing Ai".

Why the musical element was added to the project from its inception

Q: How did the project begin?

Yoshiura: The producer asked me if I would like to create an original theater piece with royal entertainment. I was asked by the producer if I would like to make an original theater piece that would be entertaining on the high street. I wanted to make a film that was also a coming-of-age juvenile drama. So I thought I had a chance to do that.

I thought about what kind of theme to use, but I have loved robot stories since I was a child, and I felt that the time had come for me to do a work about AI with a sense of major importance, I thought it didn't have enough punch to be an original work. ......

At that time, I asked Mr. Okochi, who had worked with me on the project that had just disappeared, to take a look at the script to see if he could give me some feedback.

Okochi: Was that from Mr. Yoshiura?

Yoshiura: That's right. I said I wanted an objective opinion. I also thought that it might be better to work with other scriptwriters in some cases. So I asked Mr. Okochi for his opinion and asked him if he would write the script with me. I asked him if he would write the script with me.

Okochi: This is the first time I have heard about this, but the producer asked me if I would share my opinion with him and gave me the script. I received the script from the producer and asked if I could give him my opinion. At the time, I didn't think I would be involved, and since he went out of his way to ask for my opinion, I thought he wanted a harsh opinion, so I sent him a stern one, but he asked if I could show it to the director. I was surprised when he asked if I could show it to the director (laughs).

But even when I read that script, I thought the project was good. It contained what Mr. Yoshiura himself thought was good and what I thought was good about Yoshiura's films, so it didn't seem unreasonable. However, I sent him my opinions, such as that it would be better to organize here and there, or that it would be better to find out Zion's secret a little earlier.

Yoshiura: I was aware that the technical aspects of the script were a little rough, and I had thought "I see," when we worked together on the previous project, so that was one of the reasons I wanted you to write it with me. However, at this stage, there was no singing element yet.

At that stage, the story was already centered on the AI character, but we decided that we should give the character, who was causing a stir, some unique personality or characteristic.

When I saw that, I remembered that when I was in junior high and high school and dreamed of becoming a director, I wanted to one day make an animation that had singing elements, like a musical. It was a lot of work, but I knew intuitively that it would work, so I decided to make it a song! So we decided to make it a song!

Okochi: I wondered if it would be difficult to create a song element, because it would be hard to realize and it would not be possible to combine it with a story that had already been created. I thought it would be difficult to realize the song elements, and it would be impossible to combine them with a story that had already been written.

Yoshiura: I had the impression that you agreed with me rather quickly, but you must have felt that it would be a lot of work.

Okochi: The reason I agreed immediately was largely because I thought it would be good for the director to make something he liked. It is best to do what the director thinks is good, rather than making a film based on "this kind of work will sell better" or "there is an order for that kind of work.

Yoshiura: When I was in junior high school and high school, it was the mid-1990s, and it was a time when animated characters did not sing and dance as much as they used to, but I had seen Disney movies and wanted to make such works someday. But I saw a Disney movie and thought that I wanted to make a musical like that someday.

Q: How is writing a script for a musical different from writing a regular script?

Yoshiura: At first, I said that I wanted to make it a work where the songs would properly carry the story forward, rather than a story that could be told without the songs.

Okochi Musicals are a unique genre, so only those who enjoy them should see them, but I think there are people who don't like them. But the movie "La La Land" (released in Japan in 2017) was a hit, and I felt that it had a new technique of not starting with a musical but gradually becoming one by opening a gap in the mind of even those who don't like musicals and turning it into a musical. I felt that this was a new way to open up a gap in people's minds and make it into a musical, even if they are not good at it.

So, although I used a musical as the subject matter, I did not want it to be a film that only musical lovers would watch.

Yoshiura: Because of that, you gave a lot of thought to who sings where and in what position in the film, for example, what position the first song should be in.

Okochi: When we first started singing, we talked about how, just like the audience's feelings, the characters had to pull back before they could get into the song.

Yoshiura: I honestly depicted how people would react if a girl suddenly started singing in front of them, and in that sense, the AI character was a good match for me. In that sense, the AI character was a good match for the song. "She's a clunky AI, so it's okay if she starts singing out of nowhere," I thought. It was interesting to create a composition that would resonate with the other characters as the song went on, and eventually be accepted as a very good song by them as well.

Q: In that case, the content of the lyrics is also important, isn't it?

Yoshiura: From an early stage, I told the music staff that the song would have this kind of meaning within the story. I knew it wouldn't work if I just threw it all in, so I specified the tune, tempo, and lyrics, and asked them to include this kind of information to make the song come to a conclusion.

Q: The AI Zion sings the songs, but did you take into consideration the fact that he is an AI in terms of dialogue?

Okochi: Actually, Zion is not written like an AI. I had seen "Time of Eve" and other productions, and I was sure that the director would show me that part in his direction, so I wrote it as usual. But when I saw Tao Tsuchiya's performance, I thought it was wonderful because it was a little out of position from the voice actors.

Yoshiura: It seems that I was not conscious of writing robot-like lines from the very beginning (laugh), and if anything, my behavior and words and actions were so lacking in the shadowy aspects that normal people should have that I felt uncomfortable. I wanted to create a sense of AI. I thought it would be too direct. I thought it would be a bit too much. But Ms. Tsuchiya's tone of voice was so suitable that the character was established there. As the story progressed, Zion gradually became cuter and more attractive, and we found a good balance.

Q: What kind of direction did you give Ms. Tsuchiya?

Yoshiura: I asked her not to use negative voices. I told him that Zion doesn't get angry or sad. Even when he gets into trouble, he does it in a cute way rather than in a really troubled way, and I was impressed by his ingenuity.

Q: Your singing was also wonderful.

It is easy to say that she can sing pop songs, ballads, big band jazz, and even musical tunes, but I thought Ms. Tsuchiya did an amazing job in making it happen.

He really is a hard worker himself. We recorded one song at a time, and it seems that he had an instructor and practiced to each song, and I think it is the result of Mr. Tsuchiya's talent and hard work when it comes to singing. The soundtrack is also wonderful, and I myself would listen to the songs at the end of the production whenever I was having a hard time, to get the courage to work.

Q: The way you used the same motifs and blended the melody while changing the lyrics was based on the musical technique, wasn't it?

Yoshiura: There is the first song, "You Need a Friend," and the musical scene, "You've Got Friends," is a refrain of that song, which at first sounds like AI and is intrusive and poky, but after the story, "You've Got Friends" becomes a refrain of "You've Got Friends. You've Got Friends - You've Got Friends" sounds really good. The composition of the song is soaked in by both the audience and the main characters. The motif appears many times in the other songs in the play, so I think the composition is very much like a music play. It was also significant that Mr. Takahashi is a Western movie buff and good at it. I also wanted the music to be diverse, with big band jazz and so on, so he really brought up the perfect songs.

Q: In that sense, as a scriptwriter, it will be interesting to see how the songs actually turn out.

Okochi: Yes, that's right. When I was writing the script, I had no idea how the song would turn out, so I was imagining that it would come out really good.

For example, if Satomi's (Haruka Fukuhara, cv.) feelings were 30, and after listening to Zion's song, they would be 80, the song would have to have the power of 50. If I suspected that the song might not have that much power there, I would think that Satomi's feelings would have to be raised to 40 or 50 at the script stage to make a good connection. So I believed in the power of the songs there, and wrote the script with the expectation that about 150 songs would come.

When I saw it all put together at the preview, I thought, "Oh, thank goodness. I am so glad that I didn't try to set it up with a bad script. It would have been much better if the songs exceeded my imagination and lifted my spirits.

As I mentioned earlier, I had been feeling a longing to do a musical, and I guess I was just bursting with the feeling that I could finally do it. During the production, I never really thought that I might not be able to sing well enough. Maybe my senses were numbed somehow (laugh), but I took the stance that I should just put my current feelings into it without thinking too deeply, and I think I was able to do that without blurring the lines.

Hearing how AI permeates our lives and the world setting of the play

Q: The songs were very powerful, especially the part in the middle of the play where you sing at the solar panel, and the direction was also very beautiful.

Yoshiura: The whole staff worked very hard to understand the intention of the scene. The fireworks scene was also more beautiful than I had expected.

Q: There was a scene that looked like an electronic world, and it was like an electrical parade, a dreamlike expression.

Yoshiura: It was a digital space captured from Zion's subjective point of view, and I think that the way it looked reflected the person's personality. It would not be mechanical, but fun and gorgeous. I told this to the CG team, and they came up with something perfect, which I thought was wonderful.

Okochi: As is generally the case with your work, you have a very positive attitude toward technology. The way you depict images and how they play an active role in the story. A long time ago, it would have been an AI uprising, but I like the fact that it is not like that.

I think that AI rebellions are the result of AI's self-evolution, but I wonder to what extent you wanted to convey that to the audience in this film.

Yoshiura: I don't like the idea of separating AI from ourselves. I believe that if the users are right, the future will be right, and it may be necessary to sound an alarm, but I feel that 80% of the works dealing with AI are in that direction, so I decided to depict a future that is moving in a better direction without hesitation. I decided at the beginning to depict the future in a positive way.

Okochi: Pointing out the dangers in the film is similar to the musical scene in which everyone is initially turned off by the director's positive spirit, which is not something that everyone takes for granted. I do what I do with the understanding that there are a certain number of people who will think, "What? There are opinions that advocate the danger of self-evolution, but I thought it would be good if I could say that I am overcoming this danger and doing my best, so I wanted to include people who are against AI (people who fear AI).

Yoshiura: That's what I wanted to do dramatically.

I have seen such works, so maybe that's why I was the type of person who thought, "Are you okay with this? So after seeing this work, I can now imagine a positive future with the development of AI.

Yoshiura: I believe that fiction has an impact on reality, so I think that a film depicting a good future is also a role of fiction.

Q: One thing that caught my attention about AI is the depiction of this town. It looks like an old house, but I felt that AI and other technologies are a natural part of daily life.

Yoshiura: Imagining a transitional period for AI, I thought it would be unnatural to have an overflowing infrastructure that assumes various AI functions, so I thought it would be more natural to retrofit existing things. The whole concept is that home appliances and buses are things we are used to seeing, but they are different in parts. So there are old houses and modern apartments for company housing, but as software for them, I imagine that AI is intervening in our lives in a discreet way.

Okochi: It's like an experimental city, where a group called Interstellar Electronics is working hard. However, I thought that if people's lives were to change, there would be no one left to live there, so I wrote the work as if robots were especially developed as hardware, while household appliances and the like remained the same.

Yoshiura: In this film, the depiction of humanoid hardware is the only part of the film that is a big lie. However, I also wanted to create a worldview that felt realistic, so I decided to say that humanoid labor support robots have not yet been accepted in ordinary households. There is a general-purpose humanoid robot called "Santayu" in the play, but if there was a robot as tall as you are in your house, you would be scared just to walk around. So there is a dilemma that users don't accept that, and the manufacturers are trying their best to make a corporate effort in such a situation. That's why Hoshima is working so hard to design robots in a cute way, and they even let the robots plant rice in a deMonStration. In reality, a sunshade hat is just a waste of time for a robot (laughs).

Okochi: It's an advertisement that robots are not scary.

Yoshiura The same applies to robot design in general. In mechanical design, we left the functional and persuasive aspects to Mika Akemi, and asked her to add a touch of cuteness to the design. We even added a face to the cleaning robot.

Q: I didn't have much time to explain the setting of the worldview in words, so this was very refreshing. Finally, could you give us a message?

Yoshiura: As you can see from the key visual, I made this film with the straightforward desire to make a fun film, which is almost embarrassing to put into words. Whenever I was troubled during the production, I always went back to that concept. I hope many people will watch it, and I think it has become a film that I want people to enjoy honestly. Above all, there is an element of musical theater, so please see it in a large, powerful theater!

Okochi: I was aiming for fun, and I wrote the script with the idea of making a fun film. A screenwriter does not know what happens during the production process, so I did not know what the music would be like or what kind of person Mr. Tsuchiya was, but I saw a preview of the film and thought it was fun. I thought it was fun without any price tag, so please come to the theater. Please come to the theater.

(Interview and text by Junichi Tsukagoshi)

Production Information

Let me hear Ai's singing voice
＜STORY

A mysterious beautiful girl, Sion (cv. Tao Tsuchiya), transfers to Keibu City High School and becomes popular at school with her outstanding athletic ability and innocent personality, but in fact, she is an "AI" under examination!
Sion suddenly starts singing in front of Satomi (cv. Haruka Fukuhara), who is always alone in class, and tries to make her "happy" in an unexpected way.
Satomi discovers that she is an AI, and her childhood friend Touma (cv. Asuka Kudo), a machine maniac, Gokchan (cv. Kazuyuki Okitsu), the most popular handsome guy, Aya (cv. Mikako Komatsu), a strong-willed girl, and Thunder (cv. Satoshi Hino), a member of the judo club, are all moved by her dedication and her voice, although they are pushed around by Zion. However, they are moved by Zion's earnestness and his singing voice.
However, one of Zion's actions for Satomi's sake leads to a great commotion.
A heartwarming entertainment featuring the slightly clumsy AI and his classmates!

<CAST
Tao Tsuchiya, Haruka Fukuhara, Asuka Kudo, Kazuyuki Okitsu, Mikako Komatsu, Satoshi Hino, Sayaka Ohara, Kenji Hamada, Kenjiro Tsuda, Miyu Sakiki, Kazu Laser (Maple Chogokin)

<STAFF> Original story, screenplay, director
Original Story/Screenplay/Director: Yasuhiro Yoshiura
Co-writer：Ichiro Okochi
Character Planning: Kii Kanna
Chief Animation Director/Character Design：Shuichi Shimamura
Mechanical Design: Mika Akeki
Prop Design: Makoto Yoshigaki, Yoko Ito
Color Designer：Mayumi Tenbashi
Art Director: Yuji Kaneko (Blueprints)
Director of Photography: Yoshio Okochi
Sound Director: Miwa Iwanami
Music: Ryo Takahashi
Lyrics: Yohei Matsui
Animation Production: J.C. STAFF
Distribution: Shochiku Co.
Song: Tao Tsuchiya

©YOSHIURA Yasuhiro, BNArts / Ai Uta Production Committee