From financial non-accreditation to accreditation! Advertising Producer Kazuki Yanase talks about the Furano version of "Evil Girl Dropkick X" produced by Furusato!

Evil Girl Dropkick X" aired as a summer 2022 anime.

The ninth episode, "Furano ni Junmu Lavender no Hitomi (Lavender Eyes)," was produced by Furano City in Hokkaido, Japan, with funds raised through tax payments from the local hometown. The Furano City Council, however, expressed doubt as to whether the content was appropriate or not, and on November 15, the Furano City Council's Special Committee for the Examination of the Settlement of Accounts voted to "disapprove" the project. In other words, the budget was found to have been used inappropriately.

The most problematic part of the budget, which was considered to "damage the image of Furano City," was the part where Evil God-chan tries to sell her internal organs to pay off her debts.

In response to this, the official "Jyakami-chan Dropkick" distributed the Furano version for free for one week, and then conducted a survey on Twitter to find out whether viewing the Furano version of "Jyakami-chan Dropkick X Furano" had improved or damaged the image of Furano. The results showed that over 90% of respondents said that Furano's image had improved. It is not clear whether these efforts had any effect, but at the plenary session held on November 30, there was an 8-8 tie between approval and disapproval, and the final decision was "approved" by a vote of the chairperson. With this, the furor over the Furano version of "Jyakami-chan Dropkick X" was settled for the time being. What did the official website think of the incident and what kind of projects will they be developing in the future?

We asked Mr. Kazuki Yanase, a publicity producer, to answer these questions.

─ I think it is a relief to hear that the site was approved at the plenary session. The situation has already been explained in the news, but can you tell us again what the situation was like?

Yanase: Some people may think that this case is like Furano-chan vs. Furano, but they are wrong. The production committee communicated with Furano City to create the work, and in response to the product - the full-length anime - the city council filed a complaint against the city, saying that it might damage Furano's image. I wanted to find out if this was true, so I conducted a survey of people who had actually viewed the film and published the results.


──About the current disturbance, from what I saw in the video of the congress, it seems that the two points of contention were "content of expression" and "cost-effectiveness.

Yanase: That's right. The discussion seemed to be focused on those two points. As for the expression, the evil goddess, who was saddled with a huge debt, was asked by Medusa, who was suffering from "Medusa High," an anomaly that is said to occur only once in several thousand years, "Do you want to sell your internal organs? The Evil Goddess sniffles and says, "What? This part of the scene was controversial because it was considered unacceptable from a socially accepted point of view. The results of the survey indicate that most of the viewers accepted this as a mere gag, but we cannot deny the possibility that it might not be taken that way.

As for cost-effectiveness, as you can see in the graph of Furano City's hometown tax donation, the amount of hometown tax donation to Furano City in 2021 is about three times higher than that in 2020.


⇒Reference article "Local government open data" Furano City Furusato Tax Donation Amount

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I have not conducted any research, so I do not know if there is a causal relationship between this growth and Evil God, but I would be very happy if Evil God was able to play a part in the significant increase in the amount of donations that had been flat up to now due to the collaboration with Evil God. On the other hand, as pointed out in the assembly, I am aware of the opinion that we are not attracting enough visitors, and I would like to work on a plan to attract more visitors in the future.

─ You are planning to hold events to attract visitors in the future, but do you already have a plan?

Yanase: In Furano, there are many attractive events and spots such as the Navel Festival, Wine Festival, and powder snow slopes, which are also depicted in the Furano version. We would love to hold an Evil Girl event that makes the most of these features.

─ ─ That would be an event that other municipalities would not be able to do! Lastly, please tell us about your future plans.

YANAGISE: I don't think the expression of Evil God-chan is "good-looking" to be accepted by everyone. So, in order not to be offended, is it enough to use a safe expression that is accepted by all? No. If we do that, I don't think it is "Yagosei-chan" anymore, so we cannot choose that way. On the other hand, I don't think that Jyoshin-chan has contributed enough to Furano City, which has been so kind as to collaborate with us. Therefore, from now on, I would like to do my best to be recognized as an existence that can bring many fans, even though my expressions may be a little sharp.

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