The beginning of a feature-length anime looking back after 20 years--"NARUTO" 20th anniversary of broadcast! Director Yuto Date and P. Naoji Pakutani talk

The year 2022 marks the 20th anniversary of the broadcast of the TV anime "Naruto," based on Masashi Kishimoto's manga of the same name. To commemorate this event, the exhibition "NARUTO THE GALLERY" is being held at AKIBA_SQUARE in Tokyo from December 10, 2022 (Sat) to January 31, 2023 (Tue).

The interview with Yuto Date, the director of the series, and Naoji Pakutani, the animation producer, is a light-hearted exchange that shows the trust between the two, who have been involved in the series for 14 years, from the first episode in 2002 to the 699th episode in 2016.

Naoji Parkya (left) and Yuto Date

Original story full of foreshadowing and original story full of hardship

--Do you remember when you started preparing for the "Naruto" anime?

Date I think the preparation started three months before the ...... on-air.

Parkya No, it was not! As expected, not 3 months before on-air (laughs).

Date Is that right? (Laughs) At the time, I had another title on the air, and I had to get excited for the end of it, and the original "Naruto" manga was placed in front of me with a bang. I was told, "We're going to do this one next," in that state. It was like that for me for a long time, and the next work would start airing the week after the work finished airing.

Parkya It's been like that ever since we started working together.

Date: That's why there were no breaks at all.

Parkya I also directed a movie version ("ROAD TO NINJA -NARUTO THE MOVIE-") on the way. Also, the hardest part of starting "NARUTO" was making the first episode of the TV series and "Find the Red Four-leaf Clover! at the same time. And all this while working on the previous title.

Date: "Find the Red Four-Leaf Clover! was a little longer than the TV series, which was 19 minutes and 30 seconds at the time, but it was about the same length. ......

--I could tell that it was a lot of work. What do you feel is the charm of the original work?

Date: The foreshadowing is superb. I was told from the beginning that Sasuke was going to leave his village, but I felt that he had the whole story in his mind from the beginning to the end as he was working on it. That is why he was able to recover the foreshadowing so well.

Park Tani: You collect foreshadowing lines after a considerable amount of time has passed. You would say, "Oh, is that going to be connected here? Did you think of that before?" I'm surprised.

Date: Some of the foreshadowing may have been added after the fact.

Parkya I felt that the way you scattered things that could have been foreshadowing was a little different from the manga I had read before.

--In the process of making the anime, did you ever unintentionally omit things that would become foreshadowing later on? Did you check the original work before proceeding with the animation?

Date: No, I almost never checked the original work. However, I was careful to check the storyboards to pick up as much of the descriptions from the original work as possible, so I would like to think that there were no omissions (laughs).

Parkya: Every description seemed to be foreshadowing. I think I was able to pick up almost all of it.

-On the other hand, the anime version had a lot of original stories.

Parkya Yes. But it was tough not being able to draw beyond the original story and not being able to develop the characters.

Date: With those two restrictions, I had a hard time ...... figuring out what kind of story to tell.

Parkya We couldn't even create new techniques on our own. No matter what kind of enemies appear, Naruto has no choice but to defeat them with the Spiral Maru.

Date: Also, not only in the original story, but Naruto is dumber than the main characters in other anime. He himself cannot talk about this and that to explain his situation and feelings. So we had to be very careful about how to convey such information to his enemies and the people around him.

--Naruto was a special protagonist in that sense. Are there any other characters who made an impression on you or whom you like?

Date: It's hard to answer that question after being away from my work for a while. At the time I was doing it, I would say things like "I like Ayame-chan.

Parkya That's where you would normally say something like, "Re-fuzan is ......!

Date: No, at the time I thought I liked Ayame-chan next to the owner of Ramen Ichiraku (laughs).

--Now that you have been away from the work for a while, do you feel an equal attachment to all the characters?

Date: Yes, especially since I am involved in the creation of all the characters. I would communicate with the actors, saying, "Let's go in this direction. In the beginning, the actors in the studio were playing the same roles, and we didn't have a clear idea of what kind of characters they were, but in the latter half of the project, they started to stick out and we sometimes had to modify the direction of their performances.

Parkya Is that Tobi you are talking about?

Date No, it was Tsuda (Kenjiro) who played Aoba.

Parkya Ah. But there were a lot of people like that.

Date There were many. It was the same with the original stories. For example, in the "Mio no Shozu" chapter, we had an idea of the direction we wanted to take the story toward the end, but we had to start the scenario before the characters were fully developed, and I remember discussing the characters with the actors during postrecording. I remember discussing the characters with the actors during postrecording.

--The 20th anniversary of the broadcast of "Naruto" is being celebrated with a commemorative exhibition, "Naruto the Gallery," starting on December 10. There seems to be a lot to see, such as the diorama of Kinohagakure no Sato and original videos by famous animation artists.

Parkya: I feel like we could have a reunion at the venue. We can say, "That was a tough time," or "That guy....

Date: "That time..." You're going to say bitter things? We shouldn't go see them together, I bet (laughs).

Parkya What, I was planning to go see the show with you?

Date I'm sure the general public will notice.

Park Valley That's fine. You want to be noticed anyway, don't you?

--So, if fans see you two at the venue, is it okay if they call out to you?

Date: Yes, it's fine.

Park Tani: I'd rather the director ask them to come and talk to us. No matter where you go to events, there is always someone you know who is a fan. It's amazing how the director knows who they are when they say, "Good job!