Searching for the Original Scenery of Childhood...... Director Yuyasu Ishida talks about his thoughts on his latest animated feature film "Drifting Apartment Complex that Tells of Rain" [Watching the Animation Industry No. 91

Director Yuyasu Ishida, who captured the hearts of anime fans with "Penguin Highway" (2018), a sweet and sour farewell between a boy and his older sister, has completed his latest work. The title of the film is "A Drifting Apartment Complex that Tells of Rain" (worldwide exclusive distribution on Netflix and nationwide roadshow in Japan on September 16 (Fri.)). A group of children sneak into an old apartment complex on the verge of demolition and are somehow thrown overboard with the entire complex. Drifting aimlessly at sea, the children gather their wits to survive and join forces to return to their town. ...... This is an animated adventure film with a juvenile flavor similar to the American film "The Goonies" and the Japanese film "Our Seven-Day War," and is a summer vacation film that strongly appeals to the yearning for ruins and deserted islands.
The roots of this idea seem to be strongly rooted in the image of the town where Director Ishida spent his boyhood. We interviewed him at the production company Studio Colorido.

Growing up in an 80- to 90-year-old house at the foot of a mountain between the sea and the ocean

─ ─ Last month in this section, we interviewed Yoshiyuki Tomino.

Ishida Is that so?　......I have a special fondness for "Mobile Suit Gundam: Char of the Counterattack" directed by Tomino. Maybe it's because I was born in 1988 when the movie was released. ......

What do you like about "Char of the Counterattack"?

Ishida: At first, I was genuinely attracted by the composition of the clash between Char's crimson fighter and Amuro's pure white fighter. However, the more I looked at it, the more I began to feel something like human karma in the two extremely different characters. Char is even thinking of dropping a meteorite on the earth to make it uninhabitable. For example, when I was making a film and felt a sense of hopelessness, I felt that I could understand the passion that made Char think to that extent, even though I am a young man. I don't think I would go so far as to destroy the earth (laughs), but the sentiments that Director Tomino tried to depict through the character of Shaare seem to have tugged at my heartstrings a little. And Amuro is positioned as the last-minute conscience and good intentions of the film's creator. In the situation where these two opposites collide, various designs are heroically and precisely set. I have to respect Director Tomino for creating such a work. Even now, my work desk is covered with Nu Gundam figures. And of course, Sotheby's (laughs).


─ ─ In the sense that a huge structure moves through a vast space, it is similar to "Drifting Apartment Complex that Tells of Rain. However, the short story "Fumiko's Confession" (2009), which became a hot topic on the Internet, depicted a retro townscape that looked like the Showa period.

Ishida: I was born in 1988, so I was born in Showa 63, just barely in the Showa era. Of course, I have been familiar with the Heisei era for a long time, but I was also influenced by the culture and works of the Showa era. Apart from that, I have my own original landscapes from my real life. My parents lived in a one-story house that was moved to a place a little closer to town from a house used to accommodate fishermen in an inn town by the sea. It was an old house, about 80 to 90 years old, with a strong Showa-era atmosphere.

So you were familiar with the sea growing up?

Ishida: About a 200-meter walk from the house was the ocean. The beach stretched for several kilometers, and the town had a tourist business that brought in many bathers. I used to go to the beach in the summer to enjoy fireworks and go tidboring, but I have a rather scary image of the sea, partly because I could not swim. In "Drifting Apartment Complex that Tells of Rain," the depiction of the sea may subconsciously convey a sense of "fear" rather than familiarity.

──There are a lot of thrilling descriptions of being almost swallowed up by the sea, aren't there?

Ishida: Yes, the sea is scary, especially at night. The Chita Peninsula is in Aichi Prefecture, so the other side is in Mie Prefecture. At night, I can see the lights of the industrial area on the other side of the river. On the other hand, on the other side of my parents' house, there is a mountain with tangerine fields. After crossing the mountain, there is the ocean again. So I lived at the foot of a small mountain between the sea and the ocean.

─ ─ Did such memories of your hometown give rise to mysterious spaces such as the stairs in "Fumiko's Confession" and the new residential area in "Penguin Highway"?

Ishida: Tomihiko Morimi, who wrote the original story of "Penguin Highway," grew up in Ikoma City, Nara Prefecture, which was a bedroom community in the mountains. It was a newly developed academic city in the Showa period. There was actually an area near my parents' house where a mountain was cut down and houses were lined up in a similar shape. So when I read the original novel of "Penguin", I immediately had an image of this kind of place.