Anime "Mouichibon! Commemorating the End of Broadcast] Interview with Animation Producer Yutaka Omatsu Part 1 ── How did the young creators take on the difficult task of Judo animation?

Broadcast from January to March 2023, the popular youth women's judo work, the TV anime "Mouichibon! .

Based on the manga of the same title by Yu Muraoka (serialized in Akita Shoten's "Weekly Shonen Champion" and on the free manga site "Mangacross" from April 2023). The judo scenes depicted by Mr. Muraoka, who has experience in judo, are superb, and the storyline, which depicts the heat and excitement of a match and the preciousness of youth, is also appealing.

The anime was directed by Ken Ogiwara, with Aya Satsuki as series composition and Airi Mukawa as character design.

How was this work created? Akiba Research Institute asked Mr. Yutaka Omatsu of BAKKEN RECORD, the animation producer of this work, about the background to the production, staffing and casting, what was important in making the anime, and other important aspects of the TV anime "Mouipon! as well as the concept and direction of BAKKEN RECORD.

Judo works are 10 to 20 times more difficult than I had imagined.

--The reputation of the TV animation "Mouichibon! was very well received around you. Did you receive any feedback from the production side?

Ohmatsu: Not directly, but I have a feeling that we received support from social networking sites and the like. It is a wonderful work from the original, so if many people continue to enjoy it, I will be happy as a creator.

--Thank you very much. Now, let me ask you a question before I get down to business. I know this is a basic question, but what exactly does an animation producer do?

Ohmatsu: I think the concept differs depending on the organization, but I think of an animation producer as a leader who takes charge of the site, like a leader alongside the director. Specifically, I am in charge of scheduling, staffing, budget management, and the entire animation front line, such as .......

--Can you tell us how the production of this film came about?

Ohmatsu: Our production manager and director, Seihiro Oshida, was a college classmate of a person who belonged to Pony Canyon at the time, and when I went to greet him, he introduced me to the original work. I think it was around the end of 2019.

--What was your impression when you read the original work there? Judo is an unusual subject matter, and I'm sure you must have thought a lot about it from your position.

Ohmatsu: In my position, I read a lot of manga and am approached by people, but I think it's important whether or not I feel the same way. As for "Mou Ippon! I felt that I could get along with the atmosphere of the manga, even before I thought about whether it was judo or not.

After that, what animation producers have to think about is, to put it bluntly, how easy it is to make a cartoon. Or rather, we have to think about it. It is obvious that all animation productions are hard work, so if we try to do something hard and make it hard, mistakes will be made and the production site will collapse. So, rather than cutting corners, we have to think about how we can make things easier and better, in other words, how we can make things more cost-effective. When I thought about this, I realized that judo is an indoor sport, and that if we built a single stadium (dojo), we wouldn't have to worry about the layout.

--In this sense, judo is easy to work with. In that sense, you felt that judo was easy to work with.

Ohmatsu That's right. However, I later realized that I was mistaken. ...... I had worked on a baseball animation in the past, and it went surprisingly well when I created a baseball field and laid out the rest of the layout with stick figures. So I thought it would be a good idea to extend the process, but as you can see from the animation, there were all kinds of people at the venue. Some were spectators and some were related to the event. If we had done it honestly, it would have been 20 times more difficult than we had originally planned. It was just a matter of the layout.

I did not underestimate judo, but since Muraoka-sensei was an expert at drawing it, I thought it would be easy (for an animator) to draw it. However, depicting judo is extremely difficult. For a national sport (*not regulated by law), there are not many people in the animation industry who have drawn it before, and the act of teaming up, grabbing, and doing ...... itself simply requires a lot of drawing ability.

--You realized after you started production that it was actually a lot of work, didn't you?

Ohmatsu: That was before we started full-scale production. At the time, I was working on a film called "To All the People I Love." Director Matsumoto (Atsushi) is not only one of the best directors in Japan, but also an extremely skilled animator. When I told Matsumoto, "I'm going to do 'Mouichibon! he said, "Well, it's very difficult to draw judo. It sent chills down my spine to hear one of the best in the industry say it was so difficult.

When I actually tried it, I found that no animator wanted to draw judo in the first place. To put it bluntly, they say, "I don't want to do it. It's too difficult. I could do a work called "Mou Ippon! but I don't want to do the judo scene. In the beginning, I had lightly thought that the judo scenes would go well if I made 3D and asked the animators to draw them, but I had no idea that it would turn out to be 10 times or 20 times more difficult, and that was a big miscalculation.

--This was the first time for you to direct an animated film, and did it seem like a tough job for you?

Ohmatsu: Yes, it was. I had a very difficult time at the stage of storyboarding before I started drawing the animation. Even when drawing the storyboards, I had to have a certain amount of knowledge of judo or analyze the frames of the cartoon by dismantling the judo movements with great enthusiasm, otherwise it would be difficult to create a smooth expression.

--By the way, how did you feel when you were approached by the director?

Ohmatsu: Director Ogihara was not an expert on judo, so he was adamant at first. But after persistent repeated requests, coupled with the manga's fun factor, he finally said, "I'll give it a try. I don't think he fully imagined the difficulties he would face in the end, but I think he did think that he would have to work very hard because he was taking on something he didn't know.

The important thing was to "do judo properly.

--When I look at the rest of the staff, I am impressed by the activities of the younger generation, including Satsuki-san, who is the series director. What did you consider when selecting the staff?

Ohmatsu: It comes down to "people who are motivated. Like Director Ogihara, Satsuki-san (series composition) and Takekawa-san (character design) are almost all new to their current positions. Of course, one way might be to choose someone who has value, can draw customers, and can lead the staff. But I wanted to choose someone who would work up a sweat with me, and I want him to grow with the work I am producing and lead to the next job. So this time, I went out on a limb and chose these three people as the director, series composition, and character designers.

When people are accustomed to a job, they tend to do it out of habit, but for me, I also have a strong feeling that I want everyone to work together in a scrum to keep things fresh. Besides, when you are a first-time director, you often have a tremendous amount of energy. I am very happy that Pony Canyon accepted me.

--With such a staff, what were you conscious of in bringing the charm of the original work to life in the anime?

Ohmatsu: That was to do judo properly. The drama part of this work is also very good, but I think it is a drama that comes alive only after the depiction of judo. If we slip up in that important part, I had the feeling that everything would fall over like dominoes. Moreover, the second half of the film is filled with scenes from the tournament, so from the very beginning we talked with the director about making sure we got that part right.

--I felt that you really depicted the minute details of the movements, footwork, and leaps in the kumite fights, because you "got judo right"?

Ohmatsu I think so. There were a lot of cuts in this film, and the depiction of judo was done very carefully. The director's plan was to cut the film in two, and show the "grabbing" and "foot-hanging" motions in a single cut, rather than using one long cut to show the "grabbing" and "foot-hanging" motions. I knew that this would require a huge number of cuts, but I wanted to make the judo scene easy to understand. As a result, I think it was a very good choice, because I was able to achieve a good tempo and ease of understanding.

--On the other hand, I was also impressed by the scenes in which only the faces of the characters pop up and interact with each other, like mini characters in everyday scenes.

Ohmatsu: That was the director's idea. We called them "live heads" on the set (laughs), but it worked out well because it gave a great sense of rhythm and the characters were cute.

--I think that the interviews were indispensable for "getting judo right.

Ohmatsu: With the cooperation of the All-Japan Judo Federation, I was allowed to go to Shukutoku Junior and Senior High School for interviews. There are many videos of the techniques on YouTube, but it is important to feel the atmosphere and the sound live. The judo club members also responded to our various orders. It was also good to get a sense of what it is like for life-size junior high and high school students to perform judo.

--Did Muraoka Sensei also attend the interview?

Ohmatsu: Yes. He gave me a lot of advice on the spot. I think the fact that the animation was well received was due in large part to his cooperation.

The realism of the characters as if they might actually exist

--Is there anything that you used as a reference for your work?

Ohmatsu: The only other anime in which judo is practiced seriously is "YAWARA! So I studied "YAWARA!" to solidify my vision.

--I also thought it was realistic that Muraoka-sensei had judo experience, so he didn't just use big, easy-to-understand moves to make a big decision. In actual judo, there are a lot of muddy exchanges going on. Were you conscious of making the best use of the original work in the anime as well?

Ohmatsu: Mr. Muraoka has a deep knowledge of judo, and of course there are detailed descriptions in the manga, but if you look at "YAWARA! In other words, it is shown in a manga-like manner. Of course, "YAWARA!" is a wonderful work, and the staff of the time put a lot of thought into its creation, but I felt that such a depiction was a bit difficult in the age of 2025.

So, the director took the initiative to make it a little more realistic and realistic. For better or worse, "YAWARA!" was a big part of the film, and based on that, I thought about how we should portray it in the current era, not to say counter to it.

--I thought that since the film was about a women's judo club, it would be portrayed in a lighter light, but it is a very sporty film.

Ohmatsu: We talked about this during the script reading (script meeting), but I thought it would be like talking about "Touch" or "Dokaben" or something like that. The point is, "What is the main focus of the film? Touch" is a wonderful work, but it is more of a story than a baseball story, whereas "Dokaben" is about baseball. In that sense, "Mouichibon! is still a depiction of judo. There is drama and character development, but the main focus is on "doing judo properly. Otherwise, I felt that I could not express the flavor of this work.

--I think that's also related to what you said, but in a sense, the characters in this film are very realistic in terms of their appearance. How did you feel about that?

Ohmatsu: In this day and age, the basic premise is that it is necessary to animate without changing the original work. In addition, as a general rule in animation, the taller the head is, the stiffer the movement becomes. If you want to get the movements right, I think the limit is 6 heads tall. In this case, the original work was drawn with about 6 heads. I thought I could express the charm of the character even with that height, and I concluded that a higher height was impossible to achieve in order to do judo properly.

--I also like the fact that your drawings are realistic and not too slim.

Ohmatsu: I think so. People who look like so-called "anime characters" don't seem to exist in real life (laughs). Of course, there may be the idea that "anime depicts an ideal world," but it is okay to have works based on realism that make people think they may exist in real life. Besides, I personally think the size is very cute, and I like this level of saltiness a lot. I saw a lot of opinions on the Internet, but I said, you don't understand, this is good (laughs).

(laughs) -- Did Mr. Muraoka participate in the reading of the book you were talking about earlier?

Ohmatsu: Mr. Muraoka did not participate, but Mr. Uda, the editor in charge at Akita Shoten, did, and his quick feedback to the professor made the process stress-free. The teamwork was very good.

I always think that when making an animation, teamwork is necessary not only on site but also as a committee. We at BAKKEN RECORD, Pony Canyon, Akita Shoten, and once the broadcast started, TV Tokyo did a great job, and I think the relationship between these people really worked well.

--I know that everyone has their own way of working with the original author, but did Mr. Muraoka have any requests for you?

Ohmatsu: Basically, Mr. Muraoka respected what was happening on site. He rarely gave me detailed instructions, but he gave me advice when the time was right and taught me technical aspects of judo. It was comforting to know that he trusted me, and it was motivating for me. I think we were able to work together in a truly ideal way.

(Interview and text by Kenichi Chiba)