Long interview with Hiroyuki Hashimoto, animation director! (People in the Middle of Animation and Games No. 39)

The 39th installment of this series features animation director Hiroyuki Hashimoto. His first film, "Is Your Order a Rabbit? is known as a blockbuster (editor's note: a work that was a box-office success) and is now synonymous with "everyday" animation. Since then, he has continued to excite anime fans with a wide variety of ambitious works such as "Magical Girl Raising Plan," "Welcome to the Classroom of the Supreme Being," "Slow Start," and "LAIDBACKERS. In this article, he shares his abundant love for the works and his keen eye for direction. In addition to casting and staffing, he also talks about his journey to becoming a director and the behind-the-scenes details of the birth of his masterpieces. Mr. Hashimoto, who describes himself as "a director close to a producer," seems to have a philosophy that is appropriate for the age of media mixes, as he cares more about his fans than anyone else. Once again, writer crepuscular brings to light the personality of a top creator from a unique perspective.

I like to be attached to my work.

Thank you very much for taking time out of your busy schedule for this interview. First of all, how long have you been working as an animation director?

Hiroyuki Hashimoto (Hashimoto): I have been working as an animation director since "Baskash! (2009), so I think it's been about 10 years.

What do you think is the attraction of your work?

Hashimoto: Basically, there is only one director in a film, and he/she can see the whole picture. I think it is very rewarding to be involved in a production and be able to see the whole picture.

I used to be an animator, but I was not very good at it, so I have never worked as an animation director. It was the same after I became a director, and it was interesting to be able to look over an entire piece of work. Maybe I like to get attached to my work. I can see various things in all the cuts, I can do what I want, and I know exactly why things turned out the way they did. I can face the work honestly.

Hashimoto-san's love for the work can be clearly seen on your Twitter and in past interviews.

Hashimoto: I love all the works I have been involved with. That's why I think it will be very difficult if I continue to do so. I can take care of up to three children, but when you have 15 or so children, you wonder if you will be able to make a living, or if you will be able to make a living at home. I can take care of them up to three, but when you have 15 or so, you start to wonder, "Will we be able to make a living? (laugh). (Laughs.) That makes me happy, but it also makes me feel like I have a lot to worry about.

Hideo Kojima's emotionally-charged works

What works have influenced you in your creative activities?

Hashimoto: I think I am more influenced by games than by animation. I was most influenced by Hideo Kojima's works, such as "Metal Gear" (1987), "Snatcher" (1988), and "Police Notes" (1994). At first, I thought that games were similar to anime in that they let you play with what you have created, but Kojima's games ask us questions while letting us play with what he has created.

Like with "Snatcher," when I was told, "The sound is too quiet, maybe you should turn up the volume. I thought, "Well, let's turn it up," and when I did, I was surprised by a huge explosion. There were many such ideas even for an old game, and the synchronization between the main character of the game and the player was so great that there was a sense of trying to break through the invisible barrier between the game and the player, which was amazing. I think Kojima-san is really good at shaking people's emotions.

I was also shocked when I played "Super Mario Brothers" (1985). You were walking along a normal side-scrolling path, there was a goal, and as you progressed through the stages, you gradually became better and better at the game. But one day, when I was getting better, I was able to go up to the ceiling. I ran and found a clay pipe with "2," "3," and "4" written on it, and I was so happy and disappointed when I made it to the stage warp. ...... I felt like I was dancing in their hands. I think I learned the key to professional monodzukuri, which is to "imagine and create something even beyond the imagination," from games like that.

Kojima is still actively producing games, and "DEATH STRANDING" was released on November 8, 2019. Have you already played it?

Hashimoto: I wanted to play it right away, but when I was told that the PC version would be released in 2020, I had to think about it for a while. ...... (smiles)

What works have influenced you in terms of anime?

Hashimoto: "Mobile Suit Gundam" (1979-80) by Yoshiyuki Tomino and "The Witch's Delivery Service" (1989) by Hayao Miyazaki. These two films had a big impact on me. I used to watch "Gundam" a lot because it was on rerun many times, and I was struck by the way it was "a robot story, but not a robot story," the way there was only a battle between the righteous and the wicked, but now there is "a hero who does not want to fight" and "the enemy is thinking in his own way. As for "The Witch's Delivery Service," I moved to Tokyo when I was in junior high school and wanted to live alone. I saw "The Witch's Delivery Service" right around that time, and since Kiki was in junior high school, I felt like she was just like me. Back then, if you bought a ticket once at the theater, you could see the movie as many times as you wanted, so I saw it six times in three days, and after that I got a part-time job and bought the LD (laser disk).

If you don't understand "darkness," you can't depict "light.

Hashimoto: Do you have a genre or world view that you are good at?

Hashimoto: Basically, I like everything. I am currently working in the moe genre, but I don't like only this genre, and I have not yet worked in all genres. As I mentioned earlier, I have always liked "Gundam," and I joined Nakamura Productions partly because I wanted to work on mechanical works.

I also joined Nakamura Productions because I wanted to work on a mecha movie, and "Magical Girl Raising Project" (2016) has many beautiful girls, but it is also a so-called "battle royale" movie, with some cruel scenes. Did you hesitate when you took on the role of director?

Hashimoto: No, I did not. I like to depict the darkness in human beings, and I think that if you don't understand the darkness, you can't understand the light either. Even good people have a dark side. I like to talk with people, and I like to talk with people I meet for the first time, but of course they also have a dark side that no one can understand. Because I have that dark side, I think I know what I want people to do to get me out of that dark side, and how I want them to treat me.

Hashimoto: "I think you have a dark side, so I think you know what you want people to treat you this way.

Hashimoto: I like works that have the feeling of "If I have friends around me who can pull me along, maybe I can get out of the dark parts of my life.

Letting the viewer imagine the "best expression

Hashimoto-san, I would like to know a little more about your theory of direction. For example, is there anything you are particular about in showing the cuteness and attractiveness of girls?

Hashimoto: I don't feel that it is enough to show breasts or the lower half of the body. In my works, I like to include close-ups of hands and toes.

How do you feel about facial expressions?

Hashimoto: I like "imaginative direction," and when I think "the best facial expressions are likely to be shown," I often don't take pictures of the characters. Then the viewers wonder, "What kind of faces are these people making right now? and they are looking at the faces of the people who are not on the screen. I think the viewers will imagine more and more about the people who are not on the screen, and they will like them more and more.

I personally thought that the way you shot the characters in long or medium shots, and then connected them to close-ups of their faces without changing the camera position, was also a characteristic of Hashimoto's style of filmmaking. I also liked the profile of Sonico waiting at a traffic light in Akihabara in episode 8 of "SONIANI -SUPER SONICO THE ANIMATION-" (2014) and "Is Your Order a Rabbit?" (2015) Chino staring at a photo in episode 1, Koyuki looking thoughtful in the opening of "Magical Girl Raising Project," and Arnelia remembering her past after seeing Harami beaten to death by a flame giant in "LAIDBACKERS- Raidbackers-" (2019). Not only in the films you direct, but also in the storyboards you often see in the episodes you storyboard.

Hashimoto: I don't think I did it consciously at first, but as I was drawing my own storyboards, I gradually realized that I was drawing them consciously. Rather than zooming in slowly, I want to get close to the characters in a flash and close the distance between them, and I want the viewer to get into the emotions of the characters all at once.

Another reason why I don't zoom in closer is that it is unique to anime. When zooming in to 60 frames in animation, you have to use a large format, which increases the amount of work the animator has to do. But even if the amount of drawing increases, the unit price of a cut does not increase. If that is the case, it is better to draw both the drawn image and the close-up image at the same 100-frame size to save calories, and I think this is an important aspect of TV animation.

Cute characters + well-drawn backgrounds = "Is your order a rabbit?

Although we are not talking about the characters, there were also some impressive motifs used. The opening of "Magical Girl Raising Project," the battle between Yamato and Arkol in episode 12 of "DEVIL SURVIVOR 2 the ANIMATION" (2013), and Hanana's dream world in episode 12 of "Slow Start" had a full moon with a strong presence in the background.

Hashimoto: I like the full moon. The full moon is very memorable, and I don't seek too much reality in my animations. In my mind, the size of the moon is not so important. In fact, I am sometimes asked by staff members, "Isn't the moon too big? But if I want to create an impactful image, I think that's fine. I think this is an expression that is difficult to achieve in live-action, but easy to achieve in animation.

The work "Is Your Order a Rabbit? (2014-) is very beautiful with its wooden houses and cobblestone streets.

Hashimoto: When I was asked to direct "Gochiusa," my first thought was that the characters were highly accomplished. However, due to the fate of a four-frame manga, I couldn't draw in the backgrounds. When I thought about what I wanted to see added most to the animation, I knew it would be the backgrounds. But at first, I wondered how well the cute characters and the well-drawn backgrounds would go together, so I asked Satoru Hirayanagi, the art director, to do some experiments for me. Now I'm glad I did it, because fans tell me that the art is very beautiful.

Hashimoto: The use of color in "Slow Start" was also distinctive.

Hashi: When I saw the cover of the first volume of the original, it was the pastel colors that I thought were so beautiful, so I asked the color designer, Ms. HOKARI Kanako, to reproduce those colors. For "Gochiusa," I had the background artist draw the image BG (backgrounds that are abstract images unrelated to the setting of the work), but "Slow Start" uses pastel colors, and I thought it might be difficult to match the colors with the background artist, so I asked the finisher to draw the image BG as well. I asked Mr. Finishing to do the image BG as well. I asked Mr. Hokari to create the best colors that would perfectly match the colors of the characters and the background, and he created a tremendous amount of them, so I apologize for the inconvenience.

Hashimoto: It seems that you often draw the storyboards for the first and last episodes of the films you direct.

Hashimoto: Everyone in the animation industry assumes that "the director draws the first episode," and I draw the storyboards myself because they are meant to show what kind of animation it will be. As for the final episode, I do it because I think that if I close the beginning and the end, I can create a flow. Especially for the daily life series, there is no definite end, but there is an end as some kind of closure, so if you don't know the daily life series, it is difficult to bring it to that point, and I think it is my responsibility as the director to do that, so I do it myself.

Hashimoto: What are you particular about when creating the opening?

Hashimoto: When I draw the storyboards for the opening, it is the same for "Is Your Order a Rabbit? and "Magical Girl Raising Project" as well, I dare to put a stop in the middle of the moving pictures and put a lonely expression on the face. Even if the story is cheerful, I want it to be not only cheerful but also memorable. I wanted to have a part of the story that would leave a lasting impression. In the first season of "Gochiusa," when Maya and Meg jump to Cocoa, Chino looks a little sad, and in the second season, Sharo sits on the bed looking sad.