Pursuing the "sizzle of cuisine" depicted in CG! Interview with Naohiro "Tady" Yoshihei, director of the winter 2020 anime "Airborne Dragons!

The story is about a "dragon catcher ship" that flies through the sky, hunts dragons, and then eats them! The winter 2020 anime "Airborne Dragons" (originally serialized in Kodansha's "good! Afternoon") is a popular anime series that depicts a beautiful and magnificent fantasy world.

Afternoon"), which is currently being serialized in Kodansha's "good!" series. This work is a visualization of the world of the original comic, which has been attracting attention for its beautiful and magnificent fantasy world and careful character portrayal, and the PV that has already been released has only heightened expectations.

This work, which has already been released on PV, has only heightened expectations.

The visualization of this overly unique work will be directed by Naohiro "Tady" Yoshihei, who served as assistant director for "Knights of Sidonia: The Battle of the Ninth Planet" and "BLAME!

This time, we asked him what he focused on in the depiction of "Airborne Dragons," his first film as a director. We also asked him what attracted him to the film in the first place.

───When did you first read the original story of "Airborne Dragons" and what was your first impression of it?

Naohiro "Tady" Yoshihei (Yoshihei): Actually, I came across the first episode of "Airborne Dragons" when I was looking for a work I wanted to animate as a director, and I fell in love at first sight. It had a very unique and distinctive worldview, and I was excited as a reader to see what kind of story was about to begin. It was a fantasy, so it was not a "I will defeat dragons with swords and magic" kind of work, and the atmosphere of the pictures was very casual, but the worldview and content were very deeply thought out, and the work even had profound themes. On the other hand, as a manga, it is very easy to understand and interesting for people of all ages to read. I thought it was a work packed with appealing elements.

How wonderful it would be if this world could be depicted using computer graphics. If this world could be visualized, it would definitely be impressive. It was the kind of encounter that makes images pop up in my mind after reading the book.

─ ─ You met him in the first episode, but at that point, it is hard to know how the story will develop in the future, isn't it?

Yoshihei: In ordinary manga, there are categories such as "action" and "suspense," but the fact that this work does not have such a fixed framework was very appealing to me. Airborne Dragons" changes and transforms itself into various styles, but it never loses its original essential theme. I felt that it was a work that had a single thread that ran through it.

Therefore, I thought that this was the best work that Polygon Pictures should devote a lot of time and energy to.

The production cost per episode of CG animation is not cheap, and if there is no merit in using CG, it is sometimes difficult to get the project approved. As a result of considering the merits of CG animation, most of the CG animation up to now has been flashy robot animation or VFX-oriented action works with monsters running amok.

On the other hand, I myself wanted to create a CG animation with drama that would leave a deep impression on people's memories. Airborne Dragons" had all the advantages of CG animation, such as action and monsters, as well as the drama of people of different generations and different ways of thinking clashing with each other.

─ ─ When you read the first episode of the original work, did you tell the producers that you wanted to make an anime?

Yoshihei: Yes, I did. However, at that time, I had not yet moved the producers. Later, when the first volume of the book was published, we and Kodansha (the publisher) gradually came together to discuss the possibility of making an anime.

Above all, this work was also one in which I felt a fateful encounter. Producer Mori of Fuji Television approached Makoto Uezu with a request to write the script, but he had just seen BLAME! The original author, Tainori Kuwabara, came to visit Polygon Pictures just before the decision was made to make an animated film. ......

With such wonderful human connections, we started creating works in a whirlpool of passion, not just to create something trendy, but to create a work that we really wanted to create and that we could be proud of.

─ You mentioned earlier that "Airborne Dragons" is a work that defies categorization, but I thought that not being able to fully express the work in a few words must be a difficult aspect of appealing to the outside world.

Kichihei: I didn't describe it in one word, but rather as "a story about flying in the sky, hunting a huge dragon, and eating it deliciously. I was just introducing the work by saying, "This work contains two episodes, one with action and the other with everyday life in a unique world.

I also think that these days, the content needs to be densely packed, and people might get bored with just 30 minutes of action, or with just the daily routine. But if we had both, we thought we could create a TV series that would be a constant highlight for years to come.

─ ─ I felt that this work, ......, with its many characters and complex structure of dragons and dragon catchers, is a work that can make full use of CG models. What exactly were the advantages of using CG in this work?

Yoshihira: There are 19 members of the Quinn Zaza (including the main characters), many dragons, many dishes, and a ship with a complex structure. We had to create 3D models of them. In regular celluloid animation, there is no cost to create models, but for CG animation, we had to figure out how to proportion the cost of the 3D models and the budget to create the actual cut shots. We must not have a situation where the shots are not powerful or there are no effects because we made a lot of character models.

This kind of trial-and-error cost design was a tough problem we faced at the beginning of the animation project. However, in our motivation to somehow devise ways to overcome such situations, we attempted to turn the difficulties we faced in CG animation into the charm of the work. After creating so many character models, we could move the characters thoroughly. The interior of the ship can also be depicted from a variety of angles. If we could further emphasize the appeal of the work itself by drawing it in CG, we thought that our hard work could be converted into quality.

─ So you made no compromises at all when creating a large number of characters.

Yoshihei: In the end, if we compromised on the 3D models of the characters, we would have compromised characters for 12 episodes, which would have lowered the overall quality of the film.

Therefore, even if the budget was not sufficient for the resources, we tried to be creative without making any compromises. We would choose what kind of appeal this character had and what the appeal of this video work would be, and then we would select the parts to be developed and the parts not to be developed accordingly, and then we would refine them so that only the appeal of the character could be brought out on the storyboard side. If there was a part of the work that could not be enhanced in quality, I would never show that part on the screen.

─ ─ In the original story, the dragon's cuisine is also attractively depicted, and I think the sizzle of the cuisine is something that has been difficult to express in CG animation so far. How did you deal with this aspect in "Airborne Dragons"?

Yoshihei: The first thing we focused on was to dispel the preconceived notion that "CG food doesn't look good, does it? I wanted to dispel the preconceived notion that "CG food doesn't look tasty.

CG is relatively good at creating realistic images, but realistic images do not fit into the world of animation. Also, even if realistic images are converted to anime-like images using technology, the original sizzle may not be extracted.

Therefore, what we were working on at the same time as developing the characters was to create delicious dishes that could be "moved." The "moveable" aspect means that we were facing the challenge of expressing the dish in CG. Ultimately, if the picture does not move, you can cheat as much as you want by asking a good artist to do it for you.

The concept was simple: to depict the elements that make the food "delicious" rather than just depicting the food as it looks. If you draw a dish that looks tasty in CG, it will never look tasty.　While extracting such elements, we controlled the details appropriately.

─ ─ Specifically, what elements made the food look "delicious"?

Yoshihei: First of all, the story is about eating "dragon meat," so we started with the question, "What does meat taste like? I started by asking myself, "What does meat taste like? When I drew the meat as it was, it looked realistic but did not look tasty.

I drew the texture and color of the meat, the melted fat, the color of the cooked and raw meat, the color of the blood dripping from the meat, the surface reflections to express the quality of the meat, and the small highlights to show that the meat is fine ....... I drew all these elements for each dish.

─ ─ If you can accumulate such a technique for depicting the "deliciousness" of a dish, I think you will be able to apply it to other works as well.

Yoshihei: The interesting thing about this is that there are no convenient rules for "deliciousness," and the method of expression varies depending on the ingredients (chicken, beef, pork, etc.) and the processing method of the dish. Therefore, although the method of depicting "deliciousness" itself can be used in other ways, I think it is very difficult to formulate a single set of rules for what to depict and what to do to make it "delicious.

In the case of "Airborne Dragons," it was a journey of searching for what would make the dish "dragon meat," which no one had ever tasted before, look "delicious.

─ ─ But was "drawing food" such an important part of the "Dragons in the Air" process?

Yoshihei: "Cooking" is definitely on the list of the "most difficult things" in this work (laughs). (Laughs) "The number of characters," "the number of dragons," "the complicated mechanism of the ship," and "the cuisine" (......) were the first four challenges I had to overcome in drawing this work, and when I overcame them, the work became more attractive.

─ You mentioned "the number of dragons" as one of the "difficult things" in the series, and there are a wide variety of dragons in this work, from small to large. Director Yoshihei was the director and assistant director of the "GODZILLA" animated series. How did you use your experience and knowledge in this film?

Yoshihei: In the case of Godzilla, we already had a sufficient image of the character, and "if it fulfills those symbols, it is Godzilla," so we used an expression similar to live-action and different from the usual cel painting. However, in drawing the dragon in "Airborne Dragons," we had to find a drawing expression that was not based on the expression technique of Godzilla, but rather as a creature that could share life with a more cartoon-like character.

Also, the dragon is huge, so the required hurdles were very high, such as having to balance the detail when seen at long size and the detail when riding on the dragon's back in close-up. In that sense, we were required to achieve a very high quality that would not be different from that of Godzilla. However, while one Godzilla would be active for more than 100 minutes after being created, the dragons in "Airborne Dragons" would be eaten in just one episode (laughs). It was very difficult to create more than 10 such dragons.

The dragons that Kuwabara-sensei draws are very unique, but no matter how fantastical they are, they must not feel fake. Therefore, we collected a large number of references to actual creatures, such as "this part of the mouth looks like this part of a fish" or "this part looks like this part of an insect," and went through a constant trial and error process to achieve the reality of a creature that has really lived there for hundreds of years.

In the end, the dragon would be dismembered and eaten, but we had to match everything up to ......, such as what kind of bone structure it would have, how its muscles would be attached, and if so, how it would fly.

───This is a process that would take an enormous amount of time until we could actually make it move as a CG model. ......

Yoshihei: So, we spent a lot of time on the design first, so that we would not have to rethink or go through trial and error in the CG production process. First, we decide how to present the model and how to do the 3D model, and then we focus on creating only the parts that are necessary. Because of this approach, if a special model was needed for a particular scene, we could prepare it in advance. For example, the scene in the dragon's mouth.

─ ─ In the anime "Airborne Dragons," for example, Jiro participates in the capture of a small dragon in the second episode, and there seems to be more interaction between the characters. Could you tell us about your intention in incorporating these original anime elements?

Yoshihei: It was not our intention to add more original elements to the anime, but rather to maximize the worldview and characters, which are so fascinating. I wanted to create a work that would allow fans of the original to enjoy both the anime and manga, and to immerse themselves in the world of "Airborne Dragons" for a longer period of time.

Besides, what is very difficult with anime is that you have to remember 19 characters in 22 minutes. Therefore, we added various approaches to make the audience remember each character from the script stage. As we developed the story, we naturally added lines that were unique to the anime, and characters began to move and participate in scenes. Mr. Kuwabara, the author of the original story, also participated in the script meeting, and together we reconstructed the story for the anime based on the concept of this anime.

We hope that fans of the original work will be able to watch the anime naturally and without any sense of discomfort.

─ ─ Finally, could you give a message to the readers who are looking forward to "Airborne Dragons"?

Yoshihei: "Airborne Dragons" is not a dark, bleak, serious story. I am working on it because I want to create a happy work that will make people feel happier after work or after a fun day.

Also, I myself feel that way when I make these works, and I want the viewer to feel as if he or she were one of the crew members of the Quinn Zaza. The beauty of the colors of the sky, the texture of the ship that has lived for a long time, which is battered and bruised but still lovely, or being surrounded by your favorite characters who are rich in personality. The images should allow you to experience these worlds.

Also, on the Quinn Zaza, there are uncles who seem to have given up on their dreams, fresh newcomers with a lot of energy, people who are easily angered, goofy people who drink a lot, or people who are distant because they can't talk well, and unique people like Micah, who flies around chasing dragons! ......I want to make a work that makes you feel that everyone is living their life to the fullest while acknowledging the diversity of values, that everyone enjoys being together, and that the time spent eating together is a happy time.

I would be happy if you could turn on the TV and spend an enjoyable 30 minutes with me, without being self-conscious about the fact that it is celluloid CG.