What will happen to animation production in the age of Corona symbiosis? What we can see through the joint project "Monstro x Madhouse"─── Interview with Teppei Sunamura (Creative Director of Monstro), Yuichiro Fukushi (Animation Producer) and Sunao Hirasawa (Producer)

Monster Strike" (hereinafter referred to as "MonSt"), a popular content of mixi/XFLAG, which has been developed in various media such as games and animation, and "Madhouse," a leading animation studio in Japan, have teamed up.

MonSt" and "Madhouse" have teamed up for a joint project under the concept of "Energize the world with entertainment! and released a short film under the joint project "MonSt x Madhouse" based on the concept of "Energizing the world with entertainment! The film features the new limited character Amida, who will appear in the "Super Beast Festival" event in the "Monster Strike" smartphone app from noon on May 30, 2020. The film is a dynamic visual work starring Amida, a new limited edition character.

The mood of stagnation caused by the new coronavirus continues to change the state of the world, and as a result, the concept of this project is highly topical.

In the form of a remote interview, we asked the staff about various projects, including the development of the "MonSt" character and the launch of "Monsonni! which is involved in various projects such as the development of the "MonSt" character and the launch of "Monsoni!

We asked them about the secret story behind the production of the short film, as well as their predictions for the future of the animation industry, which is on everyone's mind.

The contents of an anime series are condensed into a 4-minute film!

─ What kind of project is "MonSt x Madhouse"?

Sunamura: For some time, we had been thinking that we would like to release a video work in the promotion of the new "MonSt" character, which would be timed to coincide with the release of the new "MonSt" character and would carry the values and brand message that "MonSt" values, namely "human connections". I was introduced to Madhouse by Arch's Mr. Hirasawa in the fall of last year, and this was the beginning of a project like this to bring new "MonSt" characters to the world while energizing the world through entertainment! This project started with Mr. Hirasawa's introduction to Mr. Madhouse.

Hirasawa: I have been friends with Mr. Sunamura for more than five and a half years since October 2014. In the course of our many conversations while working on the animated version of "MonSt" and other projects, I noticed a few keywords in Mr. Sunamura's words.

One of them was "I want to cheer people up," "I want to brighten things up," and "I want people to have a lot of fun. The third was "I love One-Punch Man.

I understood that XFLAG is a creative company that provides royal battle entertainment and wants everyone to enjoy it, but when I heard that, I also felt that they have a strong desire to be close to the feelings of their customers and to make them excited together. I also felt that they also have a strong desire to be close to the feelings of the customers and to make them happy together.

In order to respond to this desire, I thought that the power of the studio, which can demonstrate high intensity creativity, would be essential, and in response, the power of marketing, which cares about the customers, would also rise in synergy.

So, in my search for a studio that could face the power of Mixi, I approached Mr. Fukushi. Mr. Fukushi had been in charge of "One-Pan Man" and I had heard good things about him from his former company, GONZO, so I was hoping to work with him someday.

But when I heard Mr. Sunamura's story, I thought, "If it's as interesting as this (communicating the appeal of the new "MonSt" character through a video work that carries the brand message of valuing human connections), I think I can do it," and "When I get Madhouse's creativity out there, I thought it might be possible to do something interesting with Madhouse's creativity. That was around early fall of 2019.

───What was your impression when you first heard about us?

Fukushi: I have known Mr. Hirasawa for a long time, and I had hoped to have a chance to work with him someday. I was very intrigued by the project you proposed this time, as I have not worked on many animated video game productions.

From the beginning, I was approached with the idea of making a short animation, and I thought it would be a challenging project to work on both as a group and as a video, so I was very positive about it, and we decided to officially proceed with the project.

───Did the idea of making a short film like a music video come naturally to all of you?

Sunamura: We had a limited time frame, and when we thought about how we could get the audience to become emotionally involved in the project, we decided that a video work with music would be better than just a short story.

Music is an excellent means of expression to move people's emotions in a short period of time, and we thought that by putting music on the video, the melody and lyrics would complement the dialogue and story, and the message would be strengthened.

─ ─ How did you decide that the work would use the new character "Amida"?

Sunamura: For MonSt, the "Super Beast Festival" event held in the game is a particularly exciting event that users look forward to, and if we could work with such great creators, we wanted to make sure that we could apply our work to this high energy event. We decided that "Amida," a character from the "Super Beast Festival," would be a good choice.

─ Which came first for the short film, the story or the music?

Sunamura: The story. We wanted to have a consistent theme and message for the characters and the video even within the short length of the film, so in this case, we set "memories," which are things shared by people, as one theme and created the character settings concurrently with the story.

─ ─ The length of the video work is less than 4 minutes, but did you set up a story longer than that at the beginning?

Sunamura: I don't have the skills to put together a story in 3 to 4 minutes (laughs), so I may have created a draft that would be enough to make a series of animated films. With everyone's help, I was able to get it down to 4 minutes.

What was the reason for appointing first-time director Daiki Harashina?

───Did the director, Daiki Harashina, come up with the specific storyline?

Fukushi: Mr. Sunamura gave me a draft, and Mr. Harashina was present at the meeting and we talked about many things. We had him create a very long story from beginning to end. After the music was decided and the overall length was set, we asked Mr. Harashina to think about how to summarize and present the story, which he then incorporated into the storyboard.

Hirasawa: Mr. Sunamura writes his own text. You used to write lyrics as well, didn't you?

Sunamura I am very embarrassed (laughs). (laughs). I am the creative producer of a spin-off of MonSt called "Monsoni! which is a spin-off content of MonSt, and I have written some of the lyrics, drafts of the animation story, and scripts for the program. （I am also writing some of the lyrics for the group, drafting the storyline for the anime, and writing the script for the show.)

Hirasawa: I saw that they wrote their vision of what they wanted to present to the world not in hard words, but in the form of lyrics, which led me to think, "Well, then, this is the kind of character and this is the kind of story we want to tell. ...... I think that's how we came up with the idea for the film. The final resolution of Amida's story, which is action entertainment but does not involve beating him up and knocking him down, also came from Mr. Sunamura in the early stages. Mr. Sunamura was largely responsible for the "standards of value of the character Amida" and "what we want to convey through the work," which are fundamental to the film, and Mr. Harashina thought about how to upsize and downsize them in the short time frame.

In this way, we created ...... by playing catch-up between the abstract and concrete aspects of the work, and then finalizing the content.

After the first few meetings, once we had a concept, Mr. Fukushi and Mr. Harashina paved the way for us, just like in a chess game, and all we could do was exclaim, "Wow, that's great!

Sunamura: I think it was easy to put together because it was a short film, not to mention the help of Madhouse. If it had been longer, we would have had too many ideas, both good and bad, and it would have taken too much time for pre-production.

─ ─ As for the visual highlights, I felt that this is the culmination of director Harashina's career at this point in time. The film has beautiful imagery and detailed movements that only Madhouse can produce, and at the same time, it is very well worth seeing because it has some sharp cuts that remind us of the Gainax works that are his roots, since he started his career at Studio Color. Could you tell us how you decided to use Mr. Harashina for this project?

Fukushi: I first met Mr. Harashina several years ago on a job. At the time, he was still at Color, but that meeting led to his joining Madhouse and working with us as an animation staff member.

He was a very energetic person with a great approach to his work. I knew from working with him and watching the way he dealt with people and works that he was capable of taking on responsibility, so I asked him to join us.

Our goal this time was to make a film that people would watch over and over again. In this respect, I thought that if we could make a video filled with Mr. Harashina's interest and enthusiasm, it would be a good video, and I also thought that he would be a centripetal force in organizing the work site.

In terms of my career, this was the first time for me to draw storyboards or organize people, so I worked with our core members such as Norifumi Kugai and Keiichiro Saito.

My job was to create a site that would allow the staff to show their abilities, and Mr. Harashina was in charge of all the directing aspects. I was trying to find the right place for it. I think Mr. Harashina had the most difficulty in finding the best fit, even though he had prepared a picture that would be a picture in every part.

───When I followed the story, I found that there was a heavy development waiting for me in the latter half of the film, although it was only in fragments, and it made me think about a lot of things. I think you could have taken it in a lighter direction as a short animated film set to music, but what was your intention in taking it in a heavier direction?

Sunamura: I definitely wanted to keep the intuitively pleasing and cool aspects, but I also wanted there to be room for various interpretations after the show. Personally, I like that kind of thing.