As one of the Guests of Honor at last week’s Anime Expo, acclaimed anime director Takayuki Hirao had quite a busy schedule. Between meeting fans, attending a showing of his 2021 animated hitPompo the Cinephile, and teasing the specifics ofhis upcoming featureWasted Chef, the director’s time at the convention was bustling.
Sitting down to discuss his work, the director opens up about the challenges and joys of anime production, the waysPompostands out in the zeitgeists of both anime and Hollywood, and the observations and feelings going into his hotly-anticipated upcoming feature.
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Game Rant: It’s great to be talking! So, is this your first time at Anime Expo here in Los Angeles?
Takayuki Hirao: laughs Yes, this is actually my first time at any American Anime convention!
GR: Anime Expo is certainly a good one to start on. What are your impressions of it all?
TH: It’s a bit overwhelming! I’m honored the convention chose to invite me as a guest of honor, and I’m really enjoying it. Everybody here loves anime, and the enthusiasm here is so filled with cheering and noise, especially when we screenedPompoyesterday, so it’s been great.
GR:Speaking ofPompo, at the film being about two years old, how does it feel to have this milestone, and to see this big screening of it now?
TH: So even though it was first released two years ago, in these two years, film festivals and local screenings have kept a presence with the movie. It feels like there’s a long-run for a movie, admittedly! We feel like there are a lot of core fans in Japan, and I’m so proud of that. In terms of Anime Expo, the screening here was definitely reassuring that there’s a fan interest here as well. While we were showing the film, yesterday, actually, the tech people at the convention loved it. They wanted to get the Blu-Ray!
GR:Pompo the Cinephilewas obviously adapted from a popular web manga in Japan. Out of all of the manga you could have chosen to adapt as a director, what made you set on Pompo?
TH: Before I decided onPompo, I was facing a sort of wall in the anime space. I had felt like my work to that point, and what the industry was looking to me for, was getting kind of stagnant. I still wanted to be very involved in anime, and when I was discussing what my next project could be with producers in Japan, I wanted to do something that would be about the process of being creative itself. One of the producers, who had been involved in my last project actually, recommendedPompoand told me, ‘you have to read this manga.’ He was like a trooper, who had really helped me on other projects, so I trusted his judgment. And that’s how Pompo-san came about.
GR: Really interesting. Which producer?
TH: Yusuke Tomizawa. Yusuke was a producer on Bandai Namco’sGod Eatergames, which we were adapting for anime. And, to be frank, it was a hard project and we both kind of failed it in a way. At that point, we were almost thinking about how to keep working hard, especially when everything in the anime industry is so based around reputation. So we wanted to make something that was very much about the idea of creating things, and getting things done, something all about creating a film, likePompo the Cinephile, was perfect. He was involved, and I’m really glad about how it all turned out!
GR: The process of creating a film as displayed inPompois obviously live-action in its story, but how would you say the creative challenges displayed in the film are similar to the creative challenges of making anime?
TH: When you make a film, or any TV, or visual work, you have to make decisions about what parts to keep, and what parts to leave in. In the original manga forPompo, you see so much of the issue of what is and isn’t worth keeping, and in adapting it we wanted to make the film true to the original manga. The characters going over those aspects in the film are the same kind of things the animators and the anime creators deal with. The processes are different in a lot of ways, but that fundamental aspect of decision-making is what we empathized with. And that’s a kind of thing that can deal not just with entertainment, but really with anything.
GR: And of course, the setting ofPompois Hollywood…
TH: ‘Nyallywood’! laughs
GR: laughs Yes, Nyallywood based off of Hollywood! Now, what is kind of the general perception of Hollywood in the Japanese media world, or the anime industry in particular, as a sort of ideal setting for the creative process?
TH: It’s a big inspiration both in its setting and in what it puts out. I of course love watching classic Hollywood. I tended to gather information about how it all looked, and felt. The atmosphere of how it’s seen, at least in Japan, is where people go to really set out and collaborate and make what they want a reality. Maybe calling it “where pursue their dreams” is a bit sentimental, but that’s a way of thinking of what the film was meant to convey. Some people might say that such a bright portrayal is a little unrealistic, but I was making it to be collaborative, sort of a fight song on the collaborative process.
GR: Of course, if we were to get topical, there’s a lot of anxiety in Hollywood right now, with the general atmosphere in the midst ofthe writers’ strike and questions over artificial intelligence. Has the Japanese industry been noticing that from across the ocean?
TH: Yes. All I can say personally is that forPompoI was focusing on the collaborative elements of moviemaking, of Hollywood, in a way that charted onto the experiences of the anime industry. Obviously in the real Hollywood we’re seeing a lot of more realistic issues play out there, and in Japan people are watching that.
GR: Turning now towards your next project, it was codenamedWasted Chef…
TH:Wasted Chef, yes, that’s actually the name of the film as of right now, not a codename!
GR: Really? Interesting. What is something audiences can expect or look forward to, with this being your first original theatrical project?
TH:Wasted Chef, what I’ve been contemplating about with it, is how quickly people’s situations and circumstances can shift. What I mean by that kind of coincides with the covid-19 pandemic, and how the restaurant culture in Japan, which was always so vibrant, immediately adapted to this new situation where nobody could go out. I’d like this next movie to be about the process of how people adapt their values to their surroundings, which is very much something that I think can speak to younger people. It has some fantastical elements, yes, but there’s also something encouraging I hope people can enjoy in the same vein asPompo.
Pompo the Cinephileis currently available on Blu-Ray and Digital from GKIDS.Wasted Chefis estimated to release in Japan in 2024.
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