Ufotable director Haruo Sotozaki and DOP Yuichi Terao discuss how their work on the hugely successful, Golden Globe-nominated animated film was meaningless unless they could tap into the maximum level of emotion and deep feeling a character would express and bring that onto the screen for the audience.
When it comes to conveying the emotions of anime characters, the animation team at studio ufotable believes that one has to break the rules in order to break audience hearts.
“There is always a range of expression, the maximum level that a character would express themselves in different types of emotions,” says Yuichi Terao, ufotable’s director of photography on their latest box office hit, .“When different key animators have to break those rules and color outside of those guidelines in order to tap into what a character is feeling on a deep level, it’s that key animator’s responsibility to make sure that visual doesn't break the character or deviate too far from the character to the point where the fans would get angry.”
director Haruo Sotozaki adds, “The animators have to get into a similar emotional state as they're drawing these key animation frames, because unless that emotion they're feeling comes across through the animation onto the screen and reaches the audience, it’s meaningless.”
Ufotable’s philosophy must be working for them because the film, first in an epic three-part cinematic trilogy that represents the final battle of the award-winning anime series, has reached over $770 million worldwide at the box office and is now the highest-grossing international film ever released in North America (surpassing which held the record for 25 years) as well as the highest grossing anime film of all time in 56 countries.
As if that wasn’t enough, was just nominated for the Golden Globe’s Best Animated Motion Picture."Thank you to the members of the Golden Globes for the Best Animated Feature nomination,” says Mitchel Berger, EVP of Global Commerce at Crunchyroll, the leading anime streaming platform which is distributing with Sony Pictures.“We are honored to be recognized, and this nomination extends to all of the production staff who worked to make .
Thank you to our partners at Shueisha, Aniplex and ufotable, as well Sony Pictures Entertainment who helped us bring the film to audiences around the globe, and to our fans who have championed thestory throughout the years.” The series, also directed by Sotozaki and adapted from Koyoharu Gotouge’s manga series, follows Tanjiro Kamado, a teenage boy who joins the Demon Slayer Corps — an organization of humans seeking to hunt down demons.The film is a direct sequel to the fourth season. By this time, Tanjiro has battled many demons with his comrades – Zenitsu Agatsuma and Inosuke Hashibira.Along the way, his journey has led him to fight alongside the Demon Slayer Corps’ highest-ranking swordsmen, the Hashira, including Flame Hashira Kyojuro Rengoku aboard the Mugen Train, Sound Hashira Tengen Uzui within the Entertainment District, as well as Mist Hashira Muichiro Tokito and Love Hashira Mitsuri Kanroji at the Swordsmith Village.
As the Demon Slayer Corps members and Hashira engaged in a group strength training program, the Hashira Training, in preparation for the forthcoming battle against the demons, Muzan Kibutsuji appears at the Ubuyashiki Mansion.With the head of the Demon Corps in danger, Tanjiro and the Hashira rush to the headquarters but are plunged into a deep descent to a mysterious space by the hands of Muzan Kibutsuji.Tanjiro and the Demon Slayer Corps have fallen into the demons’ stronghold – the Infinity Castle.
And so, the battleground is set as the final battle between the Demon Slayer Corps and the demons ignites.Check out the trailer: “One of the biggest challenges was transitioning this story from an anime on a TV series streaming platform to a film showing in a theater,” shares Terao.“The size difference of the screens is quite significant.
In order to withstand the level of visual expression on this big screen, we had to also increase the level of detail of the castle itself.What would have just been a corridor that we fudged towards the end on a TV screen, we then had to make sure, at the end of this hallway, for example, you can see where it splits and goes off into different directions.That's the granular level of detail we expect audiences to be able to see in a theater.” Of all the big players spotlighted in the arc, the castle is probably the biggest player.
A character in and of itself, the impressively expansive building contains architecture that not only seems to expand infinitely into space, but it also appears to fold in on itself at times.The castle, assembled with countless corridors, windows and doorways stacked on top of each other, appears less like a castle and more like an entire city. “Our artistic concept was for the audience to instantly recognize and acknowledge, ‘Wow, this space is infinite,’” notes Terao.“‘Infinite’ was the key word.” But for those wondering what all went into building those 360-degree wide-angle shots of the castle and its complex geometric architecture, Terao isn’t giving away any trade secrets. “There is so much I want to say,” he says.
“But for the sake of the entertainment factor for the audiences, at this time, I'm going to keep that a secret.” But the DP did share the origins of the castle’s design. “As far as the motif, we wanted the architecture to feel Japanese-esque, but not restrict it to only Japanese style architecture,” Terao explains.“We wanted it to almost feel ethnically and nationally ambiguous.We did a lot of research and studied the castles and different houses and architecture of ancient Japan.
But I told our team, who are mostly all Japanese, ‘Don't take this research as is.’ We wanted this to look like someone who didn’t know what Japan is actually like, but who had heard about it.The castle is almost like that person’s interpretation of a Neo Japan.” The “infinite” effect was also supported by the film’s use of lighting to create a unique depth of field in each shot.Some scenes look like pages in an animated pop-out book with the way the backgrounds and foregrounds are contrasted with light.
It was also useful in helping to convey those deep wells of character emotion that the main character Tanjiro has become known for. “Terao had the idea to really flesh out the concept art and include lighting imagery and lighting decisions in those concepts to help us decide what type of lighting we wanted to push through each scene,” notes Sotozaki.“This film was the first time we really leaned into that type of approach, and you can really see the benefits in the scene where demon Kaigaku appears opposite demon hunter Zenitsu.” Terao adds, “When you’re putting together a concept, of course you want to set the overall mood and imagery for the scene itself.But we went even further with this one, and we would look at some of the key frames and also make lighting decisions on the 2D hand-drawn keyframes themselves, whether it was how the shadow hits the character, whether or not we put a rim light in certain spots, or whether or not we have a scene backlit.
And a lot of that was decided on the 2D hand-drawn art level as well.” Though ufotable’s president and chief director Hikaru Kondo (affectionately) describes 2D animation as “unstable” and “inefficient” in an industry that’s continuously making more and more use of 3D animation, the tedious nature of 2D is one of the reasons ufotable goes back to the “old-school” medium time and time again. “It is certainly a very inefficient process, but it’s a process we've used for a very long time,” says Sotozaki.“And also, as audience members, we've grown up with 2D animation throughout our lives.In terms of conveying certain emotions, 2D animation can actually carry more information or more weight than 3D.
I know 3D is a very beautiful medium of expression, and it's easy to keep the shots unified and the models and everything on the screen unified throughout a film.But when it comes to the subtle nuance of a character, when they're angry or when they're smiling or when they're crying, we can actually get a little bit more of the bias of each individual artist and that artist's emotional state in the 2D lines they draw on paper.That level of resolution you can't get through any other pipeline.” Rather than using the word “unstable” Terao likes to refer to 2D animation as being “uncontrollable.” “It’s really hard to control hand-drawn animation because it gets swayed by the emotions of the animator,” explains Terao.
“It's unstable.But I think when it all clicks and fits and works together, you can achieve levels of expression that you can't get through any other medium.” Many animators at ufotable have been working together for 10 - 15 years or more, and the fact that each animator not only knows their own strengths, but the strengths of their colleagues as well, is a big part of what makes their 2D animations so touching and iconic. “There are a lot of unique artists and diverse groups of artists at ufotable who bring their own type of visual expression to the table,” says Sotozaki.“In our team, there are animators who do action sequences better and others who do drama sequences better.
So, a large part of my job is for me to assign the key animators to the proper assignment and the proper scenes so we can maximize the team's strengths.It’s also my job to take all this nuance but still keep it unified throughout the film.” And as collaborative as animation always is, ufotable also sees the benefits of some friendly competition in-house. According to Terao, “Everyone really understands the role they need to fill and the expectations they need to meet in the larger ecosystem.But, but there's a healthy rivalry of ‘Oh that animator made that, so I'm going to make an even cooler animation.
And I think that, multiplied by the power of time, is what we were able to harness to put together what you see on screen.”
Victoria Davis is a full-time, freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all things anime.She's reported on numerous stories from activist news to entertainment.Find more about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.
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