Columnist Andrew Osmond talks to the director about his 2 acclaimed anime, the TV series ‘Odd Taxi’ and his new film, ‘The Last Blossom.’
With the release of Disney’s (which I enjoyed but found a clear notch down from the original), it’s an apt time to feature an anime director who’s also depicted a world of talking animals.He’s Baku Kinoshita, who directed the 2021 TV series and this year’s cinema film , both very distinctive pieces of anime.I interviewed Kinoshita in November while he was visiting Britain to attend the Manchester Animation Festival and the Edinburgh part of Scotland Loves Animation.
(My thanks to Anime Limited and especially the wonderful Kerry Kasim for making the interview possible, and to Bethan Jones for tireless interpreting.) If you just want the interview, then scroll further down.To clarify, it’s that’s in a world of talking animals, though with a very different mood and tempo from .is a slow-burn mix of character comedy and mystery drama.
The focal character is a walrus – you may be thinking of again, but he’s not a walrus.He’s a world-weary taxi driver in an animal version of Tokyo, reliable and sardonic and single, named Odakawa.All this walrus wants is a quiet life.
Yet over the 13-part series, Odakawa is drawn into a web of mysteries, involving criminals, cover-ups, idol singers, struggling comedians, deranged gamers, kidnap, murder and the strangest rapper imaginable.You can stream the series on Crunchyroll, which has also released it on Blu-ray.(The series ends on a sudden cliffhanger, but it’s addressed in the closing minutes of the film , which is largely an abridgement of the show; it’s also on Crunchyroll.) Kinoshita’s new film is set in the human world, though there are links to which I ask about in the interview.
(One link is that Kinoshita worked on both titles with the same writer, Kazuya Kinomoto.) Told in flashback, is framed as the memories of an elderly convict, Akutsu, alone in his prison cell… or almost alone, as he tends a flower which to him.Together man and flower recall the Japan of the 1980s, when Akutsu was a member of a yakuza gang, though he also had a home with a woman and a child.But then his family and criminal lives collide explosively… was inspired by the live-action Japanese films by Takeshi Kitano.
They often involve yakuza, though Kinoshita himself has highlighted a non-yakuza Kitano film, 1991’s .An American release of is yet to be confirmed, but it seems certain in some form.So far, the film has already played at Annecy and Manchester Animation Festival and it was shown in Edinburgh, Glasgow and London during the Scotland Loves Anime festival.
At the latter, it had a two-for-two win, being awarded both the festival’s judges and audience prizes as the best film in competition.was animated by OLM Inc., which also animates .was animated by the CLAP studio, which animated the films and .
Andrew Osmond: Taxi Driver Baku Kinoshita: (Thinks) A buffalo.AO: Odd Taxi BoJack Horseman BK: I have seen it; not all of it, but it’s good.AO: BK: I worked with the same script writer [on ] as I did on .
I really like Episode 4 of , when you get the narration from the character of Tanaka [a supporting character in the series.] I love the technique that the scriptwriter Kazuya Konomoto uses of driving the plot forward through conversation.Because I was working with him again on this, we wanted to have this talkative character at the center of the story, who could then drive the plot forward through conversation.AO: The Last BlossomOdd Taxi BK: With , the flower is a character who has been alive for more than 100 years, and I wanted him to have wisdom beyond that of humans.
Pierre Taki is a musician; he also has played all sorts of roles as an actor, and what I found appealing about him is you don’t always know what he’s thinking.And I thought that he had the right kind of mysterious depth to play the flower, and that's why I offered the role to him.With Odokawa, the character himself is fairly young.
He’s about 40, I think, and he does have a dry voice.B also I wanted it to have an element of freshness to it.And I thought that Natsuki Hanae was the right voice.
AO: Odd TaxiDemon SlayerThe Last Blossom BK: That wasn’t the reason for using those actors in .In this case, the film is quite similar to Japanese live-action in the editing, in the story, in the tempo.And that’s why I decided to approach actors from the world of Japanese live-action.
AO: Odd TaxiThe Last Blossom BK: Odokawa is based on a walrus so yes, he has a big face.Akutsu is tall for an anime character; not exceptionally so, but he is a taller character.I think the advantage of bigger characters is that they’re easier to animate.
So Odokawa and Akutsu would have been a bit easier for the animators to work with.AO: BK: Both of these stories, I wrote together with Konomoto.And there are elements of both of us reflected in the films, but in terms of having more emphasis on the people around you, rather than blood ties, I think that comes from Konomoto in both cases.
AO: Odd TaxiThe Last Blossom BK: It’s because I like crime stories.I enjoy showing characters living in the underbelly of society.And I’m not trying to justify them, but in the sense that they aren’t guaranteed a future, I find a kind of ephemeral beauty in that.
AO: BK: I’m a realist, but because I’m a realist, I feel like I need to make stories that give people hope.I think we all need to enjoy ourselves, and I feel it’s my role to bring hope to people.AO: Odd TaxiThe Last Blossom BK: wasn’t intended to be a mystery.
This was intended to be human drama, to depict the rise and fall of one man.And so I think it’s a vector change from mystery to human drama.AO: The Last BlossomGrave of the Fireflies BK: Yes, there is a risk of people getting that wrong, thinking they’re watching a different kind of film.
But actually, I think it’s good that they're being misled in a good way.Because they start off thinking it’s going to be a dark story all the way through, and actually the ending is quite hopeful and uplifting.So, you’re taking them through something dark, but then giving hope, which I think is a nice way to do it.
AO: Last Blossom BK: The bubble was a time of great success.Everyone was doing well, but then when it burst, everything collapsed.And I wanted to juxtapose that with the life of one man, one man's rise and fall, and I think of it as a time of ephemeral beauty.
[Warning! The final question is about the end of the TV series, though I’ll minimize spoilers.] AO: Odd Taxi BK: I knew the ending from the beginning in terms of the main character, but we hadn’t decided that we were going to bring all of the characters together at the end.That was something the script writer added.[Regarding the episode’s biggest reveal.] That was there from the beginning.
It was something that the screenwriter and I came up with between us, and we knew from the first episode that that was the case.Andrew Osmond is a British author and journalist, specialising in animation and fantasy media.His email is [email protected].
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