The Tengoku-Daimakyo anime adaptation was one of the highlights of not just the Spring 2023 anime season but the entirety of 2023, with a compelling and mystery-filled dual-narrative supported by memorable visuals and deft direction. One half of the story is centered around Kiruko and Maru, two teenagers who journey through a post-apocalyptic Earth in search of a place called “Heaven.” The other half follows a group of children who are raised in an enclosed futuristic facility with no idea of what the outside world is like or what plans the adults in charge have for them.
The director of the series, Hirotaka Mori, was invited as a guest on the Production I.G panel at Anime Central 2024. Prior to the panel, Anime Trending got the chance to interview him privately.
Thank you very much for your time, Hirotaka Mori-san. You’ve primarily worked in the industry as a storyboard artist and episode director. What do you most enjoy about these roles? What inspired you to embark on this particular path?
Hirotaka Mori: It goes back to college when my senpai was a director in the anime field — that was when the idea of going into anime got planted in my head. At that point, though, I was not aspiring to become a director in the anime industry.
You started off as an assistant episode director for One Piece in 2012. How did you get your start in the industry this way?
As I’ve already answered in the previous question, I wasn’t really planning on going into the anime industry. In fact, I was planning on going to graduate school, and I was actually admitted to graduate school. Toei just happened to have an opening for an assistant episode director*. So, just out of curiosity, I applied, and I ended up getting the job.
What did you learn from your time at Toei Animation?
I learned the overall big flow of the production process because as an assistant episode director, you oversee the production of an episode from the beginning to finish. As a result, you get to be very familiar with every single section and task, and you learn the workflow.
Moving onto the next question: you debuted as (a project-wide) assistant director on Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale. How did you become involved in that production, and how was the experience for you?
This starts off beforehand on a show called ERASED** where I got to know Director [Tomohiko] Ito. I told him, “I would love to work with you again!” This is how I was put onto Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale as director.
A few years after that, you made your directorial debut on Tengoku-Daimakyo. How did the offer arrive, and how did you initially feel?
When I got the role of director for Tengoku-Daimakyo, I was happy. Though I was happy, I was also very nervous because everyone else on the show had a greater career and a bigger portfolio than me, so these were very talented people. However, I did look forward to working with them, and I ended up very much enjoying the process.
Tengoku-Daimakyo isn’t a straightforward manga. What were your priorities and focus when it came to adapting it into a TV anime?
When we adapt a manga to anime, we have to add new elements such as voices, music, and then colorization. All of these are not present in the original manga. However, if the addition of these elements ends up distorting what the manga is, we would be failing at our job, so that was the priority in my task.
In addition to the story and characters, the world and visuals really stand out. What requests did you make to (color designer) Izumi Hirose-san, (art director) Yuji Kaneko-san, and (compositing director/director of photography) Kentaro Waki-san to bring Tengoku-Daimakyo’s broken world to life?
The orders I gave out for Kiruko’s world and the academy world were polar opposites. For Kiruko’s world, I wanted all the background and artwork to be in watercolor with a chaotic lack of consistency. Whereas in the academy world, I wanted all the backgrounds in digital form with a lot of reduced colors to give it an inorganic feeling.
The sense of light and shadow was something I wanted in Kiriko’s world so that the passage of time would be much more obvious — this would include the colorization of the characters. Whereas in the academy world, things would be much more still. This was also reflected in the photography so that the effects would carry over into the two contrasting worlds.
Has your series directorial debut given you any major new realization, insight, or lesson?
I am thankful for my experience with my first directorial work. It was a first for me to work in areas such as screenplay and soundtrack because these are tasks that you would only be responsible for as a director, so this was a fresh experience.
Also, I had to work with a lot of non-production staff as well. I realized that a show is supported by both the staff outside the studio and the fans too, so I really appreciate how a lot of people outside this series supported the production.
Lastly, of all the episodes you’ve worked on in Tengoku-Daimakyo, which is your favorite?
There are so many, but if I were to name just one, that would be episode 8. Episode 8 is based on a story that is also very popular in the manga, so a lot of us were very motivated to do well on this episode. We had a very good storyboarder*** who was really motivated, along with the animation and soundtrack staff. All of us put a lot of effort into this episode!
Awesome, thank you very much for your time!
Anime Trending also attended Mori’s Production I.G Panel afterwards, where he revealed more behind-the-scenes information. Below are some of the ones that caught our attention:
- For Tengoku-Daimakyo Episode 1, which Mori storyboarded and directed, emphasis was placed on the lights and colors of its scenes. “In a desolated world, there’s a lot less artificial lights because everything’s broken down. I put a lot of emphasis on where the light sources were gonna come from, and to reduce the amount of artificial lights… to make it appear more realistic.”
- As an example of the lighting considerations, the kitchen and front door of the inn that Kiruko and Maru stay at are illuminated by the reddish-orange sunset, while the room that they’re in is lit by fluorescent lighting so as to provide a “sandwiching” effect.
- Mori also used colors in the storyboards so that it was easy to understand what time of day a cut was taking place.
- There was an amusing anecdote about Episode 3, which was storyboarded and directed by Kazuya Nomura (Run With The Wind director). A scene in the episode that made use of a red background was originally discarded by Nomura and would have stayed that way had Mori not spotted it in a trash bin. Mori was impressed by the scene and had it reinserted into the episode.
This interview was conducted on May 18, 2024 via interpreter and has been slightly edited for clarity. Interview conducted by Kwok-Wai Hanson with questions submitted by Melvyn Tan.
* Mori has held assistant episode director roles on shows like One Piece, Toriko, and Kyousougiga. One Piece seems to be the show he debuted on.
** Mori storyboarded and directed the sixth episode for ERASED.
*** Kyoto Animation alumni Haruka Fujita was the series episode director for Violet Evergarden and the director of Violet Evergarden: Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll.
