The third season of the TV anime "Arknights: Rise from Ember," based on the popular game "Arknights," is currently airing on TOKYO MX and other stations. The beautiful visuals by Yostar Pictures, featuring a combination of movement and stillness, contrasts between light and shadow, and intricate textures, are creating a buzz. We spoke to anime director Watanabe Yuki about the behind-the-scenes production.
◇The contents of seasons 1, 2 and 3 complement each other
-What do you think is the appeal of Arknights, including the game itself?
There are probably multiple reasons for this depending on how you look at it, but I think a particularly important factor is that it presents a way to enjoy the game by digesting its content. Personally, I'm deeply concerned about the ever-accelerating rate at which content is consumed worldwide, and I think that an increasing number of people don't know how to enjoy a work by carefully engaging with it. Content creators cannot remain unaffected either, and if they fail to provide instant pleasure, they will be eliminated. In this current climate, Arknights has a unique structure, and I felt it was created with the player's gaming experience in mind, where they take their time to digest each piece of information.
I'm no expert on game production, so this is merely my impression from the outside, but I think that the longer you spend with the work, the greater the enjoyment you will get from it, from its strategy game aspect, in which you aim to achieve your goal by repeatedly devising strategies through trial and error, to its storytelling aspects, such as the multi-layered human drama and grand worldview. When adapting it into a film, we on the animation staff also placed importance on creating a structure that would allow viewers to digest the work, and we approached the production not only to reproduce the original work, but also to incorporate density and added value as a film. I hope that we have been able to present an appeal that allows you to understand and enjoy the story more deeply with each viewing.
--It's a long-running series, but what position do you think the third season will take?
This will be a bit long, but to explain from the beginning, the first season was created with a strong emphasis on a sense of real time, allowing the viewer to identify with the perspective of the main characters - the Doctor, Amiya, or Misha - and immerse themselves in the world. Unnecessary flashbacks and explanatory cuts from a god's perspective were eliminated wherever possible, and the structure followed the events happening right in front of the viewer's eyes. Amiya, who takes the lead in the story in place of the Doctor, loses control of her own actions and loses her ability to lead the story as the main character, while the Doctor, who has just awakened and knows nothing, recognizes herself as Amiya's spiritual pillar and begins to stand on her own as the main character. These opposing endings for these two characters overlap the end of the independent stories of the first season and the beginning of the story of the entire series.
While the second season continues to be designed with an immersive visual experience, the characters' recollections begin to intertwine, significantly increasing the number of characters the viewer identifies with. By also seeing the perspectives of the Reunion executives and soldiers who were enemies of Rhodes Island, it becomes clear that each character, even the nameless, faceless mob character, is a protagonist living their own life, regardless of their faction. The many narrow portrayals of these "individuals" overlap, allowing the intentions of the larger "organization (as a whole)" to begin to emerge without being directly depicted. Furthermore, leader Amiya and commander Doctor Frostnova grow through their interactions with characters who share the same position despite belonging to different organizations, and they once again acquire their status as protagonists in the story.
If we limit ourselves to the "protagonist's growth," a universal element of story structure, then the end of the second season marked the end of this work. So, what will be depicted in the third season? Along with Amiya's ability to read the memories of others, the third season will have the past and memory as its main motif, with flashbacks at the forefront. In stark contrast to the first two seasons, which emphasized the depiction of the present, you will notice that there are many scenes showing scenes from the past. The past is a fact that cannot be touched or changed. At the same time, the past easily reaches out into the present, strongly influencing the minds and actions of the characters.
Viewers will be able to relive the past by assimilating themselves into the perspective of the memory's owner, but rather than experiencing it, it might be more accurate to say they are peering into their mind. This is an entirely different kind of immersion from the intended depiction in the first two seasons. There is an order to the contents of the memories, and the visual work follows a chronological axis, but the memories themselves exist simultaneously in the brain regardless of the timeline and shape the person's way of being, so viewers will be exposed to a vast amount of information accumulated by the memory's owner. I believe they will likely have a similar experience to Amiya when another person's memories begin to flow into them. At the same time, peering into the past (i.e., the mind) means getting to know that person deeply, and watching the flashbacks is itself an act of understanding another person.
Each episode reveals a little bit of the past, deepening our understanding of each character, particularly Talulah, and presenting questions and propositions about the process that led to the present: Why did things end up like this? What should we have done then? If only slightly different paths had been taken, perhaps Talulah and Reunion could have existed in a different form. Alternatively, perhaps the story of Rhodes Island depicted in the first two seasons was merely a fortuitous choice among many possible endings, and without the Doctor, Amiya might have been stripped of her protagonist status and unable to lead the story. Perhaps in the future, a Doctor might emerge who rediscovers his ruthless nature, disregarding the sacrifices of his comrades and causing so much bloodshed. Which path should we choose, how should we act, and on what basis should we base our decisions? The new questions presented in the third season are complex and difficult to answer clearly, but clues are scattered throughout the series, often in the words of characters.
The content of seasons 1, 2 and 3 complement each other, so if you've managed to watch all the way to the final episode, I recommend going back and watching episode 1 again. You'll probably discover something new, as the same scenes may look different from the first time you saw them.
◇ Aiming for Cinemascope size
-What was the aim of using a horizontal Cinemascope size?
I'll explain both dreamy and non-dreamy stories. First, regarding dreamy stories, a wide screen has the directorial advantage of making it easier to show the expansiveness of the world. Because it's wider than the 16:9 screen commonly used in anime, it means you can show more people at once, you can show the width of buildings and natural objects more widely, you can get a sense of distance when shooting people facing each other from the side, and it's easy to create panoramic shots, etc. It makes it easier to make the sense of distance and scale of the scenery that instantly catches your eye appear wider and larger.
The style of "Arknights" requires a detailed depiction of the worldview, even in the distant scenery, so Cinemascope was a perfect fit. Another major benefit is that the black bars at the top and bottom create a cinematic atmosphere, or a high-end impression.
To put it bluntly, adding black bars to the top and bottom of a standard 16:9 screen simply reduces the area of the image that appears on the screen. When we were preparing to produce the first season, we were completely short on manpower, and it was predicted that we wouldn't be able to maintain a sufficient level of quality in the character portrayals. Therefore, by reducing the area that appears on the screen, we could reduce the number of things that needed to be corrected, and in the first place, low-quality parts that don't appear on the screen could be passed through without correction, so we adopted the black bars at the top and bottom for various convenient reasons. There are some rather serious reasons for this...
--The camera work is also impressive, with many long shots. The tense feel of the images, including the camera work, is impressive. What did you pay attention to in terms of visual expression?
In terms of long shots, the sense of distance between the subject and the camera is directly connected to the portrayal of the character's emotions. When a character is experiencing great emotional turmoil, whether or not to get close to them is determined by the situation and the director's preferences, but by pulling the camera back as far as possible and showing the character small, you can sometimes achieve the effect of getting closer to the character's emotions. You can also portray a psychological distance or disconnect between the subject and the subject, such as a casual viewpoint watching from afar, or a cold, negative viewpoint.
I think there were many scenes in this film where we could take advantage of the advantages of such a long shot. Although it does follow theory to a certain extent, my assistant director and I have completely different ways of working, so comparing the two may offer a different way of enjoying it.
In terms of visual expression, I was very conscious of using a fixed screen, in other words, directing the subject without moving the camera. This was largely my own personal intention, and I asked the other directors to do the same, so I think it's something that's been thoroughly implemented throughout the series. I wanted to make the most of the benefits of the medium of hand-drawn animation, which is that it's pictures, and I placed importance on the beauty of the painterly composition of the fixed screen.
Because it is a video, I am conscious of how to create a beautiful composition as a single picture, while controlling the flow and flow of power that connects the previous and next cuts and the entire scene, the ratio of light and dark areas that matches the emotion, the changes that occur depending on the order of the cuts, and the power balance due to the screen occupancy rate.
It would be quite difficult to achieve this without the detailed expression of space, but in this work, the art is meticulously drawn down to the materials of the objects, and the photography process expresses the thickness of the air, so I was able to fully convey the emotions without having to move the camera around so much, which I am very grateful for.
-What do you think are Yostar Pictures' strengths?
(This is a limited comment, as I only know about the line I belong to) I think it's because it's a very flat workplace. Producer Takeo Hata has also expressed his intention to create an environment where anyone can feel free to consult with him if they have something they want to say.
Whether or not we can reflect the person's wishes will depend on the situation, but we first try to think together about the best options. Speaking out and expressing one's opinions is meaningful in itself, and in fact, in the third season of "Arknights," there were episodes where we were able to add a little something extra to the action scenes thanks to suggestions from our in-house animators. Our in-house staff have grown so much over the past few years that we were able to really bring out the major highlights in each episode, and I think that's because we're a place where we can think and act in order to create something better.
