An interview with producer Hidehisa Taniguchi of "Witch Watch"

The TV anime "Witch Watch" is based on the popular manga by Kenta Shinohara, which is currently being serialized in "Weekly Shonen Jump" (Shueisha). The anime has gained popularity with its well-paced comedy scenes, including parodies, and its unique structure that has captured the hearts of fans. Episode 14, "Uron Mirage Episode 119: Defeating Fuzzy -4," which aired on July 6th, also attracted attention for its animated adaptation of the manga "Uron Mirage," which appears in the show. The anime is produced by Vibrancy Animation Studio, known for the films "The Quintessential Quintuplets " and "Magical Girl Magical Destroyers." We spoke to the studio's producer, Hidehisa Taniguchi, about the behind-the-scenes production.

◇Highly enthusiastic staff A structure that keeps the momentum of the manga

The series is a comedy manga by Shinohara, known for "SKET DANCE" and "Astra Lost in Space." It began serialization in February 2021 in "Weekly Shonen Jump." It depicts the life of Wakatsuki Nico, a girl training to become a witch, and her childhood friend Morihito, a high school student with the powers of a demon, living together. Morihito is given the mission of protecting Nico from a prophesied disaster as his familiar, and so begins a mysterious and difficult journey.

At Vibury Animation Studio, even before the anime adaptation project began, many of the staff, including Taniguchi, were fans of the original work, and he said, "We volunteered to be involved."

"When I read the original work, I felt that the characters were cute and had a lot of funny exchanges. As the story progressed, the characters' personalities became more and more distinct, and the story became more interesting as well, which I think is the charm of this work."

The anime is directed by Hirofumi Ikehata, known for "Kiratto Pri☆Chan" and "Tonikaku Kawaii," with character design by Haruko Iizuka , known for "School-Live!" and " Inu × Boku SS: The Magical Girl and the Evil Lieutenant Used to Be Archenemies "

Regarding the selection of staff, he said, "If Witch Watch were to be made into an anime, I asked Director Ikehata, who I am on good terms with, as he is quite an expert in this field and I thought there was a good chance that he could do it well. Haruko Iizuka draws female characters and delicate characters with soft lines and gentle pictures, so I thought that having these elements in Witch Watch would add a nice spice to the story, and so I asked her. Sawa Yuki and Sugimura Yoshiaki, who are participating as sub-character designers, also love Witch Watch and are very passionate about it, so I thought that this staff would be able to do the job." He took on the challenge with a powerful lineup.

The most important thing to consider when adapting the work into an anime was "not losing the momentum of the manga."

"Ever since I read the manga, I've felt that tempo is crucial for this show. In particular, when composing the series, I made it a priority to combine episodes from the original within each episode, adjusting the tempo to keep it from dragging on. In the first season, new characters appear one after another, but viewers don't have a high level of clarity about the characters. If we aired the series in order starting from the first episode of the original, we were concerned that the characters' impressions would fade, so we thought that in episodes where new characters appear, we'd cram two or three episodes featuring that character, so viewers could get to know their appeal. I feel like this worked out well, so I think we were able to borrow a lot of wisdom from everyone, including series composer Akao Deko and director Ikehata."

◇ Extensive research led to character designs that fans will love

The unique characters are also appealing. In terms of the characters' visuals, the focus was on "whether we could properly deliver the Witch Watch that readers of the original work were looking for," and a lot of trial and error went into creating them.

"Of course, we can't deviate too much from the original work. On top of that, we thought we could use current trending techniques to brush up and find an even better shape. Rather than simply copying the original art, we devised ways to handle the hair and add highlights to the eyes. As for the colors, we all worked together to find a shape that would stand out even more, based on the image of the original work."

When it came to character design, they also researched the opinions of fans of the original work.

"Halfway through, it became really important to us how closely we could stick to the original work. So we looked at the small details, such as surveys from Shueisha's fans and questions fans had for Shinohara-sensei on social media, to find out what fans were paying attention to and what they were concerned about. For example, a fan asked Shinohara-sensei about the origins of the names Nico, Kara, and Cook, and he replied, 'They're onomatopoeia.' Nico is smiling with a smile, Kara is laughing with a dry laugh, and Cook is laughing with a 'kukukuku' laugh. So we thought that creating designs that naturally evoked those kinds of laughs might be what people wanted, and we focused on that aspect."

The characters are so appealing because of the careful work that went into incorporating Shinohara's ideas and the opinions of fans into the anime illustrations.

◇The "Uromira" episode was produced "without really understanding what was going on"!?

"Witch Watch" features many fascinating characters, but in episode 9, characters inspired by "New Horizon" and "New Crown" from English textbooks appear, and in episode 18, the characters "transform" into characters from manga that Morihito drew when he was a child, featuring characters of various art styles.

"In Witch Watch, those incongruities are interesting in parts. The English textbook and the scene in episode 18 where the characters turn into pictures drawn by Morihito are mismatches, and I think it would be difficult to translate the worldview of the work into the screen, but it's really fun to be able to take an interesting approach to those unusual parts that aren't often used in other anime. I think it's precisely because the original work is so interesting that the anime is able to have such a good effect."

Speaking of something that is "rarely seen in other anime," the 14th episode, "Uron Mirage Episode 119 'Fuzzy Subjugation -4'," also became a hot topic. The manga "Uron Mirage," which appears in the show, was animated not just "roughly" but "fully" with great enthusiasm. In addition to key visuals, theme songs were also created for "Uron Mirage," with the opening theme "Bitter end" by the music unit "Who-ya extended" and the ending theme "FLASHBACK SYNDROME" by singer-songwriter LEO's solo project "ALI." It was a special episode, with storyboards handled by Geso Ikuo.

"We were very particular about creating the opening and ending themes specifically for 'Uromira.' It was made almost exclusively for one time, so it's not something we would normally do, but we thought, 'If we're going to do it, let's go all out!' It's a bit of a joke, but we tried our best to do even those things. The staff really enjoyed themselves."

"Uro Mira" is characterized by its vague setting, ambiguous dialogue, confusing direction, suggestive and inconclusive expressions that can be interpreted in any way, and its incomprehensibility, with "too many things we don't understand," has even garnered enthusiastic readers who love to analyze it... This is the kind of work it is. The staff said that they produced the "Uro Mira" episode of the anime "without really understanding it," in a good way.

"There aren't that many episodes of 'Uron Mirage' in the original work, so even the setting is full of things we don't understand (laughs). However, one of the characteristics of this work is that it's a bit unclear what's going on, so the production team thought it would be better to make it without understanding (laughs). We ourselves don't really understand what the characters are saying, but the images are really well-defined and somehow cool. We wanted to make everything 'soft', so we blurred the backgrounds as well. We wanted viewers to think, 'I didn't really get it, but it was a pretty good experience.'"

He said that the anime was produced to match the feelings that people who read the original "Uron Mirage" had after reading it, saying, "I thought that the fact that both the audience and the creators were 'not sure' would make it interesting."

◇The appeal of Vibury Animation Studio: its challenging attitude

The opening and ending videos for "Witch Watch" were also produced by Vibury Animation Studio. For example, Ishitani Megumi, who was in charge of storyboarding and directing the opening for the first season, said, "After looking at Shinohara-sensei's manga and illustrations, I asked them to create something that would fit the atmosphere of the works he created during his university days." The endings for the first and second seasons were handled by URA from the same studio, while the opening for the second season was handled by assistant director Kawase Masao, who said they aimed to "concentrate the appeal of the work into a video."

"At Vibury Animation Studio, we are basically able to do all of our work in-house. We can hold detailed meetings with our staff, and if we have any problems, we have a forum where we can easily ask for advice. I think this is a strength of ours. I feel that this is also connected to the quality of our work."

These strengths are put to good use in the anime "Witch Watch," which is full of challenging endeavors, and she says, "There are many young staff members who are willing to take on challenging challenges, which is very reassuring."

Finally, we asked about future highlights.

"The final part of the second season will feature an episode that will make you wonder what Witch Watch is all about. We've prepared a story that will make fans of the original manga excited and say, 'So this part is being made into an anime,' so we hope you'll look forward to it."