" Scarlet, " the latest feature-length animated film from director Mamoru Hosoda, known for such works as "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" and " Summer Wars ," was released on November 21st. This is his first new work in about four years since his previous film, "The Dragon and the Freckled Princess," which was released in July 2021, and it explores themes of "revenge" and "life and death." After failing to exact revenge on the enemy who killed her father, the king, Princess Scarlet awakens in the Land of the Dead. There, she encounters a young nurse named Hijiri from modern-day Japan, and they embark on a journey together across time. The plot, in which a young girl and a young man meet across time, is the same as "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time," a hit released about 19 years ago in 2006, but the feel of the film is completely different. Director Hosoda spoke about the changes he has seen over the past 19 years and the challenges he faces in his latest work.
◇The Land of the Dead, where life and death mingle: "It should be depicted as if it were the present world"
Director Hosoda wrote the original story and screenplay for " Scarlet." Set in the Middle Ages, the story follows a revenge-seeking princess as she journeys to the "Land of the Dead." This worldview is quite different from Hosoda's previous works, and has attracted attention since the announcement of its production. The "Land of the Dead," the main setting, is a place where life and death intertwine, a world of madness where people indulge in plunder and violence, and the powerless and injured become nothingness, disappearing from existence. Director Hosoda said he wanted to depict "life and death" in this film, saying, "I never thought I'd be tackling such a big theme."
"I think that in my previous works there have been elements of 'life and death' to some extent, but this time I was determined to portray it more head-on. I think that it is precisely because I am tackling such a big theme that the film has become on a larger scale."
The impetus for depicting "life and death" came from "the COVID-19 pandemic, when I was forced to become aware of death." The decision to portray the young man, Hijiri, who travels with Scarlett in the story, as a nurse was influenced by the nurses he encountered while hospitalized at the time.
"Scarlett is an avenger, so she's a kind of realist. I thought that having an idealist like Hijiri beside her would create a contrast, and the first thing that came to mind as Hijiri's character's occupation was the image of a nurse, who is filled with altruism."
The Land of the Dead, where Scarlett and her friends travel, is a desolate world of vast deserts, but it also has some similarities to the real world. How did they try to express the world of the dead?
"There are many paintings of hell left in Japan, but in order to depict hell in this work, I asked a researcher of Japanese art how hell was depicted in medieval Japan. The researcher replied, 'This may look like hell, but it is actually a depiction of the present world. It depicts the difficult world of medieval times.' When I heard this, I was struck by what I thought. This made me think that in this work, rather than depicting a 'place where life and death intertwine' in a hellish, fantastical way, I should depict it as if it were the present world. For example, in news reports of conflicts, you might hear things like, 'This place looks just like hell,' but there is a hell in this world too, and we live in it. Even so, there are many people who hope that their souls will go to heaven. I wanted to depict that properly."
Director Hosoda said that he also conducted location scouting in Jordan and Israel when depicting the Land of the Dead, saying, "I was able to see something like a primordial landscape, and see how religious things once nurtured in the Jordanian wilderness. I think that is also reflected strongly in this film."
◇The potential of anime that I felt during the first pre-recording
The film, which depicts the grand themes of "revenge" and "life and death," was produced using pre-scoring, a technique Hosoda tried for the first time in his work. The voice is recorded first, and then animation is created based on that voice. "We chose pre-scoring because we felt it would offer greater expressive benefits given the large amount of CG technology we were using," Hosoda explains. The first person to record was Yakusho Koji, who plays Scarlett's enemy Claudius, and Hosoda was blown away by his performance.
"It was incredible. He portrayed Claudius' strength, hatefulness, cunning, and pathos with such expressiveness, that I got goosebumps while recording the final scene in particular. I can't help but think that this is the kind of voice someone who has reached the limits of the film's theme of 'life and death' might make. I thought it was amazing, but at the same time, I wondered if it was even possible to portray this on film. Afterwards, we recorded with Ashida Mana, who played Scarlett, and Masaki Okada, who played Hijiri, and they said that there was a lot of pressure after hearing Yakusho's performance. But in the end, they gave such wonderful performances that it was a match for the rest, so I'm really glad."
After the recording, he was amazed at how the animators were able to translate his voice acting into visuals.
"The animators were really inspired and motivated by the actors' performances. They worked on the movements in great detail over and over again, and delivered a fantastic performance. In the end, the actors and animators all worked together to create a great performance, which really showed us the great possibilities of animation expression."
◇Differences from "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" Thoughts on young people
When the production of "Scarlet" was announced, the tagline read, "19 years since 'The Girl Who Leapt Through Time'. The birth of a shocking heroine." The new film is an ambitious work in which Director Hosoda tackles the grand themes of "revenge" and "life and death," but the plot of a girl and a young man meeting across time is similar to "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time." Director Hosoda himself recalls, "I realized the similarities to 'The Girl Who Leapt Through Time' midway through production."
"Certainly, the structure of the protagonists, a man from the future and a woman from the past, is the same. I think it's also the same in that the woman living in the time period of the story walks forward, facing the future. However, while the structure is the same, what is depicted is slightly different. What's different between 'The Girl Who Leapt Through Time' from 19 years ago and ' Scarlet' is the 'view of the future.' I think that 'how we perceive the future' has changed significantly over the past 19 years."
"The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" is based on a novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui published in 1967, and the story is different between the novel and the animated film, but he explains, "That's because the view of the future is completely different in the 1960s and the 2000s, so the conclusion would inevitably be different, so that's why we made it."
"So, how has it changed between 'The Girl Who Leapt Through Time' and ' Scarlet'? When I was making 'The Girl Who Leapt Through Time' in 2006, I portrayed it as a slightly hopeful view of the future. I made it with the hope that young people would 'create the future' through their vitality. But now, in 2025, I feel like we're still in an era where we expect young people to have that much vitality. Social media and AI have had such a major impact on society and individuals, that we can't irresponsibly tell young people to 'do your best.' The times have changed that much."
He also said that young people today feel that they are "bound by so many things that it seems like they have no freedom."
"In a world where the future is uncertain, what we have always thought was right is slowly changing, so it's no wonder young people feel anxious. It's important to empathize with their anxieties, rather than just telling them to 'do their best' as before. I made the film with that in mind, hoping that it would be a film that would give them strength. I hope that everyone will relate to how they are feeling right now as they watch Scarlett, who is lost and tries to find out how they really want to live their life."
