The animated feature film "The Camphor Keeper," based on Higashino Keigo's novel, will be released on January 30th. While many of Higashino's works have been adapted into live-action films and TV dramas, this will be the first time it has been made into an anime. "The Camphor Keeper" is a popular work with a total circulation of over 1 million copies, and the anime will be directed by Ito Tomohiko, known for works such as "Sword Art Online" and "Erased." Why was it being made into an anime? We spoke to Wakabayashi Go, producer at Aniplex, the studio behind the anime.
◇The appeal of Higashino's works that makes them appealing to filmmakers
There are countless "Higashino works" that have been adapted into live-action films, including "The Devotion of Suspect X," "White Night Walk," "The Miracles of the Namiya General Store," "Ryusei no Kizuna," and "Galileo." What's more, they are all hits and much talked about. As a producer, what do you think is the appeal of "Higashino works"?
"I think he's an original author that any producer would want to work with. The characters are simply fantastic. Not only the main characters, but the supporting characters too have their own lives. They may be supporting characters in the story, but you can tell that they are the main characters in their own lives. Each character acts in their own best interests. They don't just act according to the rules of the story, but are so alive that it's as if they really exist."
"The Camphor Keeper" is a story about a young man, Naoi Reito, who loses his job due to unreasonable dismissal and becomes the mysterious "The Camphor Keeper," where he meets people with various circumstances. It was Higashino himself who suggested adapting it into an anime.
"Normally, one would think that a live-action version would come first, but this time there was an opportunity to turn it into an anime. Before The Camphor Keeper was published, around 2019, plans had been underway to turn Higashino's work into an anime. The book was published in early 2020, and Higashino's side approached us, saying that an anime might be a better fit. The Keeper The Camphor Keeper The Camphor Keeper is a human drama, and a work that has room to be portrayed as fantasy. I felt that it was a work that could be made into an anime, with powerful and persuasive images."
◇He doesn't seem like the main character, but...
The "fantasy element" is the presence of a mysterious camphor tree, which is the key to the anime adaptation. Expressions are different between the novel and the anime, which involves visual and auditory elements. When adapting the story into an anime, it was necessary to determine a direction. "It's a story with many episodes, so one of the challenges was how to organize it when adapting it into a film. We had many discussions with screenwriter Taku Kishimoto for several months before starting work on the plot. I think it was extremely valuable to decide on a direction at this point."
Reito, who plays an important role in this work, is not a typical protagonist of an anime. He loses his job, is cornered, and ends up being arrested for a mistake.
"I wanted to make Reito an appealing protagonist. Reito doesn't have any special abilities or talents. He doesn't have any goals, will, or ambitions that you can sympathize with. He's the complete opposite of a typical anime protagonist. In the early planning stages, making Reito an appealing character was a major challenge. If it were a TV series, you would need to get people to watch every episode, so you have to make the protagonist appealing at an early stage. This is because there is a risk that viewers will drift away. On the other hand, this is a single movie. You can watch the story of Reito's changes all in one go. This is a challenge, but I also thought it was an opportunity to make a good movie. In fact, I had considered adapting other of Higashino's works into anime, but ' The Camphor Keeper' was the one that I felt had the most potential, even taking into account the character of Reito."
Reito feels resigned to his unfortunate circumstances. He appears as a so-called "loser," but is there any meaning to the binary opposition between winning and losing? He seems like a modern character that makes you think about such things.
"Looking at the memos I wrote in 2020, when the project first began, I noticed words that were popular at the time, like 'parent gacha' (a game of chance) and 'upper class citizen.' Perhaps the story and characters are related to words that reflect the social climate of the time. The story begins with someone being caught for a crime, and at the time I found it difficult to understand the mindset of someone who would turn to crime so casually. However, in recent years, there has been an increase in news reports of young people committing crimes without much thought. We live in such times. These characters are more suited to our times. The three young people who appear in this anime share a common story of inheriting something from the previous generation. Another theme is what the previous generation will leave to the next generation. Looking at society today, the number of young people is decreasing, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to inherit from the previous generation. This is actually an issue that we all need to think about. In the memos that Director Ito wrote early on, there was a keyword called 'ikigai' (purpose in life). I feel like this word holds the key to thinking about what we should entrust to future generations, or what young people should inherit from the previous generation. In anime production, too, our predecessors have left us a rich legacy, and I and the younger generation will carry that on. I think this theme is also present in this film."
It is clear that Higashino was acutely aware of the mood of the times and created the protagonist, Reito. However, Reito grows up. After being arrested, Reito accepts his lawyer's condition that he will be released if he follows his client's instructions. Then, he is confronted by Yanagisawa Senshu, who has made a major contribution to the development of the large Yanagisawa Group. Senshu, Reito's late mother's half-sister, instructs him to become The Camphor Keeper that stands at Tsukigo Shrine. The camphor tree seems to have mysterious powers, and before long, the mystery of its powers will entangle Reito's life and lead him to an unexpected truth.
The anime adaptation seems to have focused more on the "family relationship" between Reito and Senshu. There are also other fascinating characters, such as Saji Yumi, who is searching for her father's secret, Ooba Takeki, the heir to a long-established Japanese sweets manufacturer, and Saji Toshiaki, who secretly visits the camphor tree for prayer, but this doesn't diminish the appeal of the characters other than Reito and Senshu.
"During the several months of consideration before plotting, we decided on a clear policy of making the story of Reito and Senshu the main story. We also tried to position the father-son relationship between Toshiaki and Yumi and the story of Soki as important stories second only to the main story. We rearranged some parts of the original work to make the link with Reito stronger."
◇Director Ito's masterpiece
In anime, everything depicted has meaning. It may seem like a given, but when you look at "The Camphor Keeper," which is meticulously designed and meticulously crafted down to the smallest detail, you can really feel that. It's filled with expressions that are unique to anime, and you can feel the inevitability of it being made into an anime.
"I think Director Ito has done a great job. The film's animation is excellent on the surface, and the hidden thoughts and themes are also very well thought out. He also makes full use of techniques unique to animation. He uses a variety of animation styles, from exaggerated animation-style expressions to those that emphasize a hand-drawn feel and watercolor-like expressions. But it shouldn't feel out of place when you watch it. The strength of animation is that it can vary the expressive methods while still appearing naturally as a single story, and I think that's largely down to Director Ito's directing ability. We've talked about the film having room to be portrayed as fantasy, but it would be difficult to express this in live-action, so it will probably take a different form."
The balance between reality and fantasy is exquisite. While the camphor trees are depicted as mystical beings, the depiction of the town is realistic, and while the contrast is clear, the coexistence of the two feels natural. The art director Hiroshi Takiguchi's craftsmanship shines through.
"We first released a visual depicting a camphor tree and Reito, but when this image was completed, Director Ito asked me to check it on a big screen, not on a mobile phone. The camphor tree was drawn in great detail, and the amount of detail was incredible. We had created something incredible, and I wondered how far the main film would go... but the main film turned out to be truly amazing."
Another big attraction is the character design by Tsubasa Yamaguchi, known for the manga "Blue Period." It is a one-of-a-kind design that combines reality with manga and anime-style expression.
"It's a modern drama set in Japan, featuring men and women of all ages, and we asked Yamaguchi-san to draw the characters because he is someone who can draw them in an appealing way. When Yamaguchi-san first submitted his rough designs, Director Ito praised him for including the back view of each character. The back has a strong presence. A person's back shows their way of life and is symbolic of that person, so I think Yamaguchi-san also considered it important to draw the backs from the start. For this film, both Yamaguchi and Itagaki Akiko designed the characters, and Yamaguchi drew the main characters first. Itagaki-san designed all the other characters, including the character settings."
In addition to Fumiya Takahashi Asuka Saito as Reito and Yuki Amami as Senshu, the cast is also attracting attention, with other star-studded voice actors including Saito Ryubi Miyase as Ooba Soki, and Osawa Takao as Saji Toshiaki.
"Director Ito decided early on that he wanted to ask actors who are active in live-action films to play the main characters. We gathered a wonderful group of people, but there were also voices from the staff that said they would like to see this cast in a live-action version. In a sense, that is the essence of it, and Director Ito chooses actors from the perspective of who is best suited to each character. In addition, this time, Director Ito is also serving as sound director for the first time. My previous job was at Toei Animation, and it is traditionally common for the director to also serve as sound director, so it is a style that I am familiar with and one that I like. When Director Ito said he wanted to do it, I thought I wanted to see it. Director Ito's mentor, Director Mamoru Hosoda, who also came from Toei Animation, also does the same, and I think Director Ito wanted to try his hand at it in the same way as Director Hosoda. I understand that feeling, and I feel that the finished product really shows his direction as both director and sound director."
Wakabayashi also said, "It has become Director Ito's masterpiece."
"I think this is the film that best represents Director Ito's style. When I saw the first screening, I thought objectively that it was a film with many elements, but I felt that it had come together as a single film by incorporating all those different elements. It turned out to be a moving and good film."
◇The strengths of Japanese anime
Last year, several animated feature films surpassed 10 billion yen in box office revenue. Demand for Japanese anime is also on the rise overseas. "The Camphor Keeper" may be unique in that it's not based on a manga, doesn't feature intense battles, and isn't set in another world.
"I'm also working on a show based on a manga, particularly a shonen manga that's garnering a lot of attention. It's important, and I intend to continue doing it, but in terms of diversity in drama, I also think a show like ' The Camphor Keeper' is extremely important. It depicts the growth of a young man, but there's no element of victory through hard work. It depicts growth that doesn't take the form of a visible victory. It also depicts the thoughts of the elderly characters. I think one of the strengths of Japanese anime is that it can produce a show like ' The Camphor Keeper'. It's possible to tell this kind of story because of what Japanese anime has built up over the years. I believe there are many audiences who will be glad that this story existed. It's definitely worth doing, and it's the kind of work I want to continue doing in the future."
"The Camphor Keeper" may be a work that symbolizes the diversity of Japanese anime. Wakabayashi is trying to spread the appeal of this work overseas.
"We started working on overseas expansion from an early stage. Charade, the company that handles the overseas expansion of Director Hosoda's works, is in charge of the US and Europe, while Aniplex will handle the Asian expansion. ' The Camphor Keeper' is a rare work that combines artistic and commercial elements. The motif of shrines and sacred camphor trees is very Japanese. The way that this influences people living in the present day is also very Japanese. That is why we are trying to bring it to people overseas as well."
"The Camphor Keeper" is a work of universality that transcends borders and languages. It also depicts issues unique to modern times, and the richness of expression that only anime can offer is what makes it so appealing. It is sure to touch the hearts of people not only in Japan but all over the world. (Anima Mitsuru/MANTANWEB)
