The Imaginary | Producer Yoshiaki Nishimura on AI, hand-drawn animation and making a scary villain for kids

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Why The Imaginary is No Country For Old Men for kids, and other stories from the producer of Studio Ponoc’s latest animated film.


With Mary And The Witch’s Flower in 2017, Studio Ponoc established itself as a new animation studio with the same spirit as its close ancestor, Studio Ghibli. It was founded in 2015 by producer Yoshiaki Nishimura, who’d previously worked with Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata on two of their masterpieces – Howl’s Moving Castle and The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya respectively – and he brought numerous artists from Studio Ghibli over with him in the process.

Studio Ponoc’s next feature sees it branch out with a subtly different animation style. With delicate linework and soft shading, it mixes the traditional and the modern in a way rarely seen at Studio Ghibli (though Howl’s Moving Castle did feature subtle use of CGI). About a young British girl named Amanda and her imaginary friend Rudger, it sees the blissful innocence of childhood imagination collide with the harshness of the real world – the latter represented by the frankly terrifying Mr Bunting, a bespectacled, conniving figure who feeds on Imaginaries like Rudger.

It’s a charming, exquisitely-animated film, based on the book of the same name by A F Harold yet retold with the style of director Yoshiyuki Momose, whose career as an artist and animator stretches back to Takahata’s devastating Grave Of The Fireflies (1988) and also includes writing and directing a segment of Studio Ponoc’s 2018 anthology of shorts, Modest Heroes.

Ahead of The Imaginary’s release in cinemas and later Netflix, we met with Nishimura to talk about the film’s design and themes, why it had to be set in the UK rather than transported to Japan, and the impact the Coen brothers’ classic thriller No Country For Old Men had on the depiction of its villain.

Congratulations on the film. The look of the film is subtly different to Mary And The Witch’s Flower; the line work is more delicate, the shadows are softer. Could you talk a little about how you developed that look?

Thank you for noticing the difference – really. It’s wonderful to hear that, so thank you first of all. The look of it is definitely our new attempt. It’s assisted by the techniques that were developed by Poisson du Rouge – it’s a studio in France. And we discovered that technique as we were about to go into production. It really enabled us to add more texture and shadow into each animation, and that brought the depth we were looking for.

We’ve drawn around 1400 animations – everything is hand-drawn and hand-painted. This is just the number of characters we have drawn – 1400 character images. It’s impossible to add light and shadow with each hand painting for each of them, but by using these techniques, there are two things I believe we’ve managed to achieve.

One is to make the presence of the imaginary friends more realistic, as if they are standing there, really. The second is, by controlling light and shadow, you can really capture the emotions of the characters. Adding a layer beneath what is seen on the surface levels. And this was something we wanted to achieve for the last decade or so, so we feel that we have managed to get to that point.

Amanda and her Imaginary, Rudger. Credit: Studio Ponco/Netflix.

Does this style you’ve developed help you to incorporate the 2D, hand-drawn elements with the 3D backgrounds? There’s a lot of depth in this movie.

Just to further expand on that point, it wasn’t necessarily our aim to make something look more three-dimensional, per se, especially in the backgrounds, but there are certain characteristics that three-dimensional elements have. For example, the conviction of making that background or the characters look more like live action. But I’m not saying that’s necessarily better, because if we do put too much emphasis on that, then the benefits of hand drawing and hand painting is being lost, I feel.

What’s great about hand-drawn animation is the symbolism that you can really communicate. The messages hidden behind, really. What was challenging, but what I feel is also our strength, is striking the balance between the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional.

Could you talk a bit about the design of Mr Bunting? He’s a fascinating character, and genuinely quite scary. And isn’t there a Japanese horror element to his imaginary friend? She’s quite Sadako-like.

Yes, it was a surprise, actually, when I first came across the book. Because in the illustration by Emily Gravett, the girl character looked almost exactly like Sadako, as you mentioned. I thought, ‘Wow, okay, so Japanese horror culture has been incorporated by this British illustrator’. And it made me question, in the production stages, whether it would be right for a Japanese studio – us – to almost take on that horror character as it is. It almost seemed like a long, winding process to take that on.

But character design comes a lot later in our process. What first comes is deciding on the story and the contents, and then the designing process happens afterwards. So when it comes to Mr Bunting, I did think about his existence. Who is this person who feeds on the imagination? Somebody who lives on that? Because there are always polarising elements in everything – when there’s hope, there’s devastation. So what are two opposing elements within him?

I thought about the role of Bunting in relation to children, and I thought, maybe he represents the reality that children need to face, need to challenge. Something children’s imagination could really battle against. Because reality is always there, it’s not something we can escape. But in terms of characterisations, I probably had the film No Country For Old Men, the Javier Bardem character. That sense of something following you wherever you go. So it was those two things – facing reality and No Country.

The terrifying Mr Bunting and his Imaginary. Credit: Studio Ponoc/Netflix.

As you say, this is based on a British novel. Mary And The Witch’s Flower was based on a British novel, Howl’s Moving Castle was. Lots of others, too. What about these books that fire your imagination?

It’s not my aim to just look at British novels or literature. I try to read widely, so I read German children’s books, American graphic novels and Korean children’s books as well. But there are certain characteristics within British children’s literature that I really admire. They don’t really shy away from anything that is eerie or scary, or supernatural. That scariness is depicted as something natural that exists in the world, and I’m fascinated by that concept.

I’m not saying that nobody can escape from what’s scary, but for this film I felt that it was necessary for us to face up to those scary elements. And also to encourage children to face up to them. Partly because it would be a lie for us to represent life as something that is just happy – that’s one note. There are scary things happening in real life all over the world, and children are exposed to it a lot more than they were before, whether on television or on social media.

There are many scenes that we wouldn’t like them to see but they are still seeing, whether it be Gaza, Ukraine, or in Japan, the Great Earthquake, which my daughter was exposed to when she was very small as well. But I didn’t really want to blindly protect children from seeing those things, because they are naturally exposed to that. I wanted them to find the clues within the film that, yes there are scary things, but how can we overcome that? Are there ways to fight against it, go beyond it? I hope I’ve included some elements within the film for them to find.

The Imaginary is set in the UK as well. Did you consider moving it to Japan, to Tokyo, or did you think, no, this story has to be told in Great Britain?

One of the reasons why I didn’t move the location to Japan is because the concept of an imaginary friend isn’t commonplace in Japan at all. Probably less than 20 percent of people are aware of anything similar to that. That would be the maximum number, really – 20 percent. Maybe. If I were to set it in Japan, I think most people would think of it as almost like a ghost figure and that would really move the focus away from the central message of the story. That’s why I didn’t want that to happen.

Another reason is that many Japanese films, or animations produced in Japan, are set in Japan. And many of the central characters featured tend to be Japanese high school students, both boys and girls. I wanted the audience to really experience the world outside of Japan, because as a society there are lots of slogans such as ‘diversity’, ‘global something something’. But in reality Japanese culture is still looking inwards. A lot of things tend to be very Japan-focused. I wanted children, the audience, to explore the outside world and discover things that they’ve not really faced daily.

So that’s why I thought, ‘No, the location should be kept as it is in the original book.’

The Imaginary’s fantastical, but there are recognisably British details everywhere, such as the upholstery on bus seats. Credit: Studio Ponoc/Netflix.

How much work and research went into getting the details of Great Britain right? I live here so I recognise the cars and the double yellow lines and the widths of the streets.

Thank you for saying that, but I’m not 100 percent confident we managed to capture everything in terms of locations that’s depicted in this country. One thing to say is that, in our process, we do take location hunting very seriously. It’s animation, yes, but we always try and go to the country we’re thinking of using and then do a thorough location hunt. For this work, we didn’t manage to do that because of the pandemic.

Our team couldn’t travel over, so things were done virtually. We had a consultant here to send photographs and videos of a particular location. The details are extremely important to us – it might be the same in the UK as well – ‘the devil is in the details’. So we spoke to the doctors who work here to get a sense of the inside of a hospital. Everything needed to be right, to have that feel of accuracy.

I watched this with my partner, and she said to me, ‘Why is it that when you watch animation, you’re so much more conscious of everyday details?’ Your eye’s drawn to the books, the particular cars people drive. Why is animation so good at that?

That’s great to hear that she notices those things. That’s wonderful, thank you for that. I believe that is linked to the nature of hand-drawn animation, because let’s think about photography. Once you’ve captured something with a camera, that just takes on everything that’s there, whether it’s birds, rubbish or bins. Things you don’t necessarily want to be there are still taken.

Whereas hand-drawn animation, even unconsciously, you are selective in what you depict. By selective I mean, animators and art directors are subconsciously choosing what they want to symbolically represent in that scene, so I think that’s partly why – everything’s gone through that pre-selection process.

On a technical level, how did working on The Imaginary compare to Howl’s Moving Castle?

I’ve never compared this film to Howl’s Moving Castle, so let me just think. In terms of how our work compares to Studio Ghibli, when it comes to background, I’d say it’s definitely taken on with that tradition, that history of Studio Ghibli. Of the animators we have, 90 percent of them are from Studio Ghibli, so they are hand drawing and painting everything in very much the same manner to what they have done with Studio Ghibli.

But I think there has been an evolution of techniques that were used. The light and shadow techniques I already mentioned, but also the use of computer graphics as well. Its usage and how it’s incorporated has evolved from Studio Ghibli. We are mindful of how those techniques are employed as well.

Our director for this film Yoshiyuki Momose, who was really a visionary when it comes to the techniques used in this film. And he was a driving force in exploring techniques as well at Studio Ghibli. So when people hear ‘Studio Ghibli’ they think of Hayao Miyazaki or Isao Takahata, but Momose was the one who was really eager to take on new challenges and new techniques. He worked on Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle – he was a central figure, really, behind those.

You may not have seen it, but there is a short film collection called Ghiblies, and if you watch it, you’ll notice that each film has a completely different feel and style to it. He was the creator of those.

The reason I mention these, though, is because we aren’t techniques driven, per se. There are stories that we want to tell, and then we find the techniques to tell those stories. So we are very much story-oriented. Our director’s vision-oriented. And then we find the techniques. Whereas Hayao Miyazaki probably has the style and vision that he wants to portray. But we are very much story first.

How do you feel about the future of hand-drawn animation in general? Are you positive about it, or do you feel it’s a bit under threat from generative AI?

In terms of AI, it has had a surprising evolution quite recently, yes. It is evolving at a rapid speed which is shocking. Yes, it might have an effect on hand-drawn animation, but I think it would probably have more of an immediate effect on computer graphics, perhaps. I mean, that’s my guess. I think it’s a global issue, but when we discuss AI, I do think about the very reason I was attracted to animation in the first place.

So the first links to the intentionality of what the animators depict in a particular image. Like the background for example, as I mentioned. AI might be able to draw something that looks hand-painted, but they don’t have that intentionality, that selective mindfulness when they draw up an image. That’s one.

The second thing – and this applies to character design as well – they can’t really be mindful, intentional, about what a character portrays, or how it links to the story. They won’t be able to select what is necessary to capture the ambience in the line work.

There is another crucial element when it comes to hand-drawn animation, as well. No two images are the same in how they move. Even when the same animator tries to draw two images as similarly as possible, there are fluctuations in the lines and slight undulations.

The more animators we have, those variations become bigger and bigger and bigger. But that imperfectness is really something that’s essential to a hand-drawn animated film. The time that imperfection becomes complete is when the audience comes into the cinema and sees the changes, the slight variations. That harmony creates the magic of hand-drawn animation, and that’s something AI can’t [re-create].

Very quickly, then, what’s next for Studio Ponoc? Are you working on another feature, or perhaps some short films?

We’re already working on our next production – it’s a feature. The creator who was behind When Marnie Was There and Arietty, Yonebayashi Hiromasa, he’s going to be directing the film. It is, again, an adventure, and has challenging elements for children. But we depict the challenges we would like them to overcome. And it is going to be quite epic and action-filled.

You could call it very action-filled and dramatic. Probably out of everything we’ve created. So please, watch this space!

Yoshiaki Nishimura, thank you very much.

The Imaginary is streaming on Netflix now.

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