Kiyotaka Oshiyama and Studio Durian might not be immediately familiar to the average anime fan, but the team's latest output is worth attention. The small studio's previous works focus primarily on designs for series such as Deca-Dence and FLCL: Shoegazealthough they recently expanded their collaboration to assist on Hayao Miyazaki's Oscar-winning film, The Boy and the Heron.
Oshiyama and his former students Flip Flappers They seem to have a success of their own in Look Backthe anime adaptation of the single-volume manga by fan-favorite creator Tatsuki Fujimoto. Running just under an hour, the film has achieved financial success at the Japanese box office, surpassing 1 billion yen (about US$6 million) in ticket sales.
The film follows the story of two girls, Kyōmoto and Fujino, and their joint artistic endeavors after connecting over a mutual love of manga. What begins as a hobby turns into a potential career, but not without dedication and hard work. In our interview with Oshiyama, he shared how the protagonists’ commitment to their art mirrors his own and which scene has left him most satisfied.
After your extensive experience in the anime industry, can you tell us how you decided to form Studio Durian? What are the goals and aspirations of your studio?
Kiyotaka Oshiyama: I directed an original TV series called Flip Flappersand I built friendships with the creative team as a director, but when the project was over, the team disbanded. So when the time came, we said, “Hey, let’s do something else.” It’s hard to get the same people together. And all the experience and knowledge gained[on that production]is reset. That felt wrong to me.
When I get deeply involved in a particular title, as a director who completely immerses himself in the creation of something, or at least, that's what I've learned about myself after going through that experience, I realized that if I don't have my own studio, if I don't become an owner, it's just not going to work.
So I felt that if I'm going to dedicate my time to a piece, I might as well set up my own team, my own studio. That's basically what led me to make the decision.
As we move into an era where we can create animation digitally, rather than how it was before, when a large team would work on an anime, we will eventually find ourselves in an era where anime can be created with smaller teams. That's my prediction. So, working backwards from that idea, we want to be able to do things in that new environment. I felt like that made even more sense to have my own team. That was a big factor as well.
How did the initial plan to adapt the manga come about? Look Back from Fujimoto-sensei? Were you already a fan of the story?
Oshiyama: The catalyst was when I was working on the demon designs for Fujimoto-san's manga, Chainsaw ManOf course, I was also reading the manga.
Then when it was announced Look BackI read it right away. It's not that I had the idea at that time to make it into something animated. But Avex approached me to make an animation out of it, and for my part, to be honest, when I read it, I felt that an animated adaptation would be a big challenge. However, as I thought about it more and more, and added to the idea about working with our small team, our production style, and the content of the original work itself, I realized that that could end up being a good combination. So, even though I thought that animating it would be difficult, I decided to do it.
Speaking of assembling the team, Fujimoto-sensei commented on social media that he was very impressed with your skills and that you provided most of the key animation yourself. Are there any scenes you're particularly happy with?
Oshiyama: As it's always a race against the clock to finish, there are several parts that I'm not really happy with the result, but among the parts that I consider to be good and that, moreover, the audience responded positively to, I think it would be the part where the main character, Fujino, is happily jumping in the rain. I animated that scene, so it's one that is strongly engraved in my memory.
