Director Yamada Naoko, voice actors, and production staff had been going around all over Japan holding stage events for The Colors Within (きみの色 Kimi no Iro). Finally, an announcement was made that director Yamada Naoko would be coming to Yokohama for a stage event. Of course, I quickly booked a ticket for the event.
The venue itself was the same one as
Suzume stage event with director Shinkai Makoto. Even the MC was the same: Hazuma Tomoko (弭間友子) from Toho, who is the PR staff attached to Yamada Naoko's
The Colors Within and recent Shinkai Makoto works. It was also nice that the place was kind of fully booked.
The stage event itself took place after the screening of the movie. Photography was not allowed during the event, so I only managed to take a photo before director Yamada Naoko entered.
This event featured director Yamada Naoko, as well as Kojima Takashi, who designed the characters and was the animation director. They were introduced by Hazuma, and director Yamada mentioned that this was their first stage event in Yokohama. Kojima said that he had been clicking on "Like" whenever he sees people posts their fan art for The Colors Within. When asked about who was easiest to draw, both Kojima and director Yamada replied that they found Kimi easier to draw, while Totsuko was quite difficult.
It was mentioned that Kojima also drew the key frames for a scene late in the movie, when Kimi was running along the breakwater. He wanted to draw something, and director Yamada consulted the production team. Director Yamada had wanted Kojima to draw the entire ending scene, but they finally agreed to let him work on this part taking into consideration his overall work load and health.
Director Yamada felt the most excitement when drawing the storyboard for the part where the high school girls were arriving for school in the morning. It was a scene of energetic girls all enjoying their time, being themselves. She also mentioned that this movie has many scenes of people letting go of themselves, such as Kimi and the sisters at the mission school, and Totsuko dancing her own version of the ballet dance Giselle. Meanwhile, Kojima said that the most challenging scenes to animate were those of the classrooms, as they involved many people. The other was the dodgeball scene.
Questions from the audience were then solicited. The first question was about the areas in which they paid attention to when directing and drawing people's body language, gaze, and how they went about interpreting the characters' personality. Kojima mentioned that he was assisted by the character background developed by the production team. Director Yamada paid attention to the position of the eyes and the characters' gaze, and whether they are looking near or far. She sometimes puts herself into the shoes of the characters, but there are also times when she takes a bird's eye view of things. Kojima mentioned that he put himself into the players' shoes during the dodgeball scene. He also said that he finds it easy to become Totsuko, while Kimi was most difficult for him because he has nothing in common with that character.
The next question was about the characters' names, if there was any episode or background to them. Director Yamada said that for Totsuko, she wanted a name that would leave an impression and be easy to remember. Her surname Higurashi (日暮) was given by scriptwriter Yoshida Reiko, and director Yamada had at first thought the name was read as Higure until someone on the production team pointed that the name was probably meant to be pronounced as Higurashi.
This was followed by a question regarding the selection of the song by Mr. Children for the movie's theme song. Director Yamada said that producer Kawaguchi Noritaka approached her with that song, saying that musician Sakurai Kazutoshi from Mr. Children wrote that song after he read the broad story of the movie. It was also quite a coincidence that Kojima had worked on other works in the past where the theme song was by Mr. Children.
On the theme of music, director Yamada said that this movie involved many instruments, and she took care not to portray these instruments as potential merch; that would be the work of the promotion and merchandising staff. Kojima said that he paid attention to the fingers so that it was clear who they belong to just by looking at the fingers, with long slender fingers for Kimi, slightly plump fingers for Totsuko, and somewhat more bony fingers for Rui.
On the question about the three songs by the three characters, director Yamada said that she provided references pieces to composer Ushio Kensuke when she asked him to make those pieces. She herself wrote the lyrics for all three pieces. She found it very easy to imagine herself as Totsuko when writing the lyrics for "水金地火木土天アーメン" but kind of struggled with "あるく" (the song supposedly written by Kimi) and so, she probably had little in common with Kimi too. As for "反省文~善きもの美しきもの真実なるもの~", she took bits and pieces from all three of the main characters to create the lyrics.
Hazuma jokingly asked director Yamada if she wrote anything for Hiyoko-sensei's band God Almighty. Director Yamada said she did not, but maybe she should try talking to the music producer. But it would become quite a big thing if they can get Hiyoko-sensei (voiced by actress Aragaki Yui) to sing those songs. Director Yamada also said that Hiyoko-sensei played the guitar, a Mustang, in her band.
There was a question about the clothes worn by Kimi's grandmother during the band's performance. Director Yamada said that while Kimi's grandmother, Shino, may look so proper now, doing a good job raising her grandchildren and having a nice garden, she used to be quite punkish. She specifically wanted Shino to be wearing a Vivienne Westwood jacket for the performance. Kojima mentioned he had a bit of a challenge animating Shino's spectacles, and the topic strayed to Rui's spectacles, that he never took them off because his eyesight was actually quite bad.
This concluded the event, and just as director Yamada was thanking everyone, the staff accidentally started playing "水金地火木土天アーメン" and director Yamada was like, "Oh, shall we sing?" She ended by saying that the movie is still in cinemas and hoped people would continue to support this work.
