Putting pen to paper

The 2016 smash hit, “Your Name” did much to revive Thai interest in Japanese animation and now acclaimed director Mamoru Hosoda is back, thrilling local moviegoers with “Mirai”, a story that will resonate loudly with anyone, child or adult, who has a younger sibling.
Hosoda popped over to Bangkok last week to promote the film with its distributor M Pictures and the Japan Foundation arranged a public talk with him.
“Mirai” is Hosoda’s fifth movie in 12 years and follows on the heels of other successes, namely “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time”, “Summer Wars”, Wolf Children” and “The Boy and the Beast”.
He won three awards for animation from the Japanese Academy for “The Girl”, “Summer Wars” and “Wolf Children” and “Mirai” was selected for the Director’s Fortnight at this year’s Cannes International Film Festival this year. 
“Mirai” is a story of four-year-old Kun-chan, who is waiting for his mother to return home from the hospital. At first, he is delighted when she comes back with his new sister Mirai but his happiness doesn’t last long. With his parents busy taking care of the baby, Kun-chan shows his displeasure at the lack of attention being given to him and indulges in nasty and sometimes irritating behaviour, even hitting his sister with his bullet train model.

The little boy then has a series of strange experiences whenever his parents berate him. There, in his garden, he meets a mysterious prince who turns out to be the human personification of the family dog Yekko and a teenage girl from the future who is a grown up version of his sister Mirai. He even travels back to the post World War II period and meets his great-grandfather and encounters a little girl of his age who turns out to be his scary mother. The adventures meld with his daily life and help him become comfortable with his environment.
“I got this idea from my own son. When his younger sister was born and we took her home, I saw his strange and untrusting look in his eyes. I was interested in how such a young child perceives the world around him,” says the director. 
“Adults don’t have time to see the whole world like children; we tend to just focus on everyday matters. As parents, our duty is to take care of children and teach them but in fact, we are the ones who learn from our kids,” Hosoda continues, adding that he also injected his personal experience into the story. 
As in his previous films, director has made family relationships at the centre of the story. 
But while to him this appears perfectly natural, he appears surprised when the Thai media note that this phenomenon is common in Japanese animations and want to know why. 
“I have never been asked that before though it is an interesting observation. However, it is not my intention to focus on the family matters in my films. It just happens. Take this film: the main character is a young boy and showing his character development automatically means focusing on his life and his family,” he explains. 

The topic of family in his and other animations, he adds, is probably a reflection of the drastic changes in the Japanese family unit.
“Families in Japan are undergoing so many changes. For example, the Internet has made people isolate themselves from other members of the family and that lessens the relationship between family members. We are in a transition period and we don’t know where we are or how life should be. And that affects the way the children are raised,” he says.

Even though the main character is a young boy, the director stresses that the movie is suitable for people of all ages. 
“Many people might write it off as a kid’s film but it isn’t. But I know what it’s like. When I was at university, I hesitated about going to see the Gibhli film “My Neighbour Totoro” because the main character is a four-year-old girl,” he says.
Hosoda often uses real locations in his films because he says it helps to give more dimensions to the characters. In “Mirai”, the key location is Yokohama and the scene where Kun-chan travels back to the post-war years and meets his great-grandfather is fascinating.
The director says the idea came from his wife’s grandfather who lives in the industrial area of Yokohama. It is not a tourist area but it does have plenty of historical memories. “But the audience doesn’t have to know all the background history,” he smiles.
Bringing real locations into animation is tough even though advanced techniques help make it real as possible. The working process starts by shooting photographs and video. In this case, introducing images of the city after the war was even more difficult as there is little evidence left and the public is not allowed in certain areas. The solution, Hosoda says, lay in interviewing local officials. 
When asked about the most important tool an animation director should have, he says: “Just paper, pencil and pen. Seriously, making an animation costs a lot of money so you must create things that a movie with actors can’t. Most of the time, it isn’t just entertaining the audience but conveying a message. For me the most important thing is having a new and vivid idea and communicating it to the audience in a simple but powerful way.” 
Although his films are well received in the box office and have won awards, he doesn’t consider himself a success. “I am still on the journey; it’s tough, tiring and has its own problems. But making animation is now part of my life and I know that I have to cope with those problems.”
The process from start to finish of an animation often takes years and the director says that the hardest part is keeping the story idea alive and interesting until the end. 
“When we get an idea to develop the plot, we think it works. But as time passes, our feeling of excitement about the idea changes and we start thinking it’s not working. So the best ideas are those that excite throughout the project,” he says. 
The director adds that he has loved drawing since he was young and became fascinated with the animation as a child, “Art was my way of healing when I had problems,” he muses.
“Children draw and paint to communicate what is in their minds. I was like that too. I was a quiet boy and had many unsuccessful experiences but I was always proud of my drawing. “I got plenty of inspiration from animation when I was young so, as an animation director, I really want to create animations that inspire |others.”