Fantasia 2024 Interview: KIZUMONOGATARI -Koyomi Vamp- Director, Producer (Video)

Interview: KIZUMONOGATARI -Koyomi Vamp- Director Tatsuya Oishi and Aniplex Producer Tatsuya Ishikawa spoke to The Natural Aristocrat® about the movie screening at the 2024 Fantasia Film Festival.

Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade and Koyomi Araragi in film Kizumonogatari: Koyomi Vamp. Art provided by Fantasia Film Festival

This interview contains spoilers for film KIZUMONOGATARI -Koyomi Vamp-.

THE NATURAL ARISTOCRAT (NIR REGEV): Meme Oshino’s commentary on the human selfishness of taking away their pets’ natural inclinations by defanging, declawing, neutering etc. to keep them ‘cute’ was an incredible allegory. How important was getting this larger message about human treatment of animals to your audience?

TATSUYA OISHI: So in this movie, one of the themes that you can definitely see often is that some actions can be taken while thinking, ‘Oh, I’m doing something good!’ but in fact, you’re actually doing something bad for someone else.

Even though you may think you’re doing something good, in fact it’s the actual opposite. And so this is a movie where a lot of the values are kind of reversed depending on these actions that happen.

One of the things that I really wanted to emphasize is that even actions that you think are good for you, sometimes can be the worst decision for others. And so this is where there is no pure good or pure evil. And that’s definitely something that I wanted to depict in this movie.

THE NATURAL ARISTOCRAT: This film’s animation feels avant-garde, mixing media together from traditional 2D anime to 3D environments to real life footage. What were the planning stages like to bring it all together in one fluid animation?

TATSUYA OISHI: Before this, I produced and worked on this movie, I directed the, this the TV series and first anime animation of the Manga series called Bakemonogatari. And so this movie, KIZUMONOGATARI, is a prequel to the Bakemonogatari series that I directed.

And for everything, every work that I do, I always fight to try and do something new, to try to include something new.

Tsubasa Hanekawa in film Kizumonogatari: Koyomi Vamp. Art provided by Fantasia Film Festival

For me, obviously when I started working on this movie, I was like, “I wanna make something cool. I wanna make a cool movie!” And one of the things that I find is hand drawn animation is very beautiful, but there is one challenge… The texture feel.

It’s really hard to depict or demonstrate the texture feel of steel or water. That’s one of the limitations that I felt hand drawn animation had.

I basically decided to take CG animation to kind of depict the texture and feel of water or steel and other material. Then I combined it with the hand drawn smooth animation. Basically, combining hand drawn animation and CG together.

THE NATURAL ARISTOCRAT: I felt like the staff had a great time animating this movie, like they were unleashed creatively to do anything they envisioned in their mind. Were there any restrictions placed or was it a complete free-flowing passion project? Is it the most freedom you’ve had animating since college?

TATSUYA ISHIKAWA: Were there any restrictions? Yes! In Japan, there are restrictions in terms of how much blood, the pictures of blood can be shown, or how much sexiness can be displayed in the anime.

And so there is a committee, a judging committee that has to go through the approval. I remember having to discuss with Oishi-san and the judging panel about pushing the limits of how much creativity they can display without infringing on the rules.

THE NATURAL ARISTOCRAT: Do you believe that Kiss-Shot’s comments about only being helped when perceived as weak rather than an equal is true? I noticed the words “Hypocrisy” and “hypocrite” flashed across the screen in this scene.

Was there a larger message there about equality between the genders? Basically, that men only tend to help when they can be ‘the hero saving the princess’ so-to-speak.

TATSUYA OISHI: So before we could even start the production of this movie, one of the things that we really had to do was to understand the character of Koyomi Araragi, the main character.

We really had to understand just why Koyomi Araragi helped the vampire? Why at the end of the movie, did Koyomi not decide to just kill her? So we had to ask ourselves that question.

We needed to understand the character of Koyomi, but we also really needed to depict that character in the movie. And basically, it’s really more about Koyomi pushing his selfish values or depicting pushing his values on the vampire.

Koyomi Araragi in movie Kizumonogatari: Koyomi Vamp. Art provided by Fantasia Film Festival

For him, Koyomi really just wants to be the good guy. He wants to really depict and demonstrate that, “Oh, I am the good person.” Killing is bad, but, he’s forcing that value on her. And basically, for example, vampires, they eat humans, so they’re evil.

But another way of seeing it is they’re very sad creatures. And so this is not much of a man versus woman type of ideology that we were trying to depict.

It’s really more about the aspect that we are confronted with conflicting values, and show what it means to push and forces values on top of others.

THE NATURAL ARISTOCRAT: I remember first seeing the idea of limb regeneration in anime with Dragon Ball Z’s Piccolo but you guys went wild with it. What was it like animating the moment where Araragi pulls out a new arm?

TATSUYA OISHI: (laughs) There’s a lot of movement in this animation, it was made possible because I was working with such an experienced and talented animation staff!

One of the things I wanted to mention is that when I was working on the storyboard, that was a very singular process. Like I was the only one working on it, and I had a lot of time to work on it. I had a lot of ideas that were coming up while making the storyboard.

When I was a kid, I watched a lot of various movies and works around the world. And one of them was obviously Dragon Ball Z, I’m a huge of it.

Maybe in the corner of my mind, I still had the scene of Piccolo growing his arm! (laughs) And maybe that’s how I was able to come up with this animation.

THE NATURAL ARISTOCRAT: Meme Oshino always carries around a cigarette brand named “High Right”. Is it parodying a Japanese cigarette brand of sorts? Is there a larger message there?

TATSUYA OISHI: (smiles) The cigarette brand ‘hi-lite’ is actually an existing brand in Japan. It still exists and my father smoked hi-lites. Since my childhood, when I think cigarettes equal hi-lites. And so basically what one of the things that as the character Meme Oshino is depicting is that he is kind of the mentor or the adult figure that will lead Koyomi since he’s just a teenager.

And so since I kind of wanted to show that leading type father figure, we were thinking, “Oh, maybe here Oshino should smoke a cigarette. Cigarettes equal hi-lites, there you go!

TATSUYA ISHIKAWA: When I was in high school, I was smoking hi-lite cigarettes! (laughs)

THE NATURAL ARISTOCRAT: What does it mean to you to have this film screen at the 2024 Fantasia International Film Festival?

TATSUYA OISHI: We’re so excited to be here right now in Canada, Montreal at the Fantasia Film Festival! It’s so exciting to think that a lot of people will come to the screening to experience and enjoy the movie together. We’ve very much looked forward to it!

THE NATURAL ARISTOCRAT: Will KIZUMONOGATARI -Koyomi Vamp- be dubbed in English at a later date?

TATSUYA OISHI: In regards to dubbing, there’s certainly a chance. Definitely ,we would like to have the English dubbing. The only challenge, well one of the challenges, is that the series is puts a lot of emphasis on the Japanese language or idioms or the Japanese culture itself.

So if we’re able to do the dubbing while still not losing the appeal of the originality of the Manga series, we would very much like to do so.

THE NATURAL ARISTOCRAT: Do you have any memorable experiences with the voice actors you can share while directing KIZUMONOGATARI -Koyomi Vamp-?

TATSUYA OISHI: The production of the KIZUMONOGATARI movie took a very long time, a very, very long time! And so one of the things that I was feeling was more that because the production took so long, it took a long time for the actors to finally get involved.

And so if anything, I was just feeling sorry. I was like, “I’m so sorry, it took so time, so much time!” So really, it’s more that feeling of being apologetic whenever he was going to the recording studio.

THE NATURAL ARISTOCRAT: Can you walk us through a typical day of animation at Aniplex on KIZUMONOGATARI -Koyomi Vamp-? Is there a lot of crunch (overtime) hours involved?

TATSUYA OISHI: The workload of the production really changes day by day. So it’s really hard to express it.

Regarding the workload, sure everyone may end up working a bit too much… But it really comes from the fact that you don’t want to have fear that you didn’t do all you could, all you possibly can. Because then you end up with regrets and we don’t want to feel any kind of regret.

I’ve done everything I could for the production of this movie. It’s not like the studio is enforcing it like, “Oh, you have to do this amount of work or that these people have to do all this extra work!”

It’s more everyone kind of ‘self-inflicting’ that amount of work because they really wanna make sure that they do the best work that they can.

Which does sometimes end up being ‘You wake up, you work and then you sleep’. And so it kind of just cycle repeats like that. But there’s also the fact that it is fun!

There’s a lot of people in the studio, sure the work is hard, but there’s also the excitement. The excitement that people are gonna go and watch a movie and be impressed and have fun!

And so there’s excitement for the one day I’m gonna be able to see the film’s completion. That is the excitement that keeps you driving forward!

THE NATURAL ARISTOCRAT: What would you do in Koyomi Araragi’s place seeing Kiss-Shot in dire straits at that subway early on in the film?

TATSUYA OISHI: (laughs) I would probably be too scared and run away.

TATSUYA ISHIKAWA: I would call the police! I can’t save her! (laughs)

Kizumonogatari: Koyomi Vamp movie poster. Art provided by Fantasia Film Festival

THE NATURAL ARISTOCRAT: Thank you both for taking the time to discuss the film today!

TATSUYA OISHI and TATSUYA ISHIKAWA: Thank you very much!

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KIZUMONOGATARI -Koyomi Vamp- FILMMAKER Bios

Tatsuya Oishi

Tatsuya Oishi. Photo provided by Crunchyroll

“Tatsuya Oishi is an anime creative director known for his work on titles such as Pani Poni Dash!, Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei [Opening Director for both], Hidamari Sketch, Hidamari Sketch x 365 (Production Design), Bakemonogatari (Series Director), and more.”

Tatsuya Ishikawa

Tatsuya Ishikawa. Photo provided by Crunchyroll

“Tastuya Ishikawa joined Aniplex in 2011. He has worked on many of Aniplex’s hit shows as a producer including Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, the MONOGATARI Series, Magia Record: Puella Magia Madoka Magica Side Story, and ‘BOCCHI THE ROCK!’.”

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Visit the Fantasia International Film Festival section for exclusive interviews, reviews, and event coverage you won’t get anywhere else! Only on The Natural Aristocrat®!

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