ANIME MANGA EXPLOSION.

"Overlord," a dark fantasy gaining global attention.

The philosophical and world-hopping Sonny Boy.

Is this utopia? Or is it...

Hell?

And the touching, coming-of-age story, "A Place Further than the Universe."

Let's go to Antarctica together!

These are all produced by a studio with over 50 years of history, MADHOUSE.

From adaptations that satisfy existing fans to original works full of creativity.

The studio's masterpieces are part of Japanese anime history.

Their new work "Frieren: Beyond Journey's End" releases in fall 2023.

Frieren. I suppose your life
will be longer than we can even imagine.

I'm so happy MADHOUSE is working
on something I'm a fan of.

I think, like, the depiction of the characters is kind of always the most beautiful thing,

and, I guess most times stand out from the kind of more realistic settings they're in,

at least in the series that I've seen.

That's kind of what I got from the ones I really love from Madhouse.

MADHOUSE has long been at the forefront of the anime scene, witnessing its ups and downs firsthand.

Our cameras got a special, behind-the-scenes look at the production process.

With history-proven talent and skill,

the company continues to take on new challenges.

Watch and learn the secrets of an industry leader this time on -

THE ANIME STUDIO!
- MADHOUSE -

Inside a conference room, a director and animator were in the middle of a heated discussion.

Think of the yellow here
as transmitted light.

They were meeting about the latest movie in the popular "Overlord" series.

"Overlord" is a dark fantasy based on a young adult novel.

Where is my console?

I can't use chat or call a GM, either...

The main character, Ainz, is suddenly transported into an online game he is playing.

I now declare this day the founding
of Sorcerer Kingdom Ainz Ooal Gown.

An average office worker in real life,

Ainz aims to conquer the game by using magic and items bought through microtransactions.

Fans of the series love the quirky characters around Ainz.

I'll kill you, bitch.

Who are you calling expired, whore?

Since it started in 2015, there have been four seasons.

Fans have been anxiously waiting for the 2024 theatrical release.

Itō Naoyuki has been director since season one.

The anime veteran has worked on megahits like "ONE PIECE" and "No Guns Life."

Itō was meeting with an animator to discuss a storyboard.

Ainz fights with an enemy in the town's clock tower square.

The clock tower should be around here.

CZ2128・Δ is lurking in this area.

Ito projects the city view on screen as he explains where each character is positioned.

Then he confirms camera position, angle, zoom, and other details.

The clock tower is here.
The prisoners are held here.

The building can't be viewed from this angle.

But the soldiers are over here,
so the building can be seen.

Ito was describing this building in the background here.

An attack from Ainz will destroy it.

Ito shares his vision with the animators through simple descriptions.

But the way he describes how Ainz attacks is different.

This is Dragon Lightning.
It flails around like BAM BAM BAM!

It destroys the building like BOOM!

Like "BOOM"?

It's thunder.
BOOM! From above.

Coming down like BANG! POW! BOOM!

It jumps around like WHOOSH!
Then KABLOW!

Ito's directing style is to leave the work to his trusted animators.

Fans of "Overlord" love the battle scenes.

Ainz engages in battle using a variety of special abilities.

In general, we cut out a lot of lines
from the original work.

But when it comes to battles,

we try and use as much of
the literary descriptions as possible.

The original author wrote the battles
with HP and MP in mind.

If we omit those from the anime,
it won't make sense.

Sharks Cyclone!

Body of Effulgent Beryl, activate!

Wall of Skeleton!

Maximize Magic, Force Explosion!

Greater Magic Seal, release!

Magic Destruction!

Ito's job is to take the original work and condense its entire worldview into an anime.

I'm so fortunate.

Fans went wild for the final episode of season four, released in 2022.

A kind princess who loved her people gives up her country to Ainz to be with the man she loves.

We should exchange our
first time together today.

To portray the character's insanity, Ito added a dance scene to the end.

The original work only has the princess saying, "I want to dance. I want to sing."

Why did I add a dance scene?

It was one of the main reasons
I wanted to make season four!

In the text, she says,
"I want to sing and dance."

As an anime, we have to
recreate that visually.

The dance scene was created using motion capture technology.

The data is turned into 3DCG, and dynamic camera work is added.

The characters were then hand-drawn and added onto the 3DCG background.

"A dream within a dream"

"Let's forget everything else"

"To stand upon this stage of corpses"

"We only need each other"

The quality would falter
without hand-drawn art.

Everything was carefully drawn.

It came out much more beautiful than I expected.

Ito's bold directing style and his team's endless creativity led to masterful scene after masterful scene.

With a history spanning over 50 years, some younger staff members of MADHOUSE grew up fans of the studio.

The animation director sits here.

She has yet to arrive, but we leave
the material on her desk.

Frantically rushing around the office is third-year employee Kimura Shun.

His desk is covered with anime merchandise.

These are my personal favorites,
but not from our studio.

I would love to be able to work
on one of my favorite series.

Kimura's job is production assistant.

His duties are diverse, from preparing meetings to coordinating animators.

Will the art make it in time
if it arrives in two days?

Nearly 100 staff members are involved in a single anime episode.

The production assistant acts as their liaison.

One of the most important tasks is managing art.

After drawings for an upcoming episode have been checked,

Kimura returns them to the animators with notes.

This is an editor note.

When a character's mouth
is out of sync with the voice,

the editor writes "out of sync."

The animator's job is to fix it.

One episode has about 300 cuts, which are stored in color-coded folders for precise organization.

How many more cuts?

About 200.

We're in a bigger hole than I imagined.

Right before the deadline, Kimura picks up art directly from work-at-home animators.

He says this time alone away from the office is the most relaxing part of his day.

Why did you choose MADHOUSE?

The studio puts out all kinds of stuff,
from shojo manga to young adult novels.

Having a wide variety of work
sounds fun.

It's a place I'll never get bored.

Physically picking up art page by page is a long-standing tradition at MADHOUSE.

After 9 PM, Kimura finally sits down for dinner.

What's the menu today?

Tasty-looking rice
and minced meat cutlet.

A lot of brown, fried food.

Although hours are irregular and work is demanding, Kimura finds the job rewarding.

My job doesn't involve drawing
or messing with programs.

The most creative aspect of what I do

is choosing animators
and asking them to work with us.

That's where I put the most effort.

When the anime airs on TV,
my name comes at the end of the credits.

It gives me
a sense of accomplishment.

MADHOUSE - a production studio where every staff member is actively engaged in the creation process.

For many years, MADHOUSE has partnered with up-and-coming directors on original projects.

The studio produced debut works for Kon Satoshi and Hosoda Mamoru, two directors with impressive careers.

Natsume Shingo is a freelance director with strong ties to MADHOUSE.

They first teamed up on "ONE PUNCH MAN," and have since produced numerous works.

In 2021, Natsume was able to realize an original idea he had been working on for a long time.

It felt like I finally arrived.

A lot of talented people are never able
to find a good studio or producer.

I'm lucky.

Natsume wrote, drew primary art, and directed the TV anime "Sonny Boy."

The sci-fi survival follows a group of boys and girls after their school drifts into another dimension.

You having fun?

Do you enjoy lying around all day?

Yeah. It's not bad.

Is this utopia? Or is it...

Hell?

I dunno.

Although the story is full of mysteries, Natsume chose not to use musical cues or descriptive monologues.

The focus is simplicity, so I'm often told
to make it easier to understand.

That may be kind to the viewer,
but it restricts their imagination.

I omitted explanations
and created space between the lines.

I want the audience
to fill in that space.

Here's the climax from episode one.

Transfer student Nozomi jumps off the rooftop, hoping to escape into another dimension.

Are you a sunflower or dandelion person?

Huh?

If you saw a place shining bright,
would you go?

Or would you just sit and stare?

If I had to choose -

- Dandelion, I guess.

Me, too!

What is she doing?

Natsume's goal to excite the viewer's imagination can be found in the backgrounds.

The imagery is created with paint.

He aimed for the texture found in traditional animation cels.

It's strange to feel so nostalgic
about an illustration.

Even with minimal information, we can
connect it with our own experiences.

Humans have the ability
to expand on a story.

Natsume's experimental direction style is fully supported by MADHOUSE.

MADHOUSE is very respectful
toward creators.

The company puts
a lot of value on creativity.

And it has a strong foundation
as a well-established studio.

A lot of companies
try to follow trends.

But MADHOUSE is like a mountain.
Unmovable.

MADHOUSE is also committed to training staff in-house.

Periodic production exams evaluate each employee's ability, supporting their career progression.

One of MADHOUSE's home-grown directors is Ishizuka Atsuko.

She built a career by directing and storyboarding various projects.

Ishizuka is now one of MADHOUSE's top directors.

In 2018, she released her first masterpiece, "A Place Further than the Universe."

It also happened to be her first original work.

I'm in my second year
of high school and I haven't done anything!

What are you gonna do?

I decided...
I'm gonna make it happen!

Kimari is a timid high school student finding it difficult to move forward in life,

until she takes on a big challenge.

Let's go to Antarctica!

What are you doing? They'll yell at you!

The coming-of-age story follows the evolution of Kimari and her friends as they try to get to Antarctica.

In 2018, it was the only anime to make top ten of New York Times' best international shows.

But I believed!
But I didn't give up!

And this is how it turns out!

In your face!

I remember so much from high school.

I decided to create something
to support young girls

and help them discover
what motivates them in life.

The production was full of people Ishizuka had worked with over the years.

Veteran artist Yoshimatsu Takahiro was character designer and chief animation director.

I don't have much experience
with female-led anime.

It was one of the most difficult tasks
of my career.

Ishizuka aimed to create realistic characters that could be found in the real world instead of typical anime-like deformations.

It's about gravity.

Yes! I always said hair
should fall like gravity exists.

In anime, skirts are spread out
to emphasize the female silhouette.

I said, "Don't do that."

The story is a fantasy.

Still, I wanted to make it feel
as real as possible.

The work means nothing
if the characters are fake.

To express a sense of realism, Ishizuka focused on gestures and appearance.

In this scene, four characters gather at a family restaurant.

When facing a table,
anime characters sit up straight.

There are a lot of characters
that sit like this.

But when you think about it,
is it any fun to eat and chat like that?

The way I imagine it,
they eat like this.

The characters feel like
they could exist in real life.

Ishizuka's detailed direction is a testament
to her ability as a director.

Ishizuka's commitment to realism is also supported by the compositing team.

The team adjusts the texture of the image and adds visual effects like extra lighting.

This is before compositing -

and this is how it looks after.

We added shadows to the face.

And used light to emphasize
highlights in the hair.

We also put separate light in the eyes.

This is how it looks unedited.

It becomes this after compositing.

The goal is to bring the eyes to life
and create a memorable expression.

The rope is drawn clearly,
but we add lens blur with a plugin.

Then we adjust RGB levels
using chromatic distortion.

Can you see the difference?

Here. The rainbow.

Instead of a blurred illustration,
it looks like a photo captured by camera.

Compositing Director Kawashita Yuki has also worked with Ishizuka on multiple projects.

In my first test,
I created a very clean image.

Ishizuka said to make it dirty.
Her direction was impeccable.

I wanted it to have a grimy realness.

The way water is expressed was also key.

For this scene, Kawashita used actual footage he shot at sea.

I shot a video of the bottom of a boat
just like the one in the anime.

I saw water reflections

and floating particles.

I thought it would be great to use.

Kawashita composited parts of his video into the animation.

I talked to him about adding depth
that allows the viewer to feel the air.

I never told him to recreate
live-action footage so delicately.

It was an idea that came directly
from the compositing director.

Enthusiasm like that makes me so happy.

This piece is an accumulation
of our previous work.

Our senses have been updated.

I wanted to create
something brand new.

The aurora!

You're right!

When we asked Ishizuka what she wanted to depict in the work,

her answer reconfirmed her reason for working at MADHOUSE.

Whenever I work on something,

I realize how much I'm incapable of.

I feel that every time,
so I want to keep working with my team.

Of course, there are plenty of
difficult situations where we clash.

But our sense of purpose to create
hasn't changed at all.

MADHOUSE is where passionate people
come together to create exciting things.

Over its 50-year history, MADHOUSE has cultivated a culture of trusting each other's creativity.

A place where staff want to continue working together.

The studio's creative mentality will continue to influence the next generation of creators.