April 26 release 『SYORIN SYOJYO』
April 19 release『Ginmakuban SUSHI OJI!』
August 30 release『20 Century Boys』
September release『Maboroshi no Yamataikoku』
undicide『Akanbo Syosho』
08 spring release 『Sunshine Days』
Detail is here

We were ready for shooting affected by the weather from the preparatory stage. Temperature, wind, rain, and unforeseeable happenings. It was necessary to consider such situations for everything we create and decorate. We put together a wide variety of experiences and ideas, performed tests after tests and had discussions, then came to a dead end. Time passed while we were stuck and upset. As we found it impossible to create the snow church with real ice, we started by selecting materials to build it. It must look real, though. Assistant art producers never compromised. Snow concerned us when we started building. Steel frame was chosen to create the framing structure. Difficulty lies in the finishing stage. The materials hardly stuck together well. Expression of ice…not enough reality. Closest attention was paid not to leave a single part not looking like ice. Finally, an adorable ice church was in front of us. The ice object at the entrance was created based on Mr. Naoki Soma, the designer’s deep message implying “eternity and constancy,” adequate theme for a wedding church. The church was a silver house where common features and unique individualities of three artists met to generate chemistry. The set was planned on the theme of eternal hideout. The ambient atmosphere there even made us feel as if we were standing in fresh cold air. It was a beautiful set loaded with passion of art, decoration and construction coordinators. Dozens of staff joined forces on creating the competition course of spectacular scale. Every staff on the site shared the same emotion in working out the scene. Shooting was no way easy. It was a fight against the weather, snow, and time. A film dealing with nature is quite a challenge. Everybody put a lot of effort into it. My thanks go out to all the staff for having got the excellent job done while enduring high level of mental and physical fatigue. At our designer’s suggestion, Mutsumi’s debut artwork painted on the rail side made an appearance in the film, which built his self-confidence. I am seized with gratitude. The entire film is a result of all the hard works which is deeply appreciated.

First thing to do was to make researches of Osaka. Taking advice of Mr. Tsutsumi, the director, that we had better see the actual place that fits the image, the art and decoration staff departed for Nishinari, Osaka. Having arrived, we walked on the streets in local shopping areas and around apartment buildings. We saw Sachie and Isao walking and living there in our mind. So we walked along with them. Images and ideas began to germinate in the designers’ mind. Our definite wish was to create a realistic set. Thoughts grew together to get linked among the staff of art, decoration, construction and landscape. Stains on the wall, width of allies, scratches made in daily life, habits of people living there. The studio of Nikkatsu turned into little Osaka. People working there grew to look like the casts in the cartoon. Quite exciting. Trees in the shrine talk as if they have lived there for years. The Chinese restaurant of deep humanity, the room where love has been nurtured, and the room of the concerned neighbor. The sets were brought to life, run emotions and breathed. This production earned the biggest tributes from the actors and succeeded in affecting their acting.

People in Kagawa prefecture eat udon (Japanese wheat noodle) once a day. Udon is deeply entrenched in their life. The film is set on a udon restaurant named “Matsui Seimen-jo” with a hundred-year-old noodle factory. First of all, the art team of four and the decoration department made researches on people in Kagawa, their life style, how they are associated with Udon, and how they make it. Then they studied the history. They ate their way at various local Udon restaurants to try out. Researches and studies continued day and night to build a set which satisfies even local people. They conducted tests after tests to verify daily behaviors and life style flow. By a pond with Mount Sanuki Fuji in view, we built a set of Matsui family’s place; a whole housing unit with a noodle factory. The building was constructed by carpenters from Tokyo and from Kagawa in cooperation. To make it look worn after years, they painted it over and over to show signs of people’s life. Props were introduced within reach of actors. Decorations were added to give an effect of verisimilitude for accumulated decades. No single waste is seen in the tools to make Udon. Due to some scheduling reasons, we created interior portion of the same housing unit in the film studio of Nikkatsu and Daiei. The landscape garden and large stout trees were reproduced there by creating trunks with foam polystyrene and beating in branches. They also reproduced the distant landscape viewed through the window. The event site and the editorial office were arranged with the cooperation of local people of Kagawa. We also reproduced pre-harvest wheat fields in early spring. UDON was completed after two-month preparation and two-months shooting. A total of nearly 100 art staff contributed to this production.

This is a piece of work in the “Rhythm and Police (Odoru Dai Sosasen)” series. In the story, the hero is a negotiator who profiles criminals to resolve a case where they manipulate subway trains freely and attempt to set off an explosion on Christmas Day. What should we do with the set of subway trains? How could we shoot the scene of trains running out of control? We had discussions with the director over and over on possible shooting procedures based on the acting script. How could we add realism as an artistic factor? Concurrently, we worked on the design of unattended train “KUMO E-600.” We sat down together on numerous occasions to get a consensus on numbers of images. In order to shoot the scene at an angle which gives audience a feeling of terror, we decided to use midget subway trains to shoot the running trains, and to create front part of full-scale train bodies covered with real lead for shooting more realistic details. Using the whole space of the studio, we combined 4 train bodies and 8 patterns of rails to create scenes, changing the decoration. The perpetual efforts started with selecting materials to increase reality, and fifteen staff crafted thousands of parts till all hours of the night every day for about a month. The staff was daily stuck inside the studio. Midget trains were crafted based on the minute calculation of relations with the rails down to the millimeter. Having been unable to build two train bodies controllable with a remote controller, we had to shoot the scenes without a replacement train under considerable strain. Our calls got louder to shoot every single scene with a great care. The command center was minutely arranged configuring the personality, habits and role of individual characters. We also created the small rooms with commitment to various aspects to give a meaning to each. The hall’s large Christmas decoration has made a stunning scene as well.