My Melody & Kuromi | Production documentary

My Melody & Kuromi｜制作ドキュメンタリー

It’s the 50th anniversary of My Melody
and the 20th anniversary of Kuromi. Although it is an animation series, we produced it
with the intention of making a movie. It’s a character that’s loved nationally. No, not just nationally.
It’s beloved worldwide. Being able to create a new film
with these characters was such an opportunity
to include all of our ideas without holding back, resulting in a project
that fully reflects our vision. My Melody’s History My Melody debuted in 1975 as a character
featured in Christmas merchandise. Back then, she was called
Little Red Riding Hood and didn’t have a specific name yet. The following year, in 1976, she was named My Melody. In 1977, her hood changed to pink She continued to grow as a character. From the perspective of growth, I believe taking on challenges
is essential, and this time, we managed to create a series
that adults can enjoy as well. It was written by Shuko Nemoto,
a playwright and screenwriter. She’s a huge fan
of My Melody and Kuromi, so she shows great respect
in the dialogue she created. The unique and sarcastic lines constructed a truly wonderful script. To bring my ideas to life
and show the direction I wanted, I started by creating several image boards. Speaking of My Melody, there are already
plenty of cute illustrations of her, so I drew something not seen before, like a scene where My Melody
and her friends are cornered. When Sanrio reviewed it, they were really pleased, and I thought,
This is our area of expertise, so I kept layering on
more conceptual artboards. It was pretty relentless. Yeah, it really was. Could you also talk about
cute artboards? Right, the cute artboards. From the planning stage,
we already had the idea of My Melody and Kuromi running
a sweets shop. To make the world as cute as possible
in the Mariland style, I drew some image boards. But honestly, I don’t really have a sweet tooth, and I didn’t know much about sweets. Don’t you actually prefer spicy food? Yeah, like dandan noodles… But I had to create
a genuinely sweet worldview, which required a lot of thought. I went to Sanrio Puroland and watched a lot of works
to get inspiration. I also drew ideas from Ichigo Shimbun
(Strawberry News) and the art books. I got the impression that Mariland’s worldview
has a kind of matte texture, So I designed leaves and flowers
to avoid a shiny look. We attached fabric
to the surface of the tree and to keep them
from becoming too saturated, we had the colors painted with pastels. Since there are so many flowers
and leaves in this world, we sometimes used a 3D printer, but relying too much on 3D models could make the visuals
look like a CG film. Since we were making
a stop-motion film, I wanted to avoid that impression. The sculptors understood this intention
and crafted every detail carefully. In 3D, you can make things
perfectly symmetrical, but adding some asymmetrical balance makes them feel less like CG or a replica. So, we intentionally
made them asymmetrical. I think we really achieved
an outstanding level of quality in this series. All the hard work was truly worth it. Puppets made out of wool felt We mainly used wool to create the puppets. I think the material
was a perfect match this time. Especially for Piano. She is a sheep. Totally, it was a perfect match. Yeah, that really worked perfectly. In this film, many characters
are based on animals, so I realized that using wool works
particularly well for animal characters. Because they are so fluffy. For My Melody and Kuromi, we used Acrene, a material made of acrylic fiber
by Hamanaka, The pink wool we used for Piano, however, was authentic goat hair. Unlike 3D-printed sculptures,
which are often produced in multiples, we had to stab and tangle the fibers
with a special barbed needle to shape the forms. And that was quite challenging To convey cuteness in various ways, we paid special attention to
the costumes and all the little details. Speaking of the sweet contest,
the characters wear cute dresses and join the contest. Our costume team
made these dresses just for it. The appearance is perfect, but what unexpectedly
helped me while animating was that the costumes had wires in them,
which made them animatable. To depict the fluttering in the air
or the momentum of their movements, these small gimmicks were essential. In the end, I found them
to be truly effective. Armature Creation We had the armature made,
the metal framework inside the puppet. In Japan’s stop-motion field, Kawamura is a very well-known
armature craftsman, and we rely on him a lot. He is probably the only person in Japan
capable of creating armatures. He’s truly a one-of-a-kind craftsman. Stop-motion is still
not very common in Japan. True. With a limited number of staff, it remains a small field. But it’s full of potential,
so if this film inspires you or makes you want to try it yourself, please give it a try. It’s really fun. We developed
a new piece of camera equipment. It was essential for shooting
action sequences. We named it KAWAJIN,
combining the names of the two artists. This equipment has a mechanism
with 4 different ways of adjustment. It was originally designed for
assembling an accurate instrument, and because it uses
a very strong worm gear, once you set the angle,
it locks securely. On the very first day, I brought
the prototype to the studio, Misato and Kei
started animating right away. They pulled off a really cool scene
with some intense camera work, and it completely impressed me. The equipment is incredible, almost revolutionary. We did some camera work
on PUI PUI Molcar as well, but back then,
if I wanted to adjust the height, I had to stack DVD cases
or books little by little. We would insert
or remove thick papers to tweak the angle. That was really tedious work. That was completely
beyond human capability. It was like putting the camera
on a Jenga tower and shooting while removing
pieces one by one, right? Right, exactly. Compared to those days, doing the camera work
has become much easier. What inspired you for the action scenes? We’ve always admired Hollywood films,
so we wanted to create something that could stand alongside them,
so we shared our ideas with the team. Fast & Furious John Wick Pretty intense films. The Korean film, The Villainess Overall, we also took inspiration
from The Lego Movie, right? Yeah, that’s right. Also, the Netflix film,
The Mitchells vs. The Machines. Since this is an animation series with 12 episodes, we made sure
to keep each episode different. Some feature car chases,
others are undercover-style, some are musicals,
some are panic-filled, and some include mid-air fights. There’s even a horror episode. That’s quite a mix. Yeah, it really is. So many characters
move around on the screen, which I think is
another feature of this series. You can watch the residents, the people in Mariland
going about their daily lives, and I think the animators really
enjoyed bringing all of them to life. But well… What was it like animating
all those characters? Well, it was definitely challenging
to animate that many characters, but their presence really
makes the world feel alive. I think we managed to express that well, so in the end, I’m glad we included
so many characters. You can see
their cute little movements, and we even added
little surprises for Sanrio fans. I hope everyone enjoys spotting them. Please check out the Netflix series
My Melody & Kuromi!

Netflix series “My Melody & Kuromi” Behind The Scenes Director Misato Asanoki x Animator Sato Katsura, with image boards and production materials, from the process of building the worldview, selecting materials for sculptures, and even developing new filming equipment. We’ll get to the backstage of creating a work. Original work: Sanrio Director: Misato Asaki Screenplay: Nemoto Muneko Theme song: LE SSERAFIM “Kawaii (Prod. Gen Hoshino)” Produced by: TORUKU from WIT STUDIO Streaming: Exclusively streamed worldwide on Netflix (12 episodes, approximately 13 minutes / each episode) WIT STUDIO official website: https://www.witstudio.co.jp/index.html WIT STUDIO official social media X: https://twitter.com/WIT_STUDIO TIK TOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@wit_studio_offical INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/wit_studio #Meroclas on Netflix #mymelodykuromi #melochromatic relationship #WITSTUDIO #TORUKU