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#SetTheStage with Tetsuya Kawakami
by Sony (Paid Advertisement),
It's time to #SettheStage.
For those of us who love pop culture, Sony is part of our daily lives. Whether it's playing acclaimed games on one of the PlayStation family of consoles, watching your favorite films (like recent megahit Spider-Man: No Way Home) on state-of-the-art 8K BRAVIA HD television sets, listening to your favorite music through your Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones, or live-tweeting your impressions as you watch the latest streamed episode of your favorite Crunchyroll series on an Xperia phone, Sony plays a crucial role in your entertainment experience in some way. And nowhere is Sony's presence felt more than in the world of anime.
You've likely heard by now that Sony's Funimation anime streaming service has merged into the world's biggest online portal for anime viewing, Crunchyroll . But Sony isn't just delivering your anime – it's also making it. Aniplex, a division of Sony Music Entertainment(Japan), has an ever-growing huge hit show line-up such as Sword Art Online, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Kill la Kill, and Fullmetal Alchemist, among numerous others. And under Aniplex are some of the anime industry's most beloved 2D and 3D animation studios: A-1 Pictures, CloverWorks, and Boundary.
Our first special #SetTheStage video focuses on Sony's veteran animator Tetsuya Kawakami from A-1 Pictures, the studio behind recent hits like Sword Art Online, 86 EIGHTY-SIX, and Kaguya-sama: Love is War. He's a celebrated animator, animation director, and character designer who has been working in the industry for decades. Kawakami's job is to make sure the anime you watch looks great from start to finish, checking that movement is clean and fluid and ensuring those fast-paced action scenes or emotionally-fraught dramatic revelations hit the right visual notes.
In this exclusive video interview, Kawakami talks about the creative process while responding to various viewer comments. You'll hear about what Kawakami prioritizes most in his approach to animation and character design, how his gaming experience is reflected in his work on 86 EIGHTY-SIX, the challenges of rapidly moving from one project to another, and managing fan expectations (You might be surprised to learn that all of your YouTube reaction videos aren't going unnoticed by the people making your favorite shows!)
The part where Kawakami discusses adapting light novels to animation is particularly interesting. With manga, the important elements that need to be adapted to animated form are very obvious in the drawings. Light novels, however, tend to be longer and more verbose with fewer visual references. This necessitates crucial decisions about what needs to be focused on and how to adapt characters that primarily existed only in text into animation.
Funimation, Crunchyroll, Aniplex and A-1 Pictures are just a few of the many different companies that comprise Sony's entertainment businesses: Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment, and Sony Interactive Entertainment. All of these organizations are driven by one crucial element: the creators. The media you've come to love – be it anime, games, film, TV, or music -- is the result of the work of many people working together to create something special. These passionate creators are the lifeblood of Sony's entertainment initiatives. They are some of the most talented, driven, unique, and creative people in the industry. And now, Sony wants you to hear from your favorite media creators through candid, fan-focused experiences that give you a peek behind the scenes of their creative processes, responding to you and your comments about their work.
This is only one of many #SetTheStage special features to come. We hope you'll join us again to connect with more of your favorite Sony artists and creators for exclusive behind-the-scenes content powered by Sony's industry-leading innovative technologies.
