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Haikyu!! Director Susumu Mitsunaka Takes Indian Fans Inside His Studio at Anime India Kolkata

The Anime India convention welcomed its Guest of Honor Susumu Mitsunaka (Haikyu!! director, Weathering With You key animator) for a workshop on Saturday where he demonstrated his process in-studio, and for a panel on Sunday where members of the Anime Fan Community interviewed him about his career and creative process.

Speaking of the beginnings of his animation career, Mitsunaka shared that he watched Dragon Ball while growing up and drew characters like Goku. That's part of what made him want to create anime. He described his high school life as “very normal” after which he went to animation school for two years. He worked at his first studio for two and a half years and then went to freelance at Sunrise in hopes of working on a show he admired.

Aside from the early years of his career, he spoke of career experiences like working on the anime adaptation of Asa Higuchi's Ookiku Furikabutte baseball manga that later went on to help him direct a major sports anime like Haikyu!! Mitsunaka expressed great respect for Haruichi Furudate's original work, stating that the adaptation did not require many changes from the original. He spoke of how, while he doesn't have any personal experience with volleyball, his experiences playing tennis and baseball gave him an idea of the body movements he would bring to screen and what parts of the play need to be emphasized in Haikyu!!

On Saturday, at his workshop, the director showed the audience various pages from his storyboards, explaining how he plans on portraying certain actions on screen. The session had illustrated many of the processes that he goes through in the studio.

One section of the workshop showed the audience the 3D model scenes that the Haikyu!! team uses to plan their final shots. Mitsunaka illustrated his process with a 3D CG mockup of a 360 degree shot that follows the ball up in the air and leaves the characters behind off-screen, using it to ascertain the size, distance, and speed of objects and characters while bringing the scene to life. He told the audience that single two second clip probably comprises a hundred to a thousand frames, with the number of frames going up with the number of characters on screen.

He went into many more details about how he decides on camera movement speed and where the camera pauses, and how he decides where to place the characters once the mockups are made, showing everyone the final scene that comes out of the process. He stressed that the animators go over each of these painstaking details to ensure that the audience can understand why the characters love volleyball and what drives them to play.

During the workshop, he had told an animation professional in the audience that he would work with a team of 20 to 30 people every day in the studio. When sharing how he keeps up a positive working environment for his staff, Mitsunaka said that when he approaches his work with joy, the enjoyment flows into the staff as well, and that joy keeps up its own momentum.

Anime India took place at Biswa Bangla Mela Prangan, Kolkata on February 14 and February 15.

Source: Anime India