Digimon Adventure 02 THE BEGINNING‘s theatrical screening had a corresponding informational pamphlet sold on-site, which contained informational and art assets and a large number of cast and staff interviews.

(Supervisor Hiromi Seki | Fukujuurou Katayama and Junko Noda | Other voice actor messages | Megumi Ogata and Rie Kugimiya | Directors Tomohisa Taguchi and Yoshifumi Sasahara | Key animation director and storyboarder Shinichiro Ueda | BGM composer Harumi Fuuki | Art director Ayu Kiyoki and color designer Saori Gouda | Chief animation director Seiji Tatsukawa | Character designers Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru and Kenji Watanabe | Music staff Ayumi Miyazaki, AiM, and Shintarou Matsui)

This post is a translation of the included interview with key animation director and storyboarder Shinichiro Ueda.

Shinichiro Ueda

Animation director. Major works include the One Room series and So I’m a Spider, So What?

“The part that was different from the previous movie was that I was able to be involved even from the storyboarding stage”

–After having been on Digimon Adventure LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna (hereinafter, Kizuna), how did you feel when you were appointed as key animation director for this movie?
I’d been involved since Digimon Adventure tri., so I was glad to be involved with the newest movie. Even as a fan, I was interested in what would happen next, so it got me excited. I believe I ended up being charge of around the same amount of cuts as I was in Kizuna. I was mainly in charge of the part from the very first scene to the scene where they go to the computer room, which would be the “introduction” part of the plot. The part that was different from the previous movie was that I was able to be involved even from the storyboarding stage. Of course, I drew the storyboard based on Taguchi-san’s drawings of what he wanted, but I personally love Digimon too, and I wanted those who also watched 02 to get a feel of “yeah, this is how Digimon should be” from the art.

–I get the impression that the story themes have changed rather abruptly between the last movie and this one. Was there anything you had to focus on changing in terms of direction?
Menoa, who was the focus character of Kizuna, was the kind of character who seemed like a guest character at first but turned out to be the mastermind. For this movie, Lui is the kind of character who’s deeply involved from the plot from the beginning and is the focus of the story, so I was consciously thinking “I’m going to make him come off more as the protagonist!” Also, this is more in terms of what part I was in charge of, but in the previous movie, I focused on bringing up the tension when Menoa was revealed as the mastermind, but for this movie, since I was in charge of the beginning part, I wanted to establish the atmosphere and background behind the story, so I focused more on bringing immersion into the story.

–Was there any scene from the Digimon Adventure 02 TV anime series that left an impression on you, or any characters who are your favorite?
The Jogress episodes got me really excited. Ever since I was a kid, I always loved seeing things I liked combine with other things I liked to become even stronger, so it was just cool to me on principle. As for my favorite characters, among the 02 group, I of course loved Daisuke, but Hikari-chan was so cute that I loved her too. She came off as soft at first, but she was also a really tough girl, and I liked that duality. Right now, Hikari-chan hasn’t changed much, and it’s reassuring to see. This goes for the other characters too, but whenever you depict them as older, no matter what you do, there’s always going to be people whose impressions or headcanons are going to be different enough that they’ll feel cut off. But Digimon series characters are very easy to show that way, and when we were doing post-recording, it felt perfectly natural, as if they came back having grown up exactly as normal.

–Was there anything that left a particular impression on you in your discussions with Director Taguchi?
When we finished making cuts (to the running length), I was really happy to hear “it came out well” from Taguchi-san. Taguchi-san has helped me a lot ever since I’d gotten started as a director, and I feel like I’m even more indebted to him than I was back then. Also, in regards to the storyboard, Taguchi-san would make corrections to what I drew, but he would also write his reasons for correcting them, and it was like a huge luxury to be able to have that back-and-forth with him. He hasn’t needed to make as many corrections as he used to, but Taguchi-san is also the kind of person who really wants to push things as much as possible, so the gap between us isn’t getting any smaller (laughs). But I wanted everything I needed to fix to be on a more fine level, so I worked with that in mind.

–What scenes are you most personally attached to?
The scene where I put the most effort into was the scene at the beginning where you see the other Chosen Children outside of Daisuke’s group. I was hoping people would be able to tell that they still had certain features in their faces but had also grown. As someone who’s involved in anime production, I want people to watch the movements, so I don’t want people to have to pause the footage too much, but I thought it would be fun if people could pause and try to figure out “who’s this one?” It’s hard to do that at the theater, so I hope you can have fun with that on the Blu-ray and DVD. Also, I really love the scene where Daisuke and V-mon are having their back-and-forth on the roof. That’s the kind of relationship that I’ve always wanted to see in a Digimon work.

–How did you feel when you read the plot outline for the movie?
When I was reading the story of Lui’s early life, I thought, “come to think of it, Digimon really has a lot of kids with complicated home lives,” so I felt that it was very much like Digimon to have something like this. I may not be able to say that the ending turned out to be a happy ending, but I think it was a story where there was some kind of salvation. On the other hand, I’m really curious as to what’ll happen with Lui from here on out. It really didn’t feel like that was the end for him at all, and I even ended up asking Taguchi-san “huh? Is there gonna be a sequel?” (laughs)

–Please leave a message for all of the fans who are going to watch the movie.
First of all, thank you for watching. There are parts that I made from the perspective of someone who’s a fan myself, so I hope you can look forward to those. I’d like you to watch it over and over, and if you buy the Blu-ray, I hope you can pause to look at those.