7th Season of “Natsume's Book of Friends” Soon to Begin Airing: General Director Omori Reflects on 6,000 Days of Making the TV Anime [Part 1 of 2]

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  Takahiro Omori

  Takahiro Omori is an animation director and producer. His notable works include “Natsume's Book of Friends,” “Hell Girl,” “Baccano!” and “Durarara!!”

Click here to view the second part of this article: 7th Season of “Natsume's Book of Friends” Soon to Begin Airing: General Director Omori Reflects on 6,000 Days of Making the TV Anime [Part 2 of 2]

Looking back at the starting point of the popular series that has continued for 16 years

――The seventh season of the TV anime “Natsume's Book of Friends” will begin airing on Oct. 7, 2024. It is a long-running series that has continued for 16 years since its first season, which began airing on July 8, 2008. In your view, what makes “Natsume's Book of Friends” loved so much?

Each episode of the “Natsume's Book of Friends” anime is basically a complete story, a structure that makes it enjoyable for casual viewers. Moreover, as you watch the episodes in sequence, you will begin to see the larger story, and there are mysteries that have yet to be revealed even now, after so many episodes. I think that’s the reason why so many people have been enjoying it for so long.

However, although it has been aired for many years, it’s been about seven years since its last broadcast, and so I feel like we’ve been on a break for half of the 16 years, to be honest.

――Looking back 16 years ago, do you remember the circumstances in which you were first approached to direct the anime version of “Natsume's Book of Friends”?

Certainly. It all began when producer Yumi Sato of Shuka (then with Brain's Base) said she wanted to make an anime version of the original manga and approached a then-Aniplex producer with the proposal. And then this producer immediately approached Hakusensha (the publisher of the manga), as I understand it. It was then that a proposal for making the anime using the committee structure was made jointly with ADK, an agency which happened to be interested in the manga at that point. They approached me just as I was working with them on a separate project, and that’s how I became involved with the production of the anime.

However, at the time, my honest thought was that it would be difficult to recreate the atmosphere and mood of the original manga in anime form. Furthermore, the original manga series had just begun at the time, and its author, Yuki Midorikawa, was still thinking about how the story should develop as she was drawing it. So we took the liberty of adjusting the way we portrayed each character and the timing of their appearances.

――I see you made very detailed adjustments to the original work when animating it.

In the original story, the hero, Takashi Natsume, had a mystique and a bit of a supernatural air surrounding him, but we chose to make him a little more like a normal boy who is distant from the others around him only because of his ability to see yokai.

In the original story, he has silver hair, but when silver hair is used on screen, he would inevitably appear out of place, so we decided to use light brown for his hair. In addition, we made adjustments to the portrayal of Takashi’s friends, (Satoru) Nishimura and (Atsushi) Kitamoto, to make it easier to see the daily drama unfolding among them. In addition, (Jun) Sasada, the only key female friend, does not transfer to a different school in our version. (Note: Sasada transfers to another school in the original manga, but remains as a classmate in the anime)

――I assume you discussed the minute details with Yuki Midorikawa. What was it like when you talked with her?

Above anything else, I had the impression that she is a kind, thoughtful person. The first time I met her was when all of us key staff members, including the art staff, character designers, and yokai designers, went to greet her. I took the opportunity to ask her a lot of questions about the manga, and she impressed me with her sincerity in answering them. I heard later that she had a fever the next day as if it were because she became so passionate in answering our questions (laughs)!

So she struck me as a really great person when we first met, and I feel that "Natsume's Book of Friends" oozes with her great personality, too. It was after the production process started and we began drawing the storyboards for each episode that I realized that Midorikawa-sensei has a strong desire to entertain her readers.

She incorporates in her work elements intended to amuse the reader. For example, her mischievous spirit shows here and there in her work and she introduces unexpected and amusing devices in her composition. She impresses me as an author who always has her readers in her mind.

――“Natsume's Book of Friends” is believed to be set in the city of Hitoyoshi in Kumamoto Prefecture. I understand you visited Hitoyoshi for location scouting.

I have gone on location scouting for every work I’ve directed, from the very first one I did. One of the purposes for going on location scouting is not just to see the sites that served as the model for the work. We walk around the area with the art director and other staff members while chatting with them so that we can have a shared understanding of the image.

Of course, sometimes I’ve used the local scenery and geography just as they really are in my work, as was the case in the “Durarara!!” anime. For “Natsume's Book of Friends,” however, we didn’t go that far. We just tried to reflect the overall atmosphere of Hitoyoshi in Kumamoto in a subtle way.

――What was Hitoyoshi like? How are the streets and landscape of Hitoyoshi reflected in the anime?

What remains vivid in my memory is the good nature of the people who live there. In particular, when I passed junior high or senior high school students, they would always greet me. So I asked Midorikawa-sensei why this happened, and her answer was that, Hitoyoshi residents were always wary of being attacked by surrounding forces in ancient times, because of its location in a basin.

This led them to develop a protocol for greeting strangers to check what kind of person they might be, and this protocol has stuck, she said. I thought to myself, like, oh, so that’s what those greetings meant, but it’s still nice to be greeted by smiling teenagers, you know (laughs). Oh, and I also noticed the fences put up around houses were typically low, which may again derive from the residents being wary of attacks by surrounding forces.

――The fences were low?

That’s right. In Tokyo, fences put up around homes may be 170 centimeters to 180 centimeters high and you can’t easily look over them even if you stand on your toes. But in Hitoyoshi, fences were only as high as your chest, which allows the residents to look outside around their homes. Instead of putting up high fences to protect their homes from potential intrusion, those residents developed the habit of watching out for surrounding situations to protect themselves, just as they have developed the protocol of greeting strangers. This was one of the things we paid particular attention to when recreating the background art of “Natsume's Book of Friends.”

Recreating an attractive world of “Natsume's Book of Friends” with imagery and sound

――What aspects of the original manga were important to you when producing the anime?

The original manga uses Takashi's monologue in a very memorable way in each episode. So I thought the important thing was to reflect that in the anime. Takashi’s monologues come in two layers, with one expressing the character's emotions and another of a separate emotion that is abruptly thrown in sometimes.

However, if you try to assemble the two types of monologues in a single sentence, their meaning becomes disjointed. So we sorted out the monologues and used one of the two types to form the lines (in the scenario).

And we used the visual elements to express the scenes with the lines we chose not to use. So we expressed one of them in words but the other was expressed through facial expressions of the characters, for example, which is one mode of expression unique to anime.

There was also this question of whether it is better to perform a monologue in a more narration-like way or in a more emotional way. So we decided this at the scenario writing phase, and discussed it with Hiroshi Kamiya, who plays Takashi Natsume, during the recording sessions. When we recorded such monologues, we fine-tuned the balance by asking him things like, “Give me a narration-like stiffness” or “I want it to sound like somewhere between a narration and a monologue.”

――For the “Natsume's Book of Friends” series, you served as the sound director, and not just the director. Everybody on the cast performs freely, which is one factor that makes it attractive. The conversational scenes featuring the intermediate level yokai in the anime, known as the Dog Club, have lots of fun conversations with puns and ad-libs.

I leave the recording of the Dog Club scenes up to the cast members mostly, although, initially, I sometimes would remark to them, like, “Sorry, that pun won’t work (laughs). These days, Takashi Matsuyama, who plays the role of the intermediate level yokai Hitotsume, runs those recording sessions like a leader and prepares the lines for the Dog Club parts (used for ad-lib-like lines) for each session, and leads a meeting outside the studio before the recording begins. Having fun in recording sessions like that is one of the things that makes it so great to be part of the production team of “Natsume's Book of Friends.”

Changes and growth of Takashi Natsume, the main character, and Nyanko-sensei, a yokai

――The hero, Takashi Natsume, is a boy who has the ability to see yokai invisible to ordinary people and hear their voices. Do you feel that he has changed or grown since you have portrayed him since the first season?

The situation has not changed much with his friends around him between the first season and the seventh season. The one thing that has changed is the degree to which he has become willing to open his heart to the friends around him.

In the beginning, he was probably more stiff toward others, which made him appear uncomfortable to be with others. He has slowly grown used to being with others and I now feel that he has developed a softer side, which enables him to mitigate some serious situations with jokes.

His feelings toward yokai have been gradually changing. At present (in the seventh season), I think the yokai and his human friends are closer to Takashi's feelings. He gets a little tense when meeting the exorcist, but he is gradually becoming more and more open with his feelings.

In particular, he shows an attitude of calmly trying to understand (Seiji) Matoba (a yokai exorcist and young leader of the Matoba clan), which, I think, goes to show his growth as a person. I think the seventh season shows unexpected sides of the characters, so my wish is that the audience will enjoy not just how Takashi has changed but also the changes in the way he sees these people.

――Nyanko-sensei, the yokai who is now Takashi's partner, has also become inseparable from Takashi after the two have spent a very long time together. Nyanko-sensei's true identity is that of a senior yokai named Madara. Nyanko-sensei accompanies Takashi on the latter’s promise that he will inherit the Book of Friends from Takashi if Takashi dies. Has Nyanko-sensei changed as well?

I think Nyanko-sensei has changed a lot. Takashi’s persona has probably softened Nyanko-sensei. In the seventh season, he actually restates his purpose for the first time in a long while, saying, “It’s to get take over the Book of Friends after you die,” but his relationship with Takashi is so natural he has almost forgotten about it. For him to joke about his purpose in a sense means he has developed a good relationship with Takashi.

――What are some of the difficulties and interesting aspects for you when you depict the changes in the characters?

In a way, I started working in animation because I wanted to depict changes in people's emotions and facial expressions, as well as changes in their appearance. I really enjoy depicting characters that change in any work I do, not only in “Natsume's Book of Friends.” I think taking the time to carefully depict the emotions of characters in a work is what makes my job so rewarding.

In the second part of the article, Omori discusses what has changed and what has not in the production process of “Natsume's Book of Friends,” including the use of digital technology in the animation production process.

(To be continued to Part 2)

Text by Hidekuni Shida
Photos by Kei Masuda
Translated by Atsushi Kodera