Last spring, WIND BREAKER captivated audiences with its thrilling portrayal of high school delinquents and intense fight sequences. At Anime Expo 2024, Anime Trending had the opportunity to interview the talented team behind this series: Yuichi Fukushima, executive officer and animation producer at CloverWorks; Taishi Kawakami, character designer and animator; and Toshikazu Tsuji, general manager at CloverWorks and animation producer.
In our conversation, they shared their experiences stepping out of their comfort zone from working on romantic comedies to adapting the action-packed WIND BREAKER series. The team discussed their specific roles in the anime production process, the subtleties of character design, and how they crafted WIND BREAKER‘s intense fight scenes. Additionally, they expressed their excitement and expectations for Season 2, promising fans even more alluring characters and thrilling fights.
This interview has been edited for clarity and was conducted on July 4th, 2024. Questions submitted by Melvyn Tan.
What were your initial reactions when you were asked to work on WIND BREAKER?
Yuichi Fukushima: My reaction was that he ended up being a type of juvenile delinquent that I didn’t imagine!
Taishi Kawakami: I was surprised when I was assigned to be WIND BREAKER’S character designer, and it was my first role doing so. When Fukushima-san called me up to join him, I was like, “Is it okay that it’s me?”
Toshikazu Tsuji: My first reaction was similar to Kawakami-san in that I got a call from Fukushima-san. I did read the manga, but a lot of my work is more rom-com with female heroines as main characters. And of course, WIND BREAKER has a lot of boys and a lot of fighting! So for me, it was a big question of, “How will I make this anime work?”
As a follow-up question, were there any unique challenges that came with this adaptation? If so, could you elaborate how?
Yuichi Fukushima: WIND BREAKER has a lot of characters, and as you can see, their fights don’t have special effects and they don’t use any magic. You could almost say it’s almost like a sports anime. So that was the first big question to answer, “How do you capture that?”
Taishi Kawakami: As mentioned earlier, there are lots of characters and fighting. Compared to your average anime, there are a lot more cuts of the fighting scenes and the action scenes are almost back to back. The biggest challenge was just getting to the finish line. I’m very, very grateful for the crew and for all of us hanging in there until the very end.
Toshikazu Tsuji: So for me, I’ve been doing a lot of female-leaning projects. Like it was mentioned, it is almost all men in WIND BREAKER. My biggest challenge was how to make them look really cool, but make them go from kawaii to cool!
Could you all share a memorable moment during the production of WIND BREAKER?
Toshikazu Tsuji: We actually all got together when episode one aired. In our company building, there’s a new screening room, so we had the mangaka, the cast, and the crew in there to watch the screening at midnight. I remember that being such a memorable moment just being there with everyone!
Taishi Kawakami: Same here!
Yuichi Fukushima: I think WIND BREAKER is such a unique title that having gone through production with everyone and meeting all the challenges remains really memorable for me.
For Kawakami-san, as you mentioned, this was your first main character designer role for a series. What new challenges did you have to overcome for this production, and what will you bear in mind the most for future character design roles?
Taishi Kawakami: Especially with a title that has an original manga to it, I was thinking about what fans would like to see. In the future, if we’re creating something original, I’d definitely be looking forward to [the development] and seeing how much I can contribute before we move on to creating it.
As I was reading the manga, I would start drafting the character designs and send it to Satoru Nii to get some advice. Nii-sensei would send me feedback through memos on the drawings, but ultimately, it became two artists communicating with each other through drawings. There was a back-and-forth of that. It was a really difficult job to keep everything consistent with the cuts, too. I had to check and make sure that everything was well-balanced. So that was quite challenging with my role.
Speaking of animation, are there any key animators or animation directors you’d like to highlight from WIND BREAKER?
Taishi Kawakami: Personally, I would say it’s the last episode of Sakura running along the corridor with the camera following him, which is done by the female animator Takashi Ai. She was in charge of that episode as well as the very beginning of episode 1, and I wanted to highlight her.
For Tsuji-san: How did the project begin and how did you select the corresponding staff, such as Akai-san and Kawakami-san? And what led to Kazuyuki Asaka-san’s appointment as action director?
Toshikazu Tsuji: Right off the bat, Fukushima-san decided!
Excellent answer! Were there any unique challenges that came with this adaptation?
Toshikazu Tsuji: As everyone chose [their staff members] for their crew, my responsibility was to manage and be responsible for all of them. My consistent worry was how to best manage everyone to create the best anime we could. It was also my first time working with Kawakami-san! So all of that was a very consistent theme for me, “How do I move this project along?”
What do you think is the most appealing aspect of this anime?
Toshikazu Tsuji: So WIND BREAKER is a fighting series! But for me personally, I really liked it when Kotoha showed up with her words and pearls of wisdom. I’m not sure how many people would agree with me on that, but she is someone that keeps me attached to the series.
For Fukushima-san: could you talk about your duties as a CloverWorks-affiliated producer on WIND BREAKER?
Yuichi Fukushima: Overall, my role as a producer was always figuring out what kind of anime this would be. Of course, I had Kawakami-san in charge of character designing and Kazuyuki Asaka for the action. But for me, it was definitely managing and overseeing everyone, but always determining what is this anime going for.
What led to CloverWorks taking on this production?
Yuichi Fukushima: The impetus of taking on WIND BREAKER, as we previously mentioned, almost came from anime shows that focused on girls. I didn’t want to go into WIND BREAKER by just saying, “This is an anime for boys!” But I was hoping that through our characters, they would express something that would entice our female fans too and not be a series that’s exclusively for boys.
How did your previous projects contribute to creating WIND BREAKER?
Yuichi Fukushima: Actually, I had previously worked together with Kawakami-san on Akebi’s Sailor Uniform. Through that experience, I was able to affirm that Kawakami-san could do so much, and I offered him the role of character designer for WIND BREAKER.
The same thing happened with Jin Aketagawa, the sound director of WIND BREAKER. Before, when I had worked on Your Lie in April, there were a lot of performance scenes and I didn’t know what I was going to do with them. That’s when I called Aketagawa-san, who would swoop in and bring it to completion. So really, it has been just years of working with other people and understanding what their talents are. In the case of WIND BREAKER, it’s connecting all of those dots and bringing the people together.
Wonderful! With season 2 announced, could you share final remarks and what fans can expect from season 2?
Yuichi Fukushima: There are going to be a lot more characters in season 2! First and foremost, thank you Kawakami-san for all your hard work on all of these characters. But we are really aiming to continue to create very alluring characters that fans can really latch on to.
Taishi Kawakami: To add on what Fukushima-san said, yes, there are new characters but also new fights! I hope fans are looking forward to that!
Toshikazu Tsuji: The end of the first season kind of ends on a cliffhanger, so we’ll just have to ask everyone to wait! We’re going to be working really hard to deliver to everyone a great season 2!
Thank you very much for your time!
WIND BREAKER is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
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