From Indie to Pro: Make A Girl Anime Film Director Gensho Yasuda

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Creator, director, scriptwriter—Genshō Yasuda started his creator journey online. He focused on what he could do on his own and shared his short animations with his growing audience on social media. He garnered attention on his YouTube channel with solo efforts featuring compilations of fox girls and robots pulling in hundreds of thousands of views.

His newest work is a full-length feature film, Make a Girl, an expansion on his Make Love short animation, set for release in Japan on January 31. Yasuda is embarking on his biggest creative journey yet; at his own studio, based on his own script, while also managing the directorial duties. We talked with Yasuda about his journey from a one-man show to a larger team and his advice for other creators who want to build an audience.

Can you please discuss your early work Make Love and how it transformed into Make a Girl?

Genshō Yasuda: In contrast to the previous short animation, we mainly focused on the points that needed to be explored and dealt in depth with when drawing a feature-length animation. Make a Girl tells the story of the protagonist, Akira Mizutamari, who scientifically creates a girlfriend. He was never interested in love to begin with; even when he took steps to create a girlfriend, his disinterest still remained. However, those actions and thoughts of his are deeply entwined with the calculations of a certain person. This character's backstory was something we were able to fully flesh out.

Compared to Make Love, how have your animation resources "leveled up"? What animation tools or software are utilized to create the film?

Yasuda: During Make Love, I was the solo creator, and as my goal was to constantly share my works online, I placed importance on speed, sacrificing achieving a certain level of quality for each task. But for this feature-length production, we formed a team—albeit a small one—of eight people. We were then able to pay special attention to each task, and above all, the research on expression in each task area that I did alone progressed at eight times the speed. When I was shown finished pieces created from ideas that I would have never been able to come up with on my own, I felt the fun in teamwork.

I normally create my works using Blender, an open-source 3D software, and Adobe's After Effects. As a former indie creator, Blender has been a godsend.

Creating a girlfriend is a classic anime premise that hasn't been seen in modern shows in quite a while. What about the scientist and lab-created girlfriend premise interested you?

Yasuda: The phrase “getting a girlfriend,” when said in Japanese, literally means “to make a girlfriend.”

“Make” itself has various meanings, so I found it interesting that there were several ways to play on the words “make a girlfriend.” Other than the traditional meaning of getting a girlfriend, how about making a literary girlfriend? How about making her philosophical? Or making her scientifically might be a good idea – that's how I had fun thinking about this topic.

What would you say are some of your major artistic influences and inspirations?

Yasuda: I am heavily influenced by works with a strong SF feel, such as Madoka Magica and Steins;Gate, where the problems the main character has to face are redefined. I used to work at the company that produced these titles, Nitroplus, so I've always been a fan.

In the Make Love short, we see the creation of No. Zero, her conflicts with Akira Mizutamari, and her capture by a mysterious assailant. Can we expect the new film to follow the same narrative path? What changes or additions can fans look forward to?

Yasuda: Make a Girl is a story based on Make Love. But as Make Love is a two-and-a-half-minute short animation, as previously mentioned, Make a Girl contains the backstory about a character whose intentions deeply influence the protagonist's behavior. On top of that, there are spectacular action scenes and character expressions that have remarkably evolved from the short animation, allowing you to fully enjoy everything, from the deeper meanings to surface-level entertainment. I hope you look forward to it!

How was the process of redesigning the characters for the film?

Yasuda: Since I was not satisfied with the designs in the YouTube version of the short animation, I very much wanted to redesign things for the full-length animation.

As I'd always created animations by fumbling around by myself, at that time, I felt anxious about my lack of in-depth knowledge of design. Thankfully, for Make a Girl, we were able to get help from a professional illustrator; for example, adding tags to the parka as part of the design gave it a sense of reality, so we were able to explore more detailed character settings.

As a result, I think we were able to increase the variations and reality of the characters' visuals.

How important do you think it is for independent artists to collect a large social media following to succeed?

Yasuda: I think it's quite important.

Whether it's receiving commissions or getting the chance to work on a feature-length animation, what's important is how you market your own creativity and win the hearts of those in charge. Social media is a very direct marketing approach anyone can use; gathering followers there leads to the same number of possible opportunities.

If you had access to the same kind of technology as Akira Mizutamari, what would you create?

Yasuda: I'd like to make a garden that automatically tidies itself up.

I'm currently hooked on traditional Japanese dry landscape gardens called karesansui, but they are very difficult to maintain. Even if I were to have such a garden in the future, I have full confidence that I will put it to waste due to the difficulty of managing it. Now, if that Japanese garden were to automatically tidy itself up, no matter how busy I may be creating animations, I'd still enjoy a beautiful garden – wouldn't that be fantastic?

What's important is that I'd want to get it dirtied at least once. Only then would I be able to appreciate the change in the garden, so having a garden that tidies itself after being dirtied is ideal.

But I guess someone like me, who cannot even enjoy keeping a garden neat, probably does not have the qualifications to own a Japanese garden.