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On the occasion of the broadcast of the film Kamiari’s Child of the Month, the production team and Miwa told us about the difficulties encountered during production, but also about the dreams that must always be pursued and the meeting almost existential between a singer and a movie character. An osmosis between different artists perceptible on stage as well as behind the scenes.
©Netflix
Can you start by introducing yourselves and the film to us?
Shinoe Toshinari: I’m the screenwriter and communication director, Toshinari Shinoe.
Uko Oshia: I’m the general producer, Uko Oshia.
Miwa: I am Miwa, the main singer.
Michihiko Suwa: I am the supervisor and project manager, Michihiko Suwa.
Leo Ashizawa: I am a dubbing teacher and actor, Leo Ashizawa.
Shinoe Toshinari: The movie “Kamiari’s Child of the Month” takes place during the month of October. It is said that for a month, the gods disappear from the lands of Japan to go to the prefecture of Shimane, on the Izumo island. The disappearance of the gods of other lands is called « kannazuki ». This is where the film, which represents this whole story, comes from. The film is about a young girl who runs between Tokyo and Izumo.
Through this film, what message do you want to convey to viewers who have already seen it on Netflix and to those who are going to see it for the first time at Japan Expo?
Miwa: The little Kannaki girl loves to run. It’s her passion. Following the loss of her mother, she completely stopped running. The message we want to share is that above all, never stop believing in your passions, keep moving forward so that one day you can resume your passions. It’s like for all those people, whom because of the coronavirus, couldn’t do what they wanted, couldn’t go out or see events because they were cancelled. We must continue to believe in what we love, so that as soon as life resumes, we can resume our passions too. The animated film shows magnificent landscapes of Japan, with temples in particular. We hope it will make some people want to visit Japan. It also represents Japanese mythological history with the representation of certain gods, a grandiose view of Japan that is not necessarily represented on the Internet.
Miwa, you are the interpreter of the original soundtrack, how did the collaboration work go?
Miwa: When I wrote the main theme called « KANNA », which you can hear during the film, without spoken voice, I especially tried to represent the emotion of Kanna through the race. She is only running for herself and not for anyone else but in the end, she understands, when she starts running again, that she really likes running.
Shinoe Toshinari: We met by chance during the 2019 edition of Japan Expo. We were announcing the production of this film and we saw Miwa on stage introducing the theme of another work. We saw in Miwa the strength of a movie character, a person who continues to believe in what she loves, like the main character of our film. We thought that if we let Miwa create the soundtrack of this animated film, she would completely manage to represent the character and convey the emotions of this character.
Any little anecdotes about the production?
Uko Oshia: We don’t really have any funny anecdotes, but as it happened during the coronavirus period, it was complicated to put the voices on the images. Usually, we do this with several people in the same room so that everyone can react together but since it was impossible, each voice actor went through the room one after another. It was quite complicated!
Thank you very much for this interview! Any last words?
Uko Oshia and Shinoe Toshinari: From July 1st, the NFT site is selling the film! There is a virtual museum that you can visit for free to understand how the film was produced. But there are also non-free versions that allow access to more contents.
We would like to thank the movie’s production team, Miwa and Japan Expo for this interview !
