Tetsuo Yajima: AnimeStyle 2016
Tetsuo Yajima was the director for the Pokemon X&Y series. He took over the reins from Executive Director Kunihiko Yuyama as the main creative mind, and later as the director for the movies.
Have you seen the action animation in "XY&Z" that defies TV anime conventions?!
Introducing compelling works and those with fresh appeal is the mission of anime magazines. That's precisely why Anime Style recommends "Pocket Monsters XY&Z" to our readers. It's a work we especially urge anime fans interested in animation drawings to watch.
"XY&Z" is an exceptional TV animation. It uses an abundance of frames to animate its scenes, resulting in gorgeous visuals. The art style leans towards realism, while the action sequences are highly showy. While the previous series "XY" also featured intricate layouts and powerful action animation, XY&Z takes this to a whole new level. The frequent use of 3D camera work was a characteristic carried over from XY, and the synergy between the 3D camera work and the meticulously drawn animation produced dynamic action sequences. Story-wise, it introduced passionate dramas reminiscent of shounen manga action stories, and this matched well with the sharp, lively visual style, which was also crucial.
The visuals in XY&Z maintained a consistently high average quality throughout the series. It wasn't a production where only a few select episodes stood out. "Wait, how can episodes with such amazing animation keep happening week after week??" The quality was so high that even hardcore anime fans found it puzzling. And it wasn't just that the average quality per episode was high; for episodes pivotal to the story, the animation density exploded beyond what's typical for TV anime, greatly entertaining viewers.
The attention to detail wasn't limited to Pokémon battles. Even the everyday scenes were animated with a level of care uncommon for a TV series. Furthermore, during the series, the heroine Serena participates in a performance competition called "TriPokalon," and the scenes depicting her performances were crafted with the same level of detail as the action sequences.
Beyond the animation, XY&Z offers many other highlights. The story features multiple concurrent storylines: The mystery of the Pokémon Squishy, the bond between Satoshi and Gekkouga, Serena challenging TriPokalon, rival character Alan, Team Flare's ambitions, and more, which kept viewers hooked.
In both XY and XY&Z, Satoshi was portrayed as a chivalrous, dependable young man, which added a fresh charm. Even before they began traveling together, Serena had admired Satoshi and harbored a faint crush on him. The farewell scene between Satoshi and Serena in "The Endless Zero! Until the Day We Meet Again!" from XY&Z is a truly memorable moment, one that could only exist because of who the two characters were.
Some anime fans who watched it as children may now feel distant from Pocket Monsters. But the current Pocket Monsters series has become such an incredible work. Even just the key episodes are worth watching. I highly recommend giving it a try.
Director Yajima Tetsuo Interview
I wanted to convey that anime still holds dreams.
PROFILE: Born August 10, 1985. From Chiba Prefecture. After graduating from Tokyo Designer Gakuin College, he gained experience in in-betweening at Vega Entertainment before becoming a director. Worked on titles including Doraemon and The Suffering Pariah Kaiji: Backsliding Arc. Joined the Pocket Monsters series starting with Best Wishes and served as director for XY and XY&Z. Currently freelance.
Interviewer: Oguro Yuuichirou
Interview Date: October 27, 2016
Photography: Hiraga Masaaki
Text Structure: Oguro Yuuichirou, Yazawa Tatsuya
Oguro: Can you tell me your date of birth?
Yajima: August 10, 1985. I'm from Chiba.
Oguro: How did you become a director?
Yajima: I joined a company called Vega Entertainment and worked on in-between animation. But after about a year, a senior director left, and I was asked, "Can you take over directing starting tomorrow?" That's how I switched to directing.
Oguro: So you didn't originally want to be a director?
Yajima: I had told the president, "I want to become a director someday." But I thought you needed to gain more experience as an animator or something first. The very next day after being asked, I went to engage in directing.
Oguro: I hear you became an animator after attending Tokyo Designer Gakuin College. Were you a hardcore anime fan during your student days?
Yajima: No, I didn't watch much anime. I only watched the mainstream stuff like Ghibli and Disney. I hardly ever watched late-night anime.
Oguro: That's surprising. Let's talk about the work on each episode first. Did you check the animation for each episode of "Pocket Monsters XY" and "XY&Z"?
Yajima: I did check things like the acting.
Everyone: (laughs).
Oguro: The producers sitting here are laughing.
Yajima: I have no idea what they're laughing about (laughs).
Producer: Director Yajima during production was like a drill sergeant.
Yajima: Hahahaha (laughs). I don't know if my reputation on-site was good, but during rush checks I did say things like "I want the action done more like this." Due to scheduling, I could only do layout checks for the first 10 episodes or so and the last 10 episodes or so, so I watched most of the series that way.
Oguro: By the first 10 episodes, do you mean XY?
Yajima: The beginning of XY. I did layout checks for about 10 episodes, but once sound mixing and editing started, I couldn't check anymore.
Oguro: When you first took on the director role, what was your approach to making it?
Yajima: First, I felt immense pressure. Also, I approached it wanting people to find it more interesting than past series. It's a children's cartoon, but I didn't focus too much on that aspect. Instead, I aimed to create visuals that would appeal to a wide audience.
Oguro: How did you structure the story?
Yajima: I passionately discussed "what I wanted to do" with series constructor Tomioka Atsuhiro over drinks.
Everyone: (laughs).
Yajima: Even during script meetings, I kept voicing my ideas—this is how I want it, that is how I want it. And I kept saying it over drinks too. I presented the core direction—"This is where I ultimately want to go"—and he fleshed it out from there.
Oguro: What were some examples of these ideas?
Yajima: Things like Satoshi's failures, wanting to temporarily separate him from Citron, or resolving everything that was introduced early on. It was three years ago, so I don't remember exactly, but I wanted Satoshi to grow and depict his setbacks. Yet, portraying growth is quite difficult.
Oguro: Since Satoshi keeps going strong in the series after this, you couldn't make him grow here.
Yajima: Exactly. I suggested maybe we could convey a nuance of him temporarily shifting gears, like he's going to pick up speed again later.
Producer: We also asked the director to make sure not just Satoshi, but Citron, Serena, and Eureka too, each believed in their own path and charged ahead.
Yajima: I was the one who insisted on having Serena cut her hair ("Aim to be the Kalos Queen! Serena Makes Her Debut!").
Producer: Serena's hair was a real headache.
Everyone: (laughs).
Yajima: Right. Since merchandise and such are made based on her early hairstyle.
Oguro: Ah, so if you cut her hair, the hairstyle on the merchandise already on sale would be different from the one in the anime.
Yajima: Because of that, we were told it would cause various problems. But I really wanted to include Serena cutting her hair as a scene symbolizing breaking away from the past. This time, since the games ("Pocket Monsters X and Y") had a system allowing character costume changes, I thought it would be great to use that to depict Serena's resolve.
The underlying theme is "Satoshi's Explosive Rise"
Oguro: From the very start of XY, it's structured so we see Satoshi through Serena's perspective, right? Whose idea was that?
Yajima: I believe it started when Producer Kanda Shuukichi mentioned during a scenario meeting, "That kind of heroine could be interesting." There was a proposal about setting up a past encounter between Serena and Satoshi where she harbors romantic feelings for him, and we fleshed it out from there.
Oguro: Maybe because he's the object of Serena's admiration, Satoshi seemed more manly in XY and then XY&Z, didn't he?
Yajima: That's right. Making Satoshi look cool was an underlying theme. The staff called it the "explosive rise" series.
Oguro: Explosive burst?
Yajima: It was a series aimed at making him look explosively cool.
Oguro: There aren't many scenes where Satoshi makes a fool of himself or looks pathetic, are there?
Yajima: We didn't include many. We kept it to things like his stomach growling from hunger. When I made the promotional movie for "BW2" (Editor's note: "Pocket Monsters Black 2 & White 2" special introduction movie), there seemed to be a lot of online reactions saying, "Why not use this protagonist instead of Satoshi?" They said the TV anime should just adopt this trailer's vibe.
Oguro: That trailer had a really cool feel to it.
Yajima: Exactly. I didn't make it with that intention, so hearing "We want a TV series with this protagonist" made me feel disappointed. If that's the case, then I should make Satoshi cool. If I do it, I can depict a cool Satoshi. That became the underlying theme.
Oguro: The underlying theme?
Yajima: The main theme of the work is bonds, and making Satoshi cool isn't something I openly stated.
Oguro: With XY&Z, he's clearly an action manga protagonist. Getting new moves but collapsing from exhaustion after using them is very action manga-esque.
Yajima: (laughs). Even with the synchronization with Gekkouga, we definitely wrestled with how far we could go in a kids' show. The producer told me, "Do whatever you want. I leave it entirely up to you, Yajima." So I thought, "All right, I'll make the Pokémon I envision."
Oguro: It seems like there's an overall intent to make the action more spectacular in the Pokémon anime.
Yajima: That was definitely part of it. Previous series had screen layouts designed with young viewers in mind. Beyond just "making Satoshi look cool," I also made "thrill and excitement" a theme. To convey that, I wanted to do flashy action like things suddenly bursting forward from the background.
Oguro: So the major policy was to make the Pokémon anime visually compelling, and that aligned with Director Yajima's own intent to emphasize perspective and depth. That's how the visual style for XY and XY&Z emerged.
Yajima: That's right. There was also an atmosphere around us urging us to "go all out."
Producer: We were absolutely certain that if we asked Director Yajima, the action and visual style would change completely. We specifically requested that he push those elements to be as cool as possible. As a result, various compositions emerged, leading to the current form. That's why we didn't use many stock shots or effect backgrounds.
Yajima: I did say I didn't want to use stock shots, but that wasn't feasible. So, while the cels were stock, we had the backgrounds redrawn to fit the scenes.
Producer: The number of battle scenes using locations the characters were in as backgrounds increased dramatically, didn't it?
Yajima: I wanted each cut's action to flow naturally, so I completely stopped using effect backgrounds. Above all, I aimed for the feeling that the camera was actually there, filming the scene, and I wanted the action to be flashy, hoping it would make the kids watching feel excited and thrilled.
Oguro: Did you make significant changes to the storyboards for each episode?
Yajima: Quite a few changes were made to the storyboards. Some were practically redrawn. I made adjustments to add depth to the scenes. Action sequences especially saw a lot of revisions.
Oguro: Who decided which individual animators would handle specific episodes?
Yajima: I basically left it to the desk staff, but for episodes I was particularly passionate about, I'd say, "I really want this person to do it," and we'd try to adjust things accordingly.
Oguro: I thought this series was very well thought out regarding which animator handled which episodes. Like assigning episodes where Alan is the main character to Iwane Masaaki.
Yajima: We did assign Alan-related episodes to Iwane. He's the best at drawing in a cool and stylish way. Also, episodes featuring Alan often included Legendary Pokémon, so I specifically wanted Iwane for the action scenes.
Oguro: Iwane handled the animation for the entire "Strongest Mega Evolution" special, right? What was the positioning of those specials within the "XY" and "XY&Z" series?
Yajima: The initial desire was to feature the character Alan. The production side also requested we showcase lots of Mega Evolutions, so we combined that with depicting Alan's journey, leading to that format.
Oguro: So by the time of XY, it was already set in stone that Alan would join the main storyline in XY&Z?
Yajima: It was. From the start, we envisioned Alan as Satoshi's rival. Episodes that could depict his background and origins were difficult to fit into the main series, so we used the specials for that. At the same time, I thought it would be interesting to feature Mega Evolution in the specials, so I developed the story that way. From the start, I wanted Alan to be positioned like Anakin Skywalker from Star Wars. By making him an anti-hero who would even turn to evil for what he holds dear, I could create a contrast with the more orthodox Satoshi. I fleshed out the story further by incorporating Team Flare.
The Peak of Action Animation: "Satoshi Gekkouga VS Mega Jukain!"
Oguro: Did you know from the start that "XY" and "XY&Z" would span three years?
Yajima: No, we didn't know at first. We knew we'd wrap up the series around the release date of the next game.
Oguro: The animation for "The Strongest Mega Evolution" was incredibly lavish, right? With XY&Z, it felt like that level of luxury from the specials spread throughout the entire series.
Yajima: I also feel like the restraints came off during XY&Z. Rather than unnecessarily cutting back on the number of frames, we decided to go all out with the visuals. While the total number of frames was high overall, the scenes where we really poured our energy into them had an insane number of frames.
Producer: The fact that XY&Z had many episodes where we poured our energy in probably influenced that too. Because the main story arc runs through it, episodes featuring Alan or Team Flare just couldn't be visually compromised.
Yajima: XY&Z doesn't really have many cozy, feel-good episodes, does it?
Producer: Because the story was packed. There was that episode where Serena competed in TriPokalon, and that one also required a huge number of frames.
Oguro: Serena's performances were a highlight too. Which episode had the most frames?
Yajima: The one before the finals ("The Master Class Begins! A Maidens' Fierce Fight Where Sparks Fly!"). For the performance, not only Serena but the Pokémon danced too.
Oguro: And while dancing, the Pokémon were breathing fire too.
Yajima: Exactly (laughs). They breathe fire and there are effects. That's why it took so many frames.
Oguro: Was the camera work designed in 3D?
Yajima: Based on the storyboards, we had rough camera work added in 3D. We then used printouts of that as the basis for the animation.
Oguro: So at the camera work stage, were you animating 3DCG characters to dance?
Yajima: The 3D models weren't dancing. I think it ended up looking quite dense, but it was incredibly tough.
Oguro: It was indeed dense. Seeing that much movement in a TV series episode made me wonder what happened. You didn't specifically gather animators skilled in dance for that scene, did you?
Yajima: Not specifically those skilled in dance, but we did bring in people who could draw incredibly well.
Oguro: What surprised me about Serena's performance animation was "The Master Class Trial! What Will You Do, Serena?!". Who drew the parts where Serena is dancing?
Yajima: (to the production staff present) Who was it again?
Production Staff: From where Serena's dance starts, it was handled by Mouri Kazuaki, who worked on the Pokémon movies, along with Nishiya Yasushi, Oohashi Aito, and Fujii Shingo.
Oguro: I see.
Production Staff: For "The Master Class Begins! A Maidens' Fierce Fight Where Sparks Fly!" and "Elle VS Serena! Open the Door to the Future!", in addition to Mouri, Nishiya, and Oohashi, Yasuda Shuuhei also joined the team.
Yajima: It was too demanding a scene to assign normally and have drawn, so I entrusted it to people I could rely on.
Oguro: Who did the dance choreography?
Yajima: There isn't really one specific person primarily responsible. We conveyed the general feel at the storyboard stage, like "something like this."
Oguro: Iwane participated in all three episodes of the Eisetsu Gym arc ("Eisetsu Gym Battle! Battlefield of Ice!", "The Bewildering Woods... The Dawn of Evolution!", "Satoshi Gekkouga VS Mega Yukinooh! Unleash the Giant Water Shuriken!"). For the first and third episodes, he handled the key animation himself and was the animation director, while for the second, he participated as a key animator.
Yajima: After getting the last badge, I said I wanted to go straight to the league. I wanted Satoshi to overcome the trials and go to the League with that momentum, so we ended up with consecutive action episodes. Since I knew the quality would be guaranteed if I asked Iwane to handle the battle, we assigned the Eisetsu Gym battle to Asada Yuuji for direction and Iwane for animation (Editor's note: Asada Yuuji is a director who frequently collaborates with Iwane Masaaki), and reassigned our in-house staff to work on the subsequent League episodes. We weren't sure if Iwane could handle the second episode, but he agreed to join as a key animator.
Oguro: How was it even possible for him to participate in animation for three consecutive episodes?
Yajima: We had Iwane join ahead of schedule. Since he focused intensely on the Eisetsu Gym battle, he didn't participate in the first half of the League arc. Once the League ended, we moved straight into the Team Flare arc, so we faced a continuous string of episodes that were demanding in terms of animation.
Oguro: Iwane was a powerful external resource for the studio, and you also had reliable animators in-house. The main reliable people internally were Oohashi and Nishiya, right?
Yajima: Nishiyan was a friend from Tokyo Designer Gakuin College days. When we started XY, we needed more manpower, so I asked him to join. I told him, "I need a hand with some battle action scenes."
Oguro: Is chief animation director Hirooka Toshihito also quite skilled at action scenes?
Yajima: Hirooka was focused solely on character corrections, so he didn't draw the action scenes themselves.
Production Staff: For the chief animation director work, he only handled character revisions.
Oguro: So regarding the action, it's not the animation directors raising the standard, but mainly the key animators drawing it?
Yajima: With Nishiyan and Oohashi, they really went all out revising at the animation director stage.
Oguro: Gekkouga's animation has consistently been excellent throughout the series. Why is that? Gekkouga has such a unique form, doesn't it? It doesn't seem like something you can just sketch out easily.
Yajima: I sure wonder why (laughs). I think the chief animation director made corrections there, but it does have an unusual form, doesn't it? For Gekkouga, I think its appeal was in its movement, and that's partly because Nishiyan and Oohashi made substantial corrections.
Oguro: So the two of them draw a lot of the key animation too. Are they the main forces for action scenes?
Yajima: For XY&Z, yes. They joined us partway through XY and gradually took on more and more battle episodes.
Oguro: In episode 2 of XY, when Gaburias goes berserk and starts running wild—who did the key animation for that part?
Yajima: That was definitely Iwane. I think he did the part where it flies through the air and fires its destructive beam after going berserk.
Oguro: Iwane? It felt so realistic, I thought a young artist must have worked really hard on it. Before XY, Iwane's episodes stood out, but after XY started, even episodes without Iwane involved had work that matched his quality.
Yajima: We brought in artists known for creating memorable animation. There was definitely an atmosphere within the company where everyone felt they couldn't let Iwane outdo them.
Oguro: Were Nishiya and Oohashi working in-house?
Yajima: Yes. They worked at the desks behind and beside mine.
Oguro: Was Mouri working externally?
Production Staff: Since Mouri handles the annual Pokémon movies, we brought him in during a gap after the movie wrapped up.
Oguro: Are there action model sheets for individual Pokémon?
Yajima: No action sheets. We provide pose reference sheets, but the actual action is left to the animation directors and the respective key animators.
Oguro: I think the action animation peaked in "Decisive Rival Battle! Satoshi Gekkouga VS Mega Jukain!". Who handled the action once Gekkouga's battle started?
Attendees: We believe Oohashi handled the action part as animation director while also doing key animation for that section.
Oguro: Two animation directors are credited: Shimura Izumi and Oohashi. How were the tasks divided?
Yajima: I think they were divided based on action sequences versus non-action sequences.
Oguro: I see.
Yajima: Oohashi handled both drawing key animation and making corrections as animation director, raising the overall quality.
Oguro: Did you heavily revise the storyboards for that episode?
Yajima: That episode was incredibly tough (laughs). I kept wondering if it was even acceptable to draw this much for a TV series. Oohashi told me, "This is insane," and I replied, "Well, just think of it as a festival," and reluctantly got him to do it. I thought it was a hard storyboard to animate. Even if I'd participated as an animator, I wouldn't have wanted to draw that many tracking shots.
Oguro: That episode really used that robot anime-style effect effectively, where the trainer's face overlays the battling Pokémon, like you did in XY.
Yajima: Pokémon can't move without their trainer's commands. I wanted to keep the action flowing without cutting, so I incorporated that kind of staging. It worked well because it let the action connect smoothly. The storyboards for that episode were incredibly intense.
Oguro: Watching that episode, I thought Director Yajima must be a huge anime fan. There were shots that felt like homages to, say, that shot from "Giant Robo THE ANIMATION: The Day the Earth Stood Still." But you don't actually watch much anime, do you?
Producer: Maybe it's that when the director expresses a desire to do something, the staff members just add in things they personally like.
Oguro: For the latter part of XY&Z, you were able to review layouts again, right? From around when?
Yajima: From around when we got into the Team Flare arc.
Oguro: So you weren't able to review them during the finals, the Kalos League?
Yajima: That's when script meetings stopped happening, so I could do it again.
Oguro: Ideally, you'd want to check not just the storyboards but also the layouts for each episode, right?
Yajima: I really wanted to. During the period when layout checks weren't possible, if there were things I wanted to fix during the rush check stage, I'd reluctantly ask for revisions.
Oguro: When retakes happen after rush checks, do you go back all the way to the key animation to fix them?
Yajima: I go back to the layouts. For non-action cuts, I adjust character positions and such in Photoshop to maintain visual consistency. For action scenes, I'd say something like, "I need these two cuts fixed, so bring them to me." Then I'd draw rough keys and ask the animation director to handle it.
Awareness of realistic acting and locations
Oguro: You were meticulously animating the characters' movements too, right? For example, in XY's "The Hakudan Gym Battle! The Magnificent Viviyon's Dance Battle!", there's a shot where Joy's hair loops sway when she speaks. I thought, "Wow, why go to such lengths to animate that?"
Yajima: (laughs). Honestly, I don't remember that at all. Was there such a shot?
Oguro: There was. Also, in XY&Z, there was a shot where a female character stood up by shifting her weight after raising one knee. That kind of performance—is that your intent, or the hard work of each episode's staff?
Yajima: I think it's the hard work of each episode's staff. I remember fixing things like Satoshi's forward roll or throwing a ball, but those kinds of details are basically handled by the key animators.
Oguro: So as a series, there was a conscious effort to draw the acting as much as possible?
Yajima: I did say, "Please add as realistic acting as possible."
Oguro: Ah, right, the characters do walk from the foreground to the background, don't they?
Yajima: (laughs). But doing that makes the animation really difficult, so I'm sorry about that.
Oguro: Just not showing their feet would make it so much easier.
Yajima: Exactly. Drawing feet and having characters walk from foreground to background is tough, but we did it. It's not a live-action style work, but we were conscious of realistic locations.
Oguro: For Iwane's episodes, the storyboards are still by Asada from Studio Cockpit, but in the everyday acting scenes, there are cuts with a sense of perspective we haven't seen before. Was that because you revised the storyboards?
Yajima: Yes. I did make some adjustments to Asada's storyboards. I think some layouts were revised with depth in mind. Also, I personally like wide-angle shots with diagonal depth, like a fixed camera viewpoint, so I think those kinds of shots are scattered throughout the first half of XY.
Oguro: In the final scene of "Citron's Campus of Memories! An Electrifying Reunion!" where Luxio emerges from between the trees as the camera pans out, that shot had a wide-angle perspective that made it feel dramatic and really stuck with me.
Yajima: That was simply my preferred layout too. For both XY and XY&Z, I was conscious of depth of field, so I had the compositing team gradually blur the background to create depth. We consciously built scenes with depth not just in composition, but also in photography.
Oguro: Did that message get across to the directors for each episode?
Yajima: Yes. When drawing episode 1 and revising the storyboards, I conveyed, "I want to incorporate elements like that."
Oguro: You didn't create any formal directing format document.
Yajima: No, I didn't. Instead, I communicated requests to each episode's director: avoid shots where characters face straight ahead, prevent the camera from clipping through walls or the ground, and eliminate effect backgrounds.
Oguro: "Clipping through walls or the ground" refers to shots that require holes in walls for indoor scenes or shots that seem to emerge from beneath the ground for outdoor scenes. Why did you dislike that?
Yajima: Because it just feels fake. I wanted them to create scenes with the awareness of an actual location.
Oguro: You wanted it to look like footage shot somewhere?
Yajima: Shots where the camera seems to pass through walls or the ground are common in anime, but to me, they feel "manufactured." That's why I asked them to avoid it.
Oguro: Is that influenced by work you've done before?
Yajima: In terms of influence, there are quite a few imagery-heavy scenes this time. Like Satoshi standing in flames. I directed episodes of "Kaiji (The Suffering Pariah Kaiji: Backsliding Arc)," and I thought I could inject that intensity here.
Oguro: Everything else is realistic.
Yajima: Right, I focused on making the imagery parts a bit more dramatic.
Oguro: Why was Hirooka Toshihito chosen for character design?
Yajima: By the time I joined, Hirooka had already been decided.
Oguro: What kind of drawings does Hirooka create?
Yajima: Very polished art. He draws with solid lines, not rough ones, so it's easy for the staff to follow along.
Oguro: Did you request increasing Satoshi's head-to-body ratio?
Yajima: I did mention slightly increasing the head-to-body ratio during the character design phase. For Satoshi, it was about adding a bit more substance. Previous designs had slender, soft arms, but this time I wanted a feel like there's some meat on the bones. Also, I had him add sideburns to Satoshi.
Oguro: Were the sideburns to make him look more manly?
Yajima: In the games, there's a character named Red who inspired Satoshi. He has sideburns around here. We thought about incorporating that, which led to this design.
Oguro: Who came up with the idea for Satoshi Gekkouga?
Producer: That was Game Freak's idea, the original creators. We definitely wanted the bond between Satoshi and Gekkouga to be a key point in the story, but it was hard to build drama with just Gekkouga as is. So when we consulted the original creators, they suggested, "How about this?" and proposed the visual of Satoshi and Gekkouga synchronizing.
Oguro: So it wasn't that the anime design came first and was then incorporated into the game; it was born through a collaborative brainstorming process.
Yajima: Exactly. So we decided to go with the syncing trait to depict their bond.
Oguro: XY&Z had a lot of storylines unfolding throughout the series, like Satoshi and Gekkouga, and Squishy's true identity.
Yajima: Starting with XY&Z, it felt like we were simultaneously pursuing several storylines that weren't easily resolved. Like how to handle the bond between Satoshi and Gekkouga, or what to do with Squishy. Regarding Squishy, since we knew it would end with it becoming Perfect Zygarde, I proposed having Eureka hold Squishy, and that's how that story developed.
Oguro Perfect Zygarde refers to that robot-like form shown near the end, right?
Yajima: Right. The original creators presented us with this form, saying, "This is what it becomes when all 100% of the Zygarde Cells are gathered."
The message and kiss in the finale
Oguro: The final episode airs today. How does it end? (Editor's note: This interview took place in the morning on the day "The Endless Zero! Until the Day We Meet Again!" aired.)
Yajima: I really wanted to depict Satoshi orderly returning to Masara Town, so I insisted, "I absolutely have to do the key animation for the final scene," and I did it myself.
Oguro: The final scene? How many cuts were there?
Yajima: About 20 cuts, I think. The cut where Serena comes out of the airport. Then there are characters like Sana, Tierno, and Trova, and scenes like them strolling through the forest. I drew about 20 cuts for that epilogue-like section. I wanted to draw it myself, putting my feelings for Satoshi into it.
Producer: What about the Gekkouga and Squishy parts?
Yajima: Oohashi handled that.
Oguro: The Animage article mentioned a message from Director Yajima in the finale. What was that about?
Yajima: I had lots of baby's breath blooming in front of Satoshi's house. The flower's meaning is "gratitude," so it expressed my feelings of "thank you to all the viewers." I also asked Producer Mr. Muratsubaki (Takurou) to give bouquets of baby's breath to all the voice actors during the final episode's ADR recording. I like meaningful visual touches, so I've been incorporating floral meanings as a directorial choice since XY. For the XY&Z finale, I wanted that feeling of gratitude to reach both the viewers and the staff, so I included that hidden message.
Oguro: I haven't seen the final episode yet, so this might be an irrelevant question, but Serena's romance doesn't come to fruition, right?
Yajima: It doesn't. I left it at the level of hoping it might happen someday. Serena tells him she'll polish herself up and appear before him again. Then it has a groundbreaking ending (laughs). As a creator, I intended to depict them kissing, but since we couldn't show an actual kiss, I expressed it as Serena's foot suddenly lifting off the ground.
Oguro: So depending on how you look at it, it might seem like they're kissing?
Producer: No, it should look like they're kissing no matter how you look at it.
Yajima: (laughs). We intended it to be ambiguous whether they kissed or she whispered words into his ear.
Oguro: It's certainly groundbreaking for Pokémon. In XY, there was a scene where Serena blushed while walking with him in town, thinking, "Is this a date?" ("Satoshi and Serena's First Date?! The Tree of Promises and the Presents!"). It was interesting drama, but I kept wondering how you'd resolve this budding romance.
Yajima: I drew the storyboards for the finale, but I just couldn't move my pen during the scene where she parts ways with Satoshi. I kept thinking, "What ending would be best for this girl?"
Producer: That scene ended up totally different from the script, you know.
Yajima: Right (laughs). They part ways on the descending escalator, but then she runs back up for a kiss. But the escalator keeps going down naturally, right? I wanted to create that composition where they kiss but inevitably get pulled apart.
Producer: Given that kids are the main target audience, there are limits to what you can do, but this series really pushed the envelope.
Yajima: I chose the escalator because I thought forcing them apart like that could effectively convey loneliness.
Oguro: In the early stages of XY, Citron was quite eccentric, wasn't he? He had this mad scientist vibe, but he gradually became more grounded.
Yajima: We intended to make him a bit of a geeky character, but he ended up absorbing more and more of Satoshi's passion. His character might have changed gradually over time.
Oguro: Come to think of it, Dr. Orchid barely appears in XY&Z, does he?
Yajima: That's right. We actually noticed that later on ourselves.
Oguro: Huh?! Really?
Yajima: We didn't intend to show him so little (laughs).
Oguro: In XY, he doesn't appear in episode 1, but he shows up via TV phone later, so you know he's still in this world. In XY&Z, they say "to Dr. Orchid" in dialogue, so he's not completely absent, but he barely has any screen time. Since the Pokémon senryuu segments at the end were also removed, I wondered if you consciously reduced Dr. Orchid's appearances. Like, maybe you felt his presence wouldn't make the mood serious enough, or something like that.
Yajima: No, that's not the case. Part of it was that they could get all the Pokémon info from Dr. Platane, so there wasn't really a need to bring Dr. Orchid back. Also, Satoshi's mom doesn't show up either.
Oguro: If anything, Serena's mom leaves a stronger impression.
Yajima: Yeah, that's true. Serena's mom was a big headache too.
Oguro: What was difficult about her?
Yajima: There's an episode where Serena's mom races with Meecle ("Serena's Earnest! The Wild Meecle Race!"). That's when Serena first tells her mom she wants to be a Pokémon Performer, and capturing the emotional shifts around that moment was incredibly hard. What worked well was Meecle's ability to sense the feelings of anyone who touched its horns. In the race that decided whether Serena would continue her journey, her mom's innermost desire to let Serena go was conveyed to Meecle, causing it to slow down. Since we depicted her growth from the very beginning, everything around Serena was tough.
Oguro: I see.
Yajima: We touched on performances earlier, and that was tough too. Costumes were one thing, but we got really particular about sets and stages as well, and were told it wasn't cost-effective.
Oguro: Was it the art design you were particular about?
Yajima: We had all the art design built in 3D too.
Oguro: And you weren't reusing the same art assets multiple times, right?
Producer: We built a new stage for each venue, so each one was only used once.
Yajima: Exactly. We did it five or six times total, so it was tough. For Serena, we had that passion, and I also requested that all her costumes be made cute.
Producer: The other performers were tough too, right?
Yajima: The performers were tough too. Even for non-main performers, we made two outfits—regular ones and dresses—and created reference sheets for which girl used which Pokémon. Princess Keys were also anime originals, so we designed them from scratch. I feel like we really poured effort into every aspect of Serena's design.
Oguro: Speaking of which, why did XY and XY&Z become a dual heroine story with Serena and Eureka?
Yajima: By the time I became director, the decision to go with dual heroines was already made.
Oguro: What role did Chief Director Yuyama Kunihiko play in each episode?
Yajima: He oversaw the scripts.
Oguro: So Yuyama participated in the script meetings too?
Yajima: Yes. He also reviewed how we portray Satoshi, considering relations with past series.
Oguro: It sounds like he warmly watched over Director Yajima's passionate work on this series.
Yajima: I think he watched over us quite warmly (laughs). He never said anything like "this is no good," so it felt like a parental perspective saying, "Go wild and do whatever you want." Yuyama's son and I are probably around the same age, so that might have played a part too, but he really did watch over us very warmly.
I had the determination to give it my all
Oguro: When the Pokémon anime started, were you around middle school age?
Yajima: Grade school. I should have been about the same age as Satoshi.
Oguro: So, around fifth or sixth grade. Did you watch the broadcast back then?
Yajima: I did at first, but I was doing judo lessons. Then the time I had to go to the dojo started overlapping with the broadcast, so I stopped watching after that. I started watching again when I got involved with Best Wishes for work. I didn't watch during that gap.
Oguro: So you've been involved with Pokémon continuously since Best Wishes. Going back to the beginning, how did you become director for XY?
Yajima: Producer Kanda asked me to do it, but I turned him down three or four times. I started working with OLM around age 26, and he'd been asking me since then. He'd asked during the previous series too, so this time I thought I couldn't refuse anymore and made up my mind.
Oguro: Was it because you were doing such great work as an episode staff member?
Yajima: I'm not sure. But Mr. Kanda really liked my work, so I felt I had to respond to that and accepted the director role.
Oguro: So you weren't thinking, "Someday I want to direct Pokémon"?
Yajima: No, not at all. Plus, I thought directing was something you did around age 40, once you had the gravitas.
Oguro: How old were you at the time of XY?
Yajima: We had our first scenario meeting right after production started, and I was about 27 then.
Oguro: So all the writers were older than you?
Yajima: Everyone was in their 50s or older—major seniors. There wasn't a single person younger than me. Of course, some of the key animators might have been younger, but among the scriptwriters and episode directors, no one was younger than me.
Oguro: The animation directors must have been veterans too.
Yajima: Yes. Since everyone was so experienced, I felt truly intimidated, but I still said, "This is what I want." They were incredibly kind to someone so young, and I'm truly grateful.
Oguro: So it was like you used your youth as a weapon and went all out?
Yajima: I had the determination to think, "Since I took this on, I'm going to give it my all." There were plenty of parts that didn't turn out exactly as I envisioned, but mentally, I aimed to create what I believed would be the most exciting series possible for Pokémon, and they let me pursue that.
Oguro: Summarizing what we've discussed so far, for the visuals, you went for a slightly more realistic look and emphasized the action-oriented feel, right?
Yajima: I also aimed for a classic shounen manga style for the story, hoping that would resonate. One production theme was using 3D. Around episode 5 or 6, we had a gym battle where the 3D really clicked. That confirmed my direction wasn't wrong, so we decided to keep pushing forward.
Oguro: Using 3D for battles refers to the camera work, right? Like in the performances.
Yajima: Right. We had all the gyms created in 3D too. Also, since Pokémon has many wild battles, we had the forests and grasslands created in 3D in a versatile way.
Oguro: So, did you create the camera work in 3D, then use printouts as the base for the animation?
Yajima: Some were done with animation drawings first. We had rough keys created loosely, then built the 3D to match the character movements, and from there, we moved into the key animation work. We used both methods—animation-first and 3D-first—depending on the situation.
Oguro: I hope this doesn't sound rude, but it seems like things didn't always go as planned during XY.
Yajima: To finish one episode per week, you really need immense energy. Doing it made me wonder how directors in the real world manage with so little time. There were inevitably areas just out of our reach. Looking back, there are parts where I think, "We should have done this a bit differently."
Oguro: The Miare Gym Battle ("Miare Gym Battle! Satoshi VS Citron!") in XY was quite substantial. Was this a section you put particular effort into?
Yajima: For the Miare Gym battle in XY, I approached the storyboard with the mindset that it was like "Chapter 1 End." Citron, who had been separated from Satoshi and the others, finally returns and they have their gym battle. Citron also settles things with Satoshi, and Serena moves toward her dream. I really wanted to depict the start of this new journey for the four of them here, so I poured a lot of effort into it. In Citron's Gym battle, everyone joins hands near the end. I used the exact same composition as when Satoshi, Citron, and Eureka started their journey together ("Keromatsu VS Yayakoma! Aerial Battle Maneuvers!"). I directed it that way to convey a sense of a fresh start to the audience. That marked the end of Chapter 1. I intended the period leading up to XY&Z as Chapter 2. The Citron battle was definitely a lot of work.
Oguro: The Hyakkoku Gym battle near the end of XY was also incredibly intense ("The Double Battle in the Hyakkoku Gym! Gojika's Future Sight!").
Yajima: For the Hyakkoku Gym battle, it was already decided that Satoshi Gekkouga would appear, so naturally it became a feature focused on Gekkouga. Iwane's contribution was huge there too. I had complete trust that if Iwane drew the aerial battle, it would be perfect, so I had him really make it pop with dynamic movement. That was another scene we really did our best on.
Oguro: By the time XY ended, did you already know you'd be doing XY&Z for one year?
Yajima: By then, we knew it would be one more year.
Oguro: So you were wrapping up loose ends while also finalizing the story for that one year, right?
Yajima: Once we got to XY&Z, it was like, "No filler episodes—every episode counts!" We had no breathing room left.
Oguro: Speaking of which, in the XY&Z OP, there was that shot of Gekkouga looking down at Satoshi crouching, right? Gekkouga seemed like this detached character, and it was a dramatic image. I thought the main story might go in that direction too, but it didn't.
Yajima: When we drew the OP, I was thinking of going in that direction. I actually considered having them part ways after a quarrel or something like that.
Oguro: So that was a falling out? It almost looks like Satoshi was abandoned by Gekkouga.
Yajima: I did want to make it a story where Gekkouga gave up on Satoshi, but as the story progressed, I realized it just wouldn't go that way no matter what. What I had in mind when making the OP was a scenario where, when Satoshi was feeling down, Gekkouga also had something on its mind, and that led to a rift between them. There's water at their feet that swirls up, and even back then, I was thinking it would be nice if viewers could associate the water with the bond between Satoshi and Gekkouga. That's why Satoshi and Gekkouga were always surrounded by water.
Oguro: Did the Water Shuriken idea come from that too?
Yajima: From the start of XY&Z, I envisioned that when their bond truly blossomed, they'd be able to use Water Shuriken. There was an issue where it was hard to visually distinguish between a completed bond and an incomplete one. So I expressed the incomplete state as being enveloped in water like a veil, and the completed state as the Water Shuriken forming. But the water itself was incredibly unpopular with the animators (laughs). "How many cels does it take to wrap it around them?"
Oguro: Was that water texture achieved through animation drawings?
Yajima: We did it through animation, then added the swirling motion effect during compositing, while also having highlights added with T-light. Plus, it moves, right? It was hugely unpopular. But the moment where the water wrapped around the Pokemon gathers on its back and forms the Water Shuriken was the dramatic peak, so I think it was worth doing.
Oguro: Regarding animation again, did the average animation quality improve in the latter half of XY, and did it reach a fully optimized state by the time XY&Z began?
Yajima: We did start focusing more effort on episodes deemed absolutely essential. Also, as I mentioned earlier about making corrections after rush checks, for episodes requiring significant fixes, the three of us—me, Nishiyan, and Oohashi—would handle the drawing.
Oguro: I see.
Yajima: After the rush check, we'd say, "Let's fix this action," and the three of us would really grind away at it.
Oguro: The animation quality was consistently high episode by episode, you know. I found that puzzling, but hearing your explanation solved the mystery.
Yajima: We divided the work among our small team and each gave it our absolute all (laughs).
Oguro: So it wasn't just a bunch of superhumanly talented people? I really wondered what kind of magic was being used. You showed us things that pushed beyond the limits of TV animation time and again. I think it was a truly compelling series.
Yajima: For three whole years, we aimed to deliver consistently high-quality animation. Some people say, "Animation has no future anymore," but I don't think that's true. We wanted to show that "there are still dreams in anime." I think we used the budget in ways you wouldn't see in a typical TV series, but beyond that, everyone just gave it their all. It's sad to think anime has no dreams left. If you make high-quality anime, someone will watch it, and someone will dream. Whether Pokémon needs that is a tough question, but it's kind of my slogan.
Oguro: You wanted to show "the potential of anime"?
Yajima: I hoped to spark even a little dreaming, like "Wow, they move like this! It's hand-drawn!"
Oguro: So you achieved that.
Yajima: Yes. Finishing it, I'm relieved first and foremost.
Oguro: Going back to the beginning again, you weren't an anime fanatic, right?
Yajima: I watched the documentary "How Princess Mononoke Was Born" when I was in junior high. I'd been thinking about becoming a manga artist up until then, but seeing that documentary made me realize for the first time that there were people thinking so earnestly about making images move. After that, I could only think about animation. I didn't actually watch anime, but I started drawing myself from then on. I felt I had to get to the bottom of what movement really was, so I set up a light under a glass tabletop to study it. After that documentary sparked my interest in animation, I decided I wanted to become an animator. I figured if I worked part-time jobs to save for tuition, I could definitely make it happen. There was a teacher at my vocational school named Iijima Masakatsu, who was working on Pokémon. I had the chance to hear from Iijima about how fascinating directing could be, and that's when I started aiming for a career in directing.
With XY and XY&Z, I could focus entirely on making the animation to the best of my ability without worrying about budget constraints. I really want to keep making works where I can just think about the animation itself.
Oguro: Just thinking about making good animation. Not cutting corners because something's tough.
Yajima: If I said that wasn't in my nature, I'd be unprofessional, but I want to keep making animation that satisfies me visually.