Unique Mermaid Anime Movie ChaO Blends Genres To Entertain | Interview
Anime often explores the fantastical, and Studio 4°C’s gorgeous new film ChaO explores the relationships between humans and mermaids. To learn more about the film, ComingSoon spoke with director Yasuhiro Aoki and character designer Hirokazu Kojima about its themes, unique character designs, and more. GKIDS releases the film in theaters starting today, April 10.
“In a fantastical future, humans and mermaids share a troubled coexistence. Stephan, an anxious employee at a shipbuilding company, has big ideas to save the sea. But his life explodes into ecstatic chaos when bubbly mermaid princess Chao proposes marriage out of the blue. Between shopping sprees, giant robots, and actual fireworks, the unlikely pair flounder through their new romance and unlock their true feelings,” says the official synopsis.
Tyler Treese: Yasuhiro, the societal differences provide a lot of fun in the film, and the interactions between the merman and the humans are really fun to see. What made you want to explore what our interactions would be like if mermaids were real?
Yasuhiro Aoki: I really think animation is really about having to continue building on it, right? You start with like the character designs and the storyboarding, and then you animate it, and you finish it. But all in all, like making animation is really about fantasy, right? Just telling the story about fantasy. If that’s the case, then I wanted to really just go all the way with the fantastical element, which is having a human and mermaids, which supposedly don’t exist, and to make a fantastical story. I knew it was gonna be difficult, but I wanted to try it.
Hirokazu, I found the human designs to be delightfully full of weirdos. There’s this gigantic baby early on that just made me laugh, and I was constantly entertained by all the strange head shapes and sizes. Can you speak to this stylistic choice for everybody to look so strange
Hirokazu Kojima: I was able to design the characters freely, like some of the character designs, the director had an idea of how he wanted them to look, so then that was also incorporated. But I was trying to think about, okay, what would be funny as a character design? So, I think each character, I really put thought into it as I designed them.
Yasuhiro, there’s a framing device where the film starts off in the future, and we see the bulk of the story being told verbally as a flashback. What made you want to tell a story in that manner?
Aoki: This kind of framing to go start in the future and then go into the past is really difficult. It is a hard way to frame a story, but then it was really important because for Stefan to explain the story, there’s gonna be some parts that he didn’t understand at that present, right? So to overcome that obstacle, I really had to make it like it’s him from the future talking about the past. But at first, I really wanted to nix this idea of this framing because it was just so difficult. I didn’t know if it would work or if I could pull it off, but then I tried to gather it, and then I was able to frame it in a way that worked towards the end.
Tyler Treese: Hirokazu, there’s a cool aspect to the film where the merman turn back into fish, and then they also have a more human-like form when they trust people. How was it designing ChaO’s two different forms?
Hirokazu Kojima: Yeah, so I really wanna challenge both forms to be opposites of each other. For a fish, I wanted her to be cute and like a mascot-type of character design. Then, for a mermaid version, I really added or incorporated elements I like and want in a woman, but also like Asian elements as well, but also make it cute.
Yasuhiro, there’s a really lovely song in the middle of the film. We see ChaO embrace her mermaid form, and we see her dancing. That also marks a real shift in the relationship with Stefan. Can you speak to that scene? I thought it was quite lovely.
Yasuhiro Aoki: Yeah, I think the song comes in about maybe 40 minutes into the film, and that really is the central part of the film. So I really wanted to change gears with using that scene. I think ChaO fits in with a lot of genres of film. Like, it could be comedy, it’s a love story, maybe with some action, but I really just wanted to create a film that is entertainment. So, I thought, okay, so what would be entertaining? Having a song in the middle of the film would be nice because I think that scene really brings ChaO front and center as a protagonist. She has agency, and she also has sexiness, and the audience would be like, oh yeah, this is about her. So, that’s what I wanted to bring in with that scene.
Hirokazu, you worked on one of my favorite video games, Asura’s Wrath. It was like a playable anime, and it was such a unique blend of art. What was most fulfilling about working on that project?
Kojima: Yeah, so when I was like working on other stuff at Studio 4°C, doing art direction, character design, etc., this is a game video game that I was able to participate in. I really liked the design, but also, there were a lot of different, strong people working on it. Like people who are very… not weird, but just people with a very strong personality were working on it. If you would say it in current terms, it would be like web-type creators were working on it. So I knew that. So then I said, “Hey, can I also work on the video game?” and that’s how I got to participate in it.
Thanks to Yasuhiro Aoki and Hirokazu Kojima for taking the time to talk about ChaO.
Source: Comingsoon.net