Bright: Samurai Soul director doesn’t want to ‘fix’ Bright with his spinoff anime

When Netflix first announced an anime spin-off of its urban fantasy Will Smith 2017 Shinyfans of the streaming service reacted with a mixture of bewilderment and cautious optimism. Critics attacked the original Shiny, a grim and misshapen movie that concocts an intriguing modern fantasy world full of orcs and elves, then wastes it on a mix of a mismatched partner cop movie and a “find the magical McGuffin” fantasy story. For people who found the world more promising than history, the anime revamp represented an opportunity to do something more interesting with the property than writer Max Landis and director David Ayer did with the live-action feature.

Director Kyōhei Ishiguro and writer Michiko Yokote harness the potential of the world in Brilliant: samurai soul, but the tone is still gloomy and heavy. The story takes place at the beginning of the Meiji Restoration of Japan, the era in the mid-19th century when Western powers entered Japan and the country moved away from a feudal base under the Tokugawa shogunate, restoring imperial rule and beginning an era of rapid modernization. The political tensions and cultural changes of the era, particularly the disempowerment of the samurai, have made it an extremely romantic period and a popular setting for Japanese fiction, even in anime as Rurouni Kenshin. On Brilliant: samurai soul, makes for a setting where the main characters are disenfranchised, abused, and exhausted.

Ishiguro, who spoke to Polygon through a translator via video chat from Japan, says the decision to configure the new Shiny The story from that time was made on Netflix and it was one of the few things that was decided on the project before he got on board. The broadcast studio originally approached the ARECT 3D animation studio about creating the project, Ishiguro says, and the studio producer contacted him to get involved.

“At that time, [the story] it was in a very premature stage, “says Ishiguro. “There was only a skeleton of the idea: the fact that the film would be based on the original film and would be set in Japan at the end of the Edo era and the beginning of the Meiji era, and that the screenwriter would be Michiko Yokote. That was it.”

Ishiguro had not seen Shiny at the time. “To decide whether to accept the offer, I looked at the original version,” he says. “I liked the story, as well as Will Smith’s performance. It was amazing. So I became a fan and accepted the offer right away. “

Landis and Ayer are not credited in the anime spinoff and do not appear to have been involved in it. When asked if he spoke to them, Ishiguro says: “What I can tell you is that the original work team gave us a lot of freedom. They ensured that we could make up our own story, respecting the intent of the original. “

In addition to maintaining the gloomy tone of the original film, Brilliant: samurai soul it reflects part of its plot, while modifying it for a different country and time, and accentuating the supernatural aspects. The anime’s story features goblins, fairies, and centaurs, along with elves and orcs. The plot centers on a former samurai named Izou (voiced by Yuki Nomura in the Japanese original, and Shang-Chi and the ten rings star Simu Liu in the English dub) who is reluctantly associated with an orc warrior named Raiden (Daisuke Hirakawa / Fred Mancuso). As in the original Shiny, there is a young elf who is in control of a powerful magic wand, and is being hunted by an extremist group that serves a mythical Dark Lord.

But the visual style of Brilliant: samurai soul stands out. The action was digitally animated on actors captured in motion, giving the story a floating fantasy look that doesn’t stray too far from the traditional rotoscope in older films like Ralph Bakshi. Lord of the Rings. The soft pastel color palette contrasts sharply with vivid splatters of blood whenever things get violent. And the thin, thin lines and lack of shadows make the animation even more surreal.

It’s a style Ishiguro had never used before. His previous anime projects, including movies. Words bubble like soda and Your lie in april (both available on American Netflix), were traditional hand-drawn cel projects, while Samurai soul is a 3D digital project.

“I’ve always wanted to direct a movie in 3D,” says Ishiguro. “What I tried to do with this particular movie was to control the shadows, both for the characters and for the background. I removed all the shadows and tried to represent the characters only with outlines and silhouettes. I was inspired by the woodcut art of artists like Hiroshi Yoshida of Taishō. He represented objects with only outlines, but his work was very lively. “

Ishiguro says the goal was to combine that liveliness with moving textures, “to create a new kind of 3D expression.” The result feels a long way from ShinyIt is an attempt at rough urban realism. It is a softer and more melancholic fantasy world. The tone of regret comes despite the severity of the scenario and the action, which focuses mainly on powerful men who abuse and murder the less powerful, from forcing women to work in brothels to murdering anyone who comes between them. and the Wand.

That theme of corruption and dominance, and the oppressed elements of society using magic to regain some control, comes straight from the original. Shiny. Ishiguro says that while he was not involved in choosing to set the story in the Meiji Restoration period, he believes that the theme of “restoration” connects the two works and explains why Netflix representatives chose him: “I imagine they chose that background out of respect for the original work. “

Despite the connections between theme and story, Ishiguro says the new movie isn’t exactly a remake and wasn’t designed around the lessons learned from the first. Shiny: “There was never the intention to compensate or fix what did not work with the original,” he says. “Whether we have gone beyond the success of the original or not is up to the viewers. I am not in a position to decide, but I am quite happy with the results ”.

He’s happy enough with them, in fact, he’d be excited to tell more stories in this world. Visibly lights up when asked about the possibility of a sequel. “I want to try it! I would need Netflix approval to do that,” he says. different feudal and samurai families clashing, and used ninjas as part of their workforces. . So if I were to do another spinoff I’d be interested in something like Shining: Soul Ninja. I would definitely want to do it if there was an opportunity. ”

Brilliant: samurai soul debuts on Netflix on October 12.