Sunday Tunnel to Summer: Interview with Mei Hachimoku, Harumi Fuuki, Shingou Nishikawa, and Naoki Koyama.
Hey all! We're slowly becoming an interview depot, and we wouldn't have it any other way. I've always wanted to make Weekly Shogakukan Edition/WSSTB something more than just a place that posts covers and anime news. As such we have this interview conducted with the Tunnel to Summer team conducted during Otakon 2023. It will be cross posted on our brother-site-in-arms manga mavericks later, but for now you get the exclusive look! Watch out for more like this soon!
Interview with: Mei Hachimoku, author. Harumi Fuuki, composer, Shingou Nishikawa, the setting producer and Naoki Koyama, producer.
The LN is available in English from Seven Seas Entertainment
The anime is streaming on HiDive
Some parts of the interview have been modified for clarity.
Q1: For Mei Hachimoku: What was your inspiration for the story?
MH: The theme I had for this story (Tunnel to Summer) was time travel. Before now I've always had the idea and interest to include time loops or time travel in my works as I have interest in the subject. So the idea for this novel was based around how I could include time travel in a story.
Q2: Piggybacking off this question, both this novel, and your other Waiting for Spring, obviously feature time travel. Could you tell us what specifically about time travel is attractive to you?
MH: I've had an interest in time travel stories for a long time now, and am inspired by ones such as The Butterfly Effect and anime such as Stein's Gate. I mention those as favorites in particular due to the emotional impact they had on me. So from there I wanted to write something along the lines of how time impacts a story. Also, things that occurred to me personally at the time of this book's writing were influential on it such as my insecurities and anxieties toward the future, so some of what is in the book are my own experiences.
Q3: Something that struck me about this book was the exploration of grief –especially that of how both characters explore their grief in different ways through the tunnel. What inspired you to take on this subject in the story?
MH: Everyone experiences grief at one time or another, as it's a natural human emotion, which is why there are a multitude of stories that explore going back to the past to erase regrets and do away with grief. When writing Tunnel to Summer, I thought to myself that the characters instead of erasing grief and regret learned how to grow as people from it through exploring what would happen if they could go back in time and change the past.
Q4: This question is for Fuuki-san. The music in Tunnel to Summer feels very deliberate, as there is a lot of silence between the ambient tracks. How do you go about maintaining the balance between ambient music and silence in the film?
F: Generally, my approach was to apply music to the more emotional moments in the film. However, to be clear, just because there is a quiet scene in the film doesn't mean that there is a lack of music. To me, silence is a type of music –so I see the film in its entirety as a long music track with ebs and flows between silences and sounds. Where the music rests at times and then picks back up.
Q5: Did the publisher –Shogakukan approach Studio CLAP to animate this work? Or was it the other way around?
A: Actually, it was Pony Canyon who requested that the work be animated.
Q6: How did Pony Canyon come to work with Studio CLAP to work on this project?
A: Pony Canyon had set out at first to find a studio to animate the film, and it was during that search that someone referred us to Studio CLAP. It was looking through their body of work that we thought they'd be a good fit for the film.
Q7: Fuuki-san, how did you approach the soundtrack? What made you choose the tracks you did?
F: My approach to the movie was rather than adding sound, I'd slowly shave off parts of it. I worked closely with the director on another film –Digimon Adventure. Which was more of an action movie that had more of a classic orchestra, but for this movie I really wanted to give it a sense of being delicate and emotional.
Q8: When creating characters and getting into their minds, what do you strive for? A more real life character, an anime character, or something more abstract?
MH: So with regard to creating the characters, I more come up with a “character resume.” Consisting of things such as their personality, and experiences. They may not be real but I try to create a setting for them, and think about how they might react to things in that setting. So initially they may start off similar to an anime character, but after constructing their resume they may become much more realistic.
Q9: In regard to an adaptation, how do you distinguish what is necessary versus what is not necessary? As one can spend much longer reading a novel than watching a movie, how do you decide what makes it to the screen?
A: The movie does have limits to how long it can be we did have to filter it a bit –but from an editing standpoint we don't think of it as “eliminating” content from the story. Rather we think of it as focusing on the overall plot, and in this case the director wanted to focus on Kaoru and Anzu's story so that's what we went for.
MH: As far as what would be included in the film adaption and what wouldn't –the director, Tomohisa Taguchi and I went over the plot and Taguchi conveyed to me what his interpretation of the story was. I gave him full reign over what he would include in the film. To me it made sense to start from the beginning –rather than adding or removing from the plot, I thought It would be better to entrust Taguchi's interpretation of the plot to make a movie that is a bit different from the source material, trusting and supporting his vision throughout.
Q10: What were your thoughts when it was announced the film would screen at Otakon? Do you think this is a story that audiences worldwide will relate to?
MH: I had a similar reaction to the movie being made and being screened overseas. In that it feels like a friend you grew up with finding success in a field and moving away: a small sense of sadness it's leaving, but being overjoyed at its success.
Q11: Hachimoku-sensei since both of your novels were published by Shogakukan's light novel imprint Gagaga Bunko I'm interested in knowing what your experience in working with them was like and what they do differently from other publishers.
MH: I can only answer from my personal perspective, which may differ from others, but I think that Gagaga Bunko as a publisher has a very wide range of works they put out and are willing to accept. I think their motto is “If it's interesting, it's fair game.” I feel fortunate that it was Gagaga bunko who published Tunnel to Summer and would want anything I feel passionate writing about to be published by them.
N: As the source material is a novel, there are considerations I have to think about there, however the art setting mostly relies on the director's interpretation of the source material such as how the interior of a house or the tunnel will be depicted. So we did do some traveling around to get better ideas on how to create the art setting for the movie by taking photos of real life locations. Though ultimately, most of the artwork setting came from the imagination of the director.
Q13: The themes of death and grief are very weighty adult themes, generally, so why do you think these resonate with younger people?
MH: Kaoru's younger sister's death is the focal point of the novel itself, however my feeling is that there are regrets and grief that must be left behind in order to grow as people. People must look toward tomorrow to live their lives. It's that –wanting to live well in the face of grief and regret that's attractive to all readers, and what's most relatable is confronting these feelings.
Q14: To Koyama-san, if this movie had started production ten years ago, what might have been different in either producing the film or how it's presented?
K: As this work itself represents a glance back at the past, should we have created it before we would have moved the setting even further into the past.
Q15: What do you hope audiences will take from this film?
MH: I wanted to portray the nostalgia of a past summer that might have happened sometime in your life, and perhaps sneak a fake memory of a summer that didn't happen but feels real enough that it could have happened would have been my goal.
F: What I want to portray in this movie is grief and how one can get through it, whether one carries the pain with them or rids themselves of it. For myself, I think the movie has a message of hope throughout.
A: At the end of the film, what I most want audiences to take away is Kaoru and Anzu's relationship and how real they feel as characters. They may be a little on the unique side of things, but whether they simply sympathize with them or cheer them on throughout, I feel their humanity is what stands out most about them.
A: Life can be difficult no matter how old or experienced you are you still feel alone and sad sometimes. I feel like the core message of this movie is that you're never alone and that there's always someone in your corner.
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