All You Need Need Is Kill Staff on Making the Classic Novel into an Anime Movie

All You Need Is Kill , the latest anime adaptation based on the novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, had its world premiere during the Annecy International Animation Festival in France. During the event, Crunchyroll News was able to meet with the STUDIO4°C team and Warner Bros. Japan to talk about the latest adaptation, including director Kenichiro Akimoto and veteran producer, and co-founder of STUDIO4°C, Eiko Tanaka to speak about the pressure of the new movie and the creativity behind the production. The reception of your movie was incredible during the official screening. Were you ready for these kinds of reactions? Kenichiro Akimoto : Do we usually see this many airplanes on stage? ( Writer's note: Annecy audiences send airplanes on stage and try to hit the screen ) Kind of. But the stage is even more filled when the artists come on stage. It's a tradition and also a way of showing their appreciation. Akimoto : It was a bit intimidating at first, but it was very impressive. You might not know it, but Crunchyroll has published the novel and the manga in France. And being also a fan of the movie Edge of Tomorrow , I was wondering how you approached the "pressure" of adapting something that's already been adapted twice already? Akimoto : There are tons of fans of each work, but in each of these adaptations, they take it a step further. We wanted to push the boundaries of what we could do with animation. We can do something different with different mediums, and so Eiko Tanaka was of the same mind, saying: "How can we make this into an animation that gives justice to the content ?" and that was the baseline. And in terms of pressure, I always felt it. [laughs] RELATED: All You Need Is Kill Anime Film Reveals Two Lead Cast Members I really appreciated the choice to shift the focus from Keiji to Rita in this adaptation. What motivated this change? Akimoto : What they did with Edge of Tomorrow is also very different from the novel. If they can do that with the movie, why can't we do a similar, yet very different adaptation? Eiko Tanaka : Of course, we created this with Warner Bros. Japan, and they also let us have the freedom to do some crazy things with the film, and to have that kind of free and open approach to the original work. Akimoto : If you remember the manga and the film, it's all about the war, the army, and it was very military-driven. We didn't want to do something that super dark. We wanted something with light, nice colors, which contrasted with the other adaptations. At the very beginning stages, we were discussing how to go about this and Eiko Tanaka suggested a flower (the big flower from the movie), and I thought it was a fantastic idea. That's where the world vision, the world view, came about. It was from the idea of color, bringing this brightness to it, and then the flower. Was it the plan all along to make it a movie or did you have any discussion about another format? Tanaka : That was my decision. I wanted to have a movie because we can focus on the story and the quality. And Warner Bros. Japan wanted to make an anime movie as well. An anime would have taken some time, but it still took us at least four years of work. The original  All You Need Is Kill  light novel was released in December 2004 in Japan and July 2009 in English from VIZ Media. In 2014, the novel was adapted into manga by  Moriarty the Patriot ’s Ryosuke Takeuchi and  Death Note ’s Takeshi Obata. In the same year, a Hollywood live-action adaptation was released under the name  Edge of Tomorrow , directed by Doug Liman, starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. The anime film is directed by Kenichiro Akimoto (unit director on Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko ) at STUDIO 4°C. As of this writing, there is no wide release date. GKIDS also announced on June 11 it will release the movie in North America, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Annecy's website describes the movie as such: Chiba Prefecture, Japan. The Boso Peninsula. A massive, unidentified plant from outer space, known as "Darol", has spread its roots across the land, wreaking havoc with its electromagnetic waves and high-concentration gas, devastating the environment on a massive scale. To aid in the recovery efforts, volunteers from across the country and abroad have been randomly selected.

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