Thank you very much for that comment. I started out working on very popular television programs, such as Crayon Shin chan and Chibi Maruko Chan. So I think from the beginning I was working on a popular level. As a director of films I have gotten some good reviews, but some of these comments are that my films are not for everyone. But now I am thinking of a wider audience, as I still want to make films that I am interested in. For me, it is not a matter of if the otaku anime fans are the ones who are interested in my films. And I find that what is interesting to Japanese audiences, seem also be interesting to a worldwide audience. I used to think that foreign audiences were different from Japanese audiences, because of networking and more availability to the international audience I think that difference has become much less, and it seems that what is interesting to a Japanese audience is also interesting to a worldwide audience.

Thank you for your comment. Regarding short films, I don't have many chances to see short films, but I do like them. I find that it is probably very difficult for them to be commercially available and successful. I was raised on and started my career on television and film animation so that is where I have put in my efforts. I do like shorts, but they have to be a very high quality. And I would like to make more short films, but unless they are of very high quality the audience would not be satisfied. So short films are even more difficult to make than feature films or television programs. There are many short films that I like, but usually I see them all at once so I don't really remember the titles of all of them. A long film that was made in an experimental fashion like how short films are made is Boy And The World (dir. Ale Abreu).

In terms of the distribution of the films, I am currently using the Netflix type of streaming format, and it is very easy to use, and I think it gets many people to watch it. So I expect that it will expand further. So that is on a massive scale, to show something like Devilman Crybaby where many people will enjoy seeing at once. But for smaller works that might appeal to a smaller audience, this format may not work that well, so I am hoping that something will allow for that smaller unique audience to be able to see those works as well. But I am also reluctant to let go of the large screen (theatrical style showing of films) because I believe that that is a very important aspect of feature length films. I also think that something like virtual reality will be a big part of the future soon. My favorite characters in the recent works, if we are talking about Lu Over the Wall, Wangyo the dog (merdoggy). For Tatami Galaxy, the character Oz.

There are many animators and directors who I am influenced by. The main animators would be Hayao Miyazaki, and Yoshifumi Kondo, who was also at Studio Ghibli. Tsutomu Shibayama and Shinya Oohira as well. You might be surprised that I am influenced by Osamu Dezaki. There are less and less of those very expressive type of animations, as Dezaki has created. I like all kinds of musical genres. But recently what I like most is music that has rhythm, and noise-type (Noise-kei) music. I am also interested in ethnic music that is not necessarily created by musical instruments. Like something explosion band, the first song that is in Baby Driver. I also like The Beatles. For Japanese music, I listen to music because of the lyrics. I like RC Succession, Tamio Okuda, and the Blue Hearts.

My favorite breakfast is to not eat anything. When I was starting out as a director, it was just the time when hand drawn animation was shifting towards digital animation. So I incorporated photographs on occasion or hand drawn animation into digital works. If that kind of mixing of styles seems interesting to people, then I would like to challenge myself to work on that. But, I have learned that being too experimental doesn't play well for audiences. So I would like to continue to make films that more people in the audience will take to and will enjoy watching. But merging these different styles is an issue that I am interested in and I would like to continue thinking about using those techniques.

Thank you very much. I would like to make many types of stories and I have a few original stories that I am thinking of that I would like to animate. But I am seriously thinking about creating animation works aimed at children. But, when I come across interesting or fun manga or fiction, I wold like to work on animating those as well. I am also looking forward to creating original animation works, and also look forward to enjoying the difficult process of challenging works.

Even the difficult parts were fun to do, but in the original story the monologues were very long. Creating movement in interior monologue scenes was difficult to do.

Hello everyone! Masaaki Yuasa is here now and will begin answering questions.