――The release of Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms is approaching.
HORIKAWA: In this production, I wanted to see characters that are not easy to understand. And the character of Maquia is understood in different ways by different people. In a meeting with director Okada, she explained, “I would like to make this kind of movie”. But in this movie, the staff does not take her explanation at her word. “Okada said that, but how about me? How should I think about this movie?” They were making this movie, thinking like that. So there is director Okada’s vision of Maquia, and then all of our individual visions of her, and various interesting things can come out of that, and through that director Okada may probably see things about the character that she didn’t realize before.
――What do you mean by “characters that are not easy to understand”?
HORIKAWA: In a TV series, you have several different script writers on the project, so you have to have consensus on the characters, like, “this person is such and such a person”. When you do that, you can’t really express those inscrutable parts of humanity. Of course, the situation is different if it’s something based on a novel, like The Eccentric Family, and I wonder if it’s possible to do with an original anime project. But if someone doesn’t have that inside them it can be hard to depict. Like, “if you dig deeper into this person, you’ll find a bottomless well of stuff”. I felt Director Okada has that sort of thing, which is why I said that I wanted to see something that is “100% Mari Okada”.
――Was the scriptwriting process smooth?
HORIKAWA: The script was pretty much in its final form right from the beginning. Yes, of course there were changes, but we didn’t do anything like, “this is difficult to understand, so make it easier to understand”. Instead, the staff, following director Okada’s explanation, would each approach their own interpretation. And what was interesting is that assistant director (Toshiya) Shinohara and core director (Tadashi) Hiramatsu wouldn’t go to director Okada for confirmation on every little thing. They would just say, “let me know if it’s wrong!”
――Background art director Kazuki Higashiji said that he had a hard time grasping the character of Maquia.
HORIKAWA: Yes, but we definitely welcomed anyone trying to wrestle with it. He’s the kind of person who will grapple with the world of a project as much as he can. So it’s not good to just let it be. You have to understand that everyone wrestled with it exactly because they think the movie is very important to them.
――How was the reaction to the previews?
HORIKAWA: There were a lot of people who reflected the movie onto their own lives, remembering things about being a parent or being a child. But that is different for everyone, so in a quiet movie like this, for people to re-discover their own precious connections with others, was really interesting.
――You have decided that this movie would be the last one in which you engage in the production site yourself as a producer. Is that true?
HORIKAWA: Yes, it is. So, when we had the reading session and I could see the complete vision of this movie, I really appreciated that this script will be my last movie. This was a challenging work to end my career as a producer.

Kenji Horikawa,P.A. WORKS president & CEO. Produced works such as true tears, Hanasaku Iroha, The Eccentric Family, SHIROBAKO, and more.