Shiboyugi: Playing Death Games to Put Food on the Table Interview Translation – Souta Ueno x Noriyoshi Konuma

To complement our write-up about Shiboyugi, we bring you the translation of an interview where its one-of-a-kind director Souta Ueno chats with sound director Noriyoshi Konuma about their unique thought processes and creative methods.

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Interview originally published by Comic Natalie, available over here. Original text and interview by Oto Haruno. Translation by Yoshi. Checked by Bitmap after he stopped goofing around in Japan.

Participants:

Series directorSeries Director: (監督, kantoku): The person in charge of the entire production, both as a creative decision-maker and final supervisor. They outrank the rest of the staff and ultimately have the last word. Series with different levels of directors do exist however – Chief Director, Assistant Director, Series Episode Director, all sorts of non-standard roles. The hierarchy in those instances is a case by case scenario. Souta Ueno

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Sound Director Noriyoshi Konuma

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The animated TV series Shiboyugi: Playing Death Games to Put Food on the Table immediately gained a great deal of attention upon its January 7^th premiere. The first episode trended on social media with talk of things like the preservation treatment applied to (the characters’) bodies, as well as the fate of the girls in the deadly game as they took on its challenges, worked together, and even faced betrayal.

Studio DEEN were given the task of adapting the novels which ranked 1^st place in the new title and 2^nd in the pocket paperback categories of the 2024 This Light Novel is Amazing! guidebook to the screen. Directing is Souta Ueno, who made his directorial debut with Days with My Stepsister, also animated by the studio. Several key staff members on Days with My Stepsister were brought along for the production of Shiboyugi: Playing Death Games to Put Food on the Table. Joining Director Ueno in this interview is one such member, sound director Noriyoshi Konuma.

They had a lengthy discussion about how their encounter began with a simple icebreaker from Konuma, the resolve that went into making Shiboyugi: Playing Death Games to Put Food on the Table, how a sensation not unlike being suicidal gave birth to a distinctive opening theme, the attention given towards the casting, as well as behind the scenes talk and spoilers for the final story, Candle Woods.

Confidence in How the Hour-Long First Episode Turned Out

—After episode 1 aired, the show blew up among new winter anime. Did you anticipate this reception?

Ueno: I am really happy that people felt that way. I had hoped that would be the case, since my impression from reading the novels was they had this immense strength to them. This reception is owed entirely to the potential of the source material.

Konuma: I, too, had hoped for it to be a hit. Above all else, I had confidence in how the hour-long first episode turned out. I had anticipated that it would be lauded by whoever watched the episode and generate strong word of mouth in some form or another. I won’t call my prediction spot on, but the reactions so far have been promising, and made me go “Oh, yes!”

—Episode 1 was granted an hour-long broadcast to cover the entirety of the first story, Ghost House. Would you say that it largely set the tone for how you envisioned the series to be?

Ueno: I would say it did. The hour-long slot had been decided in advance, which made covering all of Ghost House as one anime episode much easier.

—Did recording the voices for the entire hour-long episode happen in one session?

Konuma: No. We had to take both time and the cast’s concentration into consideration, so we recorded in two sessions.

—This show gives the impression of not having as many spoken lines as other anime, yet the recording must be exhausting all the same.

Konuma: It really was exhausting, I’ll tell you that (laughs). A regular recording session would require one rehearsal, after which we’d instruct the cast as necessary before proceeding with the actual recording. For this, we settled on three takes for every episode: the initial rehearsal, a final one, and the actual recording. It would last a whole five hours each time, even more depending on the episode. There were many scenes without dialogue, which at a glance of the line count would feel like it’d be completed in as little as two hours.

—What kind of back and forth happened during those recording sessions?

Konuma: On top of understanding the director’s intentions, we also had thorough discussions with the cast about why a character felt the way they did in a scene. Not understanding their intentions makes it impossible to act out the next scene. The serious themes of the show demanded a lot more from the voice actors. (Chiyuki) Miura, who plays Yuki, was particularly deep in thought while she performed. It was necessary to allow her time to break things down and process everything.

—How did you divide your responsibilities when it came to communication within the studio?

Konuma: The director is the leader, and my job is to help him depict what he wants to capture audiovisually through my expertise in sound. Should our preferences clash, then the director has the final say, plain and simple. I hear there are cases of sound directors being at odds with directors, but he and I prefer to work together to find a solution.

Ueno: We kind of did gauge each other out, though (laughs). Like finding common ground on how we wanted the voice acting to sound.

Konuma: Our thoughts differed depending on our viewpoints. The director would think of how he wanted something to sound within Shiboyugi‘s whole, while I had my thoughts centered around matters regarding the sound itself. That said, whenever the director gave directions based on intuition like, “I’m thinking something blue here,” I made it my duty to work out if he meant a deep ultramarine or a clearer shade of blue, then translate it into words the actors would understand. There were cases where I deemed it better to express his words in an entirely different manner because it would be easier to get to the younger generation of actors like Miura-san.

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“You Sure Are Pessimistic, Director“

—This was your second project together after Days with My Stepsister. Did the experience make things easier this time around?

Ueno: It absolutely did.

Konuma: For Days with My Stepsister, I joined the team after being put forward by someone from the sound production and getting approved by the director.

Ueno: I still vividly recall the first time we met.

Konuma: Really? I wonder why? (laughs)

Ueno: Days with My Stepsister was my first time in the director’s seat, and I was a bundle of nerves during the meeting. As we were leaving, Konuma-san bluntly said “Please come to me if you need anything! I won’t hesitate to reject whatever isn’t doable!” He worked out that I hesitated to speak up and made things easier for me. His words tore down all barriers I had placed between us. Since then, we kept having intimate discussions with each other.

Konuma: That did happen. I’m not a guy who would furiously snap when something was impossible, and I knew a first-time director would be especially reserved. So I started by having him share his vision with me, and from there we worked out how to realize it.

—Konuma-san. How did Director Ueno’s visual preferences and approach to directing appear to you?

Konuma: Reading the storyboards for Days with My Stepsister episode 1 made me go “Ooh, I see what this is…!” The way the cuts were timed and how the layoutsLayouts (レイアウト): The drawings where animation is actually born; they expand the usually simple visual ideas from the storyboard into the actual skeleton of animation, detailing both the work of the key animator and the background artists. came together provided a look into his psyche, or rather, highlighted the workings behind his unique direction, and it made me nod along approvingly (laughs). Being an arts graduate, and also having seen the works he mentioned liking made it easy for us to reach an understanding; I immediately understood the spirituality, or where the “soul” of his ideas laid. This is an industry plagued with titles that were clearly made to be commercially enjoyable, so to speak, yet I could feel the director’s strong desire to have his work seen the way he wanted it. I found that very relatable.

Ueno: I still remember how, in our meeting after he read the storyboards, Konuma-san said to me, “This might not be the best way to put it, but you sure are a pessimist at heart, Director. I can tell because I’m the same.” (laughs). I found myself embarrassed, but at the same time delighted, since I believe being a director means laying yourself bare for all to see.

—And so, the rapport you fostered led to Shiboyugi: Playing Death Games to Put Food on the Table becoming the distinctive form it has. On that note, besides the sound director, other key staff from Days with My Stepsister such as the coloring, photographyPhotography (撮影, Satsuei): The marriage of elements produced by different departments into a finished picture, involving filtering to make it more harmonious. A name inherited from the past, when cameras were actually used during this process., sound, and even the production studio (Studio DEEN) were retained for the production. Did that serve as a major advantage?

Ueno: Very much so. People in this line of work have varying definitions for abstract ideas such as what is considered stylish or beautiful. By working with the same team, the scope of what I think is beautiful has already been established, which allows everyone to be on the same page. The result is a timelier workflow where we get to sidestep having to bring people up to speed.

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The Resolve to Avoid Death Game Tropes

—Director Ueno. I understand this might not be easy to summarize, but what concept did you have in mind for the anime upon reading the source novels?

Ueno: I wanted to have a story about death games with none of the common tropes. We do not needlessly revel in the death of the girls, nor do we make a spectacle of them. The question was exactly how earnestly and respectfully we could portray their finite lives. That was the first thing the production had to figure out.

Konuma: We applied that same philosophy to the sound design. For instance, having a death scene set to a tragic tune to make it appalling gets to the point and is provocative, but is also a rather simplistic approach. Confirming with the director, we chose not to emphasize the gory scenes for shock value, and instead aim for an abstract depiction of emotions. As an example, we do not employ specific tunes for the purpose of evoking how Yuki feels.

—There is no sad background music that tells the audience “Please be sad here.”

Konuma: Exactly. We do not dictate the audience’s emotions, we only set the tone of the world. What the viewer takes away from it is entirely up to them. We paid great attention to maintaining this sense of detachment.

—After Aoi’s shocking final moments in episode 1, there hasn’t been a scene as gruesome as that. Was that intentional? For instance, Chie’s fate in Scrap Building was never shown.

Ueno: Aoi’s episode 1 scene unfolded the way it did in order to establish that the world in the story was a deranged one. It was necessary to show that death games happened, and that there are people who had no choice but to live in said world. That’s why we did not play the same hand again ever since.

Konuma: The music for Aoi’s death was ordered under the title A Kind of Hymn. Not a hymn in a religious sense. After reading the storyboards for Chie’s episode 4 scene or the deaths in Golden Bath, I felt it was unnecessary to make their deaths come off as unseemly through the music. I wanted them to pass away with grace, and for them to be as beautiful as can be in the minds of the audience. And so, the music was made to give that impression.

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The Unique Ambience of Junichi Matsumoto’s Music

—A show as distinctive as this must have made it difficult to explain your needs to the composer Junichi Matsumoto-san. It was mentioned on Twitter that the meeting ran for an exceptionally long time.

Ueno: Our first discussion with Matsumoto-san lasted for over three hours. Explaining the worldview was a given, but we also had to make known what we ourselves wanted to convey with this work. As we did, he would delve deeper with questions like, “The word ‘Prayer’ is listed here. Do you have any specific instruments or sounds in mind?”

—What was your response?

Ueno: I cited the composition of Akira Uchida-san’s album SILENT PRAYER as an example. After numerous back-and-forths like that, we received around 40 tracks from Matsumoto-san.

Konuma: I requested music that felt modern, atonal, and had a certain dissonance. I informed him that he didn’t have to think about making it work as background music, that was going to be our role.

Ueno: You mentioned that a lot, didn’t you?

Konuma: Taking this approach with the music would normally call for film scoring (Editor’s note: The process where music is written to accompany finished footage). This allows for music that perfectly suits the tone of the work. However, that is difficult to do with how TV anime is made in Japan, so I resorted to things like taking apart and rearranging Matsumoto-san’s music or having a track serve as the backing for another, all while being apologetic for my meddling.

Ueno: Konuma-san took the fantastic work that Matsumoto-san had composed, and “translated” it to fit the context of the show. This two-stage process was undoubtedly what gave Shiboyugi its unique ambience.

—The show has generated a lot of buzz, thanks to all this attention to detail we’ve touched on so far. That said, current trends call for anime adaptations to be faithful to the source material. Like many other anime adaptations before it, this show has made several omissions from the novels. What are your thoughts on that?

Ueno: On a fundamental level, I’d say that what I’ve created is faithful to the original work. Though we made some big structural changes, they were meant to leave the viewer with the same impression after this 11 episodes run as one might feel by reading the first volume of the light novel. As a result, certain perspectives also changed… However, the production proceeded with numerous discussions with the novel team, who were involved when we planned the script and sound design. Our intention wasn’t to leave things from the novel out or overcomplicate matters. We simply thought of how we could steadily march towards our desired stopping point.

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The Nuance in Yuki’s Affirmation That Only Chiyuki Miura Could Deliver

—Would you say that Chiyuki Miura’s performance as Yuki was a significant influence on the show?

Konuma: Yuki became much more human than we imagined her to be. She wasn’t merely indifferent and robotic, the doubts that show through the cracks gave her character. I believe that also largely influenced the director as well.

Ueno: It did. Yuki is a character who’s like a ghost, but at the same time she’s very much a living, breathing human. The nuance in her vaguely affirmative response to Kinko towards the end of episode 1 or her closing monologue would commonly be interpreted with cynicism. However, Miura-san’s delivery provided another possibility. There is a charm to Yuki that only Miura-san could give her, and it’s that very reason the finale became what it is.

—The shuffled timeline of the episodes also leads to Yuki showcasing different performances.

Ueno: That’s true of Candle Woods, where Yuki’s audible inexperience makes her come off as more of a rookie.

Konuma: It’s kind of cute.

Ueno: Being able to pull that off is one of Miura-san’s strengths.

Konuma: Getting (Natsuko) Abe-san to play Moegi in Candle Woods was a triumph for us.

Ueno: The part where she threatened others at gunpoint was incredible. It got even better after she threw Kabane to the ground.

Konuma: It wasn’t just her. The casting for the show became a display of yet-to-be-discovered voice acting talent for the world to appreciate.

Ueno: That was what I had in mind, yes.

Konuma: We could have gone with better-known names, or those whose capabilities have been established to some degree. In the end, looking for a more personal touch when casting paid off.

Ueno: I wanted to make the best of the one-of-a-kind performances of the cast. In Abe-san’s case, I made sure to run with her take on Moegi that no one else could have done.

—Is that why the recording sessions took so much time?

Konuma: That was one reason. The cast did everything in their power to play their characters. We sought for performances that weren’t derivative, and they delivered.

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The Meaning Behind Director Ueno’s Blank Letter

—The topic has now shifted to Candle Woods, but before we conclude by discussing the next episodes, I’d like to ask two things. First, Konuma-san had previously posted on Twitter that “I’d like to talk about a story regarding episode 1, but I can’t seem to find the right timing.” What was that story?

Konuma: So… Can I ask you about it now, Director?

Ueno: Ask what? I’m getting scared (laughs).

Konuma: It’s nothing to be on your toes about. You know how during the recording of episode 1, you passed letters to the cast?

Ueno: Yes, I did.

Konuma: Each letter explained their character’s reason for living, except Yuki’s was a blank sheet of paper. It was meant to signify that she was empty inside, though another thought hit me back home. I asked myself, “Wait, what? Was that a clever bit of wordplay?”

Ueno: Oh, I get it now!

Konuma: I thought that maybe the blank paper, which you can read as hakushi, represented Yuki’s mentor who just so happens to use that name.

Ueno: I wasn’t trying to make a corny pun! (laughs)

Konuma: I’ve been hesitating to bring it up with you since the recording of episode 3. “Did it have a double meaning?” “You’re quite the rapper!”

—Miura-san may have had the same thought.

Konuma: I could see that.

Ueno: She does not (laughs). The last time we met, she told me she was still taking good care of that letter.

—The touch of surrealism in the show is part of its appeal. It might be an idea to make the Hakushi allegory canon.

Konuma: Well? Shall we?

Ueno: I refuse (laughs). It was a callback to the final scene of the movie Fahrenheit 451, which stated that people live and die for one purpose in life.

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Director Ueno’s Sentiment Akin to Being Suicidal and Konuma’s Trauma Come Together in a Novel Opening Sequence

—My other question is about the opening theme. I was surprised by the sequence being an instrumental track playing against a shot of the highway. How did you come up with that?

Ueno: During our initial meeting, I shared my concepts, ideas, and even storyboards. The production side then suggested instrumental music as a possibility. That was how LIN-san from MADKID was brought up. Sampling his work, I found his instrumentals to be wonderful and sent him the offer. As the 90 second sequence was ready by then, it became an unusual request for the sequence to be scored.

—What were the thoughts behind that opening sequence?

Ueno: While I storyboarded the first episode, I reached a point where I was at a loss and unable to proceed. And so, I took a break and tried experiencing Yuki’s irregular lifestyle for myself. I’d wake up in the evening, wander aimlessly at night, things like that. Then one day, after hours of walking, I found myself stopping above a pedestrian bridge. When I later pondered why I stopped there, it dawned on me that how I felt then was not unlike being suicidal. That thought led me to draw the storyboards for the opening theme. When I shared that story with Konuma-san, he told me about a dream he had…

Konuma: Work was so hectic at the time that it took a toll on me mentally. I had this bizarre recurring dream as a result.

Ueno: That very dream contained what I felt was the “soul” of the show.

Konuma: In my dream, I rode an open-top double-decker bus, the kind you’d find on the streets of London. I was seated upstairs, and both sides of the bus were burning intensely. It was hot and frightening, but the bus didn’t stop speeding along the freeway. Then the headlights of an oncoming car zoomed past my side like a will-o’-the-wisp. I was all smiles as I shared my dream with him.

Uneo: That was a lightbulb moment for me. There was no better way to depict the moment where Yuki comes closest to death, yet continues to cling onto living. It’s for that reason the visuals were updated for episode 8 where Candle Woods began.

Konuma: I never imagined that my corporate slave trauma would be elevated to a work of art (laughs).

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What Lies Beyond the Death Games

—As we wrap things up, the story of the climactic game Candle Woods is currently about to begin. What should viewers look forward to seeing and hearing?

Konuma: The choice of music as the characters fight at the start of episode 11 to me is what best represents Shiboyugi. I picked it based on my read that “These girls are simply enjoying the death game before they march to their own demise!” I’d say I did a good job there (laughs). Also, the direction is the culmination of everything that led to this point, resulting in an experience that drives home that you’re in Ueno’s directorial domain.

Ueno: We poured everything we had into reaching Candle Woods’ conclusion.

Konuma: I particularly remember how we kept exchanging our thoughts on love during the recording of episodes 8 up to the finale.

Ueno: At the time, Konuma-san was reading a book by Erich Fromm. I gave it a read myself, and there was something in there about people who are incapable of truly loving themselves also lacking the ability to love others in return. To that, I thought “No way that’s correct.” Even someone like Yuki, who is unable to love herself, is perfectly capable of loving other people.

Konuma: We even found ourselves discussing Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence at the recording studio.

Ueno: Digressing a little, in the early stages of the anime’s planning, I contemplated what the world depicted in this work could be missing. Various thoughts popped up in my mind, like how it was likely a place without pachinko parlors, or how there must be no trust between people. Then, I reached the conclusion that the world of Shiboyugi probably has no love. That would be the reason these death games were held, and why children find themselves with no choice but to participate in them. Those were my initial thoughts. And yet, part of me considered “But even then…“—what followed that train of thought culminates with the finale.

Konuma: It was the result of digging deep into what lies at the very core of these death games.

Ueno: Thoughts like “What were the last things Kyara and Moegi touched?”, or “What did Yuki take away from it?”. I am truly fortunate to have been able to arrive at the soul of this work. I owe it to the staff who continued to reach out to the essence of these girls, over and over again.

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