The Japanese magazine New guy had the opportunity to interview Toshiyuki Kubooka, Director responsible for the anime adaptation of the light novel series by Jougi Shiraishi and illustrated by Azure blue, Majo no Tabitabi (The Journey of Elaina). The talk in question covered various topics related to the director’s participation in the play and his opinion on the various aspects of this franchise. He also mentioned that the series will premiere an episode with a plot ‘dark‘.
How did you feel when you received the job offer to direct the anime?
This is the first time I’ve worked on the adaptation of a novel. I felt like I had more freedom to work on it because you don’t have to follow the same graphical sequence of a manga. It is well known that when adapting a manga one has to be as faithful as possible to the development of the vignettes in order to get a job that meets the expectations of the fans. This is what caught my attention when I received the invitation to participate in the series.
What is your impression of the easy novels Majo no Tabitabi?
Several things attracted me. Elaina, the protagonist, was one of them. In fact, I noticed that almost all of the characters are women. I also liked the illustrations that are Azure blue created to accompany this beautiful story. The latter helped us a lot to manage the customization as it gave us a guideline to better understand the context of the stories being told, whether they were comic book stories or dramatic scenes.
Novels create a certain emotion in you as their main character spends his time traveling and meeting lots of people. As a director, I wanted to produce something that conveyed the same emotion. There were several very interesting lectures and discussions to create scripts. However, I think that we achieve this goal in our audience and that we are pretty satisfied.
What was the biggest challenge in adapting the story to an anime series?
Elaina spends her time traveling around many countries, which means knowing different cultures and customs. This was difficult to adjust as all of these places were fictional and based on a medieval world with magic. It’s a bit difficult to graphically capture a cultural diversity with so many fantastic elements. However, thanks to the staff in charge of the art, we were able to create a wonderful world full of beautiful landscapes. The art is definitely one of the show’s strengths.
How do you feel that your directing has influenced the art of the series?
At first I asked myself why we need to draw great walls to medieval cities in history. Witches can blow up the sky with brooms and easily pierce them. Soon after, I started to think that witches are very likely to be respectful people who come down from heaven to establish bureaucratic procedures for entering each country, and that is exactly what is shown in the anime. These small details, which are somewhat ambiguous in the novel, have been taken into account and additionally support the plot. That coherence helped a lot with the graphic design, and I suppose it was my most notable contribution in the arts. For everything else we have to thank the responsible employees.
What was your impression when you first saw the character sketches for the anime?
When I was chatting with those responsible for the color and design of the characters, I mentioned to them, “The palette for the anime will be clear, I think a color that is light for the outlines too could be a good contrast. ” They got the idea straight away and followed my instructions for the letter.
What is your opinion on Elaina?
Elaina is a very happy girl and I am quite amused that she is so stingy. This is more of a charming flaw than a character flaw. Since Elaina is the main character, we paid a lot of attention to the animation.
There is a little gag that Elaina repeats many times in the novel, her famous phrase “That’s me”. This phrase should be removed from the series for reasons of customization, but we found a way to preserve it by doing a little monologue from Elaina at the beginning of the episodes.
What is your opinion on Saya, Fran and Sheila?
Saya is an intelligent and determined girl who knows what she likes and what she doesn’t like. This can be seen in the second episode, where he plans an entire trap so as not to cure his loneliness with Elaina’s company.
Fran is an enigmatic figure, you don’t know what she’s thinking or up to. As Elaina’s teacher, however, we have taken great care to include the parts where she is strict with her in colder tones and grays to emphasize that a happy person can be cruel too. I think Fran sees Elaina as a daughter. I am a father of a family and at times I felt very identified with them.
Sheila is an attractive and easy to understand character. Personally, he’s the character I like the most.
What’s next for anime in the future?
Episode 9 of the Majo no Tabitabi series will possibly be the “darkest” one. Keep in mind that this is an anime about witches so the story can get a little somber from time to time. Personally, I think this is going to be a pretty shocking episode. However, I hope that you can continue to support us until the end of the broadcast. All employees do their best to complete the production as quickly as possible.
Shiraishi began publishing the light novels Majo no Tabitabi, illustrated by Azure, through the publishing label GA Bunko from the publisher SB Creative in April 2016. The publisher published the fourteenth volume on October 14th. The work also inspires a manga adaptation by hand Itsuki Nanao, published since November 2018.
The piece inspired a twelve-episode anime adaptation produced by the studios. C2C, Headed by Toshiyuki Kubooka and scripts from Kazuyuki Fudeyasuand which has aired since October 2nd.
Synopsis of Majo no Tabitabi
In a certain place there is a traveling witch named Elaina. As a traveler, she has met many people and countries as she continues her long, long journey. A city that only accepts wizards, a muscle-loving giant, a young man who wants to reconnect with his deceased lover, an abandoned princess in a ruined city, and the witch’s story will be intertwined with everyone.
The witch meets incredibly strange people and makes wonderful memories together. Now, even now, she can’t help but keep her whole life marked by encounters and farewells..
Source: New guy
(C) ・ 定規 ・ SB ク リ エ イ テ ブ 魔女 / 魔女 の 旅 々 製作 委員会
