‘The Imaginary’ Producer/Writer Yoshiaki Nishimura On Emotionally Engaging the Audience With Imaginary Characters

Yoshiaki Nishimura serves as the producer and writer for the upcoming Netflix anime film The Imaginary. Based on the 2014 novel, the hand-drawn film introduces Amanda and her imaginary friend, Rudger, as they embark on thrilling make-believe adventures. Rudger encounters a dangerous threat, though, when he stumbles alone into The Town of Imaginaries where forgotten imaginary friends and creatures find work.

In this interview with Awards Daily, Nishimura, a former producer at Studio Ghibli and founder of Studio Ponoc, details what attracted him to the film’s source novel and what it took to create his first full screenplay, including the creation of such a dark villain. He also talks about Studio Ponoc’s growing output and how this film is part of a larger goal he has with the work they put out into the world.

Awards Daily: What was it about the book The Imaginary that made you want to make it into a film?

Yoshiaki Nishimura: I read a lot of different children’s books from around the world–Japan, Germany, England, etc. The most attractive thing about this film is that the main character in this film is the imaginary boy created by a girl. There are many stories where a human child encounters some creature and through that encounter the character grows. I wanted to see if you could get emotionally involved with a main character that was imaginary. That was the kind of challenge I wanted to attempt.

Award Daily: This is the first full screenplay you have ever written. What is that experience like?

Yoshiaki Nishimura: Thank you so much for knowing that! It’s not unusual as a producer to structure an animation script, but actually creating a script is very different. In Japan, an imaginary friend is not a concept that is generally accepted. So in order for me to explain this to the director I needed to create a written treatment to explain that concept. The plan was to be a four page treatment and it ended up being forty pages. Then the director Yoshiyuki Momose asked, Can you turn this into a script? So something I did that I think was different from other script writers was imagine this two hour long piece. Then using that as my template, I started putting the ideas down on paper. It wasn’t just the words. I had everything in my mind: where the camera would go, the lighting. It became very long with all the details. That was my experience.

Awards Daily: One part of the script I really enjoyed was Mr. Bunting. He is quite a scary character with the visual as he’s trying to eat imaginary creatures. But it was his dialogue that I thought was really particularly menacing. The way he talked about imaginary creatures didn’t matter, that he was more important. I was curious how much of that was from the book and how much was from your own writing?

Yoshiaki Nishimura: So with Mr Bunting there’s not a strong definitive characteristic of him in the book. So I expanded him in the script, and it took me a year and a half to understand this character. I had to really think about what was something that would eat imagination in this world. I think he symbolizes manipulation in society.

Awards Daily: You worked with the director Yoshiyuki Momose on your short film as well as in several other features within your production company. What is it about your relationship with him that allows you to be so creative?

Yoshiaki Nishimura: I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, Mr. Momose at Studio Ghibli was the one always exploring new ways of doing things. He was below Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki, but he was the one who really figured out how to push the envelope in trying to do something new. When I first joined Studio Ghibli I saw these shorts called Ghiblies, and Momose was the director, and they were all very different from each other. So I wanted him to express a variety of different aspects that he has in himself to this film, so I asked him to become the director.

Awards Daily: Speaking of the different aspects of the film, you have this childlike innocence and yet you have incredibly dark moments like how the imaginary friend was made, the mother remembering her imaginary friend, and these deep emotions. Was that part of what made the book appealing, this contrast between innocence and these darker emotions?

Yoshiaki Nishimura: While this story has scary parts that were in the book as well, it was very challenging to balance between the fun that kids can have versus the scary parts. We thought about removing the scary parts. But it’s different from when I was growing up. Kids are exposed to scary things like earthquakes, fires, and war as they are growing up. So I wanted to create a film where children gain power to overcome these scary things. We wanted children to believe they have the power to overcome things within themselves.

Awards Daily: This is the third feature from your production company Studio Ponoc. I’m curious what you’ve learned over these three films and if it has changed how you view what you’re going to be doing with your company moving forward?

Yoshiaki Nishimura: That is a tough question! Each piece that we have created is all different. We are still a small production house, but we are no different than the larger production houses in that we put every effort and passion into creating something that we are satisfied with. We might be creating many different genres of work, but what they have in common is that we’re creating hand-drawn animation for children that can make a change in the world.