Emmy Nominee Emi/Emmett Yonemura On Bringing Fan-Based Love to ‘X-Men ’97’

Emmy nominee Emi/Emmett Yonemura served as director and storyboard artist for Disney+ celebrated Marvel series X-Men ’97. They approached their work through the eyes of a fan who truly loves these characters and the story. They definitely have opinions on where they have taken these characters and are incredibly excited to continue to be able to do more with them. Plus, they are very much a Gambit/Rogue shipper if you are worried about that!

Awards Daily: With a show that has so much of a legacy to it,  especially with so many longtime fans, how did you approach it as a director and a storyboard artist?

Emi/Emmett Yonemura: As a fan! I know there is so much love attached to these characters and I grew up on the ’90s show and some of the comics as well. So for me it was more about okay, as a fan, how do I want to respect the characters I love so much?

Awards Daily:  As someone who isn’t as familiar with the show, one of the things that jumped out at me was the incredible fast-moving action  sequences. I’m curious, again as a director and a storyboard artist, how do you keep track of it all?

Emi/Emmett Yonemura: Oh, sure, that is a lot of fun!  I have a fantastic core artist team and one of them, Jalin Harden, does action so beautifully.  We’re intentionally trying to be a 90s show; we can’t go as hardcore as a lot of modern animation with the sakuga style of really fast paced and amazing visuals on screen. So we can’t do that because we want to stay in the realm of the 90s but we don’t want it to look cheap and we still want it to be entertaining. So Jalin knew how to keep it fast-paced enough where it is fun, with really great movement and action, and it’s still telling a beautiful story within that action. That was really important for us; we can’t just have it be a cluster of effects on screen. It has to mean something, there has to be a reason someone is having this fight. It ended up having a lot of fun storytelling that way, so every shot had to count and matter.

Awards Daily: “Remember It” is your Emmy-submitted episode, and it is the biggest emotional episode for a lot of people. There is the attack on Genosha to begin with and how much the show plays up how terrible that was later.  Also with the loss of a fan favorite character. What were the challenges in pulling that off?

Emi/Emmett Yonemura: Very hard.  One of the challenges is introducing a place and then destroying it all in the same episode, especially when it has to have the huge impact that it does. We are talking about the genocide of a people and how important it is to talk about those subjects, especially in our present-day time, because those tragedies are happening every day. So, how do we within 30 minutes get an audience to feel all of that? How important and how big that is. It really was about establishing Genosha in the right way, and the easiest way for me is to show kids because if kids are happy and at peace, then you know that there is safety that a Utopia is happening here. We actually added that off of the script, showing these kids giving us a tour of Genosha without giving a  real tour. They just show things they like and what makes them happy. In fact we had it even longer where we saw them leaving school and going to meet their friends. For me it was really important to get in because we had to earn it in the end, and there was no way we’re going to be able to earn it if we didn’t set it all up in the beginning.

Awards Daily: This episode is also where we get the full backstory of Magneto and Rogue’s relationship. I know there seems to be a lot of complex feelings about that relationship. How did you decide to approach it?

Emi/Emmett Yonemura: That’s a good question because the first time, especially as a fan, when I saw that we were going to be talking about their relationship I initially went, Ugh, I don’t want to talk about the relationship. I want to talk about Rogue and Gambit’s relationship, not Magneto and Rogue. We knew we had to be careful there because there’s an age difference between the characters and we never wanted to feel like she was groomed, especially at the beginning when she’s talking about her adopted mom giving her to this guy. I was, like, red flag, red flag, red flags all over the place, this is not going to be good. I  actually worked really closely with one of our storyboard revisionists Amber Blade Jones and they did a beautiful pass on that sequence, helping me keep it in Rogue’s POV so when we see Rogue falling in love with Magneto it’s all from her perspective, you never feel like it’s him forcing himself on her. It’s genuinely her falling in love with this man that she finds she can have a connection with and physical contact with. So it was a very tricky line because we wanted it to feel as genuine as Rogue and Gambit, but obviously nothing’s going to beat Rogue and Gambit.

Awards Daily: As emotional as that episode was for me personally, episode 9, “Tolerance is Extinction Part Two,” was the one that really got me. Two big scenes in particular where Cyclops is arguing with Professor X and making some very legitimate points about mistakes Professor X made, as well as the scene where Magneto is talking to everyone and Rogue and Sunspot make very logical reasons to join Magneto at this moment. What were those moments like for you?

Emi/Emmett Yonemura: I love them because no one in the X-Men universe is the perfect noble good that we see with some other superheroes, everybody is flawed. I love that Cyclops is pretty much calling out his adopted father for abandoning them, because he wasn’t there for them. We then have a character like Magneto saying I’m sorry that was genocide, and that is not cool, and of course you’re going to have characters who agree. I think one of the original writers based  Professor X on Martin Luther King Jr. and Magneto on Malcolm X, so you have two very correct perspectives. So what do you do about that? We never wanted it to feel like one was definitely right and one was definitely wrong.

So I thought episode 9 was a great way to show how you can flip the paradigm and change people’s perspectives and have the guy you’ve always looked up to Xavier, who we have known as Dad and, let’s be real, he’s not just our Xavier, he’s our Captain Picard!  He’s always going to be that source of comfort for us and he was wrong!  He made a mistake and I think it’s super good for people to hear, especially if we are reaching out to a younger audience, that you can make mistakes and you can talk about them and hopefully move on.  I think it was really interesting to see Cyclops call Xavier out but also have  Rogue and Sunspot be with Magneto now whether they’re making the right decision or not. They are making a choice and you kind of agree, and even if you don’t, you understand where they’re coming from.

Awards Daily: It’s obvious you’re a huge fan of the comic and the show. But what got you interested in pursuing animation as a job versus just  taking in the media?

Emi/Emmett Yonemura: I found out when I went to the John Kubert School, which is a comic book Art School because I always wanted to do comics.  I like to say that I was a cave troll, (I still am a cave troll) especially as a kid. I would just sit in my room and draw all the time and I would watch animation. But it wasn’t until I went to that school that I realized that people do animation. This stuff doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. Then I started finding a true love for it when I realized how much animation is what I really grew up on, especially in the 90s. So to get to work on it now, it just feels like this is not only what I was meant to do, but also that I can now do this for other kids who are little cave trolls drawing in their rooms.

Awards Daily: This is also your first Emmy nomination. What has that experience been like for you?

Emi/Emmett Yonemura: It has been a true honor.  I am flabbergasted because there’s always been the joke of getting an Emmy. But it’s a true honor to have my work acknowledged this way. I am just really excited because I can tell stories to the end of time, and for it to mean something to people means a lot.

Awards Daily: Interesting phrasing with end of time, considering where you left the characters at the end of the first season. You have thrown quite a curveball, and I’m certain you cannot say anything about what’s happening. But are you excited about the new direction you get to take these characters?

Emi/Emmett Yonemura: Very excited as I heard D23 got to put some sneak peeks out there for people! So I’m glad I don’t have to hold on to everything now, but yes, I am super excited. I really hope fans enjoy the ride as much as we enjoy making it.

Awards Daily: Final thoughts?

Emi/Emmett Yonemura: I just really appreciate everybody’s time and just for letting me tell these stories to begin with.

X-Men ’97 streams exclusively on Disney+.