'Gintama: Yoshiwara in Flames' Team on Burning the District

By Elena Vasquez

"Gintama: Yoshiwara in Flames," the fourth cinema outing for the cult anime franchise, previewed this week at Lucca Comics and Games, Europe's largest Comic-Con, ahead of its theatrical release in Italy. Director Naoya Ando and producer Ryo Nakamuray spoke with Variety about continuing the saga.

The franchise began as a manga written and drawn by Hideaki Sorachi. It is set in an alternative, sci-fi version of late-Edo-period Tokyo, where aliens called the Amanto have invaded Earth and three friends set off on a personal mission. The manga spawned a 367-episode anime series and three previous big-screen spin-offs.

How do you make a TV franchise cinematic?

Ando said the plan for the film leaned on format from the start. "When we started planning this film, we already knew that there would be many action scenes," he said. The team chose the CinemaScope ultrawide ratio and 3D. The goal: move the camera more, vary the shots, and keep the lens distant enough to appreciate the design and setting.

The story arc had already been told on television, but with one decisive gap. Producer Takashi Maekawa, who also worked on the series, gave Ando a direct answer when asked whether Yoshiwara would burn this time. "Yes this time we're going to burn everything," Maekawa said. Ando said the group then made a collective creative decision to stage the destruction.

What changed between February and September?

The film opened in Japan in February, then returned in September as a revised version with more than a hundred changed shots. Ando explained the schedule: the February release met a deadline, but the team knew some shots were imperfect. When the DVD release created an opening, they went back. "We retouched over 200 shots," Ando said. That is a revision touching well over a hundred individual frames or sequences after the theatrical debut.

The five-year gap since the anime finished also shaped the production. Ando said technology had made great leaps in that period, and the team used the new tools to push the film forward, especially in 3D animation. The music is largely new as well.

How do you run studios across Asia?

The end credits list tens of studios from China to Indonesia to Vietnam. Nakamuray described the method: animation always divides elements among teams, some specializing in characters, others in action. The producers select the collaborators best suited to each element, meet with the different studios, and assign a team leader responsible for each group's work.

On expectations for a beloved arc, Nakamuray was blunt. The arc was hugely popular in both manga and anime, but the team felt there was enough time and the benefit of working on a different scale.

Why does the humor need its own director?

Ando acknowledged that comedy is the hardest element to carry across cultures. One director worked principally on the humor. The solution, Ando said, was not to signal "this bit is really funny" to the audience, but to let the characters joke among themselves while the audience listens in.

The Lucca preview marked a first European step for the film franchise. Ando said he was honored by the invitation and moved by the warmth of the Italian fans' reception. A wider Italian theatrical release now follows, and with it the franchise's first real test with European audiences.