Famous Japanese author Haruki Murakami is happy with the first animated adaptation of his short stories

TOKYO — Famous Japanese author Haruki Murakami said he was happy with the way several of his short stories were adapted into American director Pierre Földes’ animated film “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman,” adding that he wanted to see the future interpretations of his work with the filmmakers’ own vision.

The Japanese version of the 2022 film will first be released in Japan on July 26. This is the first animated adaptation of Murakami’s work.

After screening the film on Saturday at his alma mater, Tokyo’s Waseda University, Murakami — joining Földes in a discussion session — admitted that while he wasn’t a fan of animated films, he ‘had looked twice.

The filmmaker was inspired by six short stories by Murakami: “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo” and “UFO in Kushiro” – taken from the collection “After the Quake”, written after the deadly Kobe earthquake in 1995 – and “ Birthday Girl,” “Dabchick.” », “The Windup Bird and the Tuesday Women”.

“Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman” is set in Tokyo in the aftermath of the Fukushima earthquake, tsunami and meltdown in March 2011. It focuses on three main characters: Katagiri, a hardworking but lonely and lacking in confidence banker who teams up with a giant talking frog to save Tokyo from a second impending earthquake, his unenthusiastic young colleague and his wife Kyoko, who – depressed and glued to the earthquake news on television – leaves him. Through memories and dreams, the three eventually find peace and the ability to start again.

Murakami praised the animated version of the intelligent green frog, voiced by Földes, saying it matched how he imagined the character.

“What I would like to see is not just a cinematic version of what I wrote, but something added to it and becoming something new,” Murakami said at the conference.

Földes said his approach “is about being true to my interpretation of the things that inspire me,” which obviously worked for Murakami.

The American filmmaker said he didn’t have a definitive plan when he chose six stories that “I love.” But things began to grow “as if different cultures were growing together,” he told Murakami. “Little by little, all these connections appeared and that’s how I combined all your stories into one with other stories inside.”

The popular writer’s works have already inspired several award-winning works, including Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car” in 2021 and South Korean director Lee Chang-dong’s thriller “Burning” in 2018.

Murakami cited Földes’ films and animation as examples that successfully achieved his and the directors’ goals.

“Making a film based on short stories would require the creativity of the director to add his own materials, which tends to help in creating an interesting product,” he said, noting that adapting a film from a full novel might require the opposite to achieve it. in a two-hour production.

Murakami also said his “Underground,” his long-form investigative nonfiction work based on interviews with people affected by the 1995 Tokyo subway poison gas terrorist attack, would make a fascinating film.

“Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman” received a nomination for best animated film at the 2024 Lumières Awards.