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“In Japan, there were almost no films centered around the 100-meter dash, a short-distance event, so the idea of trying something no one had ever tried before was incredibly appealing.”
— Regisseur Kenji Iwaisawa
In 2019, Kenji Iwaisawa released his outrageous On-Gaku: Our sounda very personal, low-budget film about three inconspicuous high school students who form a band – despite having no training, talent or musical knowledge. Adapted from Hiroyuki Ohashi’s self-published manga. On-Gaku: Our sound had a subversive punk energy that set it apart from more elaborate conventional films.
Iwaisawa’s new film, 100 Meters (HyakuemuThe series is based on a manga by Uoto and follows two talented sprinters from elementary school to high school to the professional athletics circuit. Togashi is a natural and undefeated in the 100-meter dash, but he runs like a machine on autopilot. His victories bring him little joy. Komiya began running to escape his inability to interact with other people, but he received no training – out of loyalty to his shoes, he runs in shoes that are almost falling apart. Togashi trains Komiya; Komiya helps Togashi discover the fascination of running. A long-standing friendship and rivalry develops, culminating in a final, all-important race.
Dynamic Dash
100 Meters is a much more sophisticated film than On-Gaku: Our sound. Iwaisawa, who says he has “absolutely no running experience,” skillfully combines rotoscoping with drawn animation to capture the energy of the sport. He talked about 100 Meters in a recent email interview with Animation Magazine.
“In Japan, there were almost no films centered around the 100-meter dash, a short-distance race,” says Iwaisawa. “So the idea of doing something that no one had tried before was incredibly appealing. The original manga was quite large, so we had to discuss how we could adapt it to the film’s runtime, which inevitably required restructuring the narrative. I initially suggested, ‘I want to keep this structure and incorporate some original film elements.’ We then received several rounds of feedback from Mr. Uoto.”
The look and sound of 100 Meters is very different from On-Gaku: Our sound. “100 Meters is a sports story with Togashi, a genius, and Komiya, who has no talent but runs with unbridled enthusiasm,” says the director. “It’s also about how two completely different types of people meet and ultimately develop a rivalry in which their positions swap. Of course, this resulted in a somewhat more stoic narrative than On-Gaku“
Iwaisawa watched runners on YouTube and even tried to analyze the movements frame by frame, but since he is not an animator himself, he left the movement and running sequences to Keisuke Kojima.One Punch Man, Hunter x Hunter: The Final Mission), who was responsible for character design and animation direction. “I didn’t do that in-depth research myself, but of course the team did extensive research and converted the movements into animations,” he adds. “I used rotoscoping because that’s the only method I can work with.”
The director mentions that it was difficult to express the feeling of speed. “In traditional animation, running is depicted in three- or two-frame poses, but running at incredible speeds like an athlete runs is rare in standard animation,” he explains. “I realized that a sprint happens in one frame, not three or two frames. When you see real athletes running, they run so fast that you feel like they’re fast-forwarded. That’s how different an athlete’s run is from a normal person’s run.”
One of the challenges of the film was maintaining consistency as the two main characters follow each other from childhood to adulthood. “The elementary school and high school parts were created by different teams,” he explains. “The elementary school part was created using a method more in line with standard animation techniques, while the high school part used rotoscoping. We had the difficulty that the different teams used different methods. The characters sometimes moved differently than we intended, or elements added with good intentions ended up completely contradicting our vision. Taking all of this into account was a real challenge.”
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Another challenge was visually representing the feelings of two stoic characters like Togashi and Komiya. “Togashi had expressive facial expressions, so it wasn’t too difficult to convey his emotions,” Iwaisawa recalls. “With Komiya, on the other hand, it’s more about suppressing his emotions – there are moments where you really can’t tell what he’s thinking. In animation, emotions are often conveyed through facial expressions, but Komiya is a character who has difficulty with that, so that aspect was challenging.”
The film also uses training montages to convey a lot of information without dialogue. “As a director, it was difficult to create the rhythm so that the sequences didn’t seem too choppy,” he explains. “We shot the live-action footage first, then edited it and established the rhythm. With traditional animation, you would probably adjust the rhythm at the storyboard stage or after the drawings were finished, but with rotoscoping you can create a certain rhythm from the beginning based on the live-action footage, so it wasn’t that difficult.”
100 MetersThe finale takes place in the rain, reducing the colors to black, gray and white. “When I started this project, the first thing I did was go to a track and field competition,” says Iwaisawa. “I experienced a scene that you can only see there: the athletes enter the hall before the race, set up their starting blocks and warm up. This routine gave me the idea: ‘I definitely want to include this scene in the film.’ I thought if we could show them in a single, uncut shot, following the athletes the entire time, it would be a true cinematic highlight. I wanted to create this part with an opulent, expressive approach. Depicting the rain wasn’t particularly difficult, as the original manga features a rainy finale. To convey this, we used techniques such as muting the colors: I think it became one of the most memorable scenes in the film.”
GKIDS released 100 Meters Following the Japanese premiere in September and the international premiere at the Annecy Film Festival, the film will be shown in select US cinemas in October. It was produced by Rock ‘n’ Roll Mountain, Pony Canyon, Asmik Ace and Tokyo Broadcasting System.
