RE:CREATORS' art direction and design choices - Pixivision interview with the art direction team (Japanese - English synopsis included)

The following text is a synopsis of a large article that discusses Re: CREATORS's art direction and design from the website "Pixivision" (it was also retweeted by Hiroe and the official anime twitter).

Original source: https://www.pixivision.net/en/a/2534

Disclaimer: the article is long and I did my best to translate and summarize it but there may be mistakes/inaccuracies. Also, there may typos and mistakes as English isn't my native language.

• One of the people interviewed is Tomoyuki Arima, a designer, who is in charge of the series art direction (more specifically 2D design);

• Since their job was to reinforce the sense of believablity of the world, they created "Piclive" (which is the equivalent of Pixiv in the series universe);

• While Hiroe said his main inspiration was "Last Action Hero", there's also the fact the series revolves a lot around fictional material. Many creations appear, but the viewer isn't experiencing the original work. For example, Fate/Grand Order has already the estabilished background of the Fate franchise, so it's easier to understand references and immerse in the world. But Re:CREATORS has nothing like that. So, as Arima said, they have to rely on "stereotypes" to start from somewhere. For this reason they commissioned illustrations (since fantasy and mecha are common stereotypes) and created "Piclive";

• The layout clearly reminds of pixiv (that was done on purpose). Arima wanted to express the emotions of those who post on pixiv and hope to get at least 1 like from their work. Also the way the UI of Sota's PC and Piclive are shown was done on purpose (to show the difference between him, a sort of nobody, and the highest ranked artists);

• Arima feels the scenes where Sota tries to draw but can't "realistic", as they represent something that happens to artists (he usually mentions high schoolers and university students);

• The way the folder of Sota's drawings appears was done under Aoki's ideas (like, the order of the images or if they were done or half done),

• Arima briefly discusses that the images they requested for Piclive where uploaded by the respective artists on Pixiv, he feels it's good because it "melts the reality" and explains that this term means stuff similar to, when in 2007 for an ARG Chicago became Gotham City, a sort of immersive world where the boundary between reality and fiction blurs;

• Arima worked on Aldonah Zero as well, and remembers he put together a 16 page booklet for the press that detailed the setting. The catch was that the booklet was issued in several versions, one depicting the setting from the Earth side and the other from the Mars side;

• Arima jokes that he got permission from Kadokawa to print the "Anitype" booklet that comes with the LE BD. Of course, the magazine was done in the anime with the same concept of "melting reality";

• Part of the Anitype magazine shown actually has real titles mixed in, and someone noticed it an posted about it on Twitter;

• The visual used for the OST was done in order to connect with the story (i.e. it wasn't something made up for the sake of it);

• There's the mention of "design that gets closer to content", which means getting it closer to the world and the story of the anime.

• The logo was created after the the scripts for episode 1 and 2 were made. The Piclive design and other design materials for the world came first;

• Eight people do the art direction for the series, and the material is shared between the team;

• The tangram in the logo is used as a metaphor of the various fictional works and characters that compose the series;

• There also has been work on color design, with purple being the most common, even though there's a defining color for each character;

• Why purple? Because red represents the fictional world, blue our world, and the combination between the two (what happens in the series, basically) is purple;

• Arima also adds that he settled for purple because it's a color that doesn't represent either of the forces in the anime (fictional vs real);

• The web site was designed in a simple way due to the vast difference between characters and settings, to help comprehension;

• There are a few comments about the way the story "reconstructs" previous stories, in a Japanese way (there are other comparisons, with comics such as Wonder Woman);

• They also discuss the concept of the series of making creators interact with creations, though it's also ok to make comments such as "Meteora is cute";

• Arima said the story will expand "realistically" (exact quote is "物語が進んでいけば今お話したようなことが、よりリアルに伝わってくると思います") though I don't know when this interview took place so it's hard to understand what he's referring to (they reference up to the fifth episode). He's also frustrated he can't say more;

• He usually decides to take a job after reading the script, but made an exception for the series;

• He finds the premise interesting, especially these times where it's possible to edit and change stories;

• He feels he's less restricted while doing original animation, when it comes to art direction.

And that's all.