Hauru no Ugoku Shiro (Howl's Moving Castle)

Translator's notes in yellow.

4/13/04 (Tues.)

You have probably already seen it in the newspapers, but today was the presentation of the voice cast. Everybody definitely go and see the film in the theater once it is finished!

A pinch!! The key animation inspectors have no more cuts on hand. There will be some to finish tomorrow, but only a few cuts. Since by the day after tomorrow they will be finished with everything they have, we have to get ahead before then. The production rate has become uneven in parts where the content has gotten dense. We have to think of some strategy. Perhaps tomorrow will be irregular...

4/14/04 (Weds.)

Well, perhaps it is inevitable that as the key animators run out of cuts on hand and the number of key animators becomes fewer, the number of cuts they finish also naturally diminishes. It's inevitable. Ah, the number of cuts looks small. Since there is nothing to be done about it, we understand, but it's still serious.

4/15/04 (Thurs.)

From morning on there was nothing on the animation direction shelves. Today is a real race against time. Which will be faster, animation direction or in-between animation? By evening, it turned out that there was a little bit of material left on the animation direction shelves. There's never been a day when we were more relieved to see something left on the animation direction shelves.

4/16/04 (Fri.)

Animation direction has now finished more than 120,000 sheets. However, considering the content that remains, there are still some ten thousands of sheets to go. Well --

Recording is proceeding according to schedule, but because of that, the amount of time for checking and such has decreased. We feel this dilemma every time.

4/17/04 (Sat.)

Because of recording and such, the rush check was postponed until today. Today we passed the 1000-cut mark. A little fewer than 400 cuts remain.

As with the past several weeks running, there was a weekend dash today too. But this week it was not only the key animators but also animation direction. The animation direction shelves were getting a little sparse, but today, we were put at ease. Lately we have been worried when there is material finished by the in-between animators waiting on the shelves, but for today...

4/19/04 (Mon.)

Every Monday we hold a regular production meeting. When Imura left the studio as usual to gather data, his phone rang, and it was Kamimura saying "Sorry. I tore a fingernail, so I'll be a little late," in a moaning voice. Kamimura invites disaster. But it's too bad for Imura that he had to listen to that story first thing in the morning. Kamimura tore his toenail once too. What will be next?!

Animation direction passed 1200 cuts. Since I had a moment, I checked the records for Spirited Away, and it looks like we are at about the same point. Oh, will history repeat itself?

4/20/04 (Tues.)

The number of cuts is still low, but on the second day of the week we have already finished up half the number of frames we did last week. Since the number of frames in a cut naturally increases in the second half, this is only natural, but it will still take time to inspect that much. The in-between animators, who have been empty-handed until recently are very busy. Sorry the difference between the mountains and valleys is so great.

One more of the internal key animators finished up the cuts he had on hand. With that, we are down to a 12-man team.

4/21/04 (Weds.)

Now, everything depends on the key animators, and they have started giving priority to cuts which look like they might be able to be finished quickly. Key animation from the final cut was finished today. There are still 50 cuts or more to be done, but there's a "We've finally made it to here" feeling.

Watanabe and Kamimura, the gluttons of the production team, bought a baumkuchen. Kamimura was inspired by something he heard on the radio, but Watanabe also was very interested and they bought one right away. Since they bought the biggest one they could find, the production team ate it as a group. "Definitely delicious" was the verdict.