100 Meters Director Kenji Iwaisawa on Making 2025’s Best Anime Movie Yet

ComingSoon’s Tyler Treese spoke with 100 Meters director Kenji Iwaisawa about Rock’n Roll Mountain and GKIDS‘ new anime movie. Based on the sports manga of the same name, the film follows two track stars as they create a bond and then compete throughout many years. Now playing in select theaters and out nationwide on October 12, Iwaisawa spoke about the film’s use of rotoscoping, its unique art style, and more.

“100 Meters follows Togashi, a track star who is born to run. As a kid, he is naturally gifted and wins every 100-meter race without effort. But in sixth grade, he meets Komiya, a transfer student who is full of determination but lacks technique. In teaching him, Togashi gives Komiya a new purpose: to win no matter what. Years pass by, and Togashi and Komiya meet again as rivals on the track and reveal their true selves,” says the official synopsis.

Tyler Treese: I loved seeing all the little touches in the animation after the runs, which are brought to life so well because of the rotoscoping. What do you enjoy most about embracing Rotoscoping, which has such a great history in film?

Kenji Iwaisawa: I really started out with live-action filmmaking. And then I think that I learned that, “Oh, if you trace the live-action, then it could become animation,” and that’s how I sort of extended my career to rotoscoping. I’m really attracted to rotoscoping because you’re able to test it out first in the live-action footage, whether it’s composition or how to create the scene. So, that’s what I really like about it.

A lot of sports anime focuses on the joy that people get from their sports, and we see some of that here, but we also see a lot of disillusionment and despair from these track stars and how that impacts their mental health. What interested you the most in this idea of a person achieving their goals and then feeling empty afterwards?

I think the 100-meter races is really such a stoic sport, even among other sports, because the race is really only like 10 seconds. It’s over so quickly. But the preparation to get there… There’s just so much behind it, and the athletes have to work on keeping up their body condition right and peaking at the right moments. Then there’s a lot of different elements that have to work to get a good record. It’s also easy to get injuries. So, I think it’s a really cruel sport in a sense. So then I think that’s why, instead of the joy of winning that ten-second race, it’s really a lot of pressure and despair.

So I think that’s why I sort of incorporated that in the film, and I was also drawn to it because it’s not a team sport. It’s such an individualized sport, so I think that’s why, instead of joy, I think there’s more like despair. It does affect your mental health because you are really alone.

We also see that spark reignited for the runners, and we learn why people pursue their passions. I ultimately found the film very inspiring. Could you relate to how all these characters felt due to your own work in creative arts and animation?

Yeah, so I really wanted to be a live-action filmmaker, but then I really couldn’t make the films that I liked. I made a bunch, but then they never came out to you. They’re just never seen. I think that’s where I felt despair, just like the athletes in this film. But I was able to discover rotoscoping after that, and then moved on to creating a film using rotoscoping, and then I was able to create a feature-length film. I think I was able to come back to find the joy of filmmaking.

I love the art style of 100 Meters because even though this is very realistic, you still take full advantage of it being animation. The art style is regularly changing to fit the feel of specific scenes. What do you find engaging about this very intentional style clash that 100 Meters has?

Yes, I think this really relates to my production style, but 100 meters is such a simple sport. It’s a race. They run in a straight line, and it’s over really soon. So then I really had to come up with different ways to depict that simple sport. So, then I was trying to think of like, “Oh, okay, so how do I make it interesting and not boring?” Then I think different ideas came up, and then the style changes came through that, and then I think that was incorporated into the film.

I got so excited when the last time jump happened in the movie. I just was not expecting it. Can you speak to the challenge of adapting a five-volume manga, and how you use that long time period to your advantage in the film?

Yeah, indeed. The manga was too long to fit into 102 minutes. I think when we came up with the outline of what the movie was gonna be about, we really had to tighten it up. So, in the manga, Nigami has more background to his story, like focusing on fear and despair, most of that comes from his character. But in the film, we really wanted to focus on the two protagonists, which is Togashi and Komiya. So, we had to cut Nigami’s involvement.

Manga and movies, they’re different mediums, obviously. They’re gonna have different ways of expressing. So in the manga, when they’re running, there’s a lot more monologue of what they’re thinking about while they’re running. But I think we cut almost all of the monologue while they’re running because I really wanted the audience to feel it and be realistic in what a race is like. It’s really only 10 seconds. So then, by cutting the monologue, I think the audience was able to feel what a real race is like.

Source: Comingsoon.net