Ever since I was a child I always had cats with me. I'm from the Nagano prefecture, and while living there I had cats, and after I came to Tokyo I also picked up some strays and started raising them. So I definitely always had cats with me.

I am offered the chance sometimes to work with an anime series, and it is something I feel I should try and be a part of, but at the moment I do not feel like I am ready for it yet and that I have not done enough work. But I am really interested in doing an anime series one day.

The first thing you make is a story. Then you decide where the location of the story will be, and how the story will develop. And then, when you think how the visuals will be in this process, then you finally think about how you take something from the setting and use it, how to depict it, and how to make the setting beautiful. That's when you begin to think that. So the story always comes first.

If I must say something about Mari Okada...I love Toradora! (2008), which she wrote the screenplay for, a lot. And I think that Koto no ha no niwa (2013) is influenced by the way the characters express their emotions in Toradora. I really do think that.

There is always a pendulum of desires: I made a realistic film this time, then I make a different film next time.

In most of the world today people are interested in communication. They don't watch TV or play games that much; communication is becoming more of AN Entertainment form in itself. So when the society in which I live has this tendency that communication is so important, it has naturally become a central point of interest for my works.

The thing about getting rejected is that you reflect and think and analyze about why you got turned down. You learn a lot more from stories about getting rejected than stories about becoming happy. That's why I prefer those stories.