“At Nintendo, I have the joke title of ‘NHK Morning Drama Critic’,” he said, referencing the national broadcasting company in Japan. “I check morning dramas every day and provide various critiques. Sometimes I’ll praise them as being fantastic, and other times I’ll point out their shortcomings.
“Gradually, I’ve become more outspoken, and even my wife has told me, ‘I don’t want to hear it, go talk about it somewhere else.” [laughs] Over the past 10 or 20 years of doing this, I’ve developed an interest in creating dramas.
“I find that morning dramas often have lively dialogue. Directors who emphasise ad-libs tend to create more engaging content overall. When a director or cinematographer is on set and says, ‘Okay, that’s a wrap!’ I often think, ‘I can’t believe they approved this line.’ I realised that lively conversations are crucial in creating dramas.”
He added: “For this Japanese version, we wanted to create a script that wouldn’t be awkward when compared to Chris’s [the director] version, so we were involved in various ways up until the voice recording. Basically, over the past decade or so, I’ve been quite conscious of creating dramas in my daily life.”