Now playing in theaters nationwide is All You Need Is Kill, an animated feature adaptation of the Japanese novel about young woman Rita, who’s living the same day over and over again. She must defeat a giant alien plant creature named Darol in order to save the world and break her curse. Sound familiar? That’s because the concept was previously presented in live-action form in 2014’s Edge of Tomorrow, starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. Director Kenichiro Akimoto shares what’s unique about this version, and what he loved about making this epic sci-fi action adventure. (This Animation Scoop Q&A was conducted on Zoom with a translator, and was edited for length and clarity.)

Jackson Murphy: Big fan of this film, as well as “Edge of Tomorrow”. I love what you do with the story. What attracted you to “All You Need Is Kill”?

Kenichiro Akimoto: I’ve been working on different projects for a while. The timing just happened to match up where I wanted to work on a science fiction project, and at the same time, Warner Bros. said, “We would like you to work on ‘All You Need Is Kill'”. The story is very different from the original. The novel is a very complete story. The live-action took a very different approach, but it had a very high entertainment value. What I wanted to was create an original component in the animation. That’s why I decided to take Rita’s point of view and make her the main character.

JM: She is such a strong heroine. Bold. A lot of energy and emotion. What do you love about her spirit and determination?

KA: What I like most about Rita is that she doesn’t smile so easily to others. She doesn’t try to appeal to other people and be liked by others.

JM: I love how she writes the number of the day on her hand. Why was it important to you to include that? And why is that so significant for her?

KA: The original novel had her writing the numbers down. But I also personally jot down notes for things when I don’t want to forget on my hand. So it was a combination of those two that I had Rita write the number of loops on her hand. Rita ends-up on a time loop. The only thing she gets to keep is her memory. Everybody else around her forgets everything that happened, regardless of how many times she has helped them, or what happens during the previous loop. In a way, I wanted her to etch into memory something that was real… keeping track of where she was.

JM: It’s a really great element. Rita and Keiji are living the same day over and over again. As a filmmaker, you are looking at the same shots over and over again, in the animation process and editing process. Did you find parallels there?

KA: Yes, for sure. I kind of got into a panic mode sometimes because I couldn’t remember what loop I was working on. I felt like I was in the same situation as them.

JM: The colors of everything — so dynamic. Darol, the sky, the fight scenes… What was your approach to the visual look of “All You Need Is Kill”?

KA: With the color, I wanted to make sure that it was original. Compared to the original novel and the live-action film, they were very cool… a very cool world. But they were darker and more militaristic. I wanted, with animation… to make the world very colorful. Rita experiences death over and over again when she’s in the time loop, but I wanted to make sure her fight to live, her will to survive, is expressed beautifully. That’s why I decided to make it very colorful and very vivid. At the same time, I also wanted to give a contrast to her situation. She’s living in a very vivid Hell. She is suffering, but I wanted to make sure the world around her is beautiful.

JM: Are there other animated films or directors you love whose work you can watch over and over again? And did they inspire this film?

KA: I do watch [some movies] 50 or 100 times. For animation, the movies I like the most are “Patlabor 1 and 2”. For live-action, “Terminator 2 [Judgment Day]”. Whatever I watched when I was between 8 and 12 years old, those things are my inspiration. And I could tell as I was creating this film that “This part is like this sequence. I remember this.” I’m definitely inspired by a lot of the things I watch, and I believe that I will continue to be inspired by other movies in the future as well.