As a long time fan of Japanese animation director Masaaki Yuasa ( with works like Mind Game, Devilman Crybaby and Eizouken ), I’ve been looking forward to watching his latest animation film Inu-Oh (犬王), but opportunities are far and few in between as I am located in Vancouver, exacerbated by the inconveniences caused by the pandemic. As such, I was extremely thrilled when the US distributor for the film GKIDS provided a screener for Inu-Oh, and to make things even better arranged for a Q&A session with the director himself for those of us working at Sony Pictures Animation / Imageworks ( see image below ).

I went into the movie blind with no prior knowledge that it was a Noh inspired musical infused with punk-rock elements, and while I can imagine it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, I certainly enjoyed it.

During the Q&A, I was very fortunate to be able to ask Masaaki Yuasa two questions, and below are excerpts of what I remember –


Q – You’ve collaborated with manga artist Taiyo Matsumoto before on the TV series Ping-Pong. Could you tell us a little more about how he came to be involved in Inu-Oh ?

Masaaki Yuasa – I’m a big fan of Taiyo Matsumoto. Back in the day, when I first saw his work, I felt an affinity to his art and thought our ideas and drawings share some of the same aesthetics and feel, although he certainly articulated them with more humor and thoughfulness than me. Soon after, his quality of work progressed rapidly and he rose to prominence ( way ahead of me ) *laughs*

Because Taiyo Matsumoto has already done illustrations and also the cover art for the original Inu-Oh novel, he was the natural candidate to help us with character design work on the animated film. During our discussions while working on the movie, I do feel that he was careful to be very polite with my ideas and suggestions, and in the same way I was to him as well. If I can get to work with him again on a future project, I would really like for both of us to overcome any reservations and not hold back on each other, although not to the extent that we would get into arguments !

Q – Inu-Oh’s premise is based on and inspired by Noh, a very traditional Japanese performing art form. Did you encounter any kind of push-back or resistance from the Noh community or the advisors when you introduced elements of Punk Rock into the art form ?

Masaaki Yuasa – Not at all ! The Noh advisors on the film and the Noh community were actually very warm and welcoming and gave us lots of great advice and suggestions, especially because Inu-Oh is an informed work of fiction. Also, as Inu-Oh is also a Jidaigeki ( period film ), we are depicting events that happened many hundreds of years ago, and our true understanding is actually limited, and it would be somewhat narrow-minded to gatekeep what we think is “accurate”. In fact, while Noh performances are commonly known to be slow and rather quiet, there has been historic accounts that suggest it was actually more like a circus, with much more rowdy performances.

As for the decision to use Punk Rock music, it was a fitting choice as we needed something rebellious and really powerful that would threaten the establishment into banning it ( in the movie, the Punk Rock / Noh fusion of musical performance are eventually outlawed and persecuted by the Imperial government ). On top of that, I wanted to inject something that is inherently anachronistic for the Jidageki period, because this gives the viewers something to grab onto and also engage in their own subsequent research and discussions as to what musical performances were really like back then.


I thoroughly enjoyed the Q&A session; a very big thanks to GKIDS and Sony Pictures Animation (SPA) for organizing the event as well as SPA director Yori Mochizuki for moderating the panel.

I’m looking forward to the eventual blu-ray release of Inu-Oh by GKIDS ( the Japanese edition is extravagant but exorbitant as usual ), and I have also ordered the art book and will review it in the coming weeks. Stay tuned !

Update Dec 2022 – GKIDS now has a blu-ray release with English subtitles, and is much more affordable than the Japanese release too. Hooray !

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