"I Knew I Would Regret It If I Couldn't Do It": Non Looks Back on In This Corner of the World, 10 Years On

MAPPA EXPO 15th Anniversary opened on September 16 at YURAKUCHO MUSEUM in Tokyo. The exhibition lets visitors look back over MAPPA's works through the years, among them Chainsaw Man The Movie Reze Arc and the anime Jujutsu Kaisen, alongside production materials and sculptural displays.

Non, who played Suzu Hojo in In This Corner of the World, the Sunao Katabuchi film made by MAPPA, appeared at the MAPPA EXPO 15th Anniversary press preview and opening event held ahead of the exhibition's launch. She spoke about her memories of the recording sessions and about MAPPA's works.

In This Corner of the World, the first leading role she took under the name Non, has now reached 10 years since its release in 2016. Asked how she came to be cast, she looked back on that time: "Director Katabuchi called me in to ask whether I could do Suzu's voice, I tried my voice out, and they chose me. A world opened up in which the story inside an animated work felt as though it really existed, and I thought I would absolutely regret it if I could not do Suzu's voice."

She went on to describe the strong feelings she poured into the film: "It was my first job after I became Non, and as Non I am the same age as this film, so it is a work I feel very attached to. I was sure it would be a special work for me as I made a fresh start and carried on as an actor, and I felt it almost as a mission, thinking, I absolutely have to do this."

When the conversation turned to the difference between acting in live action and acting in anime, she looked back on the recording sessions: "The means of expression are different, so the way you produce your voice is completely different too. It is a matter of drawing on a different place, I suppose, and I feel that anime calls for more technical elements. You act without using your body or your facial expressions, and when I recorded my lines the footage was not finished yet, so I performed while taking direction from the director. I was feeling my way forward, drawing out the images that were in the director's head, and I put my whole soul into it while concentrating on Suzu as she moved."

She continued, prefacing her remarks with 'this is hard to put into words', and went further into the difference between live action and anime. "When you make a work, whether it is fiction or nonfiction, there is a kind of license you are allowed to take on screen. The license you take on stage and the license you take on screen are different, and the license of live action and the license of anime are different again. I think anime has an infinite range of what it can do with it. Reading that anime license as I acted was something I found really difficult."

On Katabuchi's direction, she recalled: "He directed with great care. I think it was truly fortunate to be able to make a work with someone who faces the work so sincerely and engages so thoroughly with the performers, and I kept the director under a barrage of questions while I worked on Suzu."