We had the privilege of interviewing anime screenwriter Yoshiki Sakurai at Anime Expo 2014! Sakurai is perhaps best known for being one of the screenwriters for Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, but he’s also done work for many other Production I.G. titles such as Seirei no Moribito and xxxHolic. More recently, he’s done screenwriting for anime films such as Redline and Giovanni’s Island, the latter which received the Jury Distinction Prize at the Annency Animation Festival.
Sakurai, trained as an economist and media environment scholar at Tokyo University, brings a genuine depth to his talk with us about the ideas behind “Ghost in the Shell” and other works, along with his thoughts about cyberpunk, the Singularity, and why the movie “Her” is so unoriginal! He also talks about his latest project, Giovanni’s Island, and how that film may help bring about the future of animation.
This interview was conducted in English, which Sakurai speaks with near-native fluency.
