Momentary Lily, the new original TV animation project coming from anime studio GoHands (known for The Girl I Like Forgot Her Glasses and The Masterful Cat is Depressed Again Today), premiered at this year’s Anime Expo and we had the chance to interview the wonderful staff who are part of the project. If you haven’t heard of Momentary Lily, the series follows the daily lives of high school girls surviving in a post-apocalyptic world after civilization was destroyed by a group of alien monsters. The six main characters all have very distinct personalities and are their own person, something the show builds upon when having them interact and have some slice-of-life moments despite the post-apocalyptic setting.
The staff of Momentary Lily indicated that comments provided are to be collectively attributed to the entire staff. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Characters and Style
To start, the staff of Momentary Lily explained more about how they ended up working on the project. Part of it has to do with the structure of the company; GoHands is a company that has a lot of original works, especially in comparison to other animation studios and as a broader percentage of their overall catalogue. The staff explained:
“We’re one of the companies that are always taking care of original animation. Every month, we have a meeting to talk about what the next title should be. We had a stock of three titles in the meeting, and Momentary Lily was one of those titles. We had the offer from Shochiku [Shochiku Co., Ltd. who is producing the series] about Lily. GoHands always has animation focusing on male characters, so this time, we wanted to try out a project focusing on a female cast of characters.”
This cast of characters is unmistakably unique. Each member of the series’ main group of six has a distinct personality trait, something that was done on purpose to make them all most distinctive. On top of that, the characters are visually quite different and have appearances reminiscent of the character archetype they represent (for example, a gamer girl character constantly wearing headphones and carrying a portable gaming system). I wanted to understand the reasoning behind the personalities that were chosen and the staff explained how they facilitated the creation of the cast.
“Initially, we created a single, well-rounded female character and then split her into six characters. We wanted to create a story that wouldn’t work if even one of them was missing.”
Additionally, they noted how they collaborated with their female staff members in order to assist with the drawing of female characters, something the company usually does not do.
“Since we had never created an anime with female characters as the main focus, we asked our female staff to teach us the gestures and incorporated those into the animation techniques.”
The characters are accented by a bright, colorful background as well. The staff explained that they wanted to use cherry-blossom trees as something that matched the characters.
“As we progressed, discussing with all the employees which ideas were the coolest, we aimed for an international release. We thought about how to make the screen look appealing when placing iconic Japanese cherry blossom trees.”
Looking Forward to the Premiere
When I moved to the topic of favorite scenes and / or favorite characters, the staff noted that they don’t have any particular scenes or characters that are their favorites; they would like watchers to pay attention to every scene and all of the details that went into it in order to feel and decide what their favorite it. Fans have already had some reactions to the series’ trailer and its opening theme, which is performed by the band HANABIE. Aside from the conversation about favorite scenes, I wanted to know how HANABIE was chosen for that theme, something the staff explained was centered on the core cast of characters.
“Because the work centers around female characters, we wanted a woman to sing the opening theme. We wanted something energetic with a strong beat, so we chose a girls’ rock band. After consulting with Sony, we decided on HANABIE, who is also famous overseas.”
Finally, I asked the members of staff what message they had to potential fans looking to check out Momentary Lily.
“We included points like cherry blossoms in the hopes that overseas viewers will watch it and develop an interest in Japan. I would be happy if something comes across.”
“The entire staff carefully created the animation, so I think there are various highlights. I hope many people will watch it.”
We’d like to thank the staff of Momentary Lily for taking the time to speak with us during this year’s Anime Expo. The anime is set to premiere in January of 2025. In the meantime, you can check out the latest promotional video for the series below.
© GoHands / Shochiku / Momentary Lily Production Committee
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