Wistoria: Wand and Sword is already a tremendous breakout success, amazing and captivating fans with its premiere episode due to strong production quality, likeable characters, and a simple but gripping concept. The anime adapts the manga written by Fujino Omori (who authored Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?) and illustrated by Toshi Aoi. Ahead of the show’s official premiere, we had the opportunity to interview Katsuki Aoyama, Producer of the Wistoria: Wand and Sword anime, and Shiro Yamano, Editor of the manga and light novel. We asked them about how they got involved in the project, what their typical work is like, and their perspective on the ever-evolving fantasy genre within anime.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Q: Can you talk about how you both first started working on the series?
Yamano-san: Around 10 years ago there was an industry party in Japan where I got to meet Omori-san, the original novelist, and talked about Danmachi [Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?] among other things. And he asked “Hey, would you like to write a story for a manga?” That’s how I got involved. Later, we set out to find the artist that would be drawing Wistoria, and we found Aoi-sensei. The first draft of the story that we cooked up, it basically went up the ladder. And the editor-in-chief said, “Nope, not doing it.” So we basically went back to the drawing board and went for a more traditional fantasy, which is what you see.
Aoyama-san: So around 2021, when the first volume of the manga came out, I was actually reading the manga as a normal reader. And Kodansha said, “Oh we’re having a competition; would you like to take part?” And it turns out it was a competition for the anime. I basically wrote a small project proposal, turned it in, and landed the job.
Q: What was your first reaction when the work was decided?
Yamano-san: For the anime, about seven companies were vying for the spot of the studio to work on it, and the editorial staff was going through all of the project proposals, and then they saw Aoyama-san’s proposal, where he was proposing the director to be Yoshihara-san. They looked at Yoshihara-san’s profile, and they said, “Oh, he can make something really good, so, yes, we’ll go with that.”
Aoyama-san: Hearing that there were going to be seven companies vying for the spot, we were thinking “Oh this is going to be very difficult.” But, in the end, Bandai Namco Filmworks and Actas together won the bid as part of the Bandai Namco Group, so we were very happy we managed to win. We were very happy to win the bid.
Q: Anime, manga, and light novels taking place in magic worlds, especially those of magic schools, have been continuously popular for many years now. What do you think goes into maintaining that sustained popularity?
Yamano-san: Throughout the world, you can say that everyone—it’s a global thing—thinks “I want to use magic.” So, basically, there’s no need for anyone to be especially creative. The genre will just sustain itself because everyone ultimately wants to use magic. But with that said, if everything is Harry Potter, then it’s not going to really be a hit because everyone will just think, “Oh, another one.” So, the characters and the worldview settings need a little bit of tweaking here and there. Like for Wistoria, you have one character that uses a sword, and that kind of changing up of things a bit from series to series is probably how the genre maintains its popularity.
Aoyama-san: The worldview settings are pretty easy to change in order to broaden the horizons, and it gives way to many possibilities, but also you need to have characters that resonate with the viewers to draw the audience in. Because if you can’t resonate with or be familiar with any characters, you’re really not going to be involved in the series. So it’s always a matter of how you’re going to make the characters charming. In the case of Wistoria, you have very enchanting characters that are able to draw people in and I think that’s a good thing.
Q: Aoyama-san, can you tell us a bit about the staff?
Aoyama-san: At the core of anime staff is the director, Tatsuya Yoshihara-san, We first met, talked it out, and for him, it was a question of “What do you want to do with the series? How do you want to go?” We basically built the framework, and the Director said he wanted Yuki Hayashi to do music, so then we went and approached Hayashi-san, and asked, “Would you like to do music for this?” That settled down. We wanted a very fast-paced, action-packed opening theme, so we talked to Sony. They got the perfect opening theme. Then we went to character design, and Sayaka Ono is very famous with all the prolific work she’s done in Sunrise and other places. She just made an amazing drawing of Will, and then the original manga pair are helping out. They’re totally ready to back the animation staff up. That was kind of when the framework was done, and then all the other staff kind of fell in place after that. I’ve been saying “The greatest staff to ever assemble” as kind of a catchphrase, but I really believe that that is the case here for the series.
Q: Yamano-san, are there any early scenes that were particularly enjoyable to work on for the manga? What scenes were you most excited to see animated?
Yamano-san: First of all, I would like everyone to see Episode 1, because from the camera work, the stage production, the writing, everything is just superb for the entire episode, so please watch Episode 1. As for what I’m looking forward to and what I thought would be fun, a fun episode would be somewhere in the second half of the series where they have some field school in a dungeon, and it’s going to be very surprising. They’re going to go up against a very powerful enemy. I can’t say more, because of spoilers, but I’m sure everyone will have fun watching.
Q: Yamano-san, can you talk about what your work with the author typically looks like?
Yamano-san: First of all, I go to Omori-sensei and ask about the story. We hash out the plot. Once the two of us hash the plot out, we add Aoi-sensei to the discussion, so the three of us start talking about how to move the story. If there’s a new character, Aoi-sensei will do a deep dive into the character: “What kind of person is it? What kind of characteristics do they have?” Basically, he deep dives into the character to get a better understanding so that we can further enhance the worldview. Once we’re done with the three-man chat, then Aoi-sensei goes back, draws up a set of storyboards with pencil and paper, and then the three of us convene again, go over the storyboards, and once the storyboards are okay, that’s when Aoi-sensei can finally start with the rough draft of the manga.
Q: What would you say to encourage a new reader / watcher to check out Wistoria: Wand and Sword?
Yamano-san: So, first you have Omori-sensei’s manga. You can also look to the Danmachi days, where the stories are very rich, full of surprises, and a lot of very intricate plots. So please enjoy that. And then we have amazing art in the manga from Aoi-sensei, which gets further powered up when it’s put into motion in an anime, so you can look forward to all of that.
Aoyama-san: The three pillars of the series are Omori-sensei’s worldview, Aoi-sensei’s beautiful art during the action scenes, and how the staff cherishes all of the characters and looks after the character growth. So those are the three pillars, and I believe Wistoria has high potential to be the next big traditional fantasy title. Right now, isekai and reincarnating is kind of the popular genre, but this might put the traditional genre up ahead once again because it can be enjoyed by a broader audience. I would really encourage your children to watch and would recommend this to a wide audience.
We’d like to thank Yamano-san and Aoyama-san for taking the time to speak to us about Wistoria: Wand and Sword. The series is streaming on Crunchyroll with English subtitles. The Wistoria: Wand and Sword manga has over 800,000 copies in circulation as of July 2024. It is published in Japanese in Bessatsu Shonen Magazine and in English under Kodansha USA.
©Fujino Omori, Toshi Aoi, Kodansha/Wistoria: Wand and Sword Production Committee.
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