New Director Kazuaki Kuribayashi is Risking it Big on KILLTUBE Anime Film

On April 8, a one-minute clip circulating on social media caught anime fans' attention worldwide. It's actually the pilot film of the newly-announced anime film titled KILLTUBE. The film is scheduled to be released sometime in 2026, but it's safe to say that the release window doesn't lessen the level of anticipation. It's received a spotlight thanks to its radical and unique visual style, a combination of 2D and 3D, as well as its flashy and refreshingly chaotic direction and camera movement. The pilot film, with over half a million views on YouTube, may be hard to digest. Nonetheless, it certainly still successfully piqued the viewers' interest and curiosity about how the final film will look and the staff behind it.

The answer is CHOCOLATE Inc., an entertainment company based in Shibuya. They move in various entertainment fields, such as advertising and exhibition. However, KILLTUBE is their debut theatrical animation project. The same can be said for Kazuaki Kuribayashi, the chief content officer of the company and director of the film. He gained prominence in the Japanese entertainment industry with more than sixty accolades and awards in Japan and overseas, including Japan Advertising Agencies Association (JAAA) Creator of the Year in 2016.

Regardless of his prior achievements, it's a massive risk to create a full-length feature anime film for the first time. We spoke with Kuribayashi and the creative team to talk about KILLTUBE, the anime industry, and more.

To kick things off, I think CHOCOLATE Inc. is generally not that well-known in Indonesia or overseas. I know that CHOCOLATE Inc. specializes in advertising. Can you give us the company background?

Kazuaki Kuribayashi: Before we jump into the company's history, what we are right now in one word: CHOCOLATE is a content studio. We are a company that makes entertainment content surpassing all genres of entertainment. That includes advertising, cinema, movies, toys, and characters. We want to be a general company that can oversee all sorts of entertainment. So that's what we are right now.

Our emotions, feelings, and goals are rooted in what we were initially strong at. Many of us are from the advertising agency world. What we happened to do in the past was to create trending content on social media that went viral and crossed borders. But at the same time, we felt that such content doesn't stick in your memory. If you see one today, you will see another tomorrow. Then, you forget about what you saw in the previous day. I don't want to say it's a problem, but we thought that was something we could overcome by making story-based content that can truly stay in people's minds and memories for a very long time, which is what we started with KILLTUBE.

So what are the hurdles and challenges in making KILLTUBE, your full-length feature anime film for the first time?

Kuribayashi: We lack experience. We have the skills but it is an unknown realm to us. So everything is new, every day brings new challenges. We're running this without knowing what other people do, without an answer. It is a challenge for us but it's also what we enjoy.

However, at the same time, it's what makes this entire project exciting for us. Because a lot of us are from several different areas of the industry. Some of us are from advertising, publishing companies, and the music industry. Bringing together what those people know about their expertise is one way that we can make this film something that the world has never seen before. It's new to us and the output will be new to the world.

I have a question.

Sure!

Kuribayashi: Simple question, Alif-san. What were your thoughts when you first saw the pilot film? (laughs)

(laughs) I think it's colorful, chaotic, and unique at the same time. I'm pretty excited about the final product! So I'll be patiently waiting for 2026. (laughs) So, can you tell me how KILLTUBE was born? How did the concept come around?

Kuribayashi: The very beginning of this project was when I saw an image posted on social media that featured a samurai dressed in street fashion. That made me think, "What if samurai lived in the world like that? What if we can bring samurai as content into the world we live in right now?"

That, to us, is two different worlds. It was one world based on a different timeline, where samurai still lived in Japan and where the Edo period still lives to this day. Adding on to that, I'm pretty sure a lot of people in Indonesia don't know about this; over the past year or two, a lot of fighting videos have been going viral on YouTube in Japan. So, put that together, we have samurai living in our age streaming fighting videos on YouTube. That was our initial concept.

I watched the pilot film and read the synopsis, and I want to point out that what I found most fascinating is the theme of edopunk. I have already heard the terms steampunk and cyberpunk many times, but edopunk is completely new to me. The idea of having a world that is set in the future and yet still has social stratification in the Edo period, the dichotomy of those two things, sounds cool.

Another thing I noticed from the pilot was you combined 2D and 3D for the film. Why not make it full 2D or full 3D?

Kuribayashi: The reason why we put 2D and 3D together was because we wanted to experiment. We want to experiment with how it would look and if people would like it. We haven't decided yet how much will be in 2D and 3D. So we wanted to try that out with the pilot film first. We haven't decided yet, but the film will probably be mixed between 2D and 3D, and we can switch it around. We want to try because we think that's something that hasn't been done before.

So do you have two separate teams that handle each 2D and 3D?

Kuribayashi: Production-wise, when it comes to if we were to portray a character that appears several times throughout the film or if we were to make a hundred or three hundred characters like bot characters, we probably would make that in 3D. At the same time, if we were to portray a character that only appears a few times, that would probably be in 2D. This is purely based on production reasons.

However, when it comes to dramatic and drastic scenes, like an iconic battle scene, we are thinking of adding 2D elements to 3D models. So, we will mix those two into one scene. We haven't decided yet, but that's the plan for now.

Among overseas anime fans, there is a bad stigma, preconceptions, and reputation surrounding 3D anime. Many people labeled a lot of 3D anime as weird and uncanny and feel uncomfortable. Is this topic also a thing in Japan?

Kuribayashi: Our impression is probably the same. A lot of people feel more comfortable with watching 2D animation. Some might think that even in Japan, full 3D animation feels uncomfortable. However, even considering that, we want to challenge that perception and see how people react.

You mentioned before that you want to experiment, and I'm aware that KILLTUBE is a part of the 108 Experiments that you conduct. Can you explain it to me as if I were five years old?

Kuribayashi: As we mentioned earlier, KILLTUBE started off as a little experiment within my head. So the whole concept of 108 Experiments that will circulate around KILLTUBE is we want to work in as many experiments as we can to the project, like how we make money, how we make the animation, or how we cast the voice actors. We want to throw in as many experiments as we can.

There are two reasons behind that. One is because if there are 108 experiments, we can learn 108 things out of the project itself, so we'll grow as a company. Number two is that we want to enjoy the entire process of making it. So, if there are 108 experiments, we can enjoy making the actual film and see whether our experiments were correct or not. At the end of the day, whether our experiments were correct or not doesn't matter to us. What matters is that we try, learn from it, and enjoy the entire process.

I read the news that KILLTUBE has a budget of 1 billion yen (US$6.68 million). I don't know whether it is a rough estimation or not, but either way, it's a lot of money. Is it common to have such a budget in the anime film industry? And how do you get the budget, considering this is your first massively ambitious project as a company?

Kuribayashi: One billion yen as a budget isn't the norm here. That's a big money, especially for a new director, although it might not be much for big names in the industry. In terms of how we got the money, we made a very authentic presentation from the bottom of our hearts to several different partners from different industries before running this project. Much of the money is already here.

Another thing that you've confirmed regarding KILLTUBE is that you are planning it to be released in spring 2026, which is still a very long way to go. So why did you decide to release the pilot film this early, in 2024?

Kuribayashi: A very good question, thank you! (laughs) We discussed this thoroughly at several meetings regarding when to release the pilot film. But at the end of the day, our answer was we want to make the production process itself content for viewers in the future, like how it's made, where it's at now, or how it's looking right now. We want to make that process itself entertaining as well. That's what brought us to release the pilot film two years before the actual film launch.

Can you tell us how much of the film has been completed?

Kuribayashi: It's still ten percent.

Oh, wow! I was expecting it to be higher, maybe forty or fifty percent. But I guess it makes sense, considering it will be launched in 2026.

Kuribayashi: At the same time, we understand that you think maybe forty or fifty percent was already made. If so, that gives us only sixty percent to share with the world. We are asking people on Twitter to make weapon ideas that can be featured in the film. We will pay money to these people if we think it is good and it will be featured in the film. So if the film had sixty or seventy percent finished, we wouldn't be able to do this. We want to bring people or social users into the process of making the film with us. That's why the “two years” is there and why it's only ten percent done.

So is the script already finished?

Kuribayashi: Almost finished.

What are the pieces of media influenced KILLTUBE?

Kuribayashi: Everything is a reference, every little entertainment content that we have enjoyed in the past, such as Dragon Ball, Final Fantasy, or Splatoon. We took bits and pieces into KILLTUBE.

Arguably, in this age of the internet, social media, and streaming services, anime is significantly bigger than ever in popularity and accessibility. What are your thoughts about the rising and surging popularity of anime globally?

Kuribayashi: We believe it's our hope as a country (laughs). Have you ever been to Japan, Alif-san?

I have not.

Kuribayashi: But I'm sure you are aware that Japan is economically and socially declining. We have an aging population and all that. Entertainment is the one thing we believe could change this country and how it looks toward the world.

However, there is a general concern and fear amongst anime fans overseas and online. I'm fairly sure anime fans in Japan have this discussion, too, that the more mainstream anime is becoming, the more Westernized or Americanized it will be. What is your opinion regarding this as an anime creator?

Kuribayashi: We don't think it's a problem. But at the same time, we are aware that if Japanese anime starts becoming more Westernized because they are so conscious of the Western market, we feel that will take much of what's good about Japanese anime away from it. The beautiful thing about Japanese anime is that the animators and creators make what they truly love and feel great. That becoming mainstream in the West is a good thing, but if it becomes too mainstream and, as a result, takes away a lot of what the Japanese anime industry wants to make, then we do not think that's necessarily a super good idea. We want Japanese anime to stay the beautiful thing that it is.

We want people worldwide to enjoy KILLTUBE as an anime film. However, we don't want to make it into something only people overseas would love. We want to do what we want. We want to draw in everything we love about Japanese entertainment. As a result, we want people to love it, but we do not want to be so overconscious about the overseas market from the beginning. We don't want to take away or give up anything we want to do so that it can be a big name in the overseas market.

Shifting to another topic, you did mention Final Fantasy as an influence on KILLTUBE. Interestingly, Square Enix's developer company behind it has used AI for its products and plans to use it even more aggressively. Has this topic surrounding AI also been circulating in the anime industry to implement it?

Kuribayashi: I think that's one of the biggest topics here. We've heard that several productions within Japan already use AI to develop their production process. I think there are people in the world who have a very negative image of AI technology, especially in the production industry itself. We think it's a very delicate topic. As of right now, we're neither negative nor positive about it, but we do believe that we need to consider how to incorporate that in the anime industry.

What was the first anime that made you fall in love with the art form itself? Or perhaps inspire you to pursue a career in the industry?

Kaz Tsujimoto (Interpreter): Wait, all of us? (laughs)

Yeah! (laughs)

Tsujimoto: Okay. (laughs) Mine is Digimon, I'm just going to throw it out there.

Kuribayashi: My main DNA was formed by Dragon Ball. That is my blood and flesh. After I grew up, I still enjoyed new anime, especially Makoto Shinkai. When it comes to his films, my favorite one is 5 Centimeters Per Second. Those are my favorites.

Kento Terao (Producer): My catalyst is Studio Ghibli's Porco Rosso. It's my blood and veins.

Kayane Fujimura (Producer): Mine is also Studio Ghibli's film, it's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. I remember when my mother first showed me the film, saying the entire film was made with colored pencils. That was what stuck with me even to this day.

Tsujimoto: You look like you want to speak, Nanami.

(laughs)

Nanami Yamada (PR): I'm not sure you are aware of this film because it's pretty old from fifty years ago, but it's called Heidi, Girl of the Alps.

Ah, I don't know about it. I will make sure to check it out.

Yamada: It's actually a pretty famous film. Not a lot of young people watch it, but people our age used to watch it when we were little. That being said, I think everyone from CHOCOLATE Inc. loves Hayao Miyazaki. That's one thing we share in common.