Show Yamamoto
Profile
Show Yamamoto: Content director. Passionate JoJo fan. Sub-director of Escape From JoJo's Bizarre Mansion, Escape From JoJo's Bizarre Amusement Park, The Letter Inside DIO's Mansion, and main director of Escape From JoJo's Bizarre Museum. His favorite character in Stone Ocean is Guccio.
"It was probably the most difficult part of the Escape From JoJo series to date."
Q: Please tell us the story behind this production.
I wrote a suggestion to the company that it was about time to work on another JoJo project. After producing collaborative performances for Stardust Crusaders, Diamond is Unbreakable, and Golden Wind, there was no way we could pass on Stone Ocean. We just had to know when to do it.
Q: What do you think is the selling point of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean?
This is nothing new to the series, but I was overwhelmed by the sophistication of each head-to-head battle. Also, the Stand abilities in Stone Ocean is so versatile and open up all kinds of possibilities. The battles between these abilities are also great.
Q: When it comes to real escape games, have you ever had any difficulty in keeping participants from coming up with ideas to exploit the versatility of the game?
That right there! That's the main problem. For instance, Weather Report can be used to cover the room in snow, even if there's absolutely no use for it. We tried to narrow the participants' line of thinking using the answer format and the situation at hand.
Q: Why did you choose a dream world for the setting?
This is the part I really struggled with. It was probably the most difficult part of the Escape From JoJo series to date. Stardust Crusaders and Golden Wind follow the course of a journey, and so there's room to insert side stories like entering stores. There's very little of that in Stone Ocean. I thought about using a standard prison for the setting and having the facilities serve the mystery, but I just couldn't work out the timeline of it.
This performance takes place after Jolyne and company lose F.F., as they nod off to sleep in their cells. Having a situation where Jolyne, Ermes, Weather, and Anasui were all in one place as the enemy attacked them was simply impossible, no matter what we did. So I had to set it within a dream.
Q: What if it had been set right after Jolyne's incarceration, or around the time she broke out of prison...?
At the start, these four people hadn't yet met each other, and their abilities remained unknown. Stand abilities are well-guarded secrets, because having other people know about them puts you at a disadvantage. Even during the prison break, the four of them never meet in the anime... I briefly considered a performance following Weather and Anasui's separate escape, but I just didn't think it'd be possible.
"Alternating between generic riddles and original riddles..."
Q: What are some of the improvements made to the game this time around?
In collaborative performances, I think alternating between presenting generic riddles and original riddles related to the work's perspective and characters creates a certain balance. I call it the Yamamoto system. If the structure is such that one can proceed to the original work's riddle at the same time as solving the general riddle, the person who solves the riddle early might say, "Use your Kiss to solve this next riddle," before anyone else can even start thinking about it. Then the person playing Ermes would say, "I wanted to think about it too..." We tried to make it possible for everyone to think about the Stand ability riddle as a team.
Q: The conceit that participants take on the roles of the characters and use their Stand abilities to escape is similar to your previous work, Escape From JoJo's Bizarre Museum.
That is the case, but it has also slightly evolved. In the previous work, the scenes of the abilities activating were essentially represented by images, and only Moody Blues was able to be recreated by the staff. The audience reaction at the time was great, so this time around, we used real people to represent Stone Free and Diver Down. I think the best part of this performance is being able to see your own Stand ability coming forth in real life. But it was tough to replicate the movement of Stone Free's string, and the art director is having a lot of trouble figuring it out through trial and error.
Q: What are some of your favorite lines?
I think it'd have to be the snide remarks about escape games in the beginning, such as, "A game of riddles would be in bad taste," and "So the Stand's power lies in pain-in-the-ass puzzles." I also thought the line, "Sleep and death are twin brothers," was very JoJo-like. Koji Shikano, the main director of the collaborative escape games for Stardust Crusaders and Diamond is Unbreakable, is in charge of the writing for this performance, wanted to make it so "before the 'ora ora ora' (Jolyne's Stand cry), she hits the enemy with a cool line arranged from a line he said earlier in the game." A prelude to the 'ora ora' (laughs).
Q: Did the animation side request anything from you?
We were in close communication this time around. But they were very helpful, not only in pointing out issues, but also in coming up with ideas to solve them. For example, we usually write lines like, "I'm going to solve every riddle," but they pointed out that "there's only one riddle at the moment, so let's have them say, 'I'm going to solve this riddle.'" I was impressed by their attention to detail.
Also, the line I mentioned earlier, "Sleep and death are twin brothers," was originally written as, "Death and sleep are twin brothers." But one of the supervisors said, "Isn't this a quote from Peter Dickinson's novel Sleep and His Brother (Sleep and Death are Brothers in Japan)? Wouldn't it be better to change the order to match the novel?" The expertise of Shueisha's editors surprised me.
"The use of the digital recorder came to us along the way."
Q: How did you construct the mystery?
Since the theme of the performance is dreams, I watched A Nightmare on Elm Street for reference. At the ending of the movie, Freddy, who everyone thought was defeated, comes out of the mirror. That was the best part of the movie, so I was determined to include a scene where the characters wake up from a dream, only to realize they are still in the dream.
To do that, you have to have them fall into Moschino's trap, but the mystery has to have a well-crafted setup. It wouldn't be fair if Moschino erased the markings on the guard uniforms himself, so we decided to have Moschino do the preliminary work to make them disappear when Weather makes it rain. Mr. Kano said that he referred to the scene at the end of Diamond is Unbreakable where Hayato Kawajiri escapes his predicament, in which anyone he tells about Yoshikage Kira will be blown to pieces, by calling Josuke. While following the rules of the Stand, he took advantage of a loophole to corner his opponent. I wanted to create that JoJo feeling of intellectual battle.
I also like the part where a turnabout comes by using Moschino's voice through the digital recorder, because it takes advantage of the enemy's mistakes in a very JoJo way. When this idea came up during a meeting, we said, "We can end the meeting here. That's what we're going with. We haven't tested it yet, and we haven't gotten confirmation from the supervisors, but this is the only way it could ever have worked!"
Q: Did you work backward from the larger mystery and introduce the digital recorder in the middle of the meeting?
No, not quite. At first, we were using the IC recorder simply to demonstrate Kiss's ability, and the company asked me, "Do you need an IC recorder?" I was about to back down, since it certainly wasn't cheap, but then my spirit lifted at the thought of using it in the big mystery. It's not often you get so lucky.
Q: Do you have a message for the participants?
During the coronavirus pandemic, it was difficult to yell out "Stone Free!" I'm really glad to be able to do that again. The Escape From JoJo series is becoming more and more sophisticated as it goes on, and there are still many Stand abilities that I would love to use. I would also like to collaborate with other series as well. Here's hoping there will be more to look forward to in the future.
Interview date: August 29, 2023
