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Apparently, when my insomnia gets especially bad, I once unconsciously said exactly the same thing Ame says at the start of the episode, in the psychiatrist’s office. Inagaki-san from Yostar Pictures was surprised on site and said, “He’s saying the exact same thing as nyalra!” I wasn’t aware of it at all myself, so that shocked me too.
Because of the condition I was born with that prevents me from breathing properly through my nose, falling asleep and waking up in the middle of the night have always been problems for me.
As the scale of the project expanded through the anime, KAngel sometimes started moving on her own.
KAngel increasingly ended up reading promotional lines on her own momentum, or having PR dialogue written for her, while Ame, by contrast, remained a kind of untouchable zone that none of the anime staff would go near.
More than anything, I think this girl really is my daughter.
Fans overseas, when they reply to me, call Ame “your daughter.”
“I drew your daughter!”
“Your daughter is so cute!”
There were even times when I was feeling down over something unrelated to NEEDY and people scolded me, saying that wasn’t good for Ame.
Why would you suddenly say something like that...? Did something sad happen? Ame doesn’t like it when P talks that way. To Ame, P’s existence is something truly wonderful. You shouldn’t think like that, P—because if you do, it’ll make Ame sad...
When I’m depressed, people tell me not to say things like that because it would make Ame sad. They appeal to me like, “You have a daughter, don’t you?”
Even so, part of me sulks and thinks, Why should I have to take responsibility for such a selfish daughter…?
And yet, when everyone is drawing fanart and showing it off on the timeline, I end up feeling, after all, I’m happy that my daughter is loved. In the end, this really is the child I gave birth to in pain.
Episode 3 itself is the same.
This script was extremely painful for me to write. I synchronized with the characters too much, and as a result my heart grew thinner and weaker by the day. That intensity absolutely reached the anime staff too. In episodes 1 and 2, both I and the production team were still feeling around for how to season the NEEDY anime. But once episode 3 was completed, I became certain that this anime was worth throwing everything into. Episodes 1 and 2 are rough and charming in their own way, of course. But from episode 4 onward, the style really settles in, and I personally feel a strong sense of confidence about it. Please look forward to it.
When I finished writing the script for episode 3, and then saw life—animation—breathed into this black-haired girl, I felt I could proudly say that no matter what happened, turning this work into an anime had been the right choice.
Since it was before release, this song is already five years old now.
Thank you, Aiobahn, and thank you, Cocamu. And to O-Hisashiburi-sensei as well—I want to once again express my gratitude for the fact that all of us have been able to gather around NEEDY again with the same intensity as before.
Someone from LisAni! told me that KOTOKO-san, Momoi-san, and people around them—mainly those from the eroge world—were grateful for the existence of this song, saying, “Thank you for rediscovering the culture of our generation as something cool.” I still take pride in those words. That continuing to commit to denpa all this time had finally been rewarded. I’m sure Aiobahn was happy too.
Character Introductions for Needy Plus Episode 2 Unofficial Lollipo New Character #1 While streaming, she was asked, “What’s your favorite transformation belt?” She stayed silent for five hours, agonizing over it, then muttered only, “…Kaixa…” before ending the stream. A “real” otaku. Michika New Character #2 Likes Lollipo. She’s actually never properly watched a Shaft anime. A “fake” otaku. Nechika New Character #3 Likes Lollipo. Her specialties are nikujaga and sunny-side-up eggs. Also, she loves mentaiko so much. Kache She dyed her hair the day after clearing Kingdom Hearts II. This color scheme is meant to evoke light and darkness, Sora and Roxas, Nobody and Heartless— and also her promise charm, the past, and memories. A “real” otaku.
It’s funny how more and more settings keep piling up that even I didn’t know about myself.
By the way, the background for this scene is a park in Nishinari that I walked through together with Aiobahn.
I suddenly remembered a middle-aged guy there telling me,
“I know this because I’m actually a prophet from the future: the world would definitely become more peaceful if money and labor disappeared. But I can’t write kanji, not since middle school or high school, so I can’t explain it properly. So when you get back to Tokyo, tell Yuriko this prophecy for me!”
I still haven’t told Yuriko.
For Ame’s mother, I asked Momoi Haruko to do the voice, and I had decided that from the very beginning. In a sense, she is the most important character in the anime.
On the other hand, I hadn’t really thought about the father at all, so the anime side just quietly cast a voice actor they liked, and suddenly Kazuya Nakai’s rough, powerful voice was echoing through the apartment. I remember being moved, thinking, Wow…
Looking back on it now, the fact that Ame’s father just fades away after a few minutes makes it clear to me how little I know about fathers, and how little interest I even have in them.
Seeing Momoi and KAngel talk together as parent and child was a shocking sight for me. I still can’t forget it.
In the novel Spider, Ame talks about akunin shoki—the idea that people who recognize themselves as evil and suffer because of it are the very ones who should be saved. In the anime, meanwhile, she sees reincarnation in a spider.
The motif of treating the spider as Ame and the butterfly as KAngel was something that expanded after the game’s release, but I’m very fond of it because spiders are creatures that prey on butterflies caught in their webs.
That’s why the classical piece that plays during middle-school Ame’s daily life is “Tarantella.” Its frantic rhythm—like chasing a spider crawling over piano keys—gives speed to that dim, shadowy imagery.
Middle-school Ame is cute, isn’t she?
The classmate who later ends up on welfare had, even back then, a habit of reciting Kenji Miyazawa poems whenever he panicked. According to him, “They’re the purest words in the world.”
When I went to see him during his night shift at a convenience store, he would secretly down whiskey so he wouldn’t be afraid of people, and mutter from behind the register, “ The phenomenon I refer to as I is a hypothetical organic alternating current lamp. It is one blue light......”
I don’t want the world to be the kind of place where someone like him remains unhappy and simply gets discarded.
Menstruation, and her own death.
Muttering, “I killed someone today,” the girl keeps her head lowered and grows into adulthood.
Each time she comes to know pain, her identity becomes more and more tangled.
The threads she has let fall into the internet, spreading like a spider’s web, are quieter than hell, but sadder.
Because the Lord Jesus himself underwent trial and terrible suffering, he is able to help us when we are struggling in our own trials. The same goes for the unhinged Internet Angel who calls herself “your Depas, and yours alone.”
I didn’t write it directly into the story, but 悪人正機(akunin shoki) is a theme that always clings to me as a personal question too.
※悪人正機(akunin shoki)....in this sense, the belief that people tormented by the knowledge of their own wrongdoing are the ones most in need of salvation
For example, by this point Ame’s mother is fully aware that she’s a sloppy, toxic parent. And yet, she still did raise her daughter. That too is society, that too is life. In a sense she serves as a kind of negative example, and at the same time, one part of her mentality is unmistakably inherited by her daughter. When it comes to someone who has a child and is actually in the middle of raising them, is a simple ruler of good and evil really meaningful?
Ame, too, inherited her mother’s words and behavior in deep ways.
When I watch this sequence, it feels like I’m having a conversation with my own mother.
The end card is by PIKAZO.
I love the rough, sketch-like drawings PIKAZO posts casually, so this time I specifically asked for that direction. Beautiful…
The time I spent in Aniplex’s meeting room editing video while going back and forth with producer Kimura-san was so much fun. I wanted even more flowers to bloom across the screen.
It's truly a clumsy and awkward anime, but thank you for episode 3. To Ame-chan, who worked harder than anyone, I present this video. This is a song from 5 years ago during a game planning session—the first time I asked my friend Aiobahn to compose, and the first time I wrote lyrics. INTERNET OVERDOSE (ANIME version) Video editing: nyalra
Five years ago, it could only be described as the reckless lyric-writing of youth, but I’m glad I put the phrase “your Depas, and yours alone” at the end of the chorus.
This was my room during game development!
My room, from when I was just someone who loved bishoujo games, anime, and manga so much, and gathered my friends together thinking, I want to make at least one thing myself!
From next week onward, Kache, do your best too!!!
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