Anime Expo 2024: A Conversation With the Momentary Lily Staff

Note: Due to the time-sensitive nature of our coverage, this will debut on the main Anime Herald site on July 22. We apologize for the inconvenience

• Interviewer: Seth Burn

• Date: 7/6/2024

• Editor: Samantha Ferreira

Anime Herald: The (Momentary Lily) promo mentions “GoHands’ one-of-a-kind visual style!” How did that style develop?

Momentary Lily: Speaking of company style: There are fewer than 100 companies capable of producing anime in-house, and only a few are based in regional areas. GoHands is the only one of them based out of an office in Osaka. It's just us.

Speaking of the title: It is our first time creating a project centered on women, depicting friendships during their teenage years.

Anime Herald: Any thoughts on the level of effort GoHands spends on their characters’ hair?

Momentary Lily: We are so glad that people notice the details. We want to distribute something very high quality overseas that cannot be imitated. Additionally, not a lot of Japanese companies are still putting in this level of effort on attention to detail. GoHands is one of the few.

©GoHands/Shochiku, MOMENTARY LILY Production Committee

Anime Herald: What challenges do you face blending 2D and CGI?

Momentary Lily: While we don’t have a preference, if I had to say, 2D is Japan's specialty, so we definitely want people to see the fine Japanese techniques. However, both 2D and CG (3D) are just means to create good works.

Anime Herald: What attracted you to this anime and story in particular?

Momentary Lily: We want people to focus on the strong bonds between teenage girls. There are not many titles that are focused on the friendships between teenage girls. It is not a crowded field.

Anime Herald: What was it like working with HANABIE. on the OP?

Momentary Lily: HANABIE. is awesome. Because HANABIE. is popular overseas, it gave us an opportunity to go abroad, as well. That’s why we are here.

Anime Herald: For director Yokomine: This is your third project at the helm. How have you developed as a director and how did that affect the final product for Momentary Lily?

Katsumasa Yokomine: I am appreciative and grateful to the people around us who have supported me and the team.

(Editor's note: It appears Mr. Yokomine took the question to mean how he felt after being given the opportunity to direct Momentary Lily. And the answer is: Grateful and appreciative.)

Anime Herald: For producer Iizuka: How has your job evolved as the international audience has grown?

Toshio Iizuka: We always keep an eye on the schedule. Although our company prepares with plenty of time for deadlines, when it comes to overseas expansion, we started acting on an even earlier schedule.

(Editor’s note: I am not 100% positive, but I believe he also said episode 1 had to be ready for Anime Expo. Also, he suggested GoHands is better at scheduling than some of their competitors, but he didn’t name any other companies.)

©GoHands/Shochiku, MOMENTARY LILY Production Committee

Anime Herald: Are there any stories you’d like to share from this production?

Momentary Lily: We put a lot of effort into the cooking scenes. The cooking scenes were particularly difficult, unlike anything we've done before. We actually hired a professional chef, ate their food, and created the scenes based on that experience. We tested low-budget recipes you could make for under $20 and put them in the show.

GoHands is much more familiar, and much better, at action scenes. That’s why the cooking scenes were so much harder for us. We’re good at action scenes. We needed to learn how to do cooking scenes.

It’s going to air at midnight, so we expect people to get hungry when they watch the show.

Anime Herald: Does your audience usually watch the show live, or on streaming some time later?

Momentary Lily: The data is a bit rough, but it looks to be half and half.

Anime Herald: In America, streaming is dominant.

Do you do different projects now because the international audience, especially the American audience, has grown so much?

Momentary Lily: We haven’t made any plans yet. We may eventually develop a different plan for the international audience.

Anime Herald: In America, we used to have suspenseful endings, referred to as “cliffhangers,” to make sure the audience would tune in at the start of the next episode. Now, with streaming, you don’t need to lean on that. Has that changed how you can plan episodes and tell stories?

Momentary Lily: Even with the growth of streaming, we haven’t thought about changing how we tell stories.

Anime Herald: Do you have any questions for us?

Momentary Lily: What made you interested in Momentary Lily?

Anime Herald: It went viral on Reddit after HANABIE. was revealed to be doing the OP. Also, GoHands has a reputation for doing a great job with hair. My favorite anime character is Saitama from One Punch Man. Like Saitama, I pay a great deal of attention to hair.

Momentary Lily: We appreciate your interest in Momentary Lily.

Anime Herald: Thank you.

©GoHands/Shochiku, MOMENTARY LILY Production Committee

Thoughts on the first episode from the premiere:

We aren’t given anything remotely resembling a detailed explanation of why almost all of the people are gone. We aren’t given an explanation for where the girls are getting their mysterious powers. They do mention that all the frozen food went bad when everything lost power, but power is now back via some incredibly cute small robots. We don’t get an explanation for them either.

Great! This isn’t a mystery anime. I don’t need to know what happened or where their powers came from. I don’t need them to explain. The world is now six teenage girls. They are fighting large robots (also not explained). After the battles, they go cook canned food and make it tasty.

Perfection. We fight because GoHands is good at animating fights. We eat because that’s what this anime is really about. Girls sharing meals. If they want to rescue everyone by fighting giant robots, okay. If they just want to chill and try new recipes, that works too.)