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'These two dangerous assassins never let their prey escape; here's how you take them down at all costs!

A question for Producer Toba! Valentine's Q&A

 * '—— How do you think Kazuki, Rei, and Miri would spend Valentine's Day?


 * Toba Yosuke: I think Kazuki would make incredibly delicious chocolate confections. The whole table is covered with everything from cakes to parfaits to chocolate fondue to ganache... He also has 95% cocoa chocolate for himself, but I think he prepares much sweeter chocolate full of milk, for Miri. He should really be the receiving party in the first place, but he ends up making everything to give to Miri. Then Miri gives him a little chocolate she bought from some supermarket or conbini, and Kazuki is so happy he bursts into tears. (laughs)


 * '''Interview with the Love Guru: Producer Toba Yosuke
 * ''We wanted to depict the changes in a contrasting assassin duo


 * '—— How exactly was the theme of "Buddy Daddies" decided?
 * Toba Yosuke: We were discussing potential themes for an original anime with P.A. Works, and the producer Tsuji-san suggested, "Maybe something about parenting a 4 or 5-year-old?" Tsuji-san himself was right in the middle of working hard to raise a child, and so he wanted to reflect those ideas in an anime. And then it occurred to us that we could get a lot of comedy out of a story where someone who absolutely isn't cut out for parenting has to struggle to raise a child. In that case, who should we saddle with parenting? We thought it over, and the direct opposite of "raising children" is "killing people". So how about an assassin? And then it clicked into place. The only issue was that a child who is 4 or 5 years old is still at an age where they "can't act freely on their own" - so how would they be taken in by the assassin? We were stumped for a while because of that. That's when I discussed it with Shimokura-san (Shimokura Vio) from Nitroplus, and he suggested, "What about making it an assassin duo? Say the two of them pick up the child during a fight - I think a setup like that has potential." Upon hearing him say this, I thought, "That's it!" A family with no blood ties, and two men raising a child - a story like this would truly embody our modern times and their diversifying values. It felt like a perfect fit to me. I thought, "This could really go somewhere!" And so we went ahead with production.


 * '—— Was there anything you paid particular attention to when depicting them?
 * Toba Yosuke: I think we stuck quite closely to the fundamental premise of "two polar opposites are paired up as assassins, but once they take in a child, their lives begin to change". Kazuki is an assassin but has plenty of warm human emotion, and Rei knows nothing other than killing people in cold blood. How will these two men change because of a child? We wanted to depict that very carefully.


 * '—— Was any part of the production process especially memorable?
 * Toba Yosuke: The cast was decided by audition, but honestly, Toyonaga-san and Uchiyama-san are so perfect that I have to wonder if Kazuki and Rei were already written with them in mind. (laughs) Toyonaga-san gives off this sense of "warmth, but when he wants to play his cards close to his chest, he keeps them very close - but he also has a free and uninhibited side to him", and that's a breathtakingly perfect fit for Kazuki. As for Rei, we were already saying "Rei is very Uchiyama-san, huh (laughs)" from pretty early on in the production process. The recording sessions blew me away - you could really feel how well their characters mapped on to Kazuki and Rei.


 * '—— Please give a message to our readers about what they can expect from here on.
 * Toba Yosuke: Before Miri shows up, Kazuki and Rei are essentially living without any thoughts of the future. Given their line of work, they have no idea when they might die; they live like they could die at any moment, and they're fine with that. But once they have Miri - a child they need to protect and raise - their life rapidly changes. Is that good news or bad news for them? And what will their changes mean for the people around them? I hope you'll observe these "changes" for yourself.