I try to take interest in whatever comes my way. Another aspect of this is [that] if at the beginning it seems like something I don't want to do, I ask myself why I don't want to do this and why I feel this way. It's perhaps rooted in the fact that I'm trying to avoid something.

I can't single out one thing that influenced me. My generation was influenced greatly by the manga that came out during our childhood.

When you are completely satisfied with what you have made, you're pretty much done as a director. So when that happens, that'll sort of be the end.

In Japan, violence isn't as controversial as it is in the West. Pornography is more restricted, but it's not hard to make a crazy, extremely violent film.

I believe that when people try to live their life at the fullest, there's a certain laughter that comes out of it. The more they try to live their life seriously, the funnier it is. It happens all the time in our real life.

On the times when I used to make movies that were with a lower budget, nobody was expecting it to be a hit, and nobody was paying attention to what I was doing, and it was a free type of creative process. So, one way to reset myself is to go back to that kind of moviemaking.

In terms of making TV drama, not everything has to make sense. In cinema, you usually strive for reality and a natural environment, but in TV, it's more acceptable to do something crazy and break with naturalism.