One of the most prolific scriptwriters in anime, Gen Urobuchi is best known for Fate/Zero, Madoka Magica, Psycho-Pass, and Thunderbolt Fantasy. Often dubbed “The Butcher,” many fans would recognize his work that delves deep into dark psychological thrillers, and many of these works are a complete labor of love. Urobuchi’s newest project, Rusty Rabbit, is a video game that stemmed from his personal hobbies and after seeing an image of a Sylvanian family doll rabbit in a junker mech.
Rusty Rabbit is an upcoming 2D side scroller set in a time where humanity is long extinct, and the meek rabbits have inherited the Earth along with the ruins of the old human civilizations to be excavated by “rust diggers.” The game’s protagonist, Stamp, is a middle-aged rabbit who rust diggs with his trusty mech “Junkster,” and is on a mission to search for his estranged daughter. His old-soul personality is brought to life by Takaya Kuroda, best known for his role as Kazuma Kiryu from the Like a Dragon/Yakuza series, which is a hilarious meta parallel between the two characters.
At Anime Expo 2024, staff writers Nico Monterosso and Mathew Liu had the opportunity to sit down and interview Gen Urobuchi and Takaya Kuroda together about Rusty Rabbit. As long-time fan of the Like a Dragon series and Urobochi’s works, we wanted to dive deep into Kuroda’s performance as Stamp and understand Urobuchi’s process going from conceptualizing his hobby into his first video-game production.
This interview has been edited for clarity and was conducted on July 7th, 2024. Questions were also submitted by Melvyn Tan.
Urobuchi-san, your works historically are often quite macabre and rely on dark twists, like in Madoka Magica or Fate/Zero. Given that Rusty Rabbit has been designed to be a charming and child-friendly game, how did that affect the scenario writing process?
Gen Urobuchi: This time, Rusty Rabbit wasn’t a project that was brought to me from other producers, so it really kind of started as my hobby. It’s not like other projects where you’ll have really dark twists.
[完成]シルバニアファミリー＋ジャンクロボ
— mighty@受注仕上げ作業＆発送 (@almighty0404) December 26, 2015
かむかむレモンの容器、懐中電灯の部品、ｶﾞﾝﾌﾟﾗ部品でシルバニアが乗れるメカ作成。どうせならということでウサギも自分好みに改造！_(:3 」∠)_ #シルバニアファミリー #創作メカ pic.twitter.com/M8la02IDQk
The original post from 2015 that was Gen Urobuchi’s inspiration behind Rusty Rabbit
Rusty Rabbit’s aesthetic was really inspired from Mighty-san’s Sylvanian Families doll project by combining their products with junk parts. What about those designs spoke to you?
Urobuchi: It was that rough smell of rust that came straight across to me — it was like that texture. Then, there was this cuteness that somehow fit in the whole design, where the robot and the rabbit just matched so well.
For Kuroda-san, Stamp is quite an ostensible character! He appears cute on the outside but is grizzled and hardened on the inside. What challenges did you face while trying to put a large, rugged personality into a small rabbit?
Takaya Kuroda: Well big or small, muscular or not, I have fought many a fight, so I can make any character seem tough!
Stamp is described as a worn-out, middle-aged rabbit with a somewhat abrasive and rough personality. Given that Rusty Rabbit is geared towards players of all ages, do you still feel that there are ways that they can relate to Stamp?
Kuroda: I would say that any generation can get hooked by this game, and in the world, I think there are many themes that repeat themselves. Like what Urobuchi-san was saying before, there are many unchanging themes. There’s love, relationships, and conflict, and I think it’s enough that will hook anyone into this. I’ve reached a certain age myself, and because this rabbit is middle-aged, the old-man themes of “sadness” and “loneliness” come through. I think people who play this game will think about life a little bit more, and middle-aged men might enjoy it too!
You mentioned that Stamp as a character is a lot more expressive in his thoughts, compared to your role as Kazuma Kiryuu. In what ways are you able to express yourself as Stamp?
Kuroda: All the human emotions — the happiness, sadness, anger, and fear — everything was expressed straightforwardly, and Urobuchi-san really wrote into the script his personality and his humanity. If [Stamp] gets emotional, he will get emotional, and if he feels something, he will feel it. Conversely with Kiryuu, he might feel angry or sympathetic, but he would hide it when he speaks, so it was a totally different way of expressing.
The first image we see of the trailer is the rabbit’s Saint Peter reaching out like in Michaelangelo’s “Creation of Adam.” Urobuchi-san, what kind of philosophical ideas are you trying to explore with the setting of Rusty Rabbit?
Urobuchi: I didn’t necessarily study or mean to express philosophy in my past works, but it just kind of came through as part of the drama. One of the themes in this story is that as you grow older, you start to have a different perspective than the younger generation. That sort of missed opportunities between the two generations and the fact that they don’t quite connect is an interesting theme that we go into in Rusty Rabbit.
That theme kind of reminds us of some of the themes of the novel Watership Down, which also has rabbit characters where a lot of the beliefs stem from miscommunication, kind of similar to how in Rusty Rabbit. You even mentioned that the rabbits’ religion and legends are based off a Peter Rabbit book!
Urobuchi: Maybe rabbits work well for that kind of theme!
What was the reason why you chose to tell the story of Rusty Rabbit through a 2.5D side-scroller, rather than a different medium like anime or manga? What kind of challenges are there when going from scriptwriting and adjusting the scripts to match the production needs?
Urobuchi: I felt that seeing the character’s side profile was the best way to see everything and represent the Mighty image, so I pushed that through to the end. It’s hard to see a lot of the character when you’re in a 3rd-person kind of situation, so I thought that the Metroidvania 2D style was the way to go.
In terms of the story, at first it was just going to be expressed through monologues by Stamp, but I was given feedback that for all ages to enjoy this game, it would be great to have a character introduce and describe the interface to the player. In addition to Stamp, more rabbits started coming into the picture as characters, so there’s a loss of the melancholy of a single rabbit’s story, but Rusty Rabbit has become more big and boisterous.
What are some of the differences in the production for working on conceptualization in Rusty Rabbit as a video game compared to other projects, such as anime or visual novels?
Urobuchi: Usually with anime, I’m working with someone who needs a specific intention or theme communicated in the piece, regardless if its an adaptation or original piece. This time, Rusty Rabbit was based on my hobby and something that I was just doing for fun, so I approached it very differently.
Kuroda-san, you said earlier that Stamp makes you feel a lot more expressive and that you don’t need to keep all of your emotions bottled up during the performance. However, we also want to know if that freedom comes with additional challenges?
Kuroda: It’s not difficult! There isn’t really a difficult part because the more emotion is expressed, the more fun the performance becomes! There’s more prep work involved in terms of “Ok, from this line to this line, I’m going to build this feeling,” or “This moment I’m really going to emphasize…” But once I do that and get the OK from Urobuchi-san and producer Saito-san, then I just go and let it rip. It’s great!
When you read that a character gets angry in a script, there’s 100-200 ways to do that, including how much anger, and so the way I chose was in relation to a previous scene. For instance, I want to contrast it [the emotions by] this much, and I remember after performing it, I looked over and Urobuchi-san and Saito-san behind the glass were laughing! I knew that I did a great job, and it was so much fun working together and doing that!
Urobuchi-san, you mentioned this was your first time taking up a hobby and conceptualizing it into a game. What are some of the biggest lessons you took away from this creative process for Rusty Rabbit?
Urobuchi: This is my first time working on a video game, so there were so many things that I learned — all the way from the technical details to the actual approach to the project. I’m just beginning to organize into my head what I’ve really learned, and even now, coming up to the release, I’m still learning so much! I’m a little bit dizzy with all the excitement and learning happening! At this age to learn something new, it’s a luxury and it makes me happy and really excited!
Rusty Rabbit releases September 24, 2024 on Steam and Playstation 5. Rusty Rabbit is produced by NetEase Games and Nitroplus. Special thanks to NetEase Games for this interview opportunity.
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