Kadowaki Says 'We Are Aliens' Draws On His Own Childhood
Kadowaki's account puts the film's festival attention on a specific method rather than a premise: a story assembled backward from one mid-film turn, with emotion paced like a roller coaster.
Reporting from 1 source: Anime Anime.
Director Kohei Kadowaki's feature "We Are Aliens" opens September 25, following Tsubasa, a shy boy, and Akitaro, a class idol, across a 30-year friendship in a rural Heisei-era town. Kadowaki, born in 1996, wrote and directed the film. He says roughly 20 to 30 percent of its episodes come from his own experience, including a first-love episode.
Kadowaki had no experience directing TV anime before this film. He studied design at Tokyo University of the Arts, joined an animation production company, went independent, and built a career on stage visuals, commercials, and music videos before taking on "We are Aliens" as planner, screenwriter, and director.
The film was submitted to the 79th Cannes International Film Festival's Directors' Fortnight and selected for the feature competition at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival 2026. Kadowaki met producer Hayashi four years ago and the two decided to make a feature. He says the mid-film development came first, and he built the first half around it.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.