Inside Kyoto Animation’s Meiji Era Masterpiece: Sparks of Tomorrow at Anime NYC 2026
Sparks of Tomorrow is Kyoto Animation’s latest masterpiece that has been unleashed upon the world of anime. Following the journey of two youths’ attempts to introduce electricity into their Meiji-era world, the series chronicles the discovery of dreams and inventions found in the ‘20th Century Electricity Catalog’.
Will these characters successfully bring about an ‘Age of Electricity’ to their world? We sat down with Art Director Mao Takayama and Ending Theme Artist Ginger Root at Anime NYC 2026 to discuss their work on the anime series.
This interview has been truncated and lightly edited for brevity and clarity. The use of a translator was employed for Takayama’s answers during the press conference.
Crafting 1906 Kyoto: Mao Takayama on Impressionism & Oil Painting Aesthetic
The Natural Aristocrat: “In your view, which scene best represents the visual style of the series? What part of the world required the most research visually?”
Mao Takayama: “ So personally, the scene that really characterizes the work most is the scene where they show the cityscape of Kyoto.
The old-fashioned buildings and the pipes that are strung through the city skyline, and also the ground with a little bit of dampness really shows the whole toned-down, misty, foggy atmosphere of the series.”
Adult Swim Central and Toonami Faithful: “ Takayama-san, the background art is incredibly unusual for an anime. Could you talk about how you and the team created the show’s art style?”
Mao Takayama: “ When we were working on the background, we really focused on making it as close as possible to the oil painting.
Whether focusing on the brush, the brush strokes, and obviously it’s not done by an individual; it’s done by a team, so there’s many communications between the team members. Whenever a part will be finished, they’ll communicate whether it was okay or if these parts could be done a little better to really focus on creating this oil painting style.”
Journalist: “ ’Sparks of Tomorrow’ brings together a highly distinct visual identity and a very unique musical soundscape. When constructing the ending sequence and the overall atmosphere of the anime, in what ways did the art and music complement or connect with each other?”
Ginger Root: “ I wrote the song not seeing any visuals of the ending animation. I was just given a painting done by the director, as well as a piece of writing about what he wanted. I also met with him online to see what he wanted…But I didn’t have any actual visuals to go off of except for that one piece that he gave me, and obviously some directions from him.
And I know that I purposefully wrote things in the song that could probably complement opportunities for the animation to do something special, like the breaks or the drum, or the interludes in the chorus.
So I was very excited to see the finished result, and I think it matches very well. I wish there was a whole animation for the whole song. It was still in the works, and they actually animated to what I wrote, which is very special to me.”
Mao Takayama: “ When it comes to actually working on the art of the ending, most of it was done by 3D. So the actual background art, the painting part was only done. There’s only three cuts of it, and so there wasn’t too much physical work being done on the background side, but we were able to actually listen to the song before we started working on it, and we really thought that it matched the eerie atmosphere of the series.
I’m not sure what kind of instrument was being used, but it sounded kind of like a pipe organ type [of] instrument to really match the atmosphere.”
Impressionist Brushstrokes vs. Meiji Architectural Lines
In Asian Spaces: “ The background art for ‘Sparks of Tomorrow’ captures the atmospheric transition of 1906 Kyoto beautifully, particularly the contrast between traditional wood-structure townhouses and the emerging glow of electrical innovation.
How did the production team approach balancing historical Meiji-era accuracy with KyoAni’s distinct visual style?”
Mao Takayama: “When working on the series, we really want to focus on the brush strokes, and we want to keep all the brush strokes of the art when we were drawing the background art.
And so when it comes to that, we pull a lot of inspiration from Impressionism, and blurring the lines to make it very big. But when it comes to depicting the cityscape of Kyoto, because it’s a world that not a lot of the viewers are very familiar with, we want to make sure that the lines for that were very clear.
So when it comes to characters who we want to feature, or the Kyoto cityscape, the more traditional building structures, we want to make those lines very clear. When we were trying to balance the two together, it was really focused to make sure that was well made.”
Steampunk Variations & Historical Accuracy in Skyline Details
Anime Corner: “ To what extent did you make use of historical reference material when creating the physical world of the series? What are some real-life elements you wanted to capture, and where are places where you intentionally deviated from the real world?”
Mao Takayama: “Regarding Kyoto, generally, the director’s order was to make sure we didn’t make any unnecessary lines or unnecessary edits. So the locale of Kyoto or how the buildings were structured, we tried to be true to the actual historical accuracy, but the parts that we did change were the steampunk aspects.
So the pipes are steaming throughout the city, or the cloudiness to add more steam aspects to it were the ones that we tried to detail away from the historical aspects.
One thing in particular though, is if you look at this series, you’ll notice a lot of clothes that are strung over the pipes to kind of obscure the skyline a little bit. And that was actually historically accurate, where there was clothes being hung on those clotheslines, but we replaced them with pipes. And because the skyline is a little bit obscured within the world anyway, we decided to put more cloth over the pipelines.”
The KyoAni Advantage: Strengths of an In-House Background Department
Anime Trending: “ Many animation studios don’t have in-house background art departments like Kyoto Animation, they have to rely on external special studios. From your experiences so far, how does the in-house aspect of KyoAni’s background team contribute to the studio’s culture?”
Mao Takayama: “The biggest strength of having an in-house team is the communication aspect when it comes to trying to describe what kind of scenes they want. Sometimes it’s very hard to verbalize, or it’s very hard to put into words what the director wants. So in that case, we can directly draw out what we want from the background team.
So it makes it very easy for us to relate what we want to each other. And especially in this work, the atmosphere is a very distinct art style. Because of that, I feel that this kind of work could only be done with a studio like Kyoto Animation.”
The Soundscape of Innovation: Ginger Root on Composing “Soarin’”
Yatta-Tachi: “ For your past work, you found creative ways to create music, like performing using an old rotary phone as a microphone and filming on paper boards. What is your favorite ‘unconventional instrument’, and did you make use of one while recording ‘Soarin’’?”
Ginger Root: “ When I made ‘Soarin’’ I did it completely in a bedroom. I didn’t rent any studio time for it, so it does have that kind of lo-fi sheen that a lot of my other songs have. I used a little bit of the same telephone that you talked about by recording some of the vocals on there.
And the thing with writing for TV and anime is my anxiousness of having to change things all the time. So when I did stuff, for example, with NHK earlier this year, I used that as a learning experience to not actually record a lot of real sounds, instead of using soft synthesizers or VSTs and all that.
So it was a good exercise. With a lot of my other songs recording things with actual microphones instead of this way, well for this song in particular, recording things directly that was easily editable in case I had to make changes, especially ’cause there’s two versions.
There’s the short version, and there’s a long version.
I made the short version, got the okay, and then I had to figure out how to recreate the sounds I made for the short version to duplicate them for the long version. But thankfully, I didn’t have to change anything after the first draft. So, I worried for nothing.”
Balancing Retro City Pop with Electronic Soundscapes
Adult Swim Central and Toonami Faithful: “ What conversations or discussions led to this song becoming the ending theme?”
Ginger Root: “ I got a proposal to do it. I thought it was fake. I was really excited. (collective press laughter) I’m a big anime fan, and so I took it.
One story I will tell, is I had one meeting with the whole team, including the director, [Minoru] Ota-san, and we bonded over the fact that he really likes Lady Gaga. (collective laughter) Don’t know why but weirdly, I think that subconsciously influenced how I wrote the song.
Not like I’m saying ‘Soarin’’ sounds like any Lady Gaga song to begin with, but the back and forth that he had was, like I said earlier, is he gave me that painting, and he gave me that piece of writing. He also said something differentiating from the opening theme, where he didn’t want any Eastern-sounding instruments.
Because the opening was acting like, ‘Here’s the Meiji era. Here is, you know, stuck in time, very traditional, you know, a sense of adventure’. But then with the ending theme, he wanted it to actually sound electronic…so that was a big thing that we went back and forth on. He gave me those notes, I made something that I thought would probably fit well, and it sat with the team very well.”
Journalist: “ The ending of an anime episode is crucial because it dictates the emotional aftertaste the audience is left with for an entire week. What is the exact feeling or lingering thought you want the viewers to walk away with?”
Ginger Root: “ That’s a good question. For me, on the music side, I know specifically they gave me a reference to ‘City Hunter’, where the theme song would start while the ending scene is going. There’s a little bit of dialogue left and then the beat drops – “Get Wild”, I think that song is – so they wanted me to kind of create that same essence of, ‘And here’s the ending,’ you know?
So with that involved, the adventure isn’t solved. There’s a lot of things…the Electricity Catalog, there’s so many mysteries in there. So an essence and a cloudiness, just like the town is shrouded in steam and smoke, similarly having that feeling of uncertainty. There’s a lyric in the song that’s like, ‘But together we can, we can go past the stars, and we can go…We can get out of that steam together.’
And so that’s something that I wanted to portray, and also with the animation team, give them an example. And I said in my previous answer that, so the characters could actually fly off the screen, and give them a sense of ‘soaring’ into the sky.”
Mao Takayama: “ So a lot of the things, I basically agree with in that sense. But I also want to add that I really want to make sure the viewers will be able to have a more thought-provoking kind of ending. I want the viewers to be able to think back, or think more about what happened in the episode, what’s going to happen in the future, and I want to make sure those thoughts are remaining within the viewers heads.”
Translating “Boy Meets Girl” into a Musical Crescendo
In Asian Spaces: “Your music frequently draws inspiration from retro Japanese City Pop, Showa-era television aesthetics, and vintage analog synth textures. When composing ‘Soarin’ for ‘Sparks of Tomorrow’, how did you approach matching your signature retro soundscape to the show’s early 1900s Meiji-era setting and the sense of flight and wonder surrounding Kihachi and Inako?”
Ginger Root: “ I do like vintage Japanese culture, but not that vintage (press laughter) I would say. But, it was a great opportunity to kind of stretch my palette and kind of deviate from the things that I normally do.
When talking to the team, I asked, ‘Do you want me to write an anime song I think would sound like an anime song, or would you want like a Ginger Root song?’ And they said, ‘Well, while we would like a Ginger Root song 110%, we probably can’t.’
So in my own head I decided like, ‘Okay, let’s do a 70% Ginger Root song and a 30% anime song, and what would that sound like?’ And it was a great exercise. It was a fun exercise to put on a new hat, try on a new set of clothes. I think they fit really well.
I think ultimately taking Ota-san’s writing, and his painting, and also all of the key artwork that I was able to see, all the character designs…they said that essentially, ‘Sparks of Tomorrow’ is a boy-meets-girl story and that you can’t do it alone.
And so how the song starts off with a single instrument is like you start off alone, and then as you try to achieve something you wanna do, you need help along the way to support, then that’s why the song gets bigger and bigger. And in the chorus, there’s a whole choir that sings the chorus. And so, it upheaves in towards that point.
So it was a really good challenge. It was really fun, and I’d like to do it again.”
Industry Insights & Personal Journeys: Art Direction & Creative Burnout
Anime Corner: “ From the early parts of the series, which characters in specific were top of mind for you, and what theme in the series struck you as best belonging to a song?”
Ginger Root: “ I think that in terms of themes specifically, I think it was a sense of wonder that this book has. It’s something so familiar, but something that hasn’t been delved into a lot. And I feel like in the song, choosing certain chords that evoke a sort of…we’re not at home yet. We’re done yet. This series isn’t done yet. This song isn’t done yet.
In terms of the characters, I feel each character…and this I guess translates into more of the theme as well, is everybody wants something.
Whether it is to avenge their brother, whether it is to aspire like their mother, whether it is to just get what they want, I feel like that feeling is something that I wanted to bring a main focus of, we all want something in life. We can’t do it alone.
Some people try to do it alone and fail. Some people try to do it together and succeed. And I feel like that was the core essence of what I took from both the theme, the character, and the scripts, as well as the stuff that the team told me to implement into the ending theme.”
From Violet Evergarden Artist to Sparks of Tomorrow Art Director
Anime Trending: “ What’s the best piece of advice or the best lesson regarding creating background art that you’ve acquired?”
Mao Takayama: “ So something that I learned from people I’ve worked with before, is to think while I’m drawing at all times. So because it’s background art, we want to make sure that the art really brings out the characters in the foreground, or to be able to control where the viewer’s eyes lie.
So I think that a lot of it is constantly thinking about what I’m drawing.”
Yatta-Tachi: “ How and when did you first start drawing, and what other artists would you say influenced you?”
Mao Takayama: “ I’ve been drawing since I was little, maybe five years old, and I’ve always kept on drawing. But what really made me want to become a background artist was when I was around 14 years old, I went to an art exhibit for Nizo Yamamoto, who was the art director for works such as ‘Castle in the Sky’ or ‘Princess Mononoke’.
When I saw his art exhibit, it made me really want to become a background artist. I feel that a lot of my inspiration comes from those works.”
The Natural Aristocrat: “ What’s the biggest change for you, moving from background artist in the 2020 ‘Violet Evergarden: The Movie’, to the art director in ‘Sparks of Tomorrow’?”
Mao Takayama: “ So back when I was working on ‘Violet Evergarden’, I was still very new to the industry, it was only my second year. So there’s a lot of times where I’ll get edits from my superiors, so I was really trying my best at fixing all the edits that I was given.
And now that I’m an art director, my roles have swapped.
So now I’m the one giving edits to the people who are working for me. I feel like a lot of my roles, or a lot of the things that I’m doing, I was able to implement the things that I learned while I was an artist, now as an art director.”
Journalist: “ How does it feel art directing an anime for the first time?”
Mao Takayama: “ It was very difficult. Because as an art director, not only do I have to work on actually drawing the pieces, I also have to communicate. So I felt a lot of the roles that I had to do, or a lot of things that I actually wanted to do, were things outside of just drawing. The other aspects became more important, and I felt that was very, very difficult.”
Journalist: “ Color palettes are incredibly important for setting the psychological tone of the series. For ‘Sparks of Tomorrow’, did you establish a specific set of color rules or lighting techniques to separate the moments of intense drama from the quieter, more intimate scenes of everyday life?”
Mao Takayama: “ So generally for the coloration, whether it’s a serious scene or a more relaxed scene, the general colors we tried to keep the same. The colorful grays, the very clouded sort of coloration.
But the main difference between the more dramatic scenes with the more relaxed scenes are the brushstrokes for the dramatic scene, where you use much stronger brushstrokes, while for the relaxed scenes, we use softer touches.”
In Asian Spaces: “From Kihachi’s inventive ‘wingsuit’ escape to the atmospheric smoke and electric lanterns of the city, the series features many memorable visual beats.
Is there a specific scene or detail from the first three, opening episodes that the staff found particularly rewarding or challenging to bring to life?”
Mao Takayama: “ It’s more so a scene that took a lot of effort, rather than something that was very impressionable. The scene where Kihachi’s thinking about the future, where it’s the very futuristic system, the people who are moving around were very realistic. And so those people [that] were also in the backgrounds, had to be draw in. We had to separate the moving parts with the background, and it was a very, very arduous process. So I thought that was a lot, but I thought it very impressionable.”
Overcoming Creative Burnout and Collaborating with KyoAni
Anime Corner: “ To what extent did the fact that you were working on a song for ‘Sparks of Tomorrow’ affect your usual choices around instrumentation, structure, and the overall creative process?”
Ginger Root: “ As I said in a previous answer, the director wanted specifically to have more electronic-based sounds. And I think finding that meeting between what I would personally put in as a synth sound that I would like, versus something that I think would fit the story, that was a fun challenge to incorporate.
I think in terms of…having the conscious decision of… I had to make the 80-second version first because they needed that to animate, and then go back and kind of extend the song from there was a really interesting thing that I’ve never done before.
Because usually, when I’m writing songs specifically just for Ginger Root, I write from the first beat to the last beat. But this one I had to basically hit a checkpoint, and then get it approved and then go on. And like I said in other answers, having to replicate…I didn’t save the guitar sounds.
I had to match by ear how much distortion I had on the first half. So that was a really interesting challenge that I would try to figure out a way how to not do that again.”
Anime Trending: “Your creative elements such as music, video, visuals, and the story of ‘Sparks of Tomorrow’ explore themes of creative passion and perseverance. Have you ever felt burnt out or hit a creative block? And how do you keep up your motivation and maintain momentum while juggling different roles?”
Ginger Root: “ Yeah, I was burnt out last year, definitely. (laughter)
I think in the midst of getting burnt out, I had to remember, and I’m still trying to remember, why I started doing music in the first place. And it was for fun, and it was because I enjoyed doing it. And I never thought I’d get this far doing music. I never thought I’d be sitting in a room at an anime expo talking about my song, and I’m very excited that I had the opportunity to do that.
I’m trying to learn to be more mindful of taking a step back and really being thankful for what I’m able to do with all of these music opportunities that I’ve been able to do. So in terms of creative block, man, just going for a walk does wonders.
And also I used to be the thing where, if I can’t do it in one go, or I can’t finish a song in one night, then it’s a bad song. I’ve started to be a little more lenient, and be like, ‘It’s okay to take a step back, take a day, take two days. Don’t even think about it, then come back with a fresh perspective.’
Because there’ll be a bunch of times where I’ll make something, and I think it sounds like garbage, and I’ll wake up the next morning with a fresh mind like, ‘This is…this is not bad.’
So, take it easy on yourself if you have a creative block. Motivation comes and goes…creative burnout, it’s hard. But if you remember why you started doing something in the first place, it’ll come back when it’s ready.”
Yatta-Tachi: “ What does your past experience with Kyoto Animation’s work look like? And do you have specific feelings about being able to collaborate with a studio on this song?”
Ginger Root: “ I love Kyoto Animation. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say all the other shows that I like, but, like ‘K-On!’ and ‘Nichijou’ and ‘Violet Evergarden’. I watched ‘Violet Evergarden’ with my mom. She cried. It’s great.
One thing I will say, and I said this at LA Anime Expo, is that I was learning Japanese during COVID, and the first book that I was able to read in Japanese was ‘Hibike! Euphonium’. And so I read that book, realized that Kyoto Animation made that, and I watched that, and that’s like a super crazy, connected story.
Well, now I’m working with the same studio that made that work… So it’s really special. I’d love to do something again, maybe an opening theme one time would be awesome… Just as a fan, awesome. It’s really cool, I’m really happy that I had this opportunity, and hope to do more in the future.
And who knows, I get better at drawing or maybe take a lesson from Takayama-senpai (collective laughter) I can maybe draw better, and maybe make my own anime one day. But that’s like, maybe I don’t know, 15 years from now, so… Yeah.”
Where to Watch: Streaming Release Details
Sparks of Tomorrow is now streaming on Netflix.
Have you watched Kyoto Animation’s latest anime series? Which character is your favorite?
🏮 Read More In Asian Spaces
- Sparks of Tomorrow Ep 1–3 Review: KyoAni’s Steampunk Kyoto – Explore our early episodes review, breaking down Kyoto Animation’s stunning background art, Meiji aesthetic, and narrative themes.
- Kyoto Animation’s Sparks of Tomorrow: Netflix Release Date, Cast, and Steampunk Kyoto Lore – Catch up on official streaming schedules, cast announcements, and background lore for KyoAni’s latest adaptation.
- Anime NYC 2026 Review: Panels, Show Floor Exhibitors & Cosplay Experience – Revisit our comprehensive press recap of Anime NYC 2026 at the Javits Center, featuring industry panels, publisher booths, and cosplay highlights.
- Anime NYC 2026 Review: A Candid Press Reflection on the Convention’s Shift – An honest breakdown of structural updates, show floor activities, and crowd management changes at the Javits Center.
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