Ryuya Suzuki wrote, directed, edited, composed and hand-drew feature-length animated feature Jinsei in just 18 months. The film opens in NYC at the IFC Center this Friday June 5th and expands nationwide next Friday June 12th. It chronicles the incredible, 100-year life of a man and his many personas — taking us decades into the future. (This Animation Scoop Q&A with Suzuki was conducted with a translator and was edited for length and clarity.)

Jackson Murphy: You wrote, directed, edited, scored and hand-drew this. What inspired you to take on these incredible filmmaking challenges?

Ryuya Suzuki: I was 29 at the time when I started this project, and I had this feeling that I wanted to do something big before I turned 30. I was a few years into making and working with animation, and I decided to create something that was a feature film about someone’s epic life story.

JM: What fascinates you about the different phases of life that we go through — the different decades of life — and how we grow as a person?

RS: I wanted to do something that felt very real in animation, and I wanted to portray a lot of the issues in Japan. So I really packed in as much as I possibly could and mixed them all together to create this film.

JM: There’s a lot here for sure. I love early on the perspective we get of the car rides and being in the front and passenger seats. What did you love about exploring that visually and with the storytelling?

RS: I love film montages, and I’m a total beginner in animation. So I can’t move characters all that much in my animation, but I can move the backgrounds. So that’s what I tried and experimented with. I decided to put this five-minute montage to show in the film this is what you’re getting into — setting the tone, basically, at the beginning of the film.

JM: It’s really well done. And I can tell you love montages because I also wanted to ask you about the editing you do. You make so many really smart, specific choices with the editing.

RS: I wanted to create a pasting that sort of forced the audience to focus or they’ll kind of miss something in the story. I think young people especially, with all the verticals, are used to fast tempo storytelling. So I made sure to balance the fast tempo storytelling with slower moments as well.

JM: One of the things that happens on our hero’s journey is him becoming a pop idol. I’ve always been fascinated with fame and the music business. Have you always been fascinated with that, and what kind of commentary did you want to show with the story?

RS: Originally I felt like “Citizen Kane” and “Scarface” were inspirational references for me, where the main character climbs up and up in that world. But I’m not a newspaper mogul. I’m also not in some crime organization. I’ve loved TV since I was a kid and followed some idols, so I felt like that was a good place to start on this journey.

JM: Through this movie, you are able to kind of predict the future… especially in the second half. What did you enjoy the most about that?

RS: This might be kind of a technical answer but I didn’t move my characters around all that much in the first half, and I had no watercolor or oil color-type touches to the animation. But in the last chapter I looked into the details of the background, and also in portraying the aliens, and I moved them around a lot, which felt a lot more like classic animation. And that was a lot of fun.

JM: So in making “Jinsei”, what have you learned the most about animation as a medium, and what have you learned the most about yourself through this experience?

RS: I would say that the quality of animation that I see in Japan… what I learned is that it’s impossible to achieve such a thing doing this alone. You need a team, and that is a tremendous thing that is constantly being done. And normally you can’t improvise in animation, but I did improvise and created this film without a script, so I kind of found a new way of enjoying anime through this film. And personally what I learned is: I really put out everything I possibly could from my inside world for this film. So I’m just thinking about what will come next because this film is really getting out there a lot more than I expected, and it’s giving me the courage to say, “Okay, I’m going to be a director. And that’s what I want to do.” So that’s a real gift I received from making this film.

JM: You’re going to inspire so many people. What would you say to a young kid who wants to get into animation and make movies and try to achieve what you have accomplished?

RS: So I would say to someone like that: Give it your all. Do it full on, if you have something you really want to do. That’s the same for me. I don’t really know if I have “advice” to give, but that’s what I feel.