Anime fans were surprised to see scenes from Tokyo Ghoul playing on the side of a building in Netflix’s action flick Kate. According to director Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, it’s not only a tribute to the show, but it’s meant to convey similarities between Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s character and the Tokyo Ghoul protagonist.
THEY FEATURED TOKYO GHOUL IN THE NEW MOVIE KATE, I FEEL SO PROUD#anitwt #KateNetflix #tokyoghoul pic.twitter.com/RwngdsuAGZ
— ri, (@ririfuyu) September 11, 2021
“I wanted to find something that was connecting, and that’s why Tokyo Ghoul is in the film because I was looking for a connection with Kate and with the [Ken] Kaneki character has that connection,” director Nicolas-Troyan explained to ComingSoon. “So to create those images that people who are [fans] of that kind of style, can be like, “oh yeah,” and they know why. People that don’t know Tokyo Ghoul, they’re going to be like, oh, it’s just a cartoon on the building. But people that know they’re going to be like, oh, I can see why Kaneki and Kate are together. Actually, I wrote a letter to the creator of Tokyo Ghoul to ask him to put it in the movie.”
If you’re unfamiliar with Tokyo Ghoul, Kaneki gets turned into a half-ghoul against his will and now must consume human flesh to survive. Similarly, Kate becomes an assassin not by choice but circumstance and has been put into a life of crime.
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The director has a long history of appreciating anime and has credited Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki as one of his main influences creatively. Nicolas-Troyan has been an anime fan since childhood and that bond continues with his son currently being a big fan of Japanese animation.
“I grew up with Japanese culture like Grendizer and [Message from Space:] Galactic Wars. All of that was big deals in France. So I was really drawn into that kind of anime culture very, very young and to this day my son is very much into it, so I never really kind of gave up. So that was a big part of the design and the look.”
Kate is now streaming on Netflix.
