'Drifting Home': How Hiroyasu Ishida's Childhood Fueled His Anime About A Floating Apartment Complex

For his second feature, "Drifting Home" (streaming on Netflix), director Hiroyasu Ishida ("Penguin Highway") had a flash of inspiration that turned into a surreal anime about a group of pals sixth graders who inexplicably find themselves adrift at sea in an abandoned building. “It all started with the image of the building drifting along the water,” he told IndieWire. "And when I drew that, I thought it was pretty interesting that no one had ever seen. So that gave me the confidence to run with it and make a feature film out of it."

Once he had his central image, Ishida began to explore the psychological ramifications of this group of lost children, centering on his co-protagonists: Natsume and Kosuke, who are almost like siblings and who grew up together in the building. But there are conflicts between the two friends that arise during the strange journey to find their way home, which reverberate among the young castaways.

"I was very mindful of their feelings and emotions as they interacted with each other and their conflicts," Ishida said. "And also I wanted to talk about [how] our relationship with each other got weaker and weaker." Social media has changed the way people interact, he added, "and I wanted kids to find a way forward even given the current situation."

Ishida unwittingly exploited his own bittersweet adolescence when fleshing out "Drifting Home," including a dark incident so personal he declined to elaborate. “My elementary school years were when I had the most fun, and those are indelible memories of my life,” he said. "At the same time, that's also when I felt the most pain. I did something really bad towards the end of my fifth year, which I can't go into detail about. because it's too private."

"Drifting Home"

Netflix

This resulted in Ishida being ostracized from both his school and his family, leaving him to drift for a time in lonely, guilt-ridden isolation. "I had lost my place where I belonged," he said. "A chain of events eventually led to people forgiving me, and I realized that I had all this emotion, this feeling of remorse, all pent up inside of me that exploded during that moment of forgiveness. And I burst into tears. It was really the first instance where I discovered the feeling of losing one's place where you...