The Embassy of Finland in Tokyo recently invited 51-year-old Japanese animation director Tsutomu Mizushima for an interview to ask about his successful anime series Girls un Panzer and Keizoku Highschool featured in the mega hit feature film Girls und Panzer der Film released in November 2015. The school is based on a motif of Finland, and after the school's name was briefly mentioned in the TV series, the three members of its girls tank club, Mika, Aki and Mikko, and even the country's famous BT-42 assault gun appeared for the first time in the film.

Mizushima answered to the question why he named the girls as so in the interview, "I knew that they are men’s names in Finland, but they sounded Japanese as well. Thus I named them so. I’m familiar with Finnish names as I love motor sports since Ari Vatanen was very active. Oh, Ari can be also used as a girl’s name."

He also expalined why he used Kantele, a traditional instrument of Finland, in the soundtrack music for

the film, "I wanted to use Kantele from the beginning as I knew it is Finnish traditional instrument. But

it took time to decide which music to be played. After listening to various music, I chose Säkkijärven polka

in the end and asked Japanese Kantele player Hiroko Ara to play it. The blocking of the scene and flow

are made in time to the music so that the movement of the animation fit to the high point of the music.

Kantele is beautiful and stylish instrument. I like the simple design a lot."

You can now read the full interview in Japanese, English, and Finnish on the embassy's official website.

Source: The Embassy of Finland in Japan