How To Make a Whale Fly: An Interview with Leviathan’s Scott Westerfeld, Christophe Ferreira, and Yūichirō Kido

When I sat down to watch Leviathan for review, it wasn’t long before I was swept up by the series’ rousing score, gorgeous visuals, and poignant storytelling. Studio Orange and Qubic Pictures crafted a tale that constantly put itself in my own mental conversations with some of anime’s foundational classics. Needless to say, I was curious if these landmark works influenced Leviathan, not to mention the challenges faced by the creative team in adapting three novels into a twelve-episode television series.

Those questions swirling around in my mind would soon be answered as Anime News Network was provided with the opportunity to chat with series director Christophe Ferreira, screenwriter Yūichirō Kido, and original Leviathan trilogy author Scott Westerfeld. We talked at length about the adaptation process, potential influences, and how the politically fraught world of Leviathan resonates with our own.

Mr. Westerfeld, how did you react when you first heard the pitch to turn your novels into an anime series? Had there been previous bids to adapt the trilogy in other mediums?

Scott Westerfeld: Anime is the natural medium for Leviathan—I mean, it’s about a flying whale. So when I heard that the interest was from Netflix Japan, it was perfect. The trilogy has been pitched as a live-action series a couple of times, but the buy-in was maybe too much. (Edwardian bioengineering, walking tanks, World War I diplomacy.) The other “adaptation” the series has received is the audiobooks, read by Alan Cumming. He’s a great actor and puts on a whole show in those recordings. It’s like listening to your awesome Scottish uncle tell you a story when you’re ten years old.

While browsing your blog and trying to comb through an interview or two, I learned that the bespoke, light novel-esque illustrations featured in the Japanese editions of your Uglies books led you to bring on Keith Thompson to flesh out Leviathan‘s world. Now, while it might not be the manga adaptation of Uglies you dreamed of at the time, does seeing your series come to life in animation feel like something of a full-circle moment?

WESTERFELD: Writing novels can be very solitary, and one of the things I wanted out of creating Leviathan was the experience of collaboration. Working with Keith was amazing; his illustrations fed back into the prose all the way through. Working with a huge team of people is at a whole new level of strange for this lonely novelist. There’s such dedication and attention to detail from everyone. It’s humbling.

Mr. Ferreira, what was it about Leviathan that made you say, “I’m not only going to make this happen, but it’s going to be my directorial debut?”

Christophe Ferreira: Actually, it happened the other way around. I was first asked to work on the design side of the project before becoming the director. But once I took on that role, I had no doubt in my mind: I had to make it the best series in the world!

How did Studio Orange end up joining forces with Qubic Pictures for the series?

FERREIRA: By the time I became director, it had already been decided that the show would be made in 3D. I insisted we produce it in Japan and find the best studio possible for it. The fact that I happen to live just 200 meters from Studio Orange may have helped a little… (Okay, maybe that was just a nice bonus!)

What were some challenges you and the team faced while adapting a trilogy of novels into a single series? One novel alone is quite the task to begin with.

FERREIRA: The first challenge was fitting all three novels into just twelve episodes. We started by assigning four episodes per book. That worked reasonably well for the first two volumes, but the third was simply too dense—we had to make tough choices. On top of that, we couldn’t realistically include as many characters as the books did, so we had to get creative in how we maintained a sense of diversity in the cast.

Mr. Kido, when you were brought into work alongside Mr. Ferreira and the team on the series’ scripts, what was your initial approach to adapting a trio of novels for television?

Yūichirō Kido: The director already had a broad structural vision to adapt one volume of the original novel into four episodes of the anime, so we built the script around that concept.

One of the initial challenges was depicting the time before the two protagonists, Alek and Deryn, actually meet. They each set out on a journey from distant locations, drawn to Switzerland by fate, without yet knowing of each other. Since we alternate between their perspectives, we worked carefully to maintain viewer engagement and emotional continuity throughout.

Are there any other novels you’d like to take a crack at adapting one day?

KIDO: It’s not in the fantasy genre, but personally, I’ve long admired titles like Coin Locker Babies by Ryu Murakami and Shinya Tokkyu by Kotaro Sawaki.

Mr. Westerfeld, as both the series producer and the original author, how did you find yourself navigating the changes made to Leviathan during the adaptation process? From story beats to visual changes. Were there times when you found yourself saying, “This isn’t what I’d originally envisioned, but it’s true to the spirit of the story?”

WESTERFELD: The anime starts off closely following the books, but then branches out pretty radically, which I think is awesome. People who love the novels are going to feel very much at home at first, but then have a whole new experience. But yes, the vibes are the same as the books. Indeed, a lot of the queer subtext of the novels is just text in the anime, because it’s 2025 and not 2009. The same story truths, but more so.

With those changes in mind, like the absence of Eddie Malone or a handful of plot points from later on, how do you feel about the series in conversation with your novels?

WESTERFELD: The Leviathan trilogy is almost 300,000 words, so we were always going to lose some plot points. (I’m more sad about cutting Pancho Villa than Eddie Malone.) But what you get back is a lot of texture—the details of settings that don’t have space to appear in a novel’s text. Orange’s background paintings are just gorgeous, and bring a whole new aspect of the world to life.

What was your reaction when you started seeing the first bits of finished animation? And similarly, how did Mr. Thompson react to seeing his illustrations come to life? I’d bet it was mind-blowing when you saw Sharp ascend into the sky on that beastie after only knowing the scene as a static illustration for so long.

WESTERFELD: Keith has been working with the Orange and Qubic teams since the first days of preproduction. So the look and feel are very much in the style and vibe that he created for the books. So yeah, it’s like the novels coming to life with motion and music and sound, and also exploding into color (the books are black-and-white). And it’s not just the creatures, machines, and characters that have been heightened, but also the emotions of the story.

Mr. Ferreira, what was it like bringing Keith Thompson‘s art to life in the series? I was absolutely stunned by how well his clankers, beasties, and character designs translated to animation, not to mention the flair your team brought to this world as well.

FERREIRA: We talked with Keith early on to understand how he envisioned the designs and the world. His illustrations were already at such a high level that our goal was to stay as faithful as possible to his concepts whenever we could.

What was Thompson’s first reaction when he first saw the series’ look?

FERREIRA: You’d have to ask him directly, but I think he liked it! From what I gathered, he appreciated both the few changes we made and how we interpreted his world through the lens of anime.

Would you mind talking up your background art director a little bit? Because those vistas are stunning.

FERREIRA: Backgrounds were especially important to me, not only because I personally love them, but because with the Cinemascope format, they took on even more weight. We wanted the world to feel tangible and believable. That’s why we worked closely with the amazing Tadashi Nakajima and his team. They did an incredible job, and much of the show’s visual impact is thanks to them.

When viewers finally see Leviathan for themselves, I have a feeling that some may compare its weighty yet whimsical atmosphere to the works of Studio Ghibli, especially with Mr. Hisaishi’s contributions to the project. However, Ghibli’s talent had also worked on a long-running series that I believe resonates way more with Leviathan. That series is World Masterpiece Theater—known for its beloved adaptations of Western literature like Anne of Green Gables. Given that it’s also an adaptation of Western literature, was Leviathan influenced by this classic line of anime?

FERREIRA: Thank you for the comparison! I’m personally very influenced by the works of Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki, so it’s no surprise that the series reflects that. I grew up in France watching those shows—Anne of Green Gables, Sherlock Hound, Future Boy Conan, and of course the early Ghibli films like Laputa [Castle in the Sky]. In fact, the reason I live and work in Japan today is thanks to Yasuo Ōtsuka, whom I met in Paris in 2001. He invited me to work at Telecom Animation in 2003—the very studio behind Sherlock Hound, and where both Miyazaki and Takahata once worked.

This may be because they’re both war stories, but I couldn’t help but notice something of a kinship between Leviathan and the original Mobile Suit Gundam television series. Be it the roles the Leviathan and White Base serve in their respective stories, or the moment from episode two in which Volger tries to slap some sense into Alek. With that in mind, was Gundam an influence on the production?

FERREIRA: I see what you mean, but no, Gundam wasn’t a direct influence on the production.
We needed this scene to physically represent what was going on in Alek’s mind and his relationship with those around him. In the series, I saw the Leviathan not just as Alek and Deryn’s new home or the space where their friendship grows, but also as a symbol of two worlds, Clankers and Darwinists, learning to work together.

Despite the fact that Leviathan is a fantasy in many ways, the series never shies away from being a World War I story. As someone from a country that remains home to many relics and scars of both World Wars, how did you approach Leviathan‘s subject matter? Especially in today’s similarly politically turbulent times.

FERREIRA: War plays a significant role in the series, in the sense that it creates the circumstances the characters must face. But like in the books, we didn’t want it to be the main subject. Instead, we focused on two teenagers growing up during troubled times, doing their best to make a difference. The war stays mostly in the background, but its impact and horror are felt through the lives of Alek and Deryn.

On the same note, Mr. Westerfeld, how do you feel about your story stepping back out into the spotlight today?

WESTERFELD: World War I is the war nobody won. It destroyed not only people and cities, but also the very idea of the future as a technological utopia. The word “machine” changes when you put the word “gun” next to it. This is all relevant to today, when we are seeing what you could call wars of dystopia around the world. Wars of annihilation, and of remotely controlled machines killing humans. But the most relevant part of Leviathan is that it’s about people from different sides of a conflict working together, because that’s the only way they can survive.

Mr. Ferreira, while watching through the credits, I noticed you had worn way more than just your director’s cap by the time the series had wrapped up. How do you go about making sure you stay healthy while juggling all of these responsibilities?

FERREIRA: Now that the series is done, maybe I’ll finally feel the toll! But during production, I was so motivated—both by the project and the fact that it was my directorial debut—that I couldn’t do it any other way. I come from animation, I love drawing and creating, and I like getting my hands dirty. If I could help, I helped.

Speaking of the credits, I greatly enjoyed all the postcard-style illustrations accompanying the staff roll. In addition to the bespoke art created by Alex Alice and yourself for the credits, did any of these postcards feature storyboard or previous concepts? Or were they expanded from them?

FERREIRA: I’m glad you enjoyed them! Those images are just a small part of the preproduction materials I developed with Alex. Most of the ones you see in the credits were done while we were still shaping the story. Some others are color scripts or concept illustrations. I wanted people to stay through the credits and see the names of everyone who contributed, so I made sure each episode had a unique end sequence. Also, you may have noticed we made three different opening credits as well!

Mr. Westerfeld, what would you like to say to the readers who’ve been patiently waiting to see one of their favorite stories come to life?

WESTERFELD: Look at that Stormwalker! Just look at it!

And on the other side of the coin, what would you say to new viewers who might be interested in reading the trilogy after they’re done with the series?

WESTERFELD: If you want loads of details about how the ecosystem of a flying whale works, from message lizards to hydrogen sniffers to flechette bats, we have three novels for you!

Mr. Kido, what would you like to say to the readers of Mr. Westerfeld’s novels about the experience you’ve crafted alongside him?

KIDO: Alek and Deryn travel the world aboard the Leviathan. I hope that fans of the original novel will enjoy the action, music, and their personal journey—elements that are uniquely brought to life through animation.

Also, what would you like to say to viewers who will be encountering the world of the Leviathan for the first time with this series?

KIDO: Set against the backdrop of World War I, Leviathan is an action-fantasy tale filled with wonder—including journeys aboard massive genetically engineered flying whales. Watch as Alek and Deryn are swept up in a turbulent world, yet press forward, grow stronger, and mature into brave young heroes. Climb aboard the Leviathan and join them as they explore the world.

Mr. Westerfeld, after this whole experience, do you find yourself perhaps wanting to return to the world of Leviathan one day?

WESTERFELD: I think the future for Leviathan is in other media than prose. I’d love to see a manga or a live-action version. And it would be fun to watch these characters move forward with their lives, in the world in which they changed history.

Finally, Mr. Ferreira, what would you like to say to all the fans who are champing at the bit to see the series?

FERREIRA: I hope they’ll enjoy traveling aboard the Leviathan alongside Alek and Deryn. We tried to craft an exciting adventure that delivers a wide range of emotions. More than anything, I hope that once the series ends, the characters will stay with viewers for a long time.

Leviathan is now streaming on Netflix.