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Critical Role's Matt Mercer & Brennan Lee Mulligan got better at GMing thanks to Akira Kurosawa

Critical Role's new GM for Campaign 4 says there's a moment in Seven Samurai that teaches storytellers how to avoid the "soulless instinct to optimize." OG GM Mercer says it's a technique even used in shows like The MIghty Nein

News by Grant DeArmitt, Staff Writer

Published on Tue Feb 10 2026

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Critical Role draws from a wealth of inspirations, from Lord of the Rings to Dark Souls to real medieval uprisings. One inspiration you might not expect it to take from, though, is seminal Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, whose legendary movie Seven Samurai is considered one of the great achievements of the medium. Expect it or not, though, Kurosawa's fingerprints are visible on the storytelling Critical ROle has gotten famous for - at least, that's what the show's two biggest GMs claim.

I probably don't need to tell you, Critter reading this, that I'm talking about Matt Mercer and Brennan Lee Mulligan, the only two GMs to sit at the head of a table for one of the actual play series's core campaigns. In a recent video from Variety, the pair sat down to discuss their education in becoming Game Masters, and it was Dropout star Mulligan that first brought up the tricky technique of pacing.

"I think people that come to the [actual play] genre," began Mulligan, "And one of the first things they'll do is be like, 'Whoa, the episodes are two or three or four hours long?' And you go like, 'Yeah, that's the medium.' The average length of a scene in film and TV is like two to five minutes and the average length of a scene in actual play is like 12 to 20."

Now, you might think that this runtime requires a GM to keep the adventure's pace at breakneck speed, ensuring the audience is always entertained by something exciting happening. But what the Throne of Blood filmmaker taught him, says Mulligan, is that to keep a story moving, one has to learn when to slwo down.

"There's a concept," says Mulligan, "That Akira Kurosawa talks about and is in, actually, I think is in a lot of Miyazaki movies as well, called ma."

If you, like myself, are not as well-read as Mr. Mulligan, the definition of "ma" is as follows, courtesy of Japan House LA: "The concept of MA, which roughly translates to 'negative space,' evokes a deeper sense of a gap or pause that gives new shape and meaning to the whole."

And if that doesn't make sense, allow Brennan to explain it to you by example.

"There's a sequence before the final battle in Seven Samurai," says the Dimension 20 creator, "Of rain falling on the village and cutting to buckets filled with rainwater and looking into the town and stuff like that. As the action has been building and building and building, then we get here and then it suddenly stops. Why? I feel like there's a through line in the things I'm railing against a lot when I do interviews like this - which is the really soulless instinct to optimize."

"It's that same principle," he continues, "Of 'Number go up.' Of, like, 'Well, for the movie to be exciting, everything's gotta be exciting, right?' Maintain momentum, keep it going forward."

Fellow GM Mercer agrees completely - in fact, he says the same kind of "negative space" thinking even came up when he and the rest of the Critical Role team were working to produce their Prime Video animated adaptations - The Legend of Vox Machina and The Mighty Nein.

"We've had these conversations with our animated series," says Mercer, "And it's been a fight and many hard won moments to allow those moments of ma, to take a quiet beat and live in the world and feel it breathe and remind yourself that the stakes don't matter unless you are reminded what you're fighting for.

"Literally what Kurosawa said," agrees his interview partner, "He said, 'You've just seen three or four battles in the village at this point. This is gonna be the most violent, climactic one. This is the final battle. If I don't let you watch the rain fall on this peaceful village, how will you know what violence is?'"

Well said, Brennan. And just think - Kurosawa probably didn't even know that storytellers of the future would need a moment to figure out how their level six Warlock spells work. Because I can't be the only person lost here, right?

Critical Role Campaign 4 is streaming now on the group's Beacon, YouTube, and Twitch channels.

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Grant DeArmitt: Grant DeArmitt (he/him) likes horror, comics, and the unholy union of the two. In the past, and despite their better judgment, he has written for Nightmare on Film Street and Newsarama. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner, Kingsley, and corgi, Legs.