Via Anime Insider: Hollywood Spitballing (December 2006)

Various directors are asked about hollywood movies they’d be interested to remake as anime.

It’s a good question which gets some good answers (some not even restricted to movies). There are a bunch of cases of classic Western film and TV inspiring anime and manga (The Fugitive->Monster obviously so, Easy Rider->Gad Guard less so), but it’s neat to get a window into some of the less-obvious influences on a number of entertainers. Western or not, stuff like Taniguchi Goro learning about ongoing subplots from E.R. and Tsutomu Mizushima being a fan of car chases is fun to discover.

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Via Anime Insider: Hellsing Ultimate Staffers (December 2006)

A feature on Hellsing Ultimate that closes with interviews with author Kouta Hirano and screenwriter Hideyuki Kurata, as well as producers Yasuyuki Ueda and Young King Ours’ Yoshiyuki Fudetani.

Favorite part of the interview is Fudetani’s “[y]ou can do manga for us until the day you die” (Hirano’s Drifters is also very successful and also runs in YKO). Also touches on Hirano’s interest in England and favorite Gundam characters. Also interesting that Hideyuki Kurata has been a Young King Ours reader for the magazine’s entire run (“since volume one”); the magazine began serialization in 1993.

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Via Anime Insider: Seiji Mizushima (September 2006)

Seiji Mizushima is interviewed about the Fullmetal Alchemist series. Again.

It’s still somewhat interesting, talking about Sho Aikawa’s contributions to developing the setting for the Shamballa movie, the difference between TV and movie production, and insisting he’s finished with the series, a pledge he kept when Brotherhood was greenlit. And the fact that he enjoys wearing hats to interviews (I guess one nice thing about interviewing the same guy 3+ times is that you start to get a window into his habits).

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