Yoshitoshi Abe talks about his pen name, religion, and the emotions behind his art.
3 things that jumped out at me: one, apparently he started using a computer in 1990 (seems early for an art student to have access to one), and two, apparently director Tomokazu Tokoro made a request to enlarge the size of the wings. Not a major thing, but it’s always neat to hear that sort of production trivia. And three, Abe was prohibited from reading manga as a child.
An interview with Gainax staff, namely Hiroki Yamaga, Yasuhiro Takeda, Kazuya Tsurumaki, Hiroki Sato, and Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, that touches on working with US companies, the differences between American/Japanese conventions, and their personal favorite titles.
Too, this article offers a funny opportunity to quote mine;
“[I think where] Gainax is better than Disney [is that after Disney created Mickey Mouse, they created titles that belonged to other people.]” -Yoshiyuki Sadamoto
Short, short interview with Alien 9’s Hitoshi Tomizawa, here mostly because he talks about his work habits.
Not much to speak of here, except a mention by Cartoon Network creative director Sean Akins that many overseas meetings/dinners were involved in the process of getting Big O 2 produced.
Kaidohmaru director Kanji Wakabayshi talks about how he got the position and his choice of color palattes.
A neat piece on the early censorship present in US releases of various anime and the role cable/Cartoon Network played in making it less necessary.
Mari Iijima gives brief comments on dealing with the role of Lynn Minmay years after the end of Macross.
Shoji Kawamori talks about Arjuna, working with Yoko Kanno, and near-death experiences.
Not a huge fan of this section personally, but this one has two bits of info, albeit ones probably corroborated elsewhere. One, it specifies the type of paper mangaka generally use, and two, it verifies that Yoshiyuki Tomino was responsible for the exclusion of The Island of Kukuras Doan from Gundam’s original US run.
Two separate bits of info that come in small blurbs – one gives the sales total for the first issue of US Shonen Jump as about 250,000 copies (a factor of 10 less than its Japanese parent), and the other gives the contemporary box office records of the best-performing anime movies released in the US.
Animetics 