Anime-Manga Squared (AM2) was a convention in Anaheim, CA. Now defunct.
Toshihiro Kawamoto, a prominent animation director and designer for Studio Bones (and staff on Cowboy Bebop for Sunrise before that), came to AM2 this year. He talked at the panel about Bones’ more recent projects and answered questions from the audience. (We interviewed him two years ago at Anime Expo.) Here’s a record of the tweets I made during the panel!
And here is the last interview I’m posting from this summer’s conventions: a conversation with character designer and animator Akihiko Yamashita. He’s best known for serving as animation director on numerous Studio Ghibli projects, including Ponyo and The Cat Returns, as well as being one of the two character designers on Giant Robo. In this interview, we ask him about what being at Ghibli and working alongside Hayao Miyazaki is like, his outright worship of JJ Abrams, and why he likes middle-aged male characters so much!
Note: the woman sitting next to him in the video is another character designer, Miho Shimogasa, who’s done work on Cutey Honey Flash, Gravitation, and Powerpuff Girls Z. She is silent in this interview.
Transcript follows after the break.
Continue reading Akihiko Yamashita (Studio Ghibli) Interview – AM2 Press Junket
This is one of the richest and most detailed interviews from this summer! We interviewed the president of Madhouse Studio, Masao Maruyama, together with writer/director Sunao Katabuchi, who is perhaps best known as the director of Black Lagoon and Mai Mai Miracle. We get into real depth about who they liked to work with, what their process is for deciding on a project, and especially what it’s like working on foreign co-productions vs working on a Japanese production. (Madhouse has collaborated several times with Marvel in recent years with anime versions of Iron Man and Wolverine, among others.)
This interview also represents something of a first for us, as it was conducted without any translator or mediator—it was done 100% in Japanese, which allowed us the time to get detailed replies. Transcript follows the break.
Continue reading Masao Maruyama/Sunao Katabuchi (Madhouse) Interview – AM2 Press Junket
Here’s our short but sweet interview with Kanon Wakeshima at this year’s AM2 Press Junket! She’s best known as the singer of the ED to “Vampire Knight.” We ask her about women in cello, goth lolita style, and her love of classical music.
Transcript follows the break. Translation provided by Tony from the Nihon Review (@KylaranAeldin). Thanks!
Continue reading Kanon Wakeshima Interview – AM2 Press Junket
