| If you've wondered why Riding Bean and Gunsmith Cats, manga created by Kenichi Sonoda, are based in Chicago, the credit should go to the late John Belushi and his star turn in The Blues Brothers. Sonoda told an Anime Central panel on Saturday that his enjoyment of that American movie led him to feature Chicago as a character in his street-action manga. |  |
| "I was disappointed that everything was based in Los Angeles and New York," said Sonoda. "It was my conscious effort to assert the character of Chicago," he said to cheers and applause from the audience. "Chicago has the elevated trains, the Loop - you have all sorts of three-dimensional intersections. It's a visual impression not unlike Tokyo." |  |
| Tokyo, a cramped city with more people than all of Illinois, looks like Chicago? Sonoda said he compares each city's elevated trains and notes that the El in Chicago is much like one Tokyo train line that just happens to pass the best places in Japan to buy anime and manga material. |  |
| Sonoda has been to Chicago only twice, yet he draws the city as if he was raised on Lake Michigan. That, he said, is due to extensive research. Sonoda's personal library includes several books of Chicago photographs. He puts as much time into his research of the firearms used in his manga, subscribing to a Japanese firearms magazine so he can accurately draw the guns used by Rally Vincent and Bean Bandit. Don't expect more Gunsmith Cats adventures soon, by the way - Sonoda said he's currently working on a science fiction manga. |  |
| Personal handguns are heavily restricted in Japan, so Sonoda usually gets to a firing range only on his American visits - but not on this trip to Anime Central, he said. "I've shot everything up to a .44 Magnum, but I've never shot a .50-caliber Desert Eagle yet," Sonoda said. "I want to shoot up a car to pieces like Swiss cheese. Ever since I saw the movie The Gauntlet, I've wanted to do that." |  |
Anime Central Day One |
Anime Central Day Two |
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