 Unable to travel
from Japan to North Carolina because of illness, anime director Yasuhiro
Imagawa sent an experienced performer as his replacement...you don't believe
that? What really happened was that Imagawa made a Sunday phone call to
Animazement to speak to fans. Taking his place at the guests' table was
a red Teletubbie (Imagawa is a Teletubbie fan). The figure is wearing bunny
ears because this is the "year of the rabbit." |
 The latest
project from Imagawa (seen at Animazement in 1998) is called Virgin Fleet.
It's based loosely on a video game, and is the tale of teenaged girls who
make up the all-female crew of a World War II-style warship. As the title
suggests, all of the crew are virgins - and those virgins have a special
power that makes the warship more powerful. Imagawa had to fill in the
gaps left by the game designers to make the game into an animated film:
"It was written by people with a military fetish. It had plenty of weapons
specs but no plot at all." |
 A story about
teenaged virgins who depend on their virginity might seem to have all sorts
of ecchi possibilities. Imagawa said he wanted to create a romantic melodrama
and not porn. "What I really wanted to show was a story of adolescent girls
growing up in Japan," said Imagawa. "I hopes by using the virginity angle,
I would create something that would bring pitty-patters to your heart." |
 While Virgin
Fleet might look as if it's set in World War II, Imagawa didn't want to
set the story in that war - too many people have vivid memories of the
war and what it meant, he said. Rather, Imagawa set the story in an alternate
universe and concentrated on the characters' reaction to a cease fire during
a fictional war. |
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