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In the center is the man who created the look of Lime, Bloodberry and
Sofia. Tsukasa Kotobuki designed those characters for Saber Marionette
J and Battle Arena Toshinden. Other artists who accompanied him to Anime
Central were Daiken Yoko-O (left) and Hirotaka Okuma (right). |
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Like a musician who prefers club dates to arena shows, Kotobuki's heart
is in the self-published doujinshi where he started as an artist,
but his profession is in anime character design. "I prefer having the freedom
to make my own manga, but I can't make a living this way," he said at a
Saturday interview session. "As a person working in the industry, it's
frightening. You have to come up with new stuff or you'll be forgotten." |
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A commercial artist can take his work only so far, because the producers
make the final decisions. Take the Saber Marionette series and Kotobuki's
designs. They already were cute to start with - especially the female "marionettes"
Lime, Cherry and Bloodberry - but they became even cuter for the Saber
Marionette X series. "The director wanted to gear the show more for children,
so he wanted a more appropriate look," Kotobuki explained. |
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Yoko-O was asked about the video game industry in Japan, which has
become a competitor with the anime industry for artistic talent. "Most
artists, when they get famous, quit and go into the game industry." There's
more money to be made in game design than in anime production, he noted,
agreeing that film production budgets have dropped - at the same time that
producers and investors put more pressure on animators to create commercial
hits. |
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