| The look of your favorite anime characters comes from people like these.
Kazuko Tadano (left) created the character designs for Wedding Peach, Dancougar
and Sailor Moon. Hiromi Matsushita (right) directed the Sailor Moon series,
the original Vampire Hunter D, Guyver and SD Gundam. |
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| Since both worked on Sailor Moon, which remains one of the most popular
anime series in the U.S., that's where the questions ranged. Tadano said
the anime and manga versions of Sailor Moon started before Naoko Takeuchi's
manga creation became a major hit, so it wasn't intimidating to work on
the designs for the animated versions. However, "It was hard to organize
things to make it easy to animate," Tadano said. When translated from manga
to anime, every animation series needs to have the original character designs
simplified so they're easier to animate. That was the case for Sailor Moon... |
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| ...but there was one change that defined the look of the show (and
decided the path of legions of cosplayers). Tadano insisted that the Sailor
Scouts' outfits, derived from Japanese school uniforms, have short skirts
- too short for some. "One of the focal points was to show the beauty of
their legs, so I wanted to make the skirts short," Tadano said. "The producers
thought they were too sexy, but I insisted on the short skirts." The result
was the distinctive appearance of the Scouts on TV, which launched a flood
of costumers across the world (most of whom are female). |
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| Of course, those skirts fly up when the Sailor Scouts have their frequent
fights. "It was hard to keep the underwear from showing in the battle scenes
because the skirts are so short," added Matsushita. "There are a
few animation directors who really love `cheesecake, ' compared to others,"
he said. |
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