Animazement - Friday - Hiroyuki Kitakubo

At Otakon in 1999, Hiroyuki Kitakubo and Production I.G. presented a teaser of Blood, an animation project that features schoolgirls and war mecha. At Animazement in 2000, Kitakubo was able to show a further preview - and announce that the film was virtually completed. Kitakubo said that he had spent the previous two weeks finishing Blood's soundtrack at a Los Angeles studio.

Blood is a cutting-edge feature, the first full-digital film from Production I.G. Instead of cels, the film uses a computer system that creates frames digitally from scanned art, using a computer to paint each frame. "If you want to keep the same qualities as cel animation, it's difficult," Kitakubo. "If you're expecting a technical style, it's much harder. Creators are confused if they should go to an easy style or a more difficult style. I'm one of those people who are confused."

After Blood, Kitakubo showed a preview of a comedy titled "The Digitals." Even though the preview was in Japanese and there was no translation, the fans at the Animazement panel were laughing out loud at the preview, enjoying the broad comedy. Of course, any mention of comedy and Kitakubo leads to talk about Golden Boy, the series that he directed. Will there be more? No, Kitakubo said. Golden Boy turned out to be more popular in the U.S. than it was in Japan, he said.

Also part of the panel discussion was Kazuto Nakazawa, the character designer for the Landlock and El-Hazard series.

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