 She created
the versions of the Sailor Moon costumes that most anime fans know, the
versions that appear in the television show. She went on to make the elaborate
costumes for the Wedding Peach series. Kazuko Tadano is a fan favorite,
even if she's not a household name; people know her designs and go to great
lengths to make costumes based on them. At Ohayocon on Friday, she said
about her designs that "You may not have the costumers in mind, but it
has to be a plausible costume, something that is actually wearable. On
the Wedding Peach costumes, Tadano said that the wedding costumes weren't
part of the original idea for the series. The transformation into those
costumes is part of the "wishful thinking" of female fans, she said. |
 So what
makes anime characters so cute? They're not photorealistic, rather they're
impressionistic characters with big eyes and small noses and flat faces,
Tadano said. To illustrate her point, Tadano took to a drawing board, showing
how she drew a Sailor Moon face. (Tadano noted that it was the first time
in years that she had drawn this character.) She started with the chin
line, then sketched out the eyes and added the hairline. |
 "The diameter
of the eye is as large as half the face," Tadano said. "It is easier to
make the eyes expressive when the eyes are big." These sketches at the
convention must have been much like the drawings that Tadano made when
she auditioned for the job as the character designer for the animated Sailor
Moon. Several artists were considered for the job, and Tadano learned of
the auditions with only one night to spare, barely enough time to throw
together some sketches. She got the job, and was part of the success when
Sailor Moon grew from a temporary fill-in show to a five-year series. |
 Tadano
also had a moment to treat the fans to her self-portrait. "It's easy to
do," she joked. |
 Tadano's
most recent project is a video game with her character designs, which was
scheduled for a February 2001 release in Japan. "This is a sentimental
game. If you play it you won't be able to stop yourself from crying," she
said about the story of a character who meets females on a remote island.
"I've heard that all of the test players for the game play it with tears
in their eyes." |
