Anime Central - Hidenori Matsubara - April 20,
2002
There's a reason the wild tresses of Japanese animation characters
are called "anime hair" by North American fans; there's nothing else like
it in the world of film. And according to character designer Hidenori Matsubara,
"Hair is a major part of characters' personality. In a lot of anime, the
hair styles tend to be extravagant because in each scene if you look at
the screen you'll know exactly who is where based on their hair. If you
notice a lot of anime characters have unnatural hair shades, that's because
they want you to know who is on screen at first glance." What about the
fan comments that the hair is the only way you can tell the characters
apart? Matsubara says that's the case among animators, too.
Matsubara is best known for his reworking and simplification of the
Oh My Goddess manga characters for animation, but he's worked on other
shows. On Sakura Wars he redesigned the game characters. "Their personalities
are reflected in their designs. Sumire, because she has a very tight personality,
her eyes get pointy. For Maria, because she has a calm and cool and collected
personality, she has a very tight glare. Characters who like gaudy things
tend to get gaudy designs. That's why Maria always wears black, because
she's so cool."
The Sakura Taisen games world will continue, "...but some day it will
end." Matsubara said there will more games and maybe more anime,
he would like the series to shift from Japan to the United States. In the
meantime, the producers of Sakura Taisen are releasing another game for
which Matsubara created ad illustrations, called Gungrave (which has original
designs by Trigun's Yasuhiro Naito). And Matsubara has another secret project
that he couldn't discuss at Anime Central.
