As
artist and animator Toshiharu Murata sat down for an Anime Expo
interview session, outside was a gathering of dozens of people in Hellsing
costumes. "I'm very thankful," said Murata, the artist who redesigned
the manga Hellsing characters for animation. "I'm very happy that there
are people cheering me on like this." It's also a measure of success
for the Hellsing anime, little known two years earlier when Geneon,
then known as Pioneer, launched a promotional campaign for the series
at Anime Expo. Redesigning a manga character for animation always means
simplifying the designs, but Murata said the work had different
challenges than you might expect from looking at both versions. "The
characters did end up being a little different from the originals," he
said. "I didn't have any trouble at all redrawing Alucard, but we
started working on the anime when (the design for) Seras hadn't
stabilized and she looked different all the time. We had a hard time
designing her for the animation."
Murata
also contributed mechanical designs for the You're Under Arrest
animation, but that was mostly drawing cars the way that the producers
wanted them drawn. "As for my knowledge of machines, I only had an
interest in cars and motorcycles as a hobby. You're Under Arrest is a
show that deals a lot with motorcycles and cars. When they needed a
character designer for that, they came to me. In this industry, there
aren't many people with a knowledge of machines and mechanics, and work
on machines and mechanics tends to come to me, for which I'm very
grateful." It was work and not a gearhead's fantasy of drawing his
ultimate dream car, said Murata, noting there were times when he wished
You're Under Arrest used different cars than the one that were animated.
As
artist and animator Toshiharu Murata sat down for an Anime Expo
interview session, outside was a gathering of dozens of people in Hellsing
costumes. "I'm very thankful," said Murata, the artist who redesigned
the manga Hellsing characters for animation. "I'm very happy that there
are people cheering me on like this." It's also a measure of success
for the Hellsing anime, little known two years earlier when Geneon,
then known as Pioneer, launched a promotional campaign for the series
at Anime Expo. Redesigning a manga character for animation always means
simplifying the designs, but Murata said the work had different
challenges than you might expect from looking at both versions. "The
characters did end up being a little different from the originals," he
said. "I didn't have any trouble at all redrawing Alucard, but we
started working on the anime when (the design for) Seras hadn't
stabilized and she looked different all the time. We had a hard time
designing her for the animation."
Murata
also contributed mechanical designs for the You're Under Arrest
animation, but that was mostly drawing cars the way that the producers
wanted them drawn. "As for my knowledge of machines, I only had an
interest in cars and motorcycles as a hobby. You're Under Arrest is a
show that deals a lot with motorcycles and cars. When they needed a
character designer for that, they came to me. In this industry, there
aren't many people with a knowledge of machines and mechanics, and work
on machines and mechanics tends to come to me, for which I'm very
grateful." It was work and not a gearhead's fantasy of drawing his
ultimate dream car, said Murata, noting there were times when he wished
You're Under Arrest used different cars than the one that were animated.
