In
2002, Pioneer used Anime Expo to launch a vampire story called
Hellsing, and the result was a successful release. In 2004, the renamed
Geneon hoped for the same results with another vampire story to be
introduced at Anime Expo, Lunar Legend Tsukihime. While Hellsing was
based on a manga, Lunar Legend comes from a game, and the people who
headed the game's conversion to animation were Kaoru Ozawa (left),
character designer, and director Katsushi Sakurabi (right). On
converting the game into animation, Sakurabi said through an
interpreter that "We didn't think about what we were cutting out and
putting in. We were focusing on the elements of the story. We would
absolutely need to retell the story in animated form - it wasn't a
matter of what we left out." The story features a young man who moves
to a bizarre house after an accident, has disturbing visions and meets
up with a group of vampires. "If you watch the show, although there are
a lot of female characters, we designed the show so the focus isn't on
the female characters, but on the story," Sakurabi said.
Ozawa
noted that Lunar Legend was her first work as an animation character
designer, or re-designer when it came to the game's characters. "When I
worked on the adaptation, I made some changes like making the skirts
shorter. I showed the changes to the original creator and they approved
the changes." Why shorter skirts for the female characters? "We
discussed it amongst the staff, and we were all of the opinion that the
characters would be better with shorter skirts." Make no mistake, this
isn't like the changes in Sailor Moon where the outfits were changed to
make the character's look cuter; the animated Lunar Legend is a violent
horror mystery with intense characters. In the opening episode, "Shiki
Tohno meets the lead female character and kills her," Sakurabi said,
noting that female character is an already undead vampire. "Already, it
starts as a dark story. We had to try to get rid of some of the
darkness and at the end of the series..." We won't finish that sentence
because Sakurabi gave away what might be considered a spoiler. You'll
have to wait for Geneon's fall release of Lunar Legend to learn more.
In
2002, Pioneer used Anime Expo to launch a vampire story called
Hellsing, and the result was a successful release. In 2004, the renamed
Geneon hoped for the same results with another vampire story to be
introduced at Anime Expo, Lunar Legend Tsukihime. While Hellsing was
based on a manga, Lunar Legend comes from a game, and the people who
headed the game's conversion to animation were Kaoru Ozawa (left),
character designer, and director Katsushi Sakurabi (right). On
converting the game into animation, Sakurabi said through an
interpreter that "We didn't think about what we were cutting out and
putting in. We were focusing on the elements of the story. We would
absolutely need to retell the story in animated form - it wasn't a
matter of what we left out." The story features a young man who moves
to a bizarre house after an accident, has disturbing visions and meets
up with a group of vampires. "If you watch the show, although there are
a lot of female characters, we designed the show so the focus isn't on
the female characters, but on the story," Sakurabi said.
Ozawa
noted that Lunar Legend was her first work as an animation character
designer, or re-designer when it came to the game's characters. "When I
worked on the adaptation, I made some changes like making the skirts
shorter. I showed the changes to the original creator and they approved
the changes." Why shorter skirts for the female characters? "We
discussed it amongst the staff, and we were all of the opinion that the
characters would be better with shorter skirts." Make no mistake, this
isn't like the changes in Sailor Moon where the outfits were changed to
make the character's look cuter; the animated Lunar Legend is a violent
horror mystery with intense characters. In the opening episode, "Shiki
Tohno meets the lead female character and kills her," Sakurabi said,
noting that female character is an already undead vampire. "Already, it
starts as a dark story. We had to try to get rid of some of the
darkness and at the end of the series..." We won't finish that sentence
because Sakurabi gave away what might be considered a spoiler. You'll
have to wait for Geneon's fall release of Lunar Legend to learn more.
