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Otakon |
| Yutaka Minowa
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| 2004 |
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 When
character designer and animator Yutaka Minowa appears at a U.S. anime
convention, he knows that fans are going to want to know about the
latest developments in the production world of Vampire Hunter D, for
which Minowa designed the movie characters. At a Sunday morning Otakon
panel, Minowa said there was nothing new, joking that director Kawajiri
Yoshiaki hadn't finished the latest script. The two have worked
together on an Animatrix sequence for Mad House and the Vampire Hunter
movies. Yoshitaka Amano created the basic look of "D," but Minowa
finished the design for animation, and the other Vampire Hunter
characters were drawn by Minowa from Kawajiri's rough sketches and
illustrations in the Vampire Hunter novels. Minowa said those
characters were inspired by bondage gear, and joked that he'd never
wear that sort of thing himself.
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 Minowa
also has gotten positive attention for his Ninja Scroll character
designs, and said that work is among his favorite. He stays busy for
Mad House, working on projects such as the latest Ninja Scroll film,
but he wonders if the commercial demand for his "hard-edged" character
designs will continue. "When I was growing up, I was watching anime
series with masculine heroes, and that where my work went...at the
production level there's a strong desire to work on general audience
shows that have strong masculine heroes, but that's now what the
sponsors are interested in," he said. "There are plenty of shows like
that that haven't been introduced to the American market, but there
might be political factors such as American distribution rights not
being available." While sponsors control what gets made in Japan,
Minowa has the impression that they interfere less in production
details than "suits" in the U.S.
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