Yasuyuki
Ueda (left) and Yoshitoshi Abe (right) are among the amazing
storytellers and artists who make the anime world so attractive to
English-speaking fans. Their latest project is the terse, hard-boiled
Texhnolyze, but the series that has won many hearts is the gentle and
mysterious Haibane-Renmei. Viewers might see a big gap between the
violence of Texhnolyze and the character stories of Haibane-Renmei, and
the difference - especially where Abe is involved - is that the ideas
come from different sources. Abe, for example, created the character
designs for Texhnolyze, but Haibane-Renmei was Abe's story from the
beginning. "The project that I had the most control over was Haibane,
where I did the script and the designs and even the background. There,
my part was to see the plan through - otherwise I'm just a hired hand."
Abe created the Haibane world as an experimental doujinshi, but it was
picked up as an animated project. "Originally, the plan was that I
would write only the first episode, but I was ordered to write all the
episodes - so I did it."
While
Abe made up Haibane as he went along, to the point of not having the
story finished well into the production of the 13-episode series, Ueda
plans a little more ahead. "In my case, I start with the main
character. I try to think about how this character can express the
things I want in the story. The character is defined by relationships,
so I try to define the relationships - so I'm looking at it from the
standpoint of the audience." Abe's stories have been about young women
working out the problems in their lives and their relationships with
each other, but Ueda's stories run the gamut. "I'm pretty broad in what
I like to do. Texhnolyze is a hard-boiled story while Haibane is the
opposite, and Hellsing (directed by Ueda) was abut evil people. Right
now I'm doing a love story in Japan. I don't care about the kind of
story, as long as it's interesting - but I like yakuza stories."
The
ending of the Haibane series seems to leave the possibility for more
stories, and Abe said he's considered that. "When I finished the
series, I thought I had finished the story, but I got some questions
from Mr. Ueda if i was going to finish the story. I got to
thinking...and in the future there might be another story. The setting
of the story is in a walled city, and we didn't set any stories in the
western part of the city, and I wondered what was there. I didn't have
a chance to explore that in a 13 episode story - I'd like to get into
that." There's no hint of a second Haibane series, though. Abe's rise
from artist to master storyteller has been one of the most fascinating
success stories at the turn of the new anime century, and while Abe
series have been popular, he still feels as if he needs to learn more
about animation. "I just write what is in my head. I don't have in my
head what the audience is looking for. There are times when I look back
on my audience and I think `what would an audience think,' so I look
back at that from time to time."
Yasuyuki
Ueda (left) and Yoshitoshi Abe (right) are among the amazing
storytellers and artists who make the anime world so attractive to
English-speaking fans. Their latest project is the terse, hard-boiled
Texhnolyze, but the series that has won many hearts is the gentle and
mysterious Haibane-Renmei. Viewers might see a big gap between the
violence of Texhnolyze and the character stories of Haibane-Renmei, and
the difference - especially where Abe is involved - is that the ideas
come from different sources. Abe, for example, created the character
designs for Texhnolyze, but Haibane-Renmei was Abe's story from the
beginning. "The project that I had the most control over was Haibane,
where I did the script and the designs and even the background. There,
my part was to see the plan through - otherwise I'm just a hired hand."
Abe created the Haibane world as an experimental doujinshi, but it was
picked up as an animated project. "Originally, the plan was that I
would write only the first episode, but I was ordered to write all the
episodes - so I did it."
While
Abe made up Haibane as he went along, to the point of not having the
story finished well into the production of the 13-episode series, Ueda
plans a little more ahead. "In my case, I start with the main
character. I try to think about how this character can express the
things I want in the story. The character is defined by relationships,
so I try to define the relationships - so I'm looking at it from the
standpoint of the audience." Abe's stories have been about young women
working out the problems in their lives and their relationships with
each other, but Ueda's stories run the gamut. "I'm pretty broad in what
I like to do. Texhnolyze is a hard-boiled story while Haibane is the
opposite, and Hellsing (directed by Ueda) was abut evil people. Right
now I'm doing a love story in Japan. I don't care about the kind of
story, as long as it's interesting - but I like yakuza stories."
The
ending of the Haibane series seems to leave the possibility for more
stories, and Abe said he's considered that. "When I finished the
series, I thought I had finished the story, but I got some questions
from Mr. Ueda if i was going to finish the story. I got to
thinking...and in the future there might be another story. The setting
of the story is in a walled city, and we didn't set any stories in the
western part of the city, and I wondered what was there. I didn't have
a chance to explore that in a 13 episode story - I'd like to get into
that." There's no hint of a second Haibane series, though. Abe's rise
from artist to master storyteller has been one of the most fascinating
success stories at the turn of the new anime century, and while Abe
series have been popular, he still feels as if he needs to learn more
about animation. "I just write what is in my head. I don't have in my
head what the audience is looking for. There are times when I look back
on my audience and I think `what would an audience think,' so I look
back at that from time to time."
