Artist
Mimo Shimogasa has been blessed in her anime and character design
career. She's worked on an amazing array of fan-favorite shows,
including Gravitation, Prince of Tennis, Cutey Honey F, Sailor Moon S
and Sailor Moon SS. And Shimogasa was the animation director and
character designer for one of the most anticipated and ground-breaking
shows of the near future, the Power Puff Girls Z series. A pilot
episode already has been prepared, and Shimogasa's designs of the
revised characters have been widely distributed. Animated
co-productions between Japanese and American companies go back to the
1960's with shows such as Astro Boy and the Rudolph the Red-Nosed
Reindeer stop-motion show, and it's been common for Japanese and Korean
studios to animate American cartoon shows, but the Power Puff girls Z
series will be one of the few cases where Japanese animators and
producers will put their twist on a show that originated in America.
"They're middle school girls in the Japanese version," explained
Shimogasa. "The setting is planned to be in Tokyo It will take place 15
years in the future." So, rather than the iconic, simplified McCracken
character designs, we'll see something more elaborate and detailed,
based on Shimogasa's anticipation of how middle school girls will look
in the near future. That poster of the new character designs shows a
boy and some fans have speculated that he's a younger version of the
Professor who created the girls, but Shimogasa said that's not the
case. However, she said that the Professor and villain Mojo Jojo will
appear in the "Z" series.
To
be selected to make the new Power Puff designs, Shimogasa had to pass
an audition. She drew on years of experience that first came to the
fore with the later Sailor Moon animated series. "I worked on it for
five years - it was a real growing and learning experience. I learned a
lot that I applied to other jobs, including the Power Puff Girls."
After the Sailor Moon work, Shimogasa got to work on Cutey Honey F and
think up new villains for that series. Most of her work has come for
the Toei animation studio, and she's been lucky to work on her favorite
kind of series, "genki" series with lots of enthusiasm and energy, as
opposed to serious melodrama such as Evangelion or Gundam. "It feels
good to work on that kind of show. If you work on the dark series it
affects you." On the Gravitation characters, Shimogasa assures fans
that "They might look like women but they're all men." And when she was
told that most Gravitation costumers are female, Shimogasa replied that
"Probably the females cosplaying are a little bit prettier. I'd also
like to see some pretty men cosplaying as Gravitation characters. When
I see someone cosplay as my characters, I want to take their pictures."
Artist
Mimo Shimogasa has been blessed in her anime and character design
career. She's worked on an amazing array of fan-favorite shows,
including Gravitation, Prince of Tennis, Cutey Honey F, Sailor Moon S
and Sailor Moon SS. And Shimogasa was the animation director and
character designer for one of the most anticipated and ground-breaking
shows of the near future, the Power Puff Girls Z series. A pilot
episode already has been prepared, and Shimogasa's designs of the
revised characters have been widely distributed. Animated
co-productions between Japanese and American companies go back to the
1960's with shows such as Astro Boy and the Rudolph the Red-Nosed
Reindeer stop-motion show, and it's been common for Japanese and Korean
studios to animate American cartoon shows, but the Power Puff girls Z
series will be one of the few cases where Japanese animators and
producers will put their twist on a show that originated in America.
"They're middle school girls in the Japanese version," explained
Shimogasa. "The setting is planned to be in Tokyo It will take place 15
years in the future." So, rather than the iconic, simplified McCracken
character designs, we'll see something more elaborate and detailed,
based on Shimogasa's anticipation of how middle school girls will look
in the near future. That poster of the new character designs shows a
boy and some fans have speculated that he's a younger version of the
Professor who created the girls, but Shimogasa said that's not the
case. However, she said that the Professor and villain Mojo Jojo will
appear in the "Z" series.
To
be selected to make the new Power Puff designs, Shimogasa had to pass
an audition. She drew on years of experience that first came to the
fore with the later Sailor Moon animated series. "I worked on it for
five years - it was a real growing and learning experience. I learned a
lot that I applied to other jobs, including the Power Puff Girls."
After the Sailor Moon work, Shimogasa got to work on Cutey Honey F and
think up new villains for that series. Most of her work has come for
the Toei animation studio, and she's been lucky to work on her favorite
kind of series, "genki" series with lots of enthusiasm and energy, as
opposed to serious melodrama such as Evangelion or Gundam. "It feels
good to work on that kind of show. If you work on the dark series it
affects you." On the Gravitation characters, Shimogasa assures fans
that "They might look like women but they're all men." And when she was
told that most Gravitation costumers are female, Shimogasa replied that
"Probably the females cosplaying are a little bit prettier. I'd also
like to see some pretty men cosplaying as Gravitation characters. When
I see someone cosplay as my characters, I want to take their pictures."
