Simultaneously,
writer Hideyuki Kurata was working on the scripts of Kamichu, Gun Sword
and Hellsing. He may be one of the few writers capable of handling
three radically different kinds of series - sweet Kamichu,
adventuresome Gun Sword and ultraviolent Hellsing - at the same time.
"When I wanted to work on a heart-warming story with girls I would work
on Kamichu," Kurata said through an interpreter at a Sakura Con
interview session. "When I wanted to work on something more exciting
where people were being killed off, I would work on Hellsing. And when
I wanted to work on something that had action and cool guys, I would
work on Gun Sword. I was trying to maintain a balance." Through all of
this, Kurata considers R.O.D the TV to be the most difficult series
that he's written, because he was trying to outdo his work on the R.O.D
OAV series. That TV version of R.O.D wasn't all based on Kurata's
concepts (the three Paper sisters apparently weren't his idea). There
was something of the same pressure with the Hellsing OVA's, but Kurata
ended u writing that series as much as a fan of Hellsing as he was a
creator, looking forward to being able to do more with the
direct-to-video release than with the TV series. The hard part of
ending the Gun Sword series was deciding how to wrap up the stories of
the series' characters, since the number of important recurring
characters kept growing as the series progressed.
What
does it take to make a story and characters that will attract people?
Thought, planning and trust in his instincts and experience, Kurata
said. "I think about what I would like to do with the characters. If I
feel a certain way about a character, others will as well. After
editing the character, I decide what will happen to them - will they
have a happy ending or an unhappy ending, what god or bad will happen.
Then I decide on the story flow and the individual characteristics of
the characters and how they will react." Some creators may have
writers' block, but Kurata said that hasn't been a problem for him -
ideas pop out of real life. "When I'm working, I think about ideas as
they come. I don't smoke, and if I see someone walking along with a
cigarette and I get angry and want to kill them, I think about how I
would do that - and story ideas come from that. Also, I watch many
DVD's and read other works, so inspiration sometimes comes from them.
In the past year, I got 1,100 DVD's." Kurata also said he plans to
continue Read or Die.
Simultaneously,
writer Hideyuki Kurata was working on the scripts of Kamichu, Gun Sword
and Hellsing. He may be one of the few writers capable of handling
three radically different kinds of series - sweet Kamichu,
adventuresome Gun Sword and ultraviolent Hellsing - at the same time.
"When I wanted to work on a heart-warming story with girls I would work
on Kamichu," Kurata said through an interpreter at a Sakura Con
interview session. "When I wanted to work on something more exciting
where people were being killed off, I would work on Hellsing. And when
I wanted to work on something that had action and cool guys, I would
work on Gun Sword. I was trying to maintain a balance." Through all of
this, Kurata considers R.O.D the TV to be the most difficult series
that he's written, because he was trying to outdo his work on the R.O.D
OAV series. That TV version of R.O.D wasn't all based on Kurata's
concepts (the three Paper sisters apparently weren't his idea). There
was something of the same pressure with the Hellsing OVA's, but Kurata
ended u writing that series as much as a fan of Hellsing as he was a
creator, looking forward to being able to do more with the
direct-to-video release than with the TV series. The hard part of
ending the Gun Sword series was deciding how to wrap up the stories of
the series' characters, since the number of important recurring
characters kept growing as the series progressed.
What
does it take to make a story and characters that will attract people?
Thought, planning and trust in his instincts and experience, Kurata
said. "I think about what I would like to do with the characters. If I
feel a certain way about a character, others will as well. After
editing the character, I decide what will happen to them - will they
have a happy ending or an unhappy ending, what god or bad will happen.
Then I decide on the story flow and the individual characteristics of
the characters and how they will react." Some creators may have
writers' block, but Kurata said that hasn't been a problem for him -
ideas pop out of real life. "When I'm working, I think about ideas as
they come. I don't smoke, and if I see someone walking along with a
cigarette and I get angry and want to kill them, I think about how I
would do that - and story ideas come from that. Also, I watch many
DVD's and read other works, so inspiration sometimes comes from them.
In the past year, I got 1,100 DVD's." Kurata also said he plans to
continue Read or Die.
