Hiroshi Iwata -
Anime
Convention Personality of the Week - June 3, 2007
In
a big meeting room in Boston, a video projector showed the restored
version of Super Dimension Fortress Macross. A few feet away sat one of
the people responsible for that animation, producer Hiroshi Iwata. He
viewed the video and fans' reaction to the series, more than two
decades after it was created, with a blend of pride and practicality.
Pride in Macross' endearing popularity, practicality in wishing he
still made more money from the series. "It would be nice if we got some
royalties from that, too," Iwata said. "I do hold the copyrights to the
theme songs (mostly replaced with American music in the Robotech
version) and I get royalties when they're used, but not from the
figures in the U.S. - it depends on copyright issues." Iwata has gotten
through decades in the anime industry with that sort of attitude. He's
spent time as a freelance producer on one of the Hello Kitty series,
among others, and he also was the producer of the Outlanders anime
based on Johji Manabe's manga series.
In
a big meeting room in Boston, a video projector showed the restored
version of Super Dimension Fortress Macross. A few feet away sat one of
the people responsible for that animation, producer Hiroshi Iwata. He
viewed the video and fans' reaction to the series, more than two
decades after it was created, with a blend of pride and practicality.
Pride in Macross' endearing popularity, practicality in wishing he
still made more money from the series. "It would be nice if we got some
royalties from that, too," Iwata said. "I do hold the copyrights to the
theme songs (mostly replaced with American music in the Robotech
version) and I get royalties when they're used, but not from the
figures in the U.S. - it depends on copyright issues." Iwata has gotten
through decades in the anime industry with that sort of attitude. He's
spent time as a freelance producer on one of the Hello Kitty series,
among others, and he also was the producer of the Outlanders anime
based on Johji Manabe's manga series.