Displaying items by tag: artist interview

Hosting its inaugural anime convention in the United States, Japan Expo USA treated its convention attendees to a number of high-profile Guests of Honor ranging from the video game industry legends to infamous mangaka from Japan. We had a special opportunity to sit down with the Art Director for the Ace Attorney series and Clover Studio's Okami, Tatsuro Iwamoto! Join us as we learn about which characters he loves to draw, what he thinks about his creations come-to-life and which character he identifies with the most!

This year's FanimeCon had an exciting line of guests and panels including Japanese designer Shigeto Koyama. He has worked on popular series such as Heroman, Panty & Stocking, Gurren Lagann, Evangelion, and Eureka Seven. Check out what he had to say as we discussed a little about his work on the popular mecha anime Star Driver along with some of his current works that he was unable to talk to us about during our previous interview!

Kia Asamiya is an unique artist who has worked on American comics such as Batman and X-Men. Back home in Japan, he has work on popular manga titles like Silent Mobius and Martian Successor Nadesico. While at this year's FanimeCon, we caught up with the man and discussed briefly about some of the differences between American and Japanese works and also a little about his current titles in Japan. Read also about his future projects such as the possible continuation on Silent Mobius!

Retsu Tateo (館尾冽) is a female Japanese mangaka best known for her illustrations in Full Metal Panic!  She has followed the main story of series as closely as possible by collaborating with the author of the original light novels, Shoji Gatoh.  Tateo-san is also the artist of her own manga, Endless Eden.  At this year's Sakura-Con in Seattle, we had a chance to talk with Tateo-san discussing how she started working on Full Metal Panic!, her experience illustrating the series, and of course, her mascot frog.

Japanese artist Alpha made her first visit earlier this year to Anime Expo 2011 held in Los Angeles. Alpha is an illustrator for the visual novel company, Akabeisoft2 and has worked on the award winning game, G-Senjou no Maou (G線上の魔王). While some may have never heard of Alpha, a legion of American fans lined up to meet her at MangaGamer's booth.

Hear what Alpha had to say about her experience at Anime Expo, a little about how she got started into the industry, current projects she is working on, and a special message for all her American fans!

Ryusuke Hamamoto is a Japanese artist who is probably best known for his character design work on the Petit Eva: Evangelion@School series. Hamamoto-san has also adapted characters from popular anime series (To Love-Ru, K-ON!, Macross Frontier, etc.) for Bandai's figurine line, R-style named after himself.

In one of our most extensive interview, we discuss with Hamamoto-san at Kintoki-Con in Sacramento, some of the various aspects involved in designing characters, how he developed his own unique style, and his inspirations and American influences.

People may have seen Shinji Katakura clad in a black ninja outfit sketching at the MangaGamer booth during previous years at Anime Expo.  For those who might not know, Katakura is a character designer at the Japanese game company, OVERDRIVE that has produced many well-known visual novel titles such as Kira☆Kira (キラ☆キラ) and Edelweiss (エーデルワイス).  All of the games that Katakura has worked on has been released worldwide with English translations.  See why he's back in our brief interview with him at Anime Expo 2011.

Amongst the various guests that appeared at Anime Expo, illustrator Kazue Yamamoto, who is also President of visual novel company Denbonosu, made a surprise visit at MangaGamer's booth. Yamamoto-san is probably best known for her works on the Izumo series. She was also a Guest of Honor previously at Anime Expo 2005. We got to briefly chat with her during her break and hear what she had to say!

While traveling in Japan during mid August 2009, the staff of The-O Network stumbled upon Inu, creator of the popular Hatsu Inu adult manga. His purple haired vixen, Shion Fujimo, has become somewhat iconic in the hentai, or adult animation, community. Originally published in 2006 in three volumes, the overall popularity of the series led to a two volume revised Complete Edition released in 2010. The series has also received a hentai anime adaptation released by Pink Pineapple in 2007, with a second season released in 2008. See what Inu had to say about his works, life, and a little about his thoughts on the recent rise of fan groups translating and uploading doujinshis online.

Amongst some of the all star artists and character designers that MangaGamer brought to Anime Expo 2010 who were available to accept commissions on sketches, there were a few lesser known illustrators to the American public including Yuki Takano, a relatively new artist working for the popular visual novel company, CIRCUS.