While in attendance at Anime on Display (AOD) 2015 in San Francisco, we had an exclusive opportunity to interview the up-and-coming Japanese illustrator P19. Known for her rich and colorful character design work with the visual novel company Light, she has served under their Sweetlight brand and has also done numerous illustrations for their series of novels. This includes Vamp on the Dead Line with author Madoka Igami and Himegitsune no Servant with author Kasuga Mikage, as well as doujinshi under the circle name, "practice." Learn all about her inspirations behind her upcoming Elements artbook, as well as her thoughts on being a professional artist in Japan!
While attending the Los Angeles premiere of Gen Urobuchi's latest film Expelled from Paradise our staffer, Salvador Mateos, had a chance to sit down and talk to the film's producer Koichi Noguchi to ask a little bit about the film and his role within production. With a background in 3D CG production, we speak with Kouichi about his thoughts on the animation industry in Japan along with what he wants audiences to take away from his critically acclaimed sci-fi film.
Read more: Koichi Noguchi (Expelled from Paradise) Interview
During Japan Expo 2014, we had a chance to interview incumbent Street Fighter character designer, illustrator and art director Daigo Ikeno who has been working for the video game company Capcom since 1993. Known for his unique take on Ryu, Ken and the rest of the Street Fighter family, find out what he had to say about his design process and his thoughts on his appearance at Japan Expo 2014 in San Mateo, California.
Shinji Aramaki is a pioneer in 3D Japanese animation. As a director, he brought cell shading to the movie screen with Appleseed in 2004 and followed up with a new and stunning graphical direction for the 2007 sequel, Appleseed Ex Machina. Over the next several years, Aramaki continued to direct 3DCG movies including Starship Troopers: Invasion, and the 2013 adaption of Space Pirate Captain Harlock.
We caught up with Aramaki at Japan Expo USA in California and sat down with him to talk about his most recent work, Appleseed Alpha which pushes the boundaries of animation with photorealistic CG. We also asked him a little about the upcoming 1/6 scale figurine of Briareos made by Hot Toys and got a glimpse into a possible future of the Appleseed movie franchise.
For fans of Japanese visual novel-style games, the name Key evokes a lot of fond memories, magical storylines and endearing characters that often culminate into an cathartic bliss that I personally like to describe as "tear nirvana." Known as the company behind the scripts for tearjerker anime such as Kanon, Air and most recently Little Busters!, VisualArt's, Key's parent company, has finally begun to localize these timeless visual novels into English as part of a collaboration with the localization company Sekai Project.
With the recent release of the kinetic novel Planetarian already under their belt, the next big project for the two companies will be the upcoming Kickstarter campaign for Clannad; the title that is often arguably seen as the company's magnum opus. Take a trip with us as we interview Genki Tenkumo, one of the scenario writers for Clannad, and Yoshikuni Toyoizumi, one of VisualArt's PR representatives, at Japan Expo USA 2014 to discuss the company's plans and their hopes for the English market.
Read more: Key/Sekai Project Interview @ Japan Expo USA 2014
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