Инфо

Kawamoto

Jupe ran into the character designer of Cowboy Bebop, Toshihiro Kawamoto, and sat in on his panel. She recorded all of the important and noteworthy things he had to say, as well as a few other things. It is a couple months late, but is still interesting inФорматion. Photo of Kawamoto is courtesy of A Fan's View.

After the panel, she was lucky enough to get his Autograph on one of her artbooks.

Most of this info is in point form because it is insanely difficult to record the entire Q&A period. Enjoy!

• He was the key animator for not only Cowboy Bebop, but also the Escaflowne Movie
• One of his projects before Cowboy Bebop was Ghost in the Shell. Before Ghost in the Shell was Goldenboy. (When the audience cheered about Goldenboy, he was very surprised because in Japan, he would not have gotten the same reaction)
• When he was in school, he was a huge anime fan. His favourites were Urusei Yatsura and Gundam.
• When Macross came out, he got a job at the studio.
• He tried being a salary man and worked with Anno on the "Radish" film. From there, he went into animation.
• Kawamoto went to animation school and moved to Tokyo
• Kawamoto specializes in key animation and drawing
• He loves his job because he is now in the field he enjoyed the products of when younger (anime)
• Kawamoto says that if you want to become a designer, you need to know key animators, etcetera, and need lots of skills.
• Kawamoto didn't aspire to become a designer. Rather, people pushed him and encouraged him to persue the line of work.
• He participates in colour co-ordination during a production, as well as key animation.
• Urusei Yatsura was actually his first job. He loved his job, but learned that it was his job and not his hobby. He stated that he liked to draw Lum the most ;)
• Work on Cowboy Bebop began in 1996. It was way too eccentric at first. The time that the series was finished happened around the same time that people were having seizures from Pokémon. Airing laws were tightened up, and CB was too hot to air.
• CB was the first series he did as a character designer.
• CB aired on the satellite channel WOWOW, and all 26 episodes were shown. The time it aired was after midnight, but it was still hugely popular.
• Kawamoto was very surprised that it was welcomed as much as it has been in North America because of how much english was in it. Nobody on the production staff spoke english. When Kawamoto sees US movies with Japanese hints, he thinks it isn't right, so he was worried that the US audience would think that the hints of english language would be unacceptable and unrealistic.
• CB was influenced by the Gundam series
• Ed was supposed to be a boy at first, and the stule was different. She was changed to a girl, but they used the design for boy-Ed anyway. (In episode 5, he's one of the boys shoplifting porno from Annie's store)
• Ed's personality is based on Yokko Kanno's personality. Kawamoto stated that if you compared the way that Ed speaks to thhe way that Yokko Kanno speaks, you would think, Oh my God, it's Ed!"
• Kawamoto didn't know Kanno until he was introduced to her by Wantanabe
• When Kawamoto was asked to make Ein a Welsh Corgi, he didn't even know what a Welsh Corgi was. They actually got a Corgi and watched it move so that they knew how to animate Ein. Kawamoto now owns his own Corgi.
• The production staff added their own little tidbits and idea to the script
• Kawamoto draws a character according to their blood type, age, and characteristics he is told to include. For Jet, he was told that "He's tall, and he has to be muscular". From all the settings, he draws 3 - 5 different characters, and they choose which one they want.
• The most challenging character for Kawamoto to design was Gren. He says that he modeled Gren after Brad Pitt, but it was difficult to draw "Brad Pitt" with breasts.
• With Bebop, he wanted to draw rather plainish characters instead of flamboyant characters.
• Kawamoto always draws his own version of the characters. The series was fairly indecisive, as far as characters went, but the designing of the characters was actually pretty easy.
• His favourite character is Ed. He can draw her any way he pleases because he likes the character so much.
• The Cowboy Bebop movie, Knockin' on Heaven's Door (KOHD) began production as soon as the final episode of CB was aired.
• The movie is officially known as Session 22.5, as it takes place between episodes 22 and 23