Yoshitaka Kawaguchi has been part of the anime industry since the 80s, working his was up through the ranks to become a producer at studio Sunrise. His career has had a focus on mecha and science fiction with works like Planetes, Turn A Gundam, Overman King Gainer, and Code Geass with only a few notable exceptions.
LeSean Thomas is a unique individual. It is rare to be able to speak to someone who has had experience with the American, Korean, and Japanese animation industries. He has worked on such diverse projects as The Boondocks, The Legend of Korra, and Black Dynamite.
Mr. Thomas has even created his own comic series Cannon Busters which he Kickstarted with much fanfare to produced a proof of concept animation which has the potential to be turned into a full series. He is someone who could be a guest at an American comic convention, at an anime convention, or a school to give a lecture on international animation.
We sat down with him to discuss his success with Cannon Busters, his thoughts on Kickstarter, and his views on International collaboration.
GARO is a very popular live-action tokusatsu franchise which has now branched out into other media. Studio MAPPA paired director Yuichiro Hayashi and producer and monster designer Toru Kubo to bring this new story by Yasuko Kobayashi to life as an anime. GARO the Animation was so popular that another anime series is starting in fall and the first series is getting a complication movie.
Mr. Hayashi is just ramping up as a director, but he is already an accomplished key animator. His understanding as an animator allowed him to create some very memorable sequences throughout GARO and easily transition the live-action series into animation.
Mr. Kubo was involved with the live-action GARO franchise bringing all of that knowledge to the table. While he spent most of his time as producer on the animated series, he also contributed many monster designs to it as well.
They spoke with us about adapting a live-action series and the Horror designs. And they also gave us a tidbit about the upcoming movie.
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