Is There a Megazone 23 Expert in the House?

[Chas]

O.K. I know (simply from his style) that Mikimoto, Haruhiko did the character designs for this but what is up with the crediting of such. At animenfo.com they show Sonoda Hideki as the character designer (for which part is vague) and over at IMDB they list Toshihiro Hirano as the character designer and Mikimoto, Haruhiko as .... special character designs .... whatever that means.

So, again I ask, what gives here? Did Mikimoto, Haruhiko simply design the main characters in part one? but then who's left for the other guy to design? No, really.

I mean obviously Mikimoto, Haruhiko designed Shôgo, Yui, Tomomi, Mai and B.D., but to my eye Coco, Eigen, Môrii, Chonbo and the Slimeball -I mean Producer- also look like his work. So what gives here? Could anyone who has a copy of the OVA please check the credits - if you can understand them- and let me know what they say? And of course If you just happened to have been working on the series at the time (before the funding was pulled) and can explain from first hand knowledge by all means do so. Also if there is anyone with Character line art from part I I'd love to see it as I long ago lost any that I once had thanks! (edit it doesn't have to be just line art - paintings and/or other colour illustrations are more than welcome too. )

Edited April 5, 2008 by Chas

[VF5SS]

Mikimoto only designed Tokimatsuri Eve for all three parts. Hirano was the main designer for Part 1, Umetsu (doggy style) did the designs for Part 2, and Sonoda did the designs for III. Hirano and Mikimoto have similar styles, but Hirano's characters tend to be bulkier. Especially the males.

[Chas]

Hirano and Mikimoto have similar styles

, Wow! you're telling me! I would have sworn (in fact I pretty much did in my first post) that Mikimoto also did the others.

but Hirano's characters tend to be bulkier. Especially the males.

Now that you mention it I can definitely see that. What else has Hirano worked on? I'd be interested to see more of his stuff as these are some of my favourite designs. Oh and thanks for the quick response! But for anyone else out there I'd still love to see some character art - Iknow, I know I'm begging now but I never said I was above begging Edited April 5, 2008 by Chas

[Renato]

Mikimoto designed only Eve Tokimatsuri. The rest of the cast in Part 1 were designed by Hirano. You can tell by what Carl Gustav Horn calls the "Toshihiro Hirano baby fat", particularly on the female characters. Check out the SDF Macross episodes where he is handling the keyframes, I think the final episode is one of them if I remember correctly. They all look a little bit more innocent and their subtle movements is also a trademark of his.

I really miss the hand-drawn days when you can tell who was working on which scene just by their pen strokes. Sigh...

[Chas]

I really miss the hand-drawn days when you can tell who was working on which scene just by their pen strokes. Sigh...

You're not the only one. I wonder, do you think it would work to have CG backgrounds and Mecha with hand-drawn characters? I'm thinking here of Manga with photo-realistic backgrounds but Manga styled characters along the lines of the work Ryoichi Ikegami did in Mai.

[Vifam7]

, Wow! you're telling me! I would have sworn (in fact I pretty much did in my first post) that Mikimoto also did the others. Now that you mention it I can definitely see that. What else has Hirano worked on? I'd be interested to see more of his stuff as these are some of my favourite designs. Oh and thanks for the quick response! But for anyone else out there I'd still love to see some character art - Iknow, I know I'm begging now but I never said I was above begging

The best example of Hirano's chara designs can be found in the OVA anime Dangaioh and Iczer One.

Hirano can draw some knock out sexy girls. I believe he also worked on some hentai titles in the Cream Lemon series but I have no idea which one(s).

His chara designs can also be found in his wife's (Narumi Kakinouchi) manga works. They work very closely together so I'm not sure who's influenced by who. Narumi Kakinouchi is known for her work on the manga series Vampire Princess Miyu - which also was turned into anime. you can clearly see Hirano's style in her work.　　BTW in case you didn't know both Hirano and Kakinouchi was part of the staff for Macross.

I'll try to find some neat pics.

Edited April 5, 2008 by Vifam7

[Chas]

The best example of Hirano's chara designs can be found in the OVA anime Dangaioh and Iczer One.

Hirano can draw some knock out sexy girls.

OMG! I used to have an Iczer one art book back in the 80's (in fact I think it may still be kicking around in a box in my parents basement. I remember seeing it on the shelf back in the 80's and just being wowed by the images (and not just the ones of the naked girls in giant 'female' robots either ) So I guess I've been a fan of his for years now without knowing it! Hunh... just goes to show it never hurts to ask.

[Vifam7]

Lots of screenshots here for Dangaioh.

There's some lineart stuff at the official Megazone 23 DVD release site: http://www.jvcmusic.co.jp/m-serve/megazone/

I have this DVD box set and it is awesome.

Similar stuff also here: http://www.megazone23.org/index.html

Edited April 5, 2008 by Vifam7

[Chas]

Similar stuff also here: http://www.megazone23.org/index.html

I'd sure like to get a look at that site but it's Japan only, so I guess not.

But thanks anyway.

[Beltane70]

Mikimoto only designed Tokimatsuri Eve for all three parts. Hirano was the main designer for Part 1, Umetsu (doggy style) did the designs for Part 2, and Sonoda did the designs for III. Hirano and Mikimoto have similar styles, but Hirano's characters tend to be bulkier. Especially the males.

Actually, it was Hiroyuki Kitazume (a few websites have this information wrong, Anime News Network included. At least the official Japanese website has it correct!) that did the character designs for part 3.

Edited April 6, 2008 by Beltane70

[Renato]

You're not the only one. I wonder, do you think it would work to have CG backgrounds and Mecha with hand-drawn characters? I'm thinking here of Manga with photo-realistic backgrounds but Manga styled characters along the lines of the work Ryoichi Ikegami did in Mai.

I've been wanting to do something like that since like, forever. Need to gather a willing team, and be able to dedicate a lot of time, though...

[Renato]

The best example of Hirano's chara designs can be found in the OVA anime Dangaioh and Iczer One.

Hirano can draw some knock out sexy girls. I believe he also worked on some hentai titles in the Cream Lemon series but I have no idea which one(s).

His chara designs can also be found in his wife's (Narumi Kakinouchi) manga works. They work very closely together so I'm not sure who's influenced by who. Narumi Kakinouchi is known for her work on the manga series Vampire Princess Miyu - which also was turned into anime. you can clearly see Hirano's style in her work.　　BTW in case you didn't know both Hirano and Kakinouchi was part of the staff for Macross.

I'll try to find some neat pics.

He did the "Ikenai Mako-chan" Cream Lemon one. He may have done others.

Iczer and Dangaioh both look awesome but I don't really care for the stories. Of course, Kawamori did the mecha for Dangaioh too...

As for Narumi, yeah I like her work, too, I never knew they were married! That's awesome. Her style is nice too, and it gives the characters a bit of a shojo manga look to them. The male characters all tend to look a bit taller, with long torsos and always with a straight back, which is interesting. Man, makes me want to get out all my old artbooks and pick out each characteristic one by one...

[Chas]

Man, makes me want to get out all my old artbooks and pick out each characteristic one by one...

Please do! And throw up some scans while you do It could be like a course in Anime/Manga art appreciation. You could start a new thread.

[Renato]

Well, I don't have a scanner, but I'm sure there are scans lying around. Plus most of my stuff is in London.

Does anybody here have that Macross Illustration collection thing? It was a folder containing ten fairly large card poster type illustrations by different artists, and there were two versions, one was mainly characters and the other, mecha. I had the character one. Looking at those one by one you can really tell how, for instance, Narumi's style differs from Mikimoto's, and also the madness of king Itano, heh.

I just remembered, the characters in the Christmas episode of SDF Mac ("Romanesque") were mostly drawn by Narumi (the action is quintessentially Itano all the way): I'm thinking of specifically the ending scene where Minmay and Hikaru kiss. Check out Hikaru's tall frame and hair, as well as Minmay's eyes and nose.... Aw hell, I could go on forever.

Damn, you know what, we should start a thread 'cause I'm really derailing the hell out of this. Sorry!

[ChrisG]

I'd sure like to get a look at that site but it's Japan only, so I guess not.

But thanks anyway.

Huh? What does the site being Japanese have to do with anything? The menu navigation is in English.

[Chas]

Huh? What does the site being Japanese have to do with anything? The menu navigation is in English.

I didn't say anything about 'Japanese' as in the language. I said "Japan only" meaning I thought it was only accessible to people in Japan. Why I thought this was because I get

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /index.html on this server.

Apache/1.3.33 Server at www.megazone23.org Port 80

when I try to access it and I've encountered that before with sites that were restricted to certain national boundaries. Or at least that is what I surmised the cause to be. Perhaps this was an erroneous conclusion on my part.

Renato

Does anybody here have that Macross Illustration collection thing?

HEH HEH I've got them both! And I've always wondered who some of the other artists that created these images were. Now I know!

Edited April 6, 2008 by Chas

[Renato]

Narumi is the one that did the one with Hikaru in his flight suit standing up and... doing not much else.

Itano did that crazy skewed VF-1 action scene.

Mikimoto did the Minmay painting and the green / white Mucha style female cast ensemble pic.. someone here did a STUNNING colorisation of that one, I can't remember who. We should search for that.

Er, I can't remember what the other pics were.

Funny, I don't remember Hirano doing any of those, come to think of it.

[Chas]

Cool! I think maybe some scans are in order.

[lord_breetai]

HAHAHA! the character profile of Pt 1 Shogo is on the Megazone 23 official website is probably the funniest character intro I've ever seen.

マクドナルドでバイトしている、バイクと女の子が大好きな18歳。

"Makudonardo de baito shiteiru, baiku to onnanoko ga dai sukina juu hachi sai"

"Working a part time job at McDonalds, an 18 year old who loves bikes and girls"

It's totally accurate but very funny.

[Chas]

HAHAHA! the character profile of Pt 1 Shogo is on the Megazone 23 official website is probably the funniest character intro I've ever seen.

マクドナルドでバイトしている、バイクと女の子が大好きな18歳。

"Makudonardo de baito shiteiru, baiku to onnanoko ga dai sukina juu hachi sai"

"Working a part time job at McDonalds, an 18 year old who loves bikes and girls"

It's totally accurate but very funny.

Damn! I really wish I could access that site

Anyway here are a couple of quick scans off the back of those Macross Original Illustration sets. So Renato who's work can you identify here?

[Vifam7]

Damn! I really wish I could access that site

The lineart at the jvc site:

Edited April 8, 2008 by Vifam7

[Vifam7]

Anyway here are a couple of quick scans off the back of those Macross Original Illustration sets. So Renato who's work can you identify here?

The answers are written right there! You might want to cover the names. ^_-

Edited April 8, 2008 by Vifam7

[Chas]

The answers are written right there! You might want to cover the names. ^_-

great thanks for those pics I didn't have the last two.

As for the scans I put up, I don't read Japanese so I can't tell what it says. Besides it's not a quiz, if you can read the names please do! It would be appreciated.

[Renato]

Thanks for the scans! Damn, I realised I made a mistake. The I was confusing the artist who draws the "long bodies" I was describing with Narumi, but it turns out that it's actually Hideaki Shimada. Crap. Either way, it's definitely him doing the last scene in Romanesque. In my defence, she does do long bodies too, but the lines themselves seem more gentle, and the faces not as long. Hmm.

Anyway, yes, the names are in fact there, so left to right here we go (I'm separating the pics on the left and right by a semi-colon):

the mecha collection:

Row 1: Kazutaka Miyatake; Shoji Kawamori (always loved this pic of the Macross)

Row 2: Can't tell -- too dark, too small, and the name is off-frame (Miyatake maybe?); Kawamori

Row3 : Miyatake; can't tell this one either, but I certain it's neither Kawamori nor Miyatake, never seen the Monster looking like this.

Row 4: Not sure; Kiyomi Tanaka.. I think this is one of the guys Graham talks a bit about sometimes.

Row 5: Toshimitsu Suzuki; Tanaka again.

the Characters collection:

Row 1 Mikimoto; Mikimoto

Row 2: Toshihiro Hirano; Toshihiro Hirano

Row 3: Ichiro Itano; Narumi (can't remember her surname)

Row 4: Hideaki Shimada; Hideaki Shimada

Row 5: Kawamori; Hmm... earlier in the thread I described this one as being by Mikimoto, but I'm doubting it now that I see it again after all this time. Guess I was just misremembering. I don't think it's Hirano either. Dammit. I'm sure it's not Shimada... could it be Miyatake?? Sounds crazy, yet...

Anyway, Chas, I'm willing to bet your avatar is by Miyatake. OK, not "willing", but...

[Chas]

Gimme a couple days and I'll post a good scan of the whole thing for you.

Can't remember if there is any text with it though. It's from

T.I.A. # 11 Macross Do You Remember Love - the yellow DYRL book with Misa

and Hikki. on the cover and the fold away poster of Minmay.

[Renato]

Thanks for the info, that book I do actually have right here on my shelf, and after flipping through it I found it on page 81. Yeah, it is Miyatake, because his signature is on the corner (that "M" shaped thing).

[Chas]

Thanks for the info, that book I do actually have right here on my shelf, and after flipping through it I found it on page 81. Yeah, it is Miyatake, because his signature is on the corner (that "M" shaped thing).

O.K. so you now realize that I am going to scour through all of my Macross art looking for hi signature and the other artists' names!