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Ever wonder what a character desinger does?  Do you know where his ideas came from?  Character/Mechanical designer Tsukasa Kotobuki talks about working with Masami Obari, Saber Marionette J, and his new project "Godannar"

DVJ-Can you tell us a little how you got into character design, specifically what got you into Battle Arena Toshinden? Was that something you sought to do from the beginning?

Tsukasa Kotobuki -Just character designer in general or for anime?

DVJ-In general.

TK -There is a director Masami Obari who directed a movie called Legend of Garrou? Have you heard of that?

DVJ-It sounds familiar.

TK-Its an old movie though. It was based on a game. Obari was directing that movie and he has also worked on some games released by SNK. He was also working on a package design for that particular game. So thats how I know Mr. Obari. At that time he was designing a package for the game Samarai Spirit released by Takada. So back then when Toshinden was released by Sony Playstation Mr. Obari was designing a package for Samarai Spirits so he said that he couldn't do Toshinden because he was busy with that. And then he referred me to Sony and the particular game Sony was releasing at that time was Toshinden.

DVJ-How did you get involved with Akahori Satoru and Saber Marionette J?

TK-So back then Saber Marionette R-Saber Marionette the whole thing was a big project and Saber Marionette R was an animation and Saber Marionette J was a novel and Saber Marionette Z was a comic book. So back at that time Mr. Akahori had given most of the responsibility to director Negishi for the animation Saber Marionette R and Mr. Akahori was more concentrated on the novel Saber Marionette J. So when Akahori san was watching Negishi direct Saber Marionette R he was thinking I would have directed that differently, so he decided to make Saber Marionette J into an animation. So Saber Marionette R, R stands for Rome, like Romana, so that was more of an Italian flavor, whereas Saber Marionette J, J stands for Japan. When he decided to make this into an animation he wanted to give it more of a Japanese Culture or Style, letting the characters wear kimono and stuff like that. And then he chose me as a character designer. So, when I was designing the characters for Toshinden because the game was not so highly developed back then and there was a limit as to how many polygons you could use for that game there were a lot of designs that were not used in that Toshinden game. So, those designs I decided to use on Saber Marionette J. Like Lime has a little hairpin on the top of the head, which I could not use for Toshinden, but that was thought to be the design for the characters in Toshinden. I adapted that to the characters for Saber Marionette J.

DVJ-Out of the three Saber Marionettes do you have a favorite character?

TK-Design wise the main character Lime. As a designer I really prefer that Lime character, but from the animator's point of view they said it was difficult to animate that character.

DVJ- Why did they say it was difficult to animate Lime?

TK- Back when Saber Marionette R was made into an animation Mr. Akahori was working on the Saber Marionette J novel, but even at that time he already had in mind that he wanted to turn that into an animation eventually, and the reason he decided that he wanted to use me as character designer for Saber marionette J is the fact that he was not an animator. You know character designers and animators are completely different things and most of the time, this is just my opinion, but animators know how to design characters that are easier to animate. But Mr. Akahori chose me because I was not an animator. So the reason he chose me is because of the fact that the period when character designers for animation shows come from animators and he wanted a character designer. Animators will work on their shows and eventually become character designers and when they do character design they already know which arts are easier to animate so they'll put that into consideration and design a character thats easy to animate. So thats why Mr. Akahori decided to use me; because I haven't had any experience in animation so in a sense Mr. Akahori wanted him to design a character that has no intention of becoming an animation.

DVJ- Personality wise which one is your favorite, Lime Cherry Bloodberry or even the Saber Dolls?

TK-Bloodberry

DVJ- If I could get some clarification-Otaru's weapon: is that a Jute or a Sai?

TK-Jute is actually Japanese and Sai is chinese. The way that you use the weapon doesn't really make a difference, but since this is a Japanese show I would say it is a Jute. 

DVJ-Okay, that's what I thought, but I just wanted to get clarification.

TK- Yes it's a jutte.  So, originally Otaru doesn't really fight in battle. He just has all these powerful women around him to protect him, but it would be too pitiful to make a male character that doesn't even fight; that is guarded by all these women, so thats why we decided to give him at least some kind of weapon.

DVJ-He's got such a strong, fiery personality

TK-Otaru is established as a character of a typical Edo man-Edo Boy who is very fiery you know, that kind of personality, but in Saber Marionette R he doesn't really do that you know "If you fight me they'll fight you"

DVJ-What process do you use to transform the original manga character to the animated adaptation on television?

TK-So I do more of original character design rather than animation character design. I design original characters and then I have another person who redesigns those characters for animation adaptation. So, in that sense I try hard to design a character that won't be changed when being designed for animation; that will have those qualities that I think are important to those characters. 

So this is what I learned after working for Toshinden. When a character is expanded its obvious for viewers to notice which character that is, but in animation there's a case where the characters are shrunk into little tiny characters, but the viewer has to still be able to distinguish those characters from others, so in order to do that the silhouette is the most important thing and color, of course is important, but silhouette is even more important so I learned that from working for Toshinden. So, that experience during Toshinden has taught me to design a character that won't necessarily have to be changed when a different person redesigns that character for animation adaptation.

DVJ-Along those lines, with the Sabers, is there any significance to their three different sizes?

TK-It was Mr. Akahori's preference

DVJ-What was the spirit behind designing Tiger and Lime-Tiger is obviously more beautiful than Lime. Lime is more young and naive. What influenced that portrayal?

TK-It was basically Akahori san's preference again, but when the story was established in the first place it was simply three main characters against three opponents and maybe they were going to differentiate each character by the color of the hair or whatever, but it was as simple a concept as that. As the story started developing I thought it would be interesting to have Lime and Lime's counterpart Tiger, so it would be interesting to have those two characters completely opposite each other as opposed to the other two characters whose counterparts are more similar. So the bottom line idea was Akahori San's preference.

DVJ-What mediums have you worked with and what is your favorite when designing characters?

TK-When I do the rough designs its usually pencil. Normally rough designs are done all in pencil, but lately I have been using a light blue pencil. The reason behind it is that when you use pencil- you know, designing a character is like I will do the rough design first and then I will put tracing paper over it to add details and then more paper over it etc, but when I use the blue pencil-well, when I use pencil I eventually forget like what was the line that I had originally drawn, but when I use the blue pencil I can easily tell which line has been drawn as an original-which line has been drawn first. If you use pencil you have to erase the original line, but with the blue pencil you can keep drawing over and over. When you draw with pencil, when you put it in printing you have to erase it or otherwise it'll print out whereas with blue pencil it won't show up in printing.

DVJ - Along those same lines, when it's time to color the characters, how do
you decide which colors to use?  Do you go based off of the personality of
the character, or does the color of the character determine the personality?

KT- Usually it comes at the same time the design is created, how they decide how the color will be given to that character.
In animation, a character designer usually does a white and black design only.  And then there is another person who is called the Color Supervisor who colors the character.  So once the character is all colored, it could appear completely different from how the original character was designed in the first place.   So in order to avoid that situation, what I do, even if its like a rough color, I will add color to my original designs so it will give the Color Supervisor an idea.
The animation world is a difficult place, where the Character Designer is only supposed to create the characters, and the color is all up to the Color Supervisor, and it's because it has to do with the color of the background or color of the parts and what not.  So even if I colored the character the way I wanted to, thats not always going to be accepted.

DVJ: Do you have any new projects?

TK-I just finished mechanical design on a series called "Godannar".

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