Hiromi Matsushita was a special guest at PMX 2014 along with his wife, Sailor Moon character designer, Kazuko Tadano. Both worked together on the original Sailor Moon series and he episode from the first season festuring the two women animators was actually a parody of Tadano and Matsushita's relationship. I was able to attend one of their panels where both of them rambled off on old experiences in the animation industry. They talked about working on the Sailor Moon R Movie and how Kunihiko Ikuhara, the director and story writer for this movie, was locked in the studio for two seasons, and was only able to leave to get a change of clothes. Tadano mentioned that, when she was initially informed that she, along with several other animators, would be working in an apartment to complete the movie, she was excited because the apartments by Toei Studios were very modern. However, when she arrived at the apartment, it was very old and dilapidated. She said that she, along with the other animators, spent the first day cleaning out the apartment just to make it hospitable as there was quite a bit of mold growing inside.

When I got to the head of Matsushita's small line on the second day, he was tired of drawing complicated sketches and just wanted to draw characters from Keroro Gunso. This was not a problem for me as I really love this quirky series, especially the little red tsundere frog, Giroro. I had hoped that he would have drawn Giroro with hearts in his eye as I love it when he's obsessing over the girl he resides with, Natsumi. However, he just drew a normal Giroro instead.


Password required to view sketches