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.

At the panel, Matsushita talked about designing characters for Nobunagan And how this character, John Walker, was his favorite as he personally designed him. Matsushita stated that he hated drawing female characters as that was never his style but instead preferred to draw men. When I got to the head of his line, I requested John, however, I was taken aback that Matsushita could not recall how to draw the character despite it being his favorite character and that he only last worked on the series a couple weeks before. I showed a picture of the character, but then had to find another picture of John's styled hair as the picture I had had cut it off and Matsushita claimed he could not recall how to draw it.


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