×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Sunday Spotlight: Katie Bair, Masashi Ishihama, Hideyuki Kurata, Koji Masunari, Yuki Matsukura, John Oppliger

Tough week this time around, with a few mishaps along the way. We fought and fought for five interviews, but hey, sometimes stuff happens that alters plans. But you know what? We still worked to get three top notch interviews with people that we personally find to be quite a boon to fandom. And, if you count the total number of people we have, that's actually SIX spotlights! Clearly, there's no such thing as too much lighting. After all, how else could awesome properties like the R.O.D. OVA and R.O.D. the TV be made without the awesome efforts of folks like Masashi Ishihama, Koji Masunari, Yuki Matsukura, and Hideyuki Kurata? Then there are folks like John Oppliger, who help usher shows like Risky Safety and Jungle wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu come to North American shores, all while answering all the questions that pop up in the heads of fans around the world in his weekly column. And, on the fan side of things, we've got artist and wig mogul Katie Bair on the stage.

Altogether, it's not a bad ensemble at all. Because hey, if these people don't deserve a hearty spotlight, we'll eat our hats.

R.O.D. Staff

Who they are: Masashi Ishihama (Character designer, animation director)
Koji Masunari (Director)
Yuki Matsukura (Producer)
Hideyuki Kurata (Story, original creator, screen writer)

What they've done: Read or Die (OAV), R.O.D. the TV

Quotable: (Ishihama) "Basically, they asked me to create a story with a female spy character, and I was told that it could be as original as I wanted to make it. I let my imagination go and this is what I created; glasses, books, lamp posts, action, pigeons, white doves..."




John Oppliger


Who he is: Ask John columnist, licensing king at AN Entertainment, subtitle editor, and a self-professed anime nerd

What he's done: DVD Producer, subtitle script editor: Risky Safety, Miami Guns
Writer of 1070(!) Ask John columns

Quotable: "It'll probably sound pitiful, but I think my anime alter-ego is the Henma Ikimono from Di Gi-CHARAT, literally the "strange thing." It's a yellow bear-like animal that simultaneously seems happy, confused, sad, and angry."



Katie Bair


Who she is: Published comic book artist, cosplay genius

What she's done: Creator: Oasis Destiny
Co-author: Ninja High School
Owner, maintainer, and guru of Katie Bair's Petting Zoo and Art Emporium

Quotable: "I look forward to the trickier [wig] designs, as if it's a competition of my skills versus the character designer. Sometimes we joke that they are making characters with sillier and sillier hair styles to try to foil me, but they haven't beat me yet!"

discuss this in the forum (11 posts) |
bookmark/share with: short url

Interview homepage / archives