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Peach-Pit Journey's Down Memory Lane In 25th Anniversary Panel

At their special Q&A panel, Peach-Pit fondly reminisced on their quarter of a century working together as mangaka. Remaining consistent with keeping their faces a secret to the public, members Banri Sendou and Shibuko Ebara donned long black clothes and starkly-draped masks that dangled in front of their faces. Their presence bore a ghoulish nature that made them look like yokai of the most demonic variety, but this look was contradicted by their warm personalities that fed off the packed house's eagerness. The audience started the panel chanting a glorious “PEACH. PIT. PEACH. PIT. PEACHPITTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!” It was hard to deny all the lightheartedness and fun.

Truly, Peach-Pit's 25th Anniversary panel was long-anticipated, especially since it was their first Anime Expo in over twenty years. Peach-Pit had only been in the business for five years and were just the new kids on the block when they first arrived in Tinseltown. Having been a whopping two decades, coupled with the con moving from Anaheim to downtown Los Angeles, meant that the scale had become a lot bigger, but the duo noted that the love stayed the same and that everybody has remained so vibrant and cute. Now that Peach-Pit were out and about in California once again, they said how they were looking forward to some In-N-Out.

At the time of Anime Expo 2005, Peach-Pit had been advertising DearS, which they said was still very near and dear to their heart. “DearS was our first time writing manga as a series,” they said. “We felt like babies. But it was also the series that taught us about drawing manga, and it gave us the confidence to continue as manga creators from this project, and we were able to get a lot of job offers because of it.”

When Shugo Chara! was brought up, the mangaka duo mentioned that their biggest inspiration stemmed from their favorite girls' magazine, Nakayoshi. “It was a dream for our stories to be published in this magazine,” they said. “So when we were creating the story, we thought about what stories we wanted to read when we were children.” Seeing the longevity of Shugo Chara!'s characters live on in many cosplays made the duo very happy that their manga is still beloved to this day.

However, being a mangaka is not always fun and games, especially when juggling between multiple titles at once. Peach-Pit learned this the hard way when working on Rozen Maiden, Shugo Chara!, and Zombie-Loan, which had them penning at a breakneck speed of 100 pages a month, they barely remember anything from that period. Working on Rozen Maiden would also signal the last of their work written on paper before switching over to digital. They thought that paper would stay forever, but digital grew at such an exponential rate that they knew they had to transition ASAP.

Peach-Pit's taste in fashion also became a subject of discussion, and with it the designs of Rozen Maiden, which were inspired by gothic lolita dresses. When asked by a fan if there was any type of fashion they would like to draw, they mentioned that while they've already drawn a good amount of what they wanted to draw, they expressed curiosity in trying out retro Asian styles.

The time eventually came to discuss their special AX gallery dedicated to their work over the years. Peach-Pit commented that before their Japanese exhibition, they didn't have an exhibition for all of their work, especially since they were published by different companies. However, they were lucky enough to get all of their work in one place for their 25th anniversary. They then showed a timeline of their progress, accompanied by a video showing them working hard on some manga panels.

When asked how they stay motivated, Peach-Pit mentioned that playing board games helps them relax. Specifically, they frequented Board Game Arena, which you can play with people around the world. “We might have played with some of you as well,” they dryly told the crowd.

When asked if they were going to explore the possibility of another anime adaptation, the drop expressed uncertainty, but said that things were still a secret. As vague of an answer as that is, I imagine that hopeful Peach-Pit fans read that as “we're always open to the possibility.”