Q: How do you feel about the recent remakes of GALL FORCE and BUBBLEGUM CRISIS?

SK: All the materials which used to belong to Artmic are now properties of AIC or Sony/Toshiba EMI. Artmic went bankrupt; it no longer exists. AIC and others like Youmex, they were loan cosigners, so they got stuck with the bills for the loans that Artmic defaulted on. On the positive side, however, they got all of Artmic's material.
In Japan, copyrights are tied to sponsor and project creators. Only freelancers can claim copyright over their own creations. As for me, I was an employee, so all the work I did at that time belonged to Artmic, not to me. I have since got these materials back since Artmic went defunct. However, for the artbooks VISON and GALENT, I never received any royalties from those sales. Not all production companies are like this, of course. And, although I didn't get as much money as I probably should have, to be fair, working at Artmic gave me my recognition and fame, which I am very grateful for.

Q: So how do you feel about the trend to do remakes?

SK: The problem is there's more to do with enough new and original material. But even with production companies, it's easier to get sponsors if you want to make a sequel to a previous hit. Maybe in America, when an idea is pitched, there is a strong emphasis on story. But in Japan, it's usually a little story with a few pieces of art to push the sale. Very typically, the production of television series are handicapped by script delays. A chain reaction then occurs in the production schedule. It's unfair to blame only on production companies, though. Maybe there aren't enough sponsors with the capability of ascertaining what is a hit based on the script alone, so they rely on previous hits.

Q: Do you think the gaming industry is stealing talent from the anime industry? How do you feel about that?

SK: A lot of people are migrating to the gaming industry. It's one thing if the end product reflects the talents of the individuals, but often the results are mediocre and don't reveal the people behind the games. It saddens me to see this loss of talent. But I remain optimistic about the future.
The state of television anime isn't good, though. Ideally, it costs ¥1 million for ten minutes of good animation, but many TV episodes operation with a budget that is often half of the ideal amount.

Q: How do you feel about computer animation?

SK: I think that COWBOY BEBOP and MONONOKE HIME are good examples of computer animation. It looks best when you don't know it's CG, or when it's not trying to stand out and be flashy. It's just like special effects in live action films. You don't want it to be distracting.

Q: Which field do you find most fulfilling and why?

SK: Financially, manga are the most rewarding for me. But the stories in my mind, the visions I have area "animated." So from an authoring standpoint, doing anime is more rewarding.
What I think would be ideal is how Otomo Katsuhiro does it. He creates the original manga and then works on the animated film version. But there's an inherent danger that animation production takes up most of your time. There are lot of people I really want to see do manga again, but they've become so busy with their involvement in anime. People like Shirow Masamune, and Yuuki Nobuteru, although he was more in the anime industry first.
The ideal for the creator is probably the comic book, because he can control every aspect of its look, feel, and presentation.

Q: What do you think of the success of POKÉMON both in the USA and Japan?

SK: Well, the concept is good, but the execution is bad. The lines are wooden, the art is horrible, and the action is bad. If I had to rate it on a one to five scale, I'd give it a one. The basic premise is well-founded: lovable and cute collectible characters, and the characters themselves are attractive.
But I wonder, why does the final product stink so badly? The character designs, the voices—the amount of talent is not bad, but the scripts have degraded to a substandard level. If you don't have the budget, you can't do fast movement, so you have to slow down the tempo. Then the story suffers.

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