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Shinichi Watanabe (渡邊 慎一 Watanabe Shin'ichi) është regjisor dhe drejtor i filmave anime. Famën e mori me përpunimin e serialit anime Excel Saga e Koushi Rikoduo.
Shinichiro Watanabe (渡辺 信一郎 Watanabe Shin'ichirō, born May 24, 1965) is a Japanese anime television and film director. He is best known for directing the critically acclaimed and commercially successful anime series Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, and Space Dandy.
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- One of anime's most beloved creators takes us behind the scenes on his many iconic projects.
- Cowboy Bebop Art Gallery
- Cowboy Bebop Sketches Gallery
By Julian Rizzo-Smith
Posted: Nov 24, 2017 2:50 am
Shinichiro Watanabe is an anime legend; a name mentioned in the same breath as esteemed creators like Hayao Miyazaki, Satoshi Kon and Katsuhiro Otomo. He’s best known for creating Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Space Dandy, a number of projects for Animatrix, and recently, an anime short set in the Blade Runner universe. Speaking to IGN at Melbourne’s Madman Anime Festival, the western-inspired creator shared stories behind the creation of some of his beloved works, his inspirations, and opinions on live-action adaptations.
A defining quality of Watanabe’s series’ is that they’re heavily inspired by western music. He first came up with the idea behind Cowboy Bebop, the action series about a spaceship crew of bounty hunters, after listening to 1940s blues and creating a story around a soundtrack composed by Yoko Kanno (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex). Characters like Faye and her struggle to find somewhere to belong, and Jet’s hard-boiled past as a detective, came to Watanabe after listening to My Funny Valentine and Led Zeppelin's Black Dog. The character design of Spike was based on Yusaku Matsuda, a famous Japanese movie star known for playing suave charismatic action heroes.
In Cowboy Bebop, 1940s jazz meets the classic western cowboy, sci-fi space combat and Hong Kong action film aesthetics.
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A series of stills displayed at the Cowboy Bebop Exhibition at Madman Anime Festival 2017.
“When creating Cowboy Bebop,” Watanabe tells me, “I thought it would be more interesting if I added different types of elements together to create something that was completely new.”
“With Samurai Champloo, we were thinking of listening to hip hop music, watching a lot of Japanese style traditional dramas - old style dramas - that was the sort of image I had when putting those ideas together,” he continues. “With Space Dandy, you’ve obviously got your image of the space and 80s music, and blending them together is how I created it.”
In an attempt to merge those two ideas together, Watanabe instructed the show’s composers to use musical instruments that predated the 1980s, grounding the musical tone in a camp 80s feel.
“I had a lot of people tell me Space Dandy was like Guardians of the Galaxy,” he adds. “However, they were actually created around the same time and after I got to watch Guardians of the Galaxy after Dandy was finished and completed, I realised, ‘oh yeah, they actually have a similar feeling, they’re actually quite similar.’”
Speaking to fans during a Director Insights and Cowboy Bebop: Behind the Series panel, Watanabe shared that originally, Cowboy Bebop was created in partnership with Namco Bandai to promote their toy and figurine line. The company planned to use the series to push a new range of spaceship figurines, so Watanabe was told to incorporate scenes with spaceship combat into the story. Namco Bandai didn’t have faith in the project, however, and disbanded that partnership after Sunrise finished producing the first four episodes. This, Watanabe explains, is why space combat is barely featured in later episodes.
Some of the awesome sketches that were on display at the Cowboy Bebop Exhibition at Madman Anime Festival 2017.
When asked about the rise of international streaming services becoming anime producers, like Netflix’s $8 billion plan to release 30 anime series in 2018, the esteemed director admitted to being hopeful that it would provide more opportunities for unique and challenging content.
“There is the view in Japan that in the past ten years, there’s a tendency for production companies to rely on sales of a Bluray product, and then move forward towards another series or new project,” he explains. “If moe cutesy style is going to sell, then it’s the only style of anime that will be approved for production. The ones that we would consider more challenging or fun to create would not be accepted.”
“However, if that is going to change, I don’t have a problem with it at all. Looking at the current market, we don’t know which way it’ll go, it’s hard to say. For example, if we’re going back to Terror in Resonance, there was actually a case where for about five years the project was pending and we couldn’t get approval. If this is going to change anything and if projects will be moved on faster then that’s a very good thing.”
Since directing Blade Runner BlackOut 2022, Shinichiro Watanabe has begun planning a new series with Studio Bones, the studio made up of ex-Cowboy Bebop Studio Sunrise staff members and behind some of the best action anime adaptations: My Hero Academia, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood and Mob Psycho 100. Watanabe is currently travelling around the world for inspiration for the new project, admiring the architecture and live music scene of Melbourne, Australia, before in true Watanabe fashion, creating a series that promises to feature heavy musical roots. Other than that, we don’t know much yet, and Watanabe refused to give any details.
One interesting tidbit he did tell fans, however, was that he had once directed a series based on tango music but the project was halted before he could complete it. He admits that if you ever see an original anime series in the future with a strong tango-theme, it might be the one he was involved in.
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Jan 28, 2023 · Shinichiro Watanabe is a Japanese anime television and film director. He is best known for directing the critically acclaimed and commercially successful anim.
