Contains some panel tidbits with the Nobunagun anime character designers, Tadano-san and Matsushita-san. Key things are that St Germain is anime-only and designed by Tadano-san because she likes 'pretty' characters, and Matsushita-san likes characters that are not stereotypically 'good looking' (so think Hunter, whom turns out is one of my most-written about characters for some reason...)
The most interesting insights:
Her (Tadano-san) favorite character is Vidocq (she thinks they’re quite similar actually so she made sure, as the animation director, to keep his design consistent in all shots); he (Matsushita-san) favors Hunter. When I asked this, Tadano-san actually forgot his name for a while–she said, ‘I can’t believe I’m forgetting his name…but he sits down all the time, and his eyes are always like slits’!
They actually had to audition to become the character designers for Nobunagun (as well as other shows like Sailor Moon). At first, Matsushita-san wasn’t sure if he wanted to, but after he bought the manga and read it, he decided he really liked the story and especially the concept of the EIOs.
Tadano-san likes drawing cute girls and just 'beautiful’ characters (like St. Germain who was actually designed by her), while her husband prefers more rough, older and just plain ugly characters. And also monsters. So they split the work up where she handled all the females and 'handsome’ characters while he did everything else. I believe she also designed all the holders’ in uniform while he designed everyone in armor.
Matsushita-san has admitted that he doesn’t like drawing cute girls very much. He says he has a very hard time (hence why he doesn’t think much of the current cute-girl moe trend). That’s why he liked Nobunagun, because it wasn’t a moe series to begin with.
Quote Matsushita-san: “The problem with cute girls is that you can only have about 10 variations; because they have to be cute, you can’t really change their face, figures, etc. too much. So old people, monsters, gruff people etc…that’s a lot easier for me, because you can have 100+ variations and still be going strong.”
Masato-sensei, the original creator of the manga, actually practiced drawing St. Germain since he was an original character designed by Tadano-san so now he can draw him too!
They really enjoyed working on Nobunagun; they actually wished it went on longer so they could have more of a chance to show off their work, but alas, we don’t know anything about a potential second season yet, especially as the manga is still on-going.
Dual-session panel! Tadano-san noticed I was seifuku!Sio today and wanted another picture ^///^
Alas, it seems that other people were just as determined to get Tadano-san’s famed sketches, so once again, they cut it off to the first 10 people in line. Which I was not one of. But that just meant I could say hi to Matsushita-san again…
Got Jack for the one-and-only perihcheesecake since of course she’s Jack-mun!
And just as I was leaving, something amazing happened–Matsushita-san said, ‘wait, would you like this?’ and before I knew it, he reached into his own bag and handed me his own practice sketch of Nobunagun. 'You really like Nobunagun, don’t you?'
It wasn’t a sign board or anything special–just a plain sheet of paper with Sio sketched on it, because he’d been practicing to draw another signboard to give away at their panel.
