Otakon 2026 Interview: Studio BONES Co-Founder Minami Masahiko

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Minami Masahiko is one of the founders of Studio BONES and was at Otakon to promote an upcoming 2027 Okinawa Animation Festival, scheduled for January 29–31. This interview was conducted on July 31, 2026.

Thank you for this interview. You are one of the founders of BONES, but you had a long career before that as well.

You—or rather, a version of you—appears in the drama Aoi Honoo. Have you seen it before, and what did you think of your depiction?

This is a live-action drama series based on a manga, and the author is Shimamoto Kazuhiko-sensei, a classmate of mine in my college years. I heard from him that I should treat it as fiction based on our time in college, and I think it should be viewed as fiction. Some parts are exaggerated.

The original Eureka Seven is one of my favorite anime, and I’ve had the opportunity to interview both Director Kyoda and Kawamori Shoji. But I wanted to hear your perspective as to what it was like to bring this project together.

I originally worked for Sunrise, which created a lot of original robot animation, and later on I worked as a producer on Mobile Fighter G Gundam. Building original robot animation myself is something I find very fulfilling, and when it comes to making a year-long series, I find it’s extremely important to collaborate with lots of different people.

Speaking of Sunrise, you worked as a producer on various titles, and I wanted to know what it was like for you working with Director Tomino, Director Imagawa, and Director Takahashi Ryousuke

First, when it comes to Director Tomino and Zeta Gundam, I only worked in production management for one episode. For G Gundam, I worked as producer, and for Layzner, I actually worked on production management but was also rotating that role with different teams.

To give a little bit more context, back during this period, the vital thing about original robot animation was the “plastic model/toy/merchandising” model So it was important to understand two pillars/aspects, as a toy product but also as an original work. What’s really memorable is that all three of these directors took this challenge very seriously.

It seems you worked the most with Director Imagawa. Would you be able to explain in detail how he dealt with this balance?

Back with G Gundam, this was the era of laser disc and DVD—Blu-ray hadn’t come out yet. But while we had to think about the business of packaging the show for those formats, shows were produced fundamentally with the television broadcast in mind. G Gundam‘s big sponsor was Bandai, and when it came to a work with the “Gundam” name, it was a matter of when the next Gundam would come out. G Gundam is a Gundam with a lot of Gundams from all over the world, and the timing with which they appeared was tied up with when the merchandise would be available. Within that, Director Imagawa is a man with a lot of great ideas, and he was focused on how to insert originality and drama into the story’s setting.

I have one more question: From a producer standpoint, what is the advantage of doing an original work over an adaptation?

First off, when it comes to works based on something, originality is derived from the creators So when we work on animated adaptations of existing work we have to think about how we can maximize the appeal of the work in animation through artistic and creative expressions. That’s our top priority.

On the other hand, when it’s our wholly original work, the sense of originality lies with us as the creators. We think about how to incorporate the appeal of animation as we proceed with the project planning—how we can incorporate the themes and also how we as the project creators can more effectively convey the work through animation.

Thank you!

The VTuber with Super Robot Spirit: Tsukishiro Cecil

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When l was a teenager, I watched a VHS tape that affected the course of my life. It featured various giant robot openings from the 70s and 80s, and while I had already been into anime and mecha at that point, it exposed me to a history and musical aesthetic I didn’t know, and it helped inspire me to explore my fandom further. If you take me to a karaoke booth with Japanese options, there is a 90% chance I will do a giant robot theme.

Many, many years later, and here I am as a fan of VTubers too. I like a great many talents, and part of that experience is appreciating those who choose to put themselves out there musically. While you can find a decent variety among those who sing if you look hard enough, however, the general tendency is Vocaloid, post-2000 anime, city pop, and newer popular songs. That’s neither surprising nor unwelcome, but sometimes I want to hear other things. Every so often, you might get something wild like “Inugami Korone covering Braiger and Ideon with Taira Isao,” but those moments are few and far between.

One day, I happened to catch a karaoke stream from a Japanese VTuber named Tsukishiro Cecil. I don’t remember what exactly she was singing, but it was definitely an older song akin to what I had heard on that VHS tape all those years ago. Since then, I’ve been following her virtual career, and it’s been a treat to hear everything from Gundam to Gunbuster to Rescue Fire. What’s more, she even has an occasional partner in robot crime named Minmo—together they sometimes work as the duo Cecinmor Z. Yes, I feel happy to be catered to by not just one but two VTubers.

Recently, Cecil made her 3D-model debut—a significant milestone for any VTuber—where she naturally sang a bunch of tunes ranging from hot-blooded to dramatic, including a couple originals of her own. She also opened up about her own history as a singer for hire on Japanese commercials and the like, a path that got detailed by the COVID-19 pandemic. It was then that she took a chance with VTubing, which has turned into a career and passion of its own (and one I’m grateful for). 

What’s even more astounding is that she announced a huge collab during her 3D: two songs with one of the greatest anime singers of all time, MIQ! She worked with Cecil on covers of “Neppuu! Shippuu! Cybaster” and “Hey You” from Xabungle, two themes for which MIQ (or MIO, as she was known back then) was the original singer. 

While this is similar in concept to the aforementioned Korone-Taira crossover, it has to be mentioned that the hololive talent has roughly 40 times the amount of subscribers and typically gets 10 times as many concurrent views. For Cecil to have accomplished this is a testament to her genuine love of older anime music.

I’ve already lured a few like-minded folks into following her, because you really never know what classics she might sing. If you have a soft spot for older anime and tokusatsu music, I cannot recommend anyone harder.

Brief Thoughts on The Water Magician

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The Water Magician is the kind of series that won’t necessarily convince an isekai hater to check it out, but it’s got enough going that it’s approachable for those who are more neutral or ambivalent. I think what makes the difference for me is that Ryo, the titular magician, has a kind personality capable of outshining his inherently overpowered nature.

It makes you want to see him come in and kick ass when the other heroes are on the ropes, because it feels like his rescues come in addition to generally helping others better themselves. And because he’s so strong, it stands out all the more when an opponent can actually make him sweat. 

Ryo is an emotional support isekai hero, and that’s a fine thing to be. The slick action scenes don’t hurt either. 

Mecha vs. Isekai and Self-Examination of Power Fantasies

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A few years ago, I asked whether loving a genre was like supporting a local sports team. It was  a question that sprung out of the realization that while I’d been quite critical of isekai for just being so full of samey works that follow the formula or “defy” it in the shallowest ways possible, I reveled in the weird and obscure mediocrity of giant robot anime throughout its history. I wondered whether this was an arbitrary bias that came from me simply choosing “mecha” as my team.

More recently, however, I’ve come to think there is a difference. Namely, I find there to be a major shortcoming of modern isekai in that it very consistently fails to scrutinize and investigate its own power fantasy. That’s not to say good isekai stories aren’t told or that one has to be self-critical; I can name plenty I’ve enjoyed and even consider myself a fan of. However, the most you often get is “reincarnation into a supposedly weak being that is actually secretly strong” or “the reincarnated are extra amazing but it comes with drawbacks” or “This is an excuse for a cozier title,” or at most maybe “What if reincarnated heroes affect the other world negatively?” When you compare isekai fare to what we get from giant robots, there’s such a stark contrast. Even if you set aside titles that are famous for presenting wrinkles to its characters’ vast abilities, there are also so many smaller mecha titles that at least try to be a little bit introspective, or if not, the giant robot is a power that must be learned and mastered over time.

Granted, all this was historically done in mecha while trying to sell viewers merch, and many of the works that did challenge tropes did so as a way to not fully succumb to that capitalist engine. G Gundam had staff that purposely tried to make robot designs that would be hard to adapt into model kits. Tomino Yoshiyuki directed works like Zambot 3, Gundam, and Ideon to  “break patterns” set by previous series and to do more with the genre:

“In anime, you can only express drama through cinematic functions. But why do people think that when a robot shows up, it instantly becomes ‘robot anime’ and you’re not creating drama anymore? That’s my question. There are also people like that, who don’t get drama, among the sponsors. To them, robot anime is only about things like robots in action, docking, and new robots appearing. That’s why Gundam was canceled.”

The late Nagahama Tadao (Combattler V, Voltes V, Daimos) wasn’t quite so subversive, but he still wanted to make good stories for children. Tomino, speaking about what he learned from Nagahama in 2009, said:

“I worked with director Nagahama for several years before Gundam, and what I learned from him was the sense of right in stories aimed towards children. When creating works for children, it should not be biased in one way or another or leaning more in a political sense, but to provide a very pure and good story.”

Perhaps I’ve simply not been exposed enough to isekai creators and their thoughts, but I don’t feel this struggle against the profit engine or to break established patterns. In fact, in modern times, I get a greater sense that they want to just support the power fantasy thoroughly and play into the patterns completely, and much of what came before that is housed in titles that are shoujo or at least lean towards a female audience: Magic Knight Rayearth, Vision of Escaflowne, Twelve Kingdoms, etc.

To go back to the sports team analogy, it is notable that the New York Knicks won the 2026 NBA championships this year. I admittedly never followed basketball very closely, but I know how despite the 53-year drought that they managed to overcome, they also have gotten close to the top on a few occasions, providing glimmers of hope here and there before the big one. In the context of mecha, I feel like those bright spots—those works that take a deeper and more intelligent look at the inherent power fantasy of mecha—help to make the mediocre (and worse) titles more charming. I don’t expect a genre to be constantly undermining its own established rules, but I like to think of those rules as building blocks, and the less generic things get, the more potential there is for something to be done with—and to—these building blocks.

I hope that I can someday feel a similar way about isekai.

PS: Completely off-topic, but talking about the Knicks and giant robots, I feel obliged to post the classic Mango Sentinel:

Instant Curry Review: Whaling Ship Curry

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On a previous trip to Japan, I visited a shop called Curry Land, which is dedicated to selling pre-packaged instant curry from all over the country. The plan is to eat and review every single one, and this time it’s WHALING SHIP CURRY.

What that means is the curry is the kind served on a particular whaling ship. It contains no actual whale meat. 

However, what it does have as its first ingredient is actually thresher shark meat. I looked that up, and apparently it’s sustainable and not one of the ones that are over-fished. The meat had a chewy texture that’s different from something like tuna, and felt somewhere in the vein of fried dace or salmon jerky.

As soon as it touched my tongue, I could feel the hit of saltiness and spice. I would call it barely spicy at best, with maybe a slight lingering of peppery heat at the very end. Overall, it was nice and savory and didn’t have the overwhelming artificial taste of some instant curry.

Overall, the only really unusual thing about it is maybe the thresher shark, which gave a pretty decent curry a different texture than what I’m used to. I would probably eat it again, but would prioritize trying different curry styles. 

Soul of Chogokin Godmars and Respect for the Late Murakami Katsushi

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A trip to Japan earlier this year put me in a great position to buy things I had put off because of the whole tariffs fiasco, and I came out of it with a Soul of Chogokin Shinkalion E5 Hayabusa. But I also had some extra luggage space and a favorable exchange rate, so after some serious deliberation, I came away with another robot: the Soul of Chogokin Godmars, or more specifically the 50th anniversary edition. 

Rokushin Gattai Godmars is not one of my all-time favorite mecha series, but it is one whose role in history always intrigues me. As an early work that developed a large female following and was even a Comic Market doujin darling, it’s essentially the predecessor to shows like Gundam Wing. Granted, none of that factors into the robot merch, but another part of the legacy of Godmars is that its original toy sold very well—enough for the show itself to end up over 60 episodes.

While the Soul of Chogokin version sacrifices some of the ease of playability for a more pleasing visual aesthetic that tries to capture the heroic proportions of the anime version, one thing shines through: Godmars is an inherently entertaining design for hands-on play. While it’s infamously lacking in terms of animation quality—Godmars moves more like a slide show than a fighting hero—that goes out the window when you take in its simplicity and elegance. The six individual robots are fun, joining them together is satisfying, and the resulting combination just looks awesome. The fact that it manages to have such a nice aesthetic with virtually no sharp or angular parts jutting out is impressive in its own way. After getting jabbed over and over putting together the Shinkalion, this was a welcome change. 

With a lot of combining giant robot toys and figures, you can tell that they prioritize either the separate robots or the unified robot assembled from them. In the case of Godmars, however, I find that it strikes a really strong balance between the constituent parts and the unified whole. 

SoC Godmars came out in 2008, and there are aspects of the toy that show its age. The fists are awkward in that they are off-center on the forearm due to the way they fold into the robots that form Godmars’s arms. The legs also have very little articulation, and a lot of the techniques used in later years to allow things like kneeling positions and more dynamic posing just aren’t present here. I don’t consider those deal breakers, though, and I think the reason that it keeps getting reissued and updated is because the design holds up well even 18 years later.

This past week, reports came out that the original designer of Godmars, Murakami Katsushi, passed away on July 20. Not only was he the mind behind the Godmars design, but his influence extends heavily across Japanese pop culture in its anime, tokusatsu, and toys—so much so that he is called the “Father of Chogokin” and is one of the reasons anime has a “mecha designer” credit in the first place. Among his works are Leopardon from the Japanese Spider-Man, Gavan, Combattler V, Cy-Kill from Gobots, Dancouga, and Reideen. His mecha thrilled children and continue to fascinate adults as a visual and tactile experience. While this review is of the Soul of Chogokin version of one design, it’s clear that a lot of what makes it a success can be found in the original DNA provided by Murakami.

A Beaver, a Hong Kong Classic, and Three Ways to Title a Movie

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I recently remembered the Chinese Beaver meme, in which someone animated a beaver-like creature over a scene from John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow with actor Chow Yun-Fat. I ended up watching that animation over and over, both in Mandarin (as the short was first presented) and in Cantonese (the original language of the actual film). 

Mandarin

Cantonese

There are interesting differences in the two versions of Chinese, not least of which is Chow Yun-Fat’s intensity. Part of it feels like the actor’s ability, and part of it feels like the contours of the Cantonese language itself.

Ultimately, I decided to actually watch the movie itself. And yeah, it really is a classic of Hong Kong cinema that explores a lot about different perspectives toward justice and redemption in the world of organized crime, all while providing the visceral thrill of gunfire and action scenes John Woo is famous for.

But one thing I noticed about A Better Tomorrow is how different the name of the movie is in Chinese: Ying Hung Bun Sik, or “True Colors of a Hero.” This is par for the course, as a lot of what makes a title aesthetically pleasing differs between the two languages. Most other releases in other languages are based on these two titles, but one notable exception is Japanese, which presents the film as Otoko-tachi no Banka, or “The Men’s Elegy.”

You have three different titles for the same movie that present it in somewhat different lights by focusing on different aspects. A Better Tomorrow sounds like the movie is about hope for redemption, whether unfulfilled or otherwise. True Colors of a Hero makes it seem like the movie is about getting to the cores of its men and what they’re really made of in hard times. The Men’s Elegy places the emphasis on the intersection between masculinity and tragedy in a kind of macho yet emotionally expressive fashion. And all of those things are in the film!

I’m not about to argue some kind of cultural essentialism, but I do wonder if this variation in titles comes from attempts to target the particular demographics that come with each language. Do they give the audience a different impression while viewing it, or does it ultimately not matter compared to the contents of the film? 

Strong Summer Sun: Ogiue Maniax Status Update for August 2026

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July was the start of a new anime season, and what an incredible summer lineup. I’m actually worried that I don’t have enough time to watch everything I’d like, which includes Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongol, Ghost in the Shell (2026), Goodbye Lara, Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games, and so on. And that’s not even mentioning how good Star Detective Precure! has been. I’ll have to pick and choose my battles, and have enough faith in myself that I’ll circle back around to watch what I couldn’t get to initially.

You may have noticed that the past month’s blog posts have been even more VTuber-tacular than normal. There just happened to be a number of concert streams I watched and wanted to review before their watch periods expired, and the result is my heaviest month in terms of that subject matter. I don’t expect the same will happen in August.

Here are this month’s special Patreon members, whom I thank for their support:

General:

Ko Ransom

Diogo Prado

Alex

Dsy

Sue Hopkins fans:

Serxeid

Hato Kenjirou fans:

Elizabeth

Yajima Mirei fans:

Machi-Kurada

Blog Highlights from July

Two-Hit Combos: hololive EN 4th Concert “Serendipity”

I didn’t attend in person this time, but I still enjoyed the hell out of hololive EN’s 4th concert.

Juufuutei Raiden Has a Thunderbolt Fantasy Collab?!

Now this was unexpected! Two of my favorite things, together? I hope this draws more eyes to both Thunderbolt Fantasy and hololive.

A Spirit for Revenge, the Sculpted Physique of a Pollo: Rooster Fighter

Rooster Fighter surprised me in the best way. I hope you check out this review and the series.

Kio Shimoku

Kio Shimoku Twitter Highlights July 2026

Kio gives some thoughts about new versions of old classics.

Closing

A new hololive mobile game came out, and while it’s pretty fun, I’m wary of the way these things try to monopolize all my attention. I actively have tried to avoid doing dailies because I know they’re an insidiously easy time sink. I’ll have to let you all know if I’ve fallen victim to its charms by September.

Also, by the time this goes out, Otakon will be wrapping up. Hope it was a good con for all attending!

Kio Shimoku Twitter Highlights July 2026

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This month, Kio visits the Afternoon exhibit and gives thoughts about the new Ghost in the Shell anime.

Kio dreads (correctly) the chances of Japan getting through the World Cup when their potential path includes Brazil, Morocco, and France.

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Genderswap character art for Kio’s Star Wars parody, Sister Wars. Luke Skywalker was raised as a boy (father is Padmé, mother is Anakin), Han is basically Han, and Leia is an otoko no ko.

Kio explains that Sister Wars is not necessarily a “genderswap” alternate universe but one where only girls are allowed to become Jedi, and to defy that, some hide their gender.

Kio watched the new Ghost in the Shell and was grinning all the way through.

“If we say it’s all technically Ghost in the Shell, can we adapt all of Masamune Shirow’s works?”

Wishing fellow manga artist Kusada a happy birthday. (Kio interacts with Kusada pretty often.)

Kio likes the Dodge Danko anime.

https://twitter.com/kioshimoku1/status/2076689010588868704

Kio is impressed by Asano Inio’s 3D modeling of a room and shows his own attempt at 3D modeling he gave up on.

The official account for the mascot of anime store Fantasista reposts Kio’s drawing of her. She recommends everyone read Hashikko Ensemble.

Kio excited about the television airing schedule for Patlabor EZY File 2.

After the World Cup finals, Kio gives his thoughts. He’s impressed by Messi as always. He also finds it interesting that what ultimately overcame Argentina was not the power, technique, and speed of France, but rather the way Spain evaded and made Argentina crumble. He also jokes that defeating Argentina meant engaging in duels rather than playing a game.

Showing off the photo spot for the Genshiken exhibit at the Afternoon 40th Anniversary exhibit. According to Kio, it’s the color spread from a particular chapter.

Some ads for the exhibit, featuring Genshiken and Big Wind-Up.

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Kio at the exhibit!

The 2026 Ghost in the Shell adapts the manga chapters “Revolt of the Robots” and “The Making of a Cyborg” in a pretty direct manner, which is pretty surprising to Kio. He thinks they worked well adapting to anime, and he likes the conversation between Batou and the Fuchikoma.

Kio finds the use of Ohtsuka Akio (the original voice of Batou) here interesting in a funny way.

Instant Curry Review: Pink Curry

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This is my very first review of the instant curry I bought from Curry Land! Up is Pink Curry, from Tottori. I mostly bought it because of the Rose of Versailles–style art. 

It sure was pink! It reminded me of the blue Sonic the Hedgehog Curry, if it was themed after Amy Rose instead. The taste was all right but much saltier than I expected. The Ingredients include chicken meat, chicken bouillon, and chicken extract: triple chicken power.

Pretty unremarkable aside from the hue, but I felt like I knew that going in. It’s a fun gimmick, but I’m not sure I’d have it again over something more interesting.