Anime Industry Watching No.38: Interview with Kazuaki Mohri, Character Designer, on the Creation of "Mr. Ajikko's" Acoustic Characters

Mr. Ajikko" is a unique anime about a cooking duel in which the unseen sense of "culinary taste" is expressed in every possible way, resulting in a series of action-oriented and robot-like performances that transcend time and space. Based on Daisuke Terasawa's manga, the anime adaptation was directed by Yasuhiro Imagawa, who also directed "Giant Robo The Animation - The Day the Earth Stood Still" and "Mobile Martial Gundam," and produced by Sunrise. Kazuaki Mori, also known for his work on the "Pokemon" series, was in charge of character design for the latter half of the film.
In this issue, before the release of the Blu-ray box set of "Mr. Ajikko," we asked Mr. Mouri to speak candidly about the production of the film.

The days of being an anime artist, when he spent most of his time drawing robots.

─ I heard that you belonged to "Anime R," a studio run by Moriyasu Taniguchi, and participated in Sunrise's robot animations.

Mouri: Yes, in the beginning, I did more mechanical drawings than character drawings.

─ Was "Ideon, Legendary God of the Colossal God" (1980) your first original picture?

Yes, my debut as an original picture artist was for "Ideon. I was born in Okayama Prefecture. When I was 19 years old, I entered Osaka Designer Gakuin (now Osaka Designer College), and after graduation I entered Animation Art. At that time, however, AnimeR was not yet a company, but a studio for freelance animators.

─ What was Mr. Moriyasu Taniguchi like?

Mouri: He didn't tell me what to do, but let me draw freely. He only gave me advice on my original drawings, saying, "It would be better if you fix it a little more like this. I have never seen him nagging other animators, either. It must have been Mr. Taniguchi's policy to let them draw freely. Since Mr. Taniguchi was the animation director for "Ideon" and "Fang of the Sun Dougram" (1981), I tried to match his drawings. However, it wasn't until "Armored Trooper Votoms" (1983) that anyone could tell that these were Taniguchi's drawings. At that time, I wasn't doing much robot animation, so I don't think I was so strongly influenced by Taniguchi-san's pictures.


───Among the members of Animation Art at that time, there were Hiroyuki Okiura and Koji Osaka, I think?

Mouri: Yes, I think Mr. Okiura came in around the end of "Dougram. Mr. Osaka came in a little later. We were all working together in a lively atmosphere.

─ Were you good at action yourself?

Yes, I liked action. I also wanted to do gags, but I didn't get many projects that were just gags.

───You were in charge of character design for the first time with "Dream Hunter Reimu" (1985), weren't you?

Mouri: It started out as an adult work, but it became so popular that it was later turned into a work for the general public. Half of the episodes were produced by Studio Mu, and the other half by Anime Art. I did the main character design, and Taniguchi-san and Osaka-kun designed some of the guest characters.

─ ─ The next character design was "Mr. Ajikko" (1987). The first half was designed by Masahiro Kase of Animation Art, but you did not redraw the main characters, did you?

Mouri: Mr. Kase did the main characters, and I was in charge of the guest characters that appeared in the middle of the film. In the anime art of the time, Taniguchi-san was sitting in the corner of the room, and Kase-san was next to him. Both of us were heavy smokers, so I remember working on "Ajikko" while worrying about second-hand smoke (laughs).