Just because we as Western fans may not see the big deal about Unicorn, that doesn't mean it's not big in Japan. With a story by a bestselling author, character designs by Yas and mecha designs by Katoki, Unicorn is anything but "low profile." As Neo pointed out, it's unusual for a novel to get an animated promo plus kits so early. Bandai is really promoting this in the same way they do a TV show, and they certainly don't put as much effort into things like ASTRAY or Advance of Zeta. Also, Katoki not being on 00's staff isn't anything odd. He hasn't worked on a Gundam TV series since Wing, although he's still been active with OVAs like EW, 08th MS and IGLOO. Plus, he's the main designer for Sunrise's "Harmony of Gundam" variation suits, and though we haven't seen one of those in awhile, I'm sure there will be more. If anyone has lost favor, it may be Kunio Okawara. After being the main designer for every AU (Turn A being an exception), he's bumped down to a seemingly low-profile job on 00, and so far none of the designs seen are credited to him. Of course, he could just be getting on in his years and scaling back work before retirement, so who knows.
On 8/24/07, James Boren <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I wonder why wonder-mecha-designer Hajime Katoki wasn't given the job > to do the mecha designs for G00? A year ago his work on gunpla was > scaled back, I thought it might be because Bandai wanted him to > concentrate on the next Gundam anime series. Instead he's working on > that terribly low profile Gundam Unicorn novel. Unicorn is so under > the radar that even Gunota doesn't have a link to its website on it's > sidebar, (It is http://www.gundam-unicorn.net BTW. I had to search > the blog to find it). > > Could it be that Katoki has lost favor? Is his work now considered > dated? Has he been typecast into only redoing other peoples designs > or the odd game variant? It's too bad. Katoki rarely gets to do > original designs. His Gundam Unicorn is pretty cool, more > interesting than the G00 Gundams at any rate. > > -James > -------------------------------------------------- > The Gundam Mailing List MK-II [email protected] > > Archives: http://www.gundam.com/gml > Help: Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with this in > the BODY: help list > -- Webmaster Mecha & Anime HQ http://www.mahq.net
