The end of the anime season is a time of withdrawal, especially when a series you love ends. That’s how I feel right now with Tsuki ga Kirei coming to a close. It was such a precious and thoughtful series, one that evoked the innocence and awkwardness of youth, but remained genuine in it’s treatment of a subject that could be saccharine sweet.
I’ve generally skipped the opening, what with it’s spoilers as it changes each week to show bits of the upcoming episode, but when I did watch a couple of times, one name caught my eye. loundraw was credited as having done the character designs for Tsuki ga Kirei, and everything suddenly clicked. The designs looked so familiar to me because I’ve known about Loundraw for quite some time through Pixiv, where he has a popular account for his artwork.
I got in touch with loundraw through his representative, and asked a few short questions (thank you, Kaze, for doing the translation work on this for me!):
Q: I always looking forward to your work on pixiv, so I was very excited to see you in charge of the original character designs for Tsuki ga Kirei. Is this the first time you’ve been put in charge with so much anime work?
A. It’s my first time.
Q: Do you hope to do additional collaborations with anime projects?
A: I’d love to!
Q: What are your impressions of Tsuki ga Kirei?
A: I think its realistic depiction of middle school romance is wonderful. I want to have a romance like that haha.
Q: Would you please leave us with some advice to American artists who want to work on anime or manga related projects?
A: The style and taste of Japan is different from America, so there are great things but also stressful things to consider about it. Rather than improving your art, work on reaching out to people’s hearts through your drawings!
Short and sweet! I certainly hope we’ll get to see more of loundraw in future anime productions. In the meantime, you can also follow his Twitter and Tumblr accounts if you’re interested.
He looks like such a kind person!
It does! It was a treat to reach out to him.
[…] Interview with Loundraw, Tsuki ga Kirei’s Character Designer […]