( re : the main characters )

A - The fact that the main characters stand out - AIC's style?

TH- The producers requested that we add a bit of love story element this time, and when you consider AIC works, especially recent productions they kind of have that image don't they?

A- The main character Kuya Amagi seems pretty useless except in battle, as the director how do you see the main character?

TH - I don't think that in my own work I would create a male character that I disliked. He became the type of character that I like. There is a theme which centers around Kuya and his older brother, he has a huge influence on him and I wanted to show the way in which he learns about martial arts and the "way a man lives" from his older brother, but nothing else. Which means that he didn't learn anything practical about handling girls. So except for in the middle of a battle, he really doesn't know how to interact with girls.

A - Please tell us about the quite unique female characters Manami Ushio and Hitomi Jido.

TH - I created Manami to be more of a typical female heroine, but she is also surrounded by mystery. The intention here was to make the viewers think about what her real character is. She was created to attract the male audience with her small gestures and kind of "evil witch" character. Hitomi is your typical tomboy. Back in the 70's characters like her played the main role in many robot anime. But the generation is different now, so I made her as more of a sidekick to he main character. Plus I thought it would be interesting to have a triangular relationship develop, so I made it so that Hitomi falls for Kuya.

A - While on the topic of "love triangle" relationships. I believe that there is another character, Kaori Tsukishiro, appearing on the scene?

TH - Actually Kaori isn't much of a major character. She is pretty involved at the beginning...but there are only 13 episodes in this series and I couldn't fit more of her in. If we can maybe do 26 episodes, then her character would feature more prominently.

A - Is the way in which you view women reflected in your female characters?

TH - I try to avoid that as much as possible. Basically the scene writer writes the stories and what the characters are doing - I just make contributions to it now and then...

If I write the plot from beginning to end then I think I would colour it too much with my views, which is something I've deliberately tried to avoid. Since the scene writer and I both contribute and influence the story, this blending of opinion pretty much neutralizes anyones opinion being expressed too strongly.

A - It appears that there are no male characters in the Dangaioh organization, except for Kuya and Yonamine. It seems that the organization is like some private harem...

TH - If you go down into the basement of the organization you'll find a lot of male mechanics from young to old. However most of them don't go "upstairs", and most of the command and above ground staff are female. Also Chief Yonamine doesn't often go to the base, which means that Kuya is basically the only guy around. Also, there are no separate shower facilities for men and women, so there is occasionally the case when Kuya bumps into some of the girls there.

Actually while I think about it Yonamine has the title "Chief" but basically he is a Doctor-scientist. He's not an army officer but rather a kind of "Professor". This title however was used a lot in the 70's and I felt that it was a bit old and unsophisticated so I decided to give him the title of Chief.

Unlike many works this series doesn't stress the concept of justice. Dangaioh is created to protect after the invasion occurs and the base was created to support Dangaioh. The enemy robots are created by a range of both small and large groups of scientists so there is no real concept of an enemy group.

A - It seems that all the clothes worn by the characters are pretty much up to date, fashion-wise.

TH - I intended to make my characters have the latest look, but I've also put in some characters which seem to me to have come right out of the 70's. So you can see where some really old-fashioned characters appear in some of the episodes.