Interest

FMA, Gundam 00 Director Mizushima Wants to Make Idol Anime

Seiji Mizushima is perhaps best known for directing action series like Fullmetal Alchemist, Mobile Suit Gundam 00 and Shaman King, although he has also dabbled in lighter fare like Oh! Edo Rocket and Hanamaru Kindergarten. On March 9, he revealed on Twitter that the next anime genre he'd like to try out is... idol anime.

"Many times, when the same staff that works on a TV series works on the movie, you can feel their love. I could really feel director [Atsushi] Nishigori's love for IDOLM@STER in THE IDOLM@STER MOVIE," he tweeted. "And of course, the love of the staff who supported it from the TV show. Man, movies sure are great~" He then went on to say, "I once again started to feel that idols were a theme I'd like to try once myself. Idols are living idols [he means in the literal sense of the word here], they're expressive, they're athletes...... they're so dramatic. And their songs have no genre...... Working on Aikatsu! only made that desire stronger. Someday, for sure......"

Mizushima went on to express his interest in modern idol groups like Dempagumi.inc, Morning Musume and LinQ. But he likes Babymetal the most because "their growth is interesting. Not just the idols, the environment around them is also dramatic!"

The anime series Aikatsu! follows two girls as they train to become idol singers at an idol academy, but Mizushima was merely a supervisor for it. His 2012 anime Natsu-iro Kiseki, however, had idol themes, and its main cast was voiced by the idol group Sphere.

[Via Yaraon!; Image from Cinema Today]