#panel interview

Source

Austin's Shannara Chronicles costar Manu Bennett talking about how it was working with Austin, and the parallels between Austin's character losing his mother, and Austin losing his own mother in real life. 😢 (ComicCon NYC 2015)

This is so precious 🥹

🌸🌺🌸🌺🌸🌺🌸🌺🌸🌺🌸🌺🌸

"With Austin...There's just a real integrity to him."

"He's so good-looking and such a good guy... God gave with both hands."

Question: How did you get to be the character designer for BLEACH? Kudo: I got my start at Artland Animation Studio. Then when I went off on my own and became a freelancer, my very first job at Studio Pierrot on the title TOKYO MEW MEW, which was also Director Abe's work. So there I worked on key animation. And ever since I've been part of Team Abe, so to speak. Then came the title Detective School Q. And after that.. That's when I came to work on BLEACH. I had heard they were looking for a character designer. I was told there's this competition and you should do it. It was Producer Hagino who had reached out. So I decided to enter the competition and I submitted a number of drawings like Ichigo, Uryu and Orihime. I made those drawings and submitted them, and then, I would come to hear this later, it turned out Kubo-sensei took a liking to my drawing of Orihime. And basically, just like that, I joined BLEACH as character designer. Turns out with Orihime, her sort of sensualness... That's what seemed to have won him over.

Question: Were you familiar with the BLEACH manga before your submission for the competition? Kudo: Well, I actually don't read much manga so I can't say that I was familiar. But then I really had no time to read Jump. When I'm working on a project, I lose almost all opportunity to read. When I entered the competition, I laid out several manga volumes. As many as had been released at that point, and just read, and I was able to go through them really quickly. But, you know, hmm.. how should I put it... The reading tempo between the weekly manga and the volume is a bit different, I think. I managed to read all the volumes in one sitting. But I still remember that I really enjoyed it.

Question: Which BLEACH character has been your favorite to draw? Kudo: Let's see, the characters I had fun drawing... In Thousand-Year Blood War, he doesn't show up that often, but I had a lot of fun drawing Kon. In the earlier BLEACH, like in the opening, there's this part when the stuffed animal comes out, and in the ending, too. He's really a lot of fun to animate, so drawing Kon is definitely fun.

Question: And which character was most challenging? Kudo: Difficult characters to draw... I have to say Ichigo. Even from before, I always say this, but as you know, we watch Ichigo grow up. And as he grows up, there's this... The character.. The way you draw him evolves. So to do that, how do I put it, keeping up with that is really tricky. Especially at the beginning of the series, this was really difficult. But with Thousand-Year Blood War, you don't see the same kind of major changes in him; he has sort of stabilized. But that beginning period was truly a challenge.

Question: As you continue to work on Part 4, what scenes or parts are you particularly looking forward to? Kudo: Up until now, and this was the case up until this part, but with the anime-only scenes.. For example, (Kubo) Sensei may have had a scene in mind but didn't include it in the manga. This time we'll have more of those kinds of scenes. Those new aspects, I think they're something to get excited about. I think even those who have read BLEACH back in Jump, even they will have some new discoveries to look forward to. Such as new characters. Yes, you'll definitely get to see some of them.

It’s appearances like these that make us think Nikki Glaser won’t wait to long before she gets another TV show of her own if she chooses to go down that road a third time. 

One interesting thing to note...

We’re not sure if you know this or not, but, often times, when stand-up comedians go on a late night show and sit to do a panel interview, they’re still “doing a set”, but doing so in the clever disguise of an actual conversation/interview. 

Nikki Glaser, who has done plenty of wonderful, traditional late night stand-up sets, give a great example of how one weaves a set list of jokes through an actual conversation on Conan.

See for yourself here and here.

(Order: from left to right)