Ask John: What Has Kenichi Sonoda Been Doing Lately?
Question:
What is Kenichi Sonoda doing now, if anything? It’s been a couple of years since he finished Gunsmith Cats Burst.
Answer:
To be honest, I don’t know exactly what veteran character designer & manga-ka Kenichi Sonoda has been up to lately, but I do know that he hasn’t entirely dropped out of the scene. Most recently, Sonoda has been active as a member of the Ganso Sonoda-ya doujinshi circle. He provided the cover and a six-page Kannagi parody manga story for the “Kamisama Megaton Punch 11” doujinshi released on December 30, 2008, and the cover and some interior pages for the “CG Megaton Punch 12” doujinshi released on December 31, 2009. Sonoda’s cover for the “Megaton Punch 11” doujinshi depicts Kannagi, and his “Megaton Punch 12” cover depicts Kure-nai, so obviously Sonoda has been keeping current with popular contemporary anime. However, Sonoda’s most recent professional involvement in contemporary anime seems to have been providing gun designs and other conceptual art for the 2005 SoltyRei television series. In the game arena, Sonoda provided character designs and promotional artwork (including the cover for the soundtrack CD) for Jaleco’s 2007 Idol Janshi Suchie-Pai IV Playstation 2 mahjong game.
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It’s good to see fans are still aware of who Kenichi Sonoda is. This man is one of the greatest manga-ka and character designers I’ve known, providing the kind of attention to detail that you hardly see these days. There seriously needs to be a Kenichi Sonoda revival, as many of his anime productions and manga, like Gunsmith Cats, Riding Bean, Bubblegum Crisis, and Gall Force still hold up today. It’s almost criminal that there’s still works of his that haven’t hit American DVD, like Gaiarth and Super Deformed Double Feature (both released on VHS).