Anime Expo - Gonzo Panel

By Jason Yeh     July 05, 2006

Hosts: Eric Calderon, Mat Hawkins (Top Cow)

Eric started the panel by giving a quick overview of Gonzo. He then showed several trailers / promo clips of current and upcoming works. In between trailers, he took questions from the audience. Here's a list of what was shown during the panel:

• Origin


• Trinity Blood


• Basilisk


• Solty Rei


• Black Cat


• Pinky Street - 3D animated show, first co-production with a Taiwanese company. Eric showed a couple of the figures the show is based from, and popped the head off of one to the amusement / dismay of the audience.


• Glass Fleet - co-production with Satelight

Between trailers, someone asked if a "Darkness" anime is possible since Witchblade is now out in Japan, and Eric replied that it's in the works. Later, Eric asked a Trinity Blood cosplayer to stand up and talk about her very elaborate costume. He also asked her what she thought about the Trinity Blood anime. She actually started watching the show to study the Japanese conversation and dialogue, and ended up enjoying the series.

Another person asked if Gonzo plans to produce another show using the same animation technique in Gankutsuou and Eric answered with a, "yes". I asked if the company has a long term relationship with Funimation considering the many Gonzo titles licensed by Funimation. Eric replied that each title is still licensed on a case by case basis and there are the usual bidding wars.

About 2/3 ways thru the panel, they showed a promo interview clip and trailer for Witchblade. The remaining time was spent on more Q&A. Here's some of the questions and answers I found more noteworthy:

• An audience member asked how Gonzo and Topcow came together to work on the Witchblade anime. Basically it was a project they started talking about 4 years ago. Eric emphasized that Top Cow pointed out what makes Witchblade a unique franchise, and let Gonzo come up with the anime (which allows them a fair amount of creative freedom).


• Another person asked if the Witchblade DVD release is going to be different than the TV version. Eric said it would indeed be different. Matt pointed out that there was an issue with showing too much of the main character's legs on Japanese TV (whereas bare breasts are a non-issue), so things like that will be changed for the DVD release.


• Someone also asked how Gonzo made the transition from TV series to anime movies. Eric did not go to much into detail, but said that they made a 5 movie deal with Fuji TV.

Towards the end of the panel, Eric mentioned that Afro Samurai starts airing on Spike TV in November. To quote him, "it's going to f*** your s*** up." They ended the panel with the usual Jan Ken Pon (rock, scissors, paper) prize giveaway.