- Interview Location: Anime Expo 2026
- Interview Format:In-person, One-on-One
Anime Herald: How much has the story ofZANthe anime evolved from the original Dark Horse graphic novel Deva Zan?
Mariko Suzuki: We had the same question in a previous interview.Deva Zan from Dark House was a rather large and esoteric book. He (Yoshitaka Amano) had sent in a bunch of illustrations that were connected to each other. Carl Horn edited it into the timeline of Deva Zan. It was a large, esoteric book. They are using about one-tenth of the book to produce the anime. People are coming together to make it more cohesive and palatable. The book could be confusing at times
Anime Herald: Thank you, that was a very good answer
Given how much of the staff ofZANworked onArmored Trooper VOTOMS, I have to ask: Were you a fan of that anime?
Yoshitaka Amano: It’s a bit of a long answer. When it comes to Japanese anime, there are two schools: Tezuka and Sunrise. It just happened that a lot of the people that were involved with (Armored Trooper) VOTOMS wanted to work on the project. They weren’t singled out
Anime Herald: Between the graphic novel, and the anime, you have been working on the story for many years. What drives your passion to tell this story?
Yoshitaka Amano: I’ve always wanted to create my own mythology. I’ve seen the mythology from others and I wanted to do that myself. I view ZAN as the culmination of my life’s work. People might think of Final Fantasy or Vampire Hunter D, but those are projects created by others. This is my life’s work. It’s not something that sparked up in the last ten-to-fifteen years
If you remember the bookHero. It has the panzer he rides around in. If you look back at the work I’ve been doing for the past thirty years, you’ll see droplets of ZAN that have come together. It’s been crystallized into my own mythology
Anime Herald: If you lost your memories, but retained your ability to create art, what kind of art do you think you would create?
Yoshitaka Amano: I’ve lost my memories! What you see now is what I would create
When you see me drawing, you’re seeing what I am thinking of in that moment. I’m already an amnesiac, so I don’t look back. Sometimes, I’ll be walking around and I’ll see an illustration and I’ll think, “Oh, that’s mine! I drew that.”
Were you personally more a fan of samurai, or of mythology?
Yoshitaka Amano: You have to understand that, as a Japanese person, samurai are part of our roots. I’ve been influenced by a variety of samurai movies. I’m friends with Kazuo Koike, the author of Lone Wolf and Cub. Perhaps it’s similar to knights in Western culture. They’re ubiquitous
Michael Gombos: He told me once that the Western equivalent of a samurai would be a knight. But to a Japanese person, a knight is something fantastical. A person riding around in plate or chain mail armor is not something a Japanese person could have imagined five-hundred years ago. To them, it’s something incredibly fantastical, that almost shouldn’t exist
To him, there’s a natural feeling about samurai, where they seem close and not that fantastical, while knights seem otherworldly
Anime Herald: Interesting
Michael Gombos: Maybe it is like how I feel about samurai. There is something mystical about them, even after having lived in Japan
Anime Herald: Can you share more about the totalZANproject, beyond the anime?
Hiroaki Ikegami: We have plans to expand it, but we have nothing to announce right now
Anime Herald: We spoke back in 2016 about your hopes forZANmovie. It had stalled. How did the project finally get moving again?
Yoshitaka Amano: We were waiting for the right opportunity, including the right creators to approach us. There was a confluence of events, including the people who happened to work on (Armored Trooper) VOTOMS wanting to work with us. Effectively, we waited it out and eventually the project came together
Anime Herald: Are there any plans to reprint the book?
Michael Gombos: Good question. At Amano-sensei’s panel and the Dark Horse panel, we will be announcing there-release of the book with a new cover. The new cover looks great. It’s pretty cool
Anime Herald: How would you say your art style has evolved?
Yoshitaka Amano: I have taken pieces of what I have done along the way. When I was twenty-five years old, I was doing animation for a bunch of people. I slowly left that and did a number of other projects, but never any animation for myself. Now, I am drawing pictures and other people are animating my work. My style was developed from the bits and pieces over the course of all of these projects. Either for hire, or for Tatsunoko Production. It could be from Final Fantasy or Vampire Hunter D, or anything in between. It’s an amalgam of everything. When I’m illustrating ZAN, all of that comes forth. I guess it is just experience.
To see my aesthetic works turn into animation is a new evolution for me. Before, it was for someone else. I was drawing characters for a different company. Now, it is my work that I am seeing animated. It feels special, to have switched positions to where I started at age twenty-five, to where I am now at seventy-four
Anime Herald: Are you directly involved, consulting on the storyboards?
Yoshitaka Amano: Yes. I am doing editorial consulting and overseeing all of the storyboarding
Anime Herald: Were there any other topics you wished to discuss?
Yoshitaka Amano: Right now, we are working on ZAN, but I have plans to do even more after that. I have lots of ideas
Anime Herald: Can you give us any hints of what those projects might entail?
Yoshitaka Amano:ZAN is a dark fantasy. The next project after that will not be a dark fantasy. There are tons of things I would like to work on
Anime Herald: Do you have any questions for us?
Hiroaki Ikegami: We’re seeing an explosion of Japanese animation overseas. Do you think it is overdone?
Anime Herald: It’s not just Japanese animation anymore. There’s Chinese and Korean animation, as well. It’s a medium. Disney used the medium. Tezuka-san and Sunrise used the medium. And now, others are using the medium because it is a good way of telling a variety of stories that are hard to tell in other ways
Michael Gombos: What about the explosion of Japanese animation, specifically?
Anime Herald: Japanese animation exploded because stories likeDragon BallandOne Piececonnected with people worldwide. It’s not just North America. South America, Europe, France in particular. Anime is incredibly popular because these are stories that hooked people. That’s why Japanese animation is so popular
Here is the best way I can describe it. There are now more straw hats outside of Japan than there are inside of Japan
Michael Gombos: Carl Horn said that anime and manga are a lot like hip-hop. People have said that hip-hop was for a certain group of people. Horn said that, if that were the case, we would not have heard of hip-hop. Hip-hop wound up being for everybody. Anime and manga are for the Japanese people, but everyone can enjoy it
Anime Herald: Thank you very much
Yoshitaka Amano: Thank you
(Editor’s note: Yoshitaka Amano has a team that he travels with. That includes his manager Mariko Suzuki, his friend and business partner Hiroaki Ikegami, and Sr. Director of Licensed Publications at Dark Horse Comics, Inc. Michael Gombos. I noted during the interview that they work very well together, as a true team. Additionally, Suzuki-san wrote a book with Amano-sensei art history titledYoshitaka Amano Art History.)
