Shinichiro Watanabe
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Shinichiro Watanabe (渡辺 信一郎 Watanabe Shin'ichirō) is a Japanese director and writer. He is most well-known for the anime series Cowboy Bebop and the Macross Plus OVA.
Watanabe is noted for blending together multiple genres, such as in Cowboy Bebop, where classic cowboy western mixes with 1940s/1950s New York City film noir, Hong Kong action movies, and jazz, among other influences. In Samurai Champloo Watanabe mixes Okinawa, Hip-Hop, modern-day Japan, and samurai.
Shinichiro Watanabe should not be confused with the similarly-named Shinichi Watanabe (or "Nabeshin"), who is also an anime director.
Career
Watanabe debuted as co-director of the well-received Macross update, Macross Plus. His next effort was the 26 episode Cowboy Bebop, followed by 2001's theatrical Cowboy Bebop movie, Knockin' on Heaven's Door. In 2003, Watanabe directed his first anime for (and from) Americans with "Kid's Story" and "A Detective Story", both part of The Animatrix, an anthology of animated shorts of back stories from the movie The Matrix. His next directorial effort, Samurai Champloo, began broadcasting on Fuji TV in Japan on May 19, 2004.
He attended Otakon in 1999.
Stylistic trademarks
A line in the theme song for Samurai Champloo says "my modus operani is amalgam" and that has been true for Watanabe in the two television series he has created. Both Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo have combined a variety of stylistic elements.
Watanabe-directed films or shorts often focus on the eyes of the main character. In Cowboy Bebop Spike has eyes of two different shades of brown (one is fake). When he falls from the church window, Spike falls headfirst and the camera zooms in on one of his eyes, in which the sky can be seen. When the Kid falls in "Kid's Story", the same pattern follows. In "Detective Story", one character has a bug removed from and implanted in one eye, shown as a close-up both times. All other character have obscured eyes, or eyes unclearly shown. There is also a brief zoom in on one of LeBron James eyes in Nike's "Chamber of Fear" shorts, and the singer's eye briefly fills the screen in Linkin Park's "Breaking the Habit" music video, both indicatively directed by Watanabe.
Music also plays an important role in Watanabe's work. This is reflected in the blend of jazz, blues, bebop, funk and New Age music in the soundtrack of Cowboy Bebop. This was made possible thanks to his collaboration with critically acclaimed composer Yoko Kanno. In Samurai Champloo the soundtrack draws heavily on hip-hop culture.ja:渡辺信一郎 (アニメ監督)