From illustrating the Heaven’s Memo Pad and Red Data Girl light novels, being the character designer of Hanasaku Iroha, the illustrator for the Atelier Arland series, and character designer/supervisor for the Blue Reflection Ray games, Mel Kishida has been a long-time veteran in the Japanese pop culture space. TheOASG, alongside a number of other publications, chatted with Kishida at Anime NYC 2022 to discuss his professional upbringing, general process, and how cosplaying influences his designs.
TheOASG: What led you to become an illustrator?
Mel Kishida: As a child I loved anime, games, etc, and I used to draw as a hobby. But then around my 20’s I started using the internet and created my own website, then began uploading my works. One publisher found my work, they scouted for me to draw for them, and that’s how I started to get a job as a professional illustrator.
Can you share a general process you go through when you’re working on characters?
So (a client) will reach out — they’ll talk about the series or title that they want me to come up with the character designs for, they’ll give me the set up and world of the series, and the personalities of the characters. Some clients give me a lot of information and some very little — but I try to digest them in my own way and based on what I understand about these characters, I try to come up with a visual. What I focus on is making sure these characters are appealing to as many demographics as possible because this is a business and *laughs* I want as many people as possible to like my characters. So I try to find a way to design characters that appeal to many fans.
Since you have real-world experience in dressing up, both from doing cosplay yourself and designing outfits for idol performances, does this cause you to think differently about 2D costume design?
Yes, definitely! There’s only marriage, so good influences only because if you have the real thing in your hands and feel the tactile experience, that definitely increases the quality of the picture. So if there’s a girls’ costume and you wear it you understand, “Oh, this is how the skirt falls and this is how it feels,” and it can only bring a better result in my drawing.
Specifically for anime and light novels, what do you think has changed the most from when you started illustrating works like Heaven’s Memo Pad, Hanasaku Iroha, Red Data Girl to now in 2022?
I don’t really see a huge change in terms of the industry across the board because every project is so different that every time I work — I work with different studios, staff members, etc, and the depth of involvement and the relationships I have with the project, every time it’s always different. So across the board I don’t really see a trend or huge transformation. Just every time is different for me.
*The interview has been edited and adjusted for clarity/flow. Special thanks to Anime NYC, Mel Kishida, and staff for the interview opportunity.