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Manga Impact: The World of Japanese Animation, 6 December 2010, ISBN978-0714857411; pg 251;
A leading name on the current anime scene and unexpectedly discovered by fans after directing Cowboy Bebop (1996), Watanabe (born in 1965 in Kyoto) devoted little time to his first job as designer, instead he focused almost immediately on directing and distinguishing himself as an assistant director and storyboard artist on several series produced by Sunrise. In 1994, along with the veteran Kawamori Shoji, he co-directed Macross Plus (1994), an OAV in four episodes that intelligently recreated the world of Super Dimensional Fortress Macross. This led to a friendship and an artistic association with the scriptwriter Nobumoto Keiko and musician Kanno Yoko, the team that made Cowboy Bebop.
The Bebop TV is striking for its freshness and high technical quality. Watanabe is a director with a flamboyant style who likes to play with film vocabulary, moving between different styles without ever becoming excessive. Following director Anno Hideaki, he abandons many of the typical stylistic features of anime, such as old-fashioned grainy backdrops, insisting on a more realistic style of drawing and employs narrative methods closer to those of live cinema. He pays great attention to music (rarely is a piece used repeatedly) and to editing (flashbacks are short and ambiguous, but immediately suggestive). The more recent Samurai Champloo (2004) also demonstrates his eclectic sense, blending jidaigeki (period drama) with references to hip-hop culture. America has rewarded him, not only by helping to produce the feature-length film version of Cowboy Bebop (2001) and making him guest of honor at the 'Big Apple Anime Fest' in 2002, but also by including his two shorts on the American produced project Animatrix (2003).
S.G. [Stefano Gariglio]
