Here's a special section dedicated to the special guest of 2001 Animation Festival held by AXN, an anime-tor, a GONZO staff, and more importantly a GateKeepers Project staff — Mahiro Maeda.

The AXN Anime Festival was held last July 7, 2001 at SM Megamall A Atrium. The purpose was to promote "Final Fantasy The Spirits Within", although their guest of honor was Mahiro Maeda. Maeda-sama did an animation demonstration, judged the on-the-spot drawing contests, and signed autographs.

Maeda-sama is, well not really a small man. I'm not sure, but I think he was small. At the time he attended the festival, he had a close-cropped hair (look at the picture and see what I mean). He wore a watch on his right wrist, and on his right ring finger was a huge blue stone. What's the purpose on telling details on his right hand? Maeda-san is left handed! Usually when someone wears a watch on a specific hand, the opposite hand is the drawing/writing hand. Left-handeds are usually the artists right? Maeda-san drew gracefully and quickly with his left hand. Yes he was quick. He had drawn perfect sketches in 5 or more papers in I think less than 5 minutes? That's only an assumption because I did not really kept the time then. =P I also noticed that he was quite a perfectionist in his drawings. Watching his first sketched drawings, I did not see an error — for me it's perfect; but he noticed his errors and quickly retouched them. A quality animator indeed.

On stage, where he announced winners from the drawing contests, he entertained the audience by dancing funnily. On signing autographs, I had seen a scene where he patted a boy — I haven't taken the picture because no more shot was left!

My description was brief since that was how I have observed Maeda-sama. To sum it up, here are my basic observations of Maeda-sama: he is a quality anime-tor with his own unique style, he is a funny man, and he loves kids!

Here are the pictures that I've taken from the festival.



In the next page you'll see Maeda-san's works. Credit goes to the GONZO website.