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Shinichiro Watanabe (渡辺 信一郎) is a
Japanese director and writer for the famed
anime series,
Cowboy Bebop. Noted for the blending multiple generas together
such as in Bebop where classic
cowboy western mixes with 1940/50's New York
film noir, Hong Kong action movies, and plenty of other personal
influences.
He also is known for his love of music. This is reflected in the blend
of
jazz,
blues,
bebop,
funk and
New Age music into every nook on the soundtrack of Cowboy Bebop. He
accomplishes this blend on Bebop thanks to his collaboration with
critically acclaimed composer
Yoko Kanno and a semi-fictional band called
the Seatbelts.
His directorial debut was noteworthy among anime fans, as a co-director
for the well-recieved Macross update,
Macross Plus. After finishing the 26 episode Cowboy Bebop,
his solo-directorial debut came in 2001 with a theatrically-released movie
from his afformentioned series. Until 2003, Watanabe would direct 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
box office movie hit,
The Matrix. His next directorial effort,
Samurai Champloo, is set to be broadcast in Japan in Spring 2004. Like
Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo is a curious blend of disparate influences,
including
Okinawa,
Hip-Hop, modern-day
Japan, and
Samurai.
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