When I initially saw a sample of Nick Simmons' Incarnate comic artwork that plagiarism charges had been leveled towards, I couldn't figure out why he would choose such a generic shot to plagiarize (assuming he really was doing that). I mean, the panel consisted of some oldish guy laughing, which I'm sure he could've drawn on his own without any help from Bleach or any other manga for that matter. It is so common that I'm probably guilty of drawing something similar to that at some point in my career, even though I've hardly ever read or watched Bleach. Frankly, I am not aware of any living artist who is so original and mind-blowingly unique that no one has ever set eyes on that particular type of artwork in the recorded history of art. We all are influenced by something and someone, and we develop our own form of expression as we absorb the information and transform it into something we call our own. Anyway, I felt that the sample was too generic to call plagiarism. After all, plagiarism is a serious allegation that could break an artist's career, and one should not carelessly accuse another of ripping off someone's work. Innocent until proven guilty, right?

Later, I saw quite a lot of examples of his comic compared to the Bleach manga, and I realized that Mr. Simmons has a lot of explaining to do. Being influenced by someone you respect and ripping off their work for financial gain are two very different things. I'm sure we're all anxious to hear Nick Simmons' side of story as this matter is investigated.

I just read the post on Anime News Network concerning one of the Madhouse feature film productions being on hold, and many of its staff are being laid off. I actually read the blog mentioned in this article the other day through the link on 2channel's Madhouse thread. This individual probably meant no harm, but it's frustrating to see this kind of news being carelessly posted on a personal blog without Madhouse's consent. He did mention that this hiatus didn't affect him, so I wish he hadn't even brought it up unless he had enough details to explain what was really going on. I am not going to confirm or deny the accuracy of the report here--Madhouse will do that if they feel the need to explain themselves--but I will say that there have been projects in the past that were placed on hold for many different reasons, and there were times when a team did have to disband because of that. It's just one of the things that happen in this business. Basically, I just want to say that there is no cause for alarm at this very moment. That being said, 2010 is off to a rocky start for anime industry in general.

Though it wasn't my intention to take so much time off from posting to this blog, much of my time since New Years has been spent finishing up my current project, and more importantly, securing the next one. It is true that work is getting somewhat scarce compared to a couple years ago, but I was fortunate enough to be assigned to another character design/animation director gig at Madhouse. It's not starting until April at the earliest, so in the meantime I'll be working on a Studio Pierrot feature film to fill in the gap. Life is pretty much back to normal after fighting with the unpredictable circumstances of the past two months, but I'm well aware that things could change depending on how the rest of the year shapes up.