Character Profile - Katsura Kogorou and Takasugi Shinsaku


- There's not much left to say about these two top stars from the Bakumatsu. They appear in 
different works under different personalities and under different circunstances. And explaining
how they appear in Ruroken, I decided to use the "wise Katsura" and "wild Takasugi", the most
orthodox images about them. In my image, they have some more picaresque aspects: Katsura is 
a more deep strategist, laying elaborate plans, and Takasugi has got a more broken up 
personality. But as this flashback had Kenshin and Tomoe as protagonists, such aspects were 
completely cut off, so reading again the flashback is not as tasty as it should be, and I regret
for that. 
One day, if I get to write a true Bakumatsu novel, I want to draw them as I imagine them. Two
people, who are kick-@$$ awesome bad guys, picaresque and evil at the same time, of whose you 
can expect fierce discussion like in Saitoh's first appearance. 

- About the design: starting with Katsura, he was made almost impromptu. Just that I took a photo
of his and added a strange bang. As I wrote before, I left the rest completely orthodox, but then
Takei sensei from "Shaman King" praised it a lot, saying that "the bang is a good design because
it represents nicely the character", so I'm feeling a bit confused. Never underestimate what 
people can think...
About Takasugi, it's one of the designs for Mikio Nagaoka (see volume 7) that couldn't make it. 
This design was created also impromptu when imaging Mikio, but I said, "no, it's too wild and
awesome. It's a pity to use it for an evil character." Looking closely, they clearly bear 
resemblances. In fact, I was planning to use it for a brotherlike companion to a next series's 
protagonist, but I decided "oh, what the heck, let's try it". These days I prefer drawing such
wild outlaw characters than nice beautiful guys.
And I'm fed up with drawing beautiful characters.