Outlaw Star - Production

Production

Outlaw Star, fully titled Seihō Bukyō Outlaw Star (星方武侠アウトロースター?, lit. "Starward Warrior Knight Outlaw Star"), was created by Morning Star Studio. Takehiko Itō was the manga's director, writer, and chief artist. Itō was aided in his duties by Hajime Yatate, a pseudonym of writers at Sunrise. Others who contributed to the work include producer Kenzoh Tomita; starship designer Shoji Kawamori; character concept and imageboard illustrators Yutaka Minowa and Hajime Jinguji; and a team of production designers and assistant artists. Outlaw Star takes place in the Toward Stars Era, the same universe as Itō's Uchuu Eiyuu Monogatari (宇宙英雄物語?, lit. "Future-Retro Hero Story"), a pulp-science fiction manga that was first serialized by Kadokawa Shoten in 1988. Itō has described this earlier work as "something out of boy's dream" and took a much more mature, scientific approach when writing Outlaw Star. The author also referenced aspects of Chinese culture when creating Outlaw Star.

The animated television series of Outlaw Star was produced by Sunrise and directed by Mitsuru Hongo, whose previous credits include the comedy Crayon Shin-chan and the magical girl series Shamanic Princess. The script was chiefly written by Katsuhiko Chiba (ja), who wrote about three-quarters of the episodes. Character designs were handled by Hiroyuki Hataike (Detonator Orgun, Armored Trooper Votoms) and Takuya Saito. The show's vehicles were designed by Juniya Ishigaki (ja) and Macross and Gundam mecha artist Shōji Kawamori, the latter of whom designed the Outlaw Star ship itself. Koh Otani composed the musical score for the Outlaw Star anime. The series features the opening theme "Through the Night" written and performed Masahiko Arimachi, and two closing themes, "Hiru no Tsuki" (昼の月?, lit. "Daytime Moon") and "Tsuki no Ie" (月の家?, lit. "House of the Moon"), both written and performed by Akino Arai. "Through the Night" was chosen for the opening among several candidate songs. Itō and Sunrise agreed that the theme should be one that had not been used in a recent animation and that it should feature male vocals. Arimachi wrote the song to resemble a story, took into account its longterm impact, and felt it fit Outlaw Star perfectly.