Nobuyoshi Habara Talks About Creating the Ruby-Spears Mega Man Opening

With the first season of Ruby-Spears' Mega Man now available in Japan for the first time, Nobuyoshi Habara—who directed the show's opening sequence—shared some history on Twitter about its development. He discussed its connection to the canceled 1993 anime project (although he previously indicated 1992) and the journey to the iconic final product we all know and love.

 

"Around 1993, I drew two illustrations for the planning document of a "Rockman" (TV anime series) project. Somehow, it seems that the cels from that are now in the possession of someone overseas. The order was to redesign the characters for the TV anime, but the project itself was canceled. Perhaps my illustrations strayed too far from the original source material?

Later, I worked on keyframes for a TV commercial promoting Bandai's "Charakobacchi", which featured Street Fighter and Rockman. Perhaps related to that, I also took on character design for a roughly 10-minute project titled Rockman's Traffic Safety, created for school screenings. For this project, I made a strong effort to stay true to the original art style.

Sometime after that, production began at Ashi Productions on the North American adaptation of Rockman, titled MEGA MAN, in collaboration with an American company. The scenario, design, and storyboards were all handled by the American team. Since I seemed to have some availability at the time, they asked me to work on the opening sequence. I believe this was around 1994.

I was provided with the storyboards for the opening sequence, which had been created in America. The production manager then asked, "Can you finish the keyframes in two weeks?" However, with complex scenes featuring multiple characters battling while the camera panned through overhead shots, it felt impossible. So, I agreed to take on the job on the condition that I could revise the storyboards.

After receiving approval from the American side, I redrew the storyboards in just three days. Four of us, including myself, worked on the keyframes, incorporating some illustrations that had been made for the pilot film. When the completed film was sent over, I heard they were both incredibly surprised and pleased. Initially, my name wasn’t going to appear in the credits, but after seeing the final product, they decided to include it.

I didn’t participate in the main MEGA MAN animation because I was serving as the animation director for another project at the time. However, due to the overwhelmingly positive reception of the MEGA MAN opening, I was invited to work as a storyboard artist for the company’s next anime project. From February to June 1995, I worked at a company in LA."

 

I think it’s absolutely wonderful that Habara received credit for his work, even though he didn’t work on the show itself. It’s all too common these days to hear about animators not getting the recognition they deserve.

Now, Habara does raise an intriguing question, though: what exactly is Rockman's Traffic Safety? His wording seems to distinguish it from the currently-lost Do Your Best, Rockman: Earthquake Safety and Fire Safety educational film. Even fans in Japan have noted this is the first they’re hearing about Rockman's Traffic Safety, leaving us to speculate whether the film was completed but never screened, or if it had an extremely limited release, far shorter than Earthquake and Fire Safety.

It seems there’s more to Rockman’s animation history than we ever realized...