I'm a software engineer and I have a passion for everything related to Multimedia. I'm especially interested in video, which is why I'm a huge fan of movies and TV Series. Among my favorites, at this point in time, are "Heroes", "24", "Shark" and "CSI Las Vegas". My top movie goes definitely to "Shawshank Redemption", followed closely by almost every movie, made by James Cameron, like "The Abyss", "Aliens" and "T2: Judgment Day".

If I remember correctly, one of the first Anime I've seen was Conan Future Boy. I can't say I was "addicted" to Anime after that, but it sure lured me into it. The artwork and animation was already exquisite, but as new series came along, it kept improving. I love to draw (and I'll probably share some of my drawings with you in the future) and Anime was a feast of artwork, that I just could not ignore. Some of my favorites are, Cowboy Bebop, Last EXILE, almost anything from Ghibli and the Rurouni Kenshin OVAs. But then I was introduced to my current favorite artist: Yasuomi Umetsu.

It is my opinion that he is a Master Artist. I can't say the movies/OVAs he was part of, are brilliant, in terms of story, but they are certainly the best I've seen in terms of artwork and animation, which is why Anime captivated me in the first place. His drawings are beautiful, especially his female characters ^_^, full of detail and quite stylish. The first OVA I saw from his work, was in fact Yellow Star, which as you know, is an hentai title, but it was, by far, the one that caught my eye, in all the 11 episodes of the Cool Devices series. After watching that, I started my "hunt" to find more from this artist and today, I believe I have most of the DVDs from the Movies/OVAs he was part of and every single one, is graced with the uniqueness of Mr Umetsu's art style.

Among many projects, Mr Umetsu was invited to participate in some "revival" projects, In this case revival means, old series brought up to the 90's. Some examples of that are Casshan Robot Hunter, Gatchaman OVA and Hurricane Polymar Holy Blood (in that order). If you saw the original Gatchaman series, then you're in for a treat of awesome artwork and animation, with these 3 OVAs.
As far as I know, Mr Umetsu directed his first title, with the "Presence" segment of the Robot Carnival Anthology. A beautiful yet dramatic story, that hardly can be forgotten. Only a few years later, with "A Kite", did he direct again and proved his worth without a thread of doubt. Disturbing, dramatic and violent, but a masterpiece nonetheless. The dark tone of "A Kite", was replaced by the colorful and funny "Mezzo Forte".