Cute girls, fast cars, big guns, and a love of the Chicagoland area? The works of Kenichi Sonoda check off all those boxes. By tapping into his passions, the manga author created a pair of fan favorites in Gunsmith Cats and Riding Bean. But before all that, he worked as a character designer at the animation studio Artmic in the mid 80s, drafting up the casts of Gall Force, Wanna-Be’s, and most famously, Bubblegum Crisis. In addition to designing the Knight Sabers themselves, Sonoda devised the quartet’s iconic hardsuits—a spin on his earlier explorations of a robotic silhouette that could emphasize the feminine form underneath. That meticulous attention to detail, charming characters, and booming personality are why Sonoda’s titles remain fan favorites to this very day.
