>>54561708>nopeDue to the critical success of Mewtwo Strikes Back, Shudo was given a lot of freedom for his next Pokemon project. Though he was not a Pokemon designer, Lugia's design can be attributed to Shudo himself. This also makes Lugia one of the few, if not the only, Pokemon to be designed by someone in the anime writing staff rather than by the Game Freak design team. According to Shudo's translated writings, he saw Lugia as a Pokemon that was both male and female despite having a masculine voice in the movie. He actually noted feelings of regret regarding Lugia's masculine voice, noting that he saw Lugia as a maternal being rather than a paternal one. Apparently, towards the end of his life, Shudo wrote a lot about Lugia, and not all that he wrote was a positive reflection of his time spent working on the iconic legendary.
Shudo made it known that he turned towards alcohol and drugs while working, especially when it came to creating Lugia and the second Pokemon movie.
>we already know most gen 2 pokemon can trace their concept designs at least as far back as beta designs in 1997. anime had barely gotten going, merch wasnt firing anywhere near all cylinders yet"I see. Most Pokemon in Gold & Silver were of the cute variety, but this time…”
Sugimori: “Indeed, there were a lot of kiddy designs, and some fans were starting to say Pokemon had become too babyish, so one theme for Ruby & Sapphire was returning to the coolness of monsters.
“In your previous interview at the time of Gold & Silver (February 2000 issue), you said when you were designing Pokemon, you had to consider merchandising, and that created some constraints.”
Sugimori: “Rather than constraints, I’d say we were careful about a lot of things. Like we’d say ‘if we don’t make a Pokemon this way, they’ll be difficult to animate in the TV show.’ We didn’t really think about those kinds of things this time, which might be bad for the anime staff and independent artists.”
