Brain Powerd - Production

Production

Brain Powerd was produced by Sunrise and directed and written by Yoshiyuki Tomino, the creator of the long-running Gundam franchise. Brain Powerd is often compared to the Gainax's popular Neon Genesis Evangelion, a 1995 anime series with similar themes to Brain Powerd. Tomino claimed that the plans and overall storyline for Brain Powerd were made even prior to the airing of Evangelion. He stated that he "never meant to be an antithesis to Evangelion" despite the inevitable comparisons they would receive when his own series debuted in 1998. After deciding not to make any changes to Brain Powerd, he "resigned" himself to the fact that the public would label his anime an attempt to best Evangelion. Tomino was enthusiastic about his first attempt at the "organic" mecha subgenre in place of the purely metallic robots he had worked with for so many years in his career. He wanted to write an interesting story for Brain Powerd in order to allow those who watched it to do so without "having a nervous breakdown" and to show fans "that there were often other things out there better than anime". Tomino has wished that more animators would see themselves as entertainers, though he admitted that he felt that Brain Powerd was not very entertaining and thus a failure in this regard.

Tomino was joined by a team of writers at Sunrise under the psedonym Hajime Yatate. Other staff included The Weathering Continent and Windaria character designer Mutsumi Inomata; The Five Star Stories and Heavy Metal L-Gaim mecha designer Mamoru Nagano; and Macross Plus and The Vision of Escaflowne music composer Yoko Kanno. Nagano had also previously worked with Tomino Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. Kanno described Tomino as "not detailed at all" when compared to other directors with which she worked. She found that he was concerned with human "age" in regards to each piece of music so that viewers of all ages would understand. The opening theme "In My Dream" was written and performed by Eri Shingyōji. The ending theme "Ai no Fīrudo" (愛の輪郭(フィールド)?, lit. "Field of Love") was composed and arranged by Kanno, with lyrics written by Rin Iogi (a pseudonym for Tomino), and the song performed by Kokia.