小中千昭
Sato admits it all started as "a gimmick for a toy" but the representatives at Bandai Hobby Division did not see the same potential. From there on, the dealings would be with Bandai Visual, but Sunrise still needed some safeguards and requested more robots be designed to increase prospective toy sales. In 1999, with the designs complete, Chiaki J. Konaka was brought on as head writer. Among other things, Konaka came up with the idea of "a town without memory" and his writing staff put together the outline for a 26-episodes series.