Shinji Higuchi
"Aoki Uru" was to be directed by Anno and written by Yamaga, who had completed the first of the planned four acts in the script; its primary mecha designs were drawn by Shirow Masamune, creator of "Ghost in the Shell", and Kazutaka Miyatake of Studio Nue; although well known for his work on "Macross", Miyatake had also designed several of the space battleships in "Gunbuster". "Aoki Uru" was to use the same team of art directors as "Gunbuster", Masanori Kikuchi and Hiroshi Sasaki; the later "Aoki Uru Frozen Designs Collection" contained a listing of staff who had been confirmed to work on "Aoki Uru" as of the end of 1992, including Kazuya Tsurumaki and Takeshi Honda as animation directors working under Sadamoto, while "Aoki Uru" four technical directors included two of the three assistant directors of "Royal Space Force" (Shoichi Masuo and Shinji Higuchi), "Otaku no Video" director Takeshi Mori, and manga artist and illustrator Kenji Tsuruta, who would later make the character designs for Yamaga's 2002 Gainax TV series "Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi". The task of drawing (design models) to guide the animators was to be assigned to Satoshi Kon, who had entered the anime industry two years before as a background designer on 1990's "Roujin-Z", directed by "Royal Space Force" veteran Hiroyuki Kitakubo; during planning for "Aoki Uru", Kon had also served as background and layout artist on Mamoru Oshii's "Patlabor 2".