It all started with an infrared toy gun game (similar to Lazer Tag) that Sega had created during the mid-80’s called Optical Trigger Zillion. The toy grew so popular that Sega worked with Tatsunoko Productions to make an animated series which centered on the Zillion guns. And so began the anime, Akai Koudan Zillion.
Among the subcontractors who worked on Zillion were producer Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, and character designer Takayuki Goto. After making Zillion, Ishikawa and Goto would later form anime industry giant Production I.G. Incidentally, Mamoru Oshii also scripted three episodes of Zil