Another guy who was big in the late 90s/early 00s, but kind of dropped off, was Keiji Gotoh. Before Gate Keepers, his character design work had been seen on shows like Nadesico, Sorceror Hunters, Those Who Hunt Elves, Hyper Police. While he was in the process of making the transition to director here (in the Chief Animation director chair), his actual character design work falls off once he starts regularly working as director.
Which is a shame as his character design work is very distinctively his, something lacking in a lot of character designers today. Though to be fair, the character designer he does tend to work with now is his wife Megumi Kadonosono, so he’s probably got his reasons. But we’ll get to those shows later.
I seem to remember interest in Gatekeepers around it’s release, primarily due to Gotoh, as the video game and manga it’s based on were never around in the UK. It’s the story of alien invasion in the sixties, thwarted by superpowered Japanese school kids. It was followed in 2002, by Gate Keepers 21, a sequel set in modern times.