Shōji Kawamori


Shōji Kawamori is a Japanese anime creator and producer, screenwriter, visual artist, and mecha designer. He is best known for creating the Macross mecha anime franchise, and for his role in the creation of the Robotech franchise and the Transformers franchise. He pioneered several innovative concepts in his works, such as transforming mecha and virtual idols. His work has had a significant impact on popular culture, both in Japan and internationally.

Personal life

Shoji Kawamori was born in Toyama, Japan in 1960. Later in his youth he attended Keio University in the late seventies and in the same years as Macross screenwriter Hiroshi Ōnogi and character designer Haruhiko Mikimoto, where they became friends and founded a Mobile Suit Gundam fan club called "Gunsight One", a name the group would use years later during the development of the fictional world of the Macross series.

Anime creation and production

Shoji Kawamori occasionally used the alias Eiji Kurokawa early in his anime career when he started as a teenage intern at Studio Nue and worked as assistant artist and animator there during the late seventies and early eighties. Later on his career Kawamori created or co-created the concepts which served as basis for several anime series such as Super Dimension Fortress Macross, The Vision of Escaflowne, Earth Maiden Arjuna, Genesis of Aquarion, Macross 7, Macross Frontier, and Macross Delta. His projects are usually noted to contain strong themes of love, war, spirituality or mysticism, and ecological concern. Kawamori is currently executive director at the animation studio Satelight.

Mecha design

Shoji Kawamori is also a visual artist and a mecha designer — projects featuring his designs range from 1983's Crusher Joe to 2005's Eureka Seven. Also, each and every variable fighter from the official Macross series continuity has been designed by him.
Kawamori also helped to design various toys for the Takara toyline Diaclone in the early 1980s, many of which were later incorporated into Hasbro's Transformers toyline. Quite a few of them became iconic toy designs. Among them the first Optimus Prime toy design, Prowl, Bluestreak, Smokescreen, Ironhide, and Ratchet. Over 20 years later, he returned to Transformers by designing both the Hybrid Style Convoy and the Masterpiece version of Starscream for Takara.
One of his key mech design innovations was transforming mecha, which can transform between a standard vehicle and a fighting mecha robot. Kawamori came up with the idea of transforming mechs while working on the Diaclone and Macross franchises in the early 1980s, with his Diaclone mechs later providing the basis for Transformers. Some of Kawamori's most iconic transforming mecha designs include the VF-1 Valkyrie from the Macross and Robotech franchises, and Optimus Prime from the Transformers and Diaclone franchises.
In 2001, he brought his mecha design talent to real-life projects when he designed a variant of the Sony AIBO robotic dog, the ERS-220.

Legacy

Kawamori came up with several innovative concepts and helped create several franchises which had a significant impact on popular culture, both in Japan and internationally. One of his original ideas was the transforming mecha, which can transform between a standard vehicle and a fighting mecha robot. He introduced the concept with Diaclone in 1980 and Macross in 1982, and some of his most iconic transforming mecha including the VF-1 Valkyrie from Macross and Convoy from the 1983 Diaclone line. The concept later became more popular in the mid-1980s, with and Zeta Gundam in Japan, and with Robotech and Transformers in the West. In turn, Macross and Zeta Gundam became influential in Japan, while Robotech and Transformers became influential in the West, with Robotech helping to introduce anime to North America and Transformers influencing the Hollywood movie industry.
In addition to his innovative mecha design work, Kawamori also came up with innovative concepts in his character writing. In contrast to earlier mecha anime which focused on combatants, he wanted to portray a mecha conflict from the perspective of non-combatant civilians, which led to his creation of the fictional singer Lynn Minmay in Macross. She went on to become the first virtual idol. Voiced by Mari Iijima, Minmay was the first fictional idol singer to garner major real-world success, with the theme song "Do You Remember Love?" reaching number seven on the Oricon music charts in Japan. Kawamori later took the concept further in Macross Plus with the virtual idol Sharon Apple, an artificial intelligence computer program who takes the form of an intergalactic pop star. The same year, he created Macross 7, which featured the virtual band Fire Bomber who became a commercial success and spawned multiple CDs released in Japan. The Macross franchise set the template for later virtual idols in the early 21st century, such as Hatsune Miku and Kizuna AI.
Another innovative character concept he came up with was the role of Misa Hayase in Macross, who was one of the main commanders of the Macross battleship. She was the boss and commanding officer of the fighter pilot protagonist Hikaru Ichijyo, and later his love interest. This was a scenario Kawamori came up with which he had not seen in any Hollywood movies before. A similar scenario, however, later appeared in the Hollywood movie Top Gun. According to Kawamori, "Many people pointed out that later films like Top Gun copied that idea and setting, as well as including the combination of many songs and fighters too."

Videography

Anime

''Macross'' series

Note: Macross II is the only animated Macross project in which Kawamori had no involvement.''

Other anime