| Just over 15 years ago, America saw a TV series called Robotech, a
science fiction animated cartoon of the likes the U.S. had never seen.
Many of its fans discovered that the heart of Robotech was a Japanese television
series called Super Dimension Fortress Macross, and that discovery led
them into the wider world of anime. Shoji Kawamori, the man who created
the Macross mecha and now carries the Macross franchise and the newer series
Vision of Escaflowne, attracted so many Otakon fans that his panel had
to be moved to a larger room. |
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| While Robotech started Americans on the road to anime fandom, for Kawamori
it was Lupin III (a series which has more than its share of American influences),
followed by Space Cruiser Yamato and Gundam. It might seem natural for
a mecha designer to be influenced by Gundam and its giant robots, but Kawamori
took that one step further. He also likes airplanes, and that led him to
create the memorable transforming mecha seen in Macross. |
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| Transforming mecha weren't new to Japan when Macross went into production,
but believable transforming mecha hadn't been seen, according to Kawamori.
"I wanted to create mecha that were as close to reality as possible," he
said. "thyen I decided if I concentrated on the transformation process,
that would be the best way to go." A look at the design of the F-14 fighter
showed some areas where aerodynamicists had left spaces for airflow. Kawamori's
imagination turned them into areas that could be filled by the mechanism
of a machine that transformed from fighter jet to fighting humanoid robot,
and the Macross look was born. |
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| Kawamori mentioned that he is working on the script for a Vision of
Escaflowne movie and a Macross game for the Sony Playstation. Fans asked
Kawamori if he would tell more stories involving the characters of the
original Macross series, and he answered that new stories with old characters
aren't his style. "I want to keep from creating something I've created
before," Kawamori said. |
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