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Shoji Kawamori Expo to Screen Original Video to Celebrate Macross Creator's 40 Years in Industry

The anime studio Satelight outlined more details on Shoji Kawamori Expo, the exhibition dedicated to the designs and production materials from the works of anime creator and mechanical designer Shoji Kawamori. The event will run from May 31 to June 23 at the Gallery AaMo in the Tokyo Dome City complex to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Kawamori's professional debut.

The exhibition will feature several hundred items from Kawamori, including original designs, storyboards and idea notes. It will also feature a new video exclusively created for the event, screening in the venue's "K-40 Theater."

Kawamori wrote a message about the event:

I wanted to give birth to “something” that no one has seen before.

I am still continuing on the journey of endless creation, as I have been urged to do so since I was very young.

With the increasing amount of original artwork, rough designs, prototypes of transformable toys, story proposals and photos from researching trips. Not to mention scripts, storyboards, and various other creative memos….

Looking at those big piles of documents, I feel my heart shake when thinking about the fact that my creative activities are supported by countless staff and the warm support from fans.

With this exhibition, I decided to assemble these aspects of my creative journey, while I continue on with the many people who have supported me for these past 40 years.

As this exhibition will be called the “Shoji Kawamori EXPO” it is my homage to when I was a boy and visited the Japan World Exposition, Osaka in 1970.

I hope you enjoy this exhibition of my creative process, though with its own amount of trial and error, and as a festival with a diverse world view.

Tickets for the exhibition will go on sale on March 23. The Sankyo/Satelight booth at AnimeJapan 2019 convention, which starts that same day, will have two kinds of special tickets with original designs: a "Transformable" Ticket, and a "Triangle" Ticket for three admissions.

Kawamori is perhaps most famous for being part of the creative planning for The Super Dimension Fortress Macross anime series. He designed most of the franchise's iconic transforming "variable fighter" mecha, and oversaw most of the main installments in the franchise, including the latest, Macross Delta. He studied at Keio University with Macross character designer Haruhiko Mikimoto and screenwriter Hiroshi Ohnogi.

Kawamori has also created the Aquarion, AKB0048, and Arjuna series, and most recently served as chief director on the Last Hope anime series. He has contributed mechanical design work to Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, Patlabor: The Movie, Patlabor 2: The Movie, Future GPX Cyber Formula, Eureka Seven, Outlaw Star, Ghost in the Shell, Dragon Pilot: Hisone and Masotan, and more. He is credited as the original creator of The Vision of Escaflowne, AKB0048, Basquash!, Anyamaru Tantei Kiruminzū, and Nobunaga the Fool. He has worked in anime production as a director, screenwriter, mechanical designer, and storyboarder.

Outside anime, Kawamori designed one of Sony's Aibo robot dog variants, the mecha in From Software's Armored Core game franchise, the transforming Hatsune Miku GT racing car robot, and the new Thunderbird Shadow fighter for the British Thunderbirds Are Go remake. He contributed to the designs of Takara's Diaclone Car Robot toys, which eventually became Optimus Prime, Prowl, Ironhide, and other toys in Hasbro's Transformers line.

Kawamori has worked in Satelight as the executive director since 2003.

Sources: Press release, Shoji Kawamori Expo website

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