#apccmanila

AsiaPOP Comicon Manila 2017 brought a lot of special guest and I was really thrilled that they invited Shoji Kawamori as one of their guest. Fans were able to meet him personally and have their merchandise signed at his booth at the Hall of Fame area. I was lucky enough to have my Macross items signed by him on Saturday morning because the line grew longer and longer the whole day and even on Sunday! The highlight of his visit in Manila was his workshop which happened on last Sunday, August 27th. I'm glad to share some highlights of this workshop.

The workshop started with an image of Megumi Nakajima. Kawamori-san mentioned that the artist has Filipino lineage and praised her for being a great artist. With the help of a translator, he gave us a brief biography of himself. He was born in Toyama, Japan. His father was an engineer and deeply influenced him. As a child, he nurtured his creative mind by playing Fischertechnik or German Block. He also showed a photo of the design he made as a kid.

He started drawing pretty late and sometimes have difficulty in drawing. Character designer, Haruhiko Mikimoto is his best friend since high school. He said that Mikimoto was the one who made Lynn Minmay's design. He also shared this college experiences. Kawamori said "When I was in college, during lunch time, we (with Mikimoto) always talk about Macross and have a meeting with what we will do with it in the future. Eventually, my professor found out what we were doing and kicked my ass out." He also mentioned that he worked part time for animation studio during high school and college and it help him stay in the industry for 40 years. Aside from mecha designing, he also do concept making, story writing and other multiple job.

After that, a short media presentation was shown as an introduction for Kawamori's past works and projects. Kawamori-san talked about how to make concepts and applying it. He mentioned that the important detail of this creation is it's originality. There are 2 things to remember in concept creation: first is Inventive Originality, which is creating something out of nothing and second is Unique personality. Changing your point of view is important as well. He mentioned, "Sometimes you need to see things in different angles to create". He said that it's like going up on the tree where your view changes every time you go up and your view is also different when you are looking at the tree itself. He also showed how he turned a tape dispenser into a space ship.

Kawamori also mentioned that he and Kazutaka Miyatake were colleagues before and had competition in animation. Miyatake worked as a mechanical designer for Space Battleship Yamato. Kawamori-san said that he challenged Miyatake but he was defeated for a year. So, what he did was he asked for a vacation from his company and went skiing where he got inspiration for creating Gerwalk. (his main inspiration was how people bend their knees to ski and how you slide in the snow).

Upon creating Gerwalk, he presented the design to his company, at the same time, Miyatake-san presented a new design, similar to what he has. The only difference was Miyatake's design has 4 legs. Kawamori-san said that in animation, simple designs are needed. Since Miyatake-san has 4 legs and Gerwalk has only 2, he won that round. He also mentioned that it was hard to sell his design before because it was the era of humanoid robot designs. Even his company said, they need to make humanoid robot. Creating Diaclone Car Robot was his first 6-month project, which became the design for Transformers the first generation. He mentioned that he found it funny that when robot transforms the chair, the interior and even the machine is gone. So in his next design, he wanted it to be realistic where the cockpit and engine were still there.

He looked back on the manga he created with his friends back in highschool. He mentioned that it was the first creation of Macross, where there was a robot with multiple forms and functions.

His father also took him to military bases and Aircraft f14 became his favorite. He said that while observing the aircraft, he noticed that there are some space in between the aircraft and maybe he can put some arms there. At first, he designed the arms above the aircraft then later placed it in the sides. For creating designs, he used to work on papercraft but now he uses lego to create new designs.

People always tell him that aircrafts won't sell but his motto is "When someone disapproves your idea, it means there's a big chance in it!" So, whenever his boss, tells him no, he still push with his idea. When he heard Lynn Minmay singing in Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series, he got an idea of "solving war using songs". The only problem was when he present this idea, they (his bosses) immediately said no and said singing songs will not solve the war. But he still pursued his idea and will take full responsibility for it. Since he was still in university when making the anime and took all the responsibility with it, they kicked him out.

He also mentioned he feels bad for professionals copying work of others that's why he created animation that no one will copy. So, he taught "What If I design a pilot who is also singing? He just there singing but not fighting." Thus, Basara Nekki (Macross 7) was created. Basara's guitar was the mecha's maneuver and he sings while moving the mecha. He also mentioned a fan who told him that "why is your pilot singing, you idiot!" and after couple of months, he let Basara shot a missile and that fan said "Why is he shooting missiles now?!"

He also shared his experience riding an aircraft. He said that the experience was very different when you are playing a pilot game. Inside the aircraft, you can see everything and in time, the gravity goes to your neck. What he experienced and saw, he applied it in Macross Plus. She also talked about Sharon Apple. His director told him that a computer cannot sing and make music. But today, we got Miku Hatsune, he said. He also mentioned the projection mapping idea he used for Macross Plus and after couple of years, projection mapping became reality. After Macross Plus, he showed visuals for his other works like Macross Zero, Macross Frontier and Macross Delta. He also announced the upcoming Macross Delta film and his upcoming next project. Kawamori said that further details and official announcement for the new project will be announced this October. The teaser trailer was showed to the audience as well and told everyone that this is just the 2nd time he showed this.

The Demogorgon, it got me.

I don’t care if anyone believes me.