News
Namie Amuro, Gundam's Amuro Make Joint Music Video
posted on by Egan Loo
Not-So-Daily Links of the Day: Bestselling Japanese singer Namie Amuro has created an animated music video for her new "Defend Love" single with another Amuro — Amuro Ray, the main character of the Mobile Suit Gundam anime franchise. The "Defend Love" video will ship in Japan on a bundled DVD extra with the new Past < Future album on December 16. Veteran voice actor Tohru Furuya (Sailor Moon, Kimagure Orange Road) is reprising his Amuro Ray role for the video.
Sunrise, the studio behind Gundam, worked with Kamikaze Douga and Telecom Animation Film for about two months on the video. Kamikaze Douga animated Namie Amuro's earlier "Dr." video with Sunrise Ogikubo Studio and Studio Jack, while Telecom Animation Film is best known for its work on Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro. (The "Dr." music video is also on Past < Future's bundled DVD with "Defend Love" and four other music videos.) The new music video expands upon the messages against environmental destruction and futile wars that the "Dr." video had.
According to the Natalie news source, this is the first time that a real-life person has appeared in the world of Gundam anime, although T.M. Revolution, Gackt, and other prominent entertainers have voiced roles in Gundam. Ever since she was a child, Namie Amuro held a special affinity for the Amuro Ray character due to their similar names, and she personally asked for the character to appear in the video to honor the 30th anniversary of Gundam.
For over a decade, Japanese television hosts have noted the coincidental similarity in names between the real Namie Amuro (born in 1977) and the fictional Amuro Ray (debuted in 1979). Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino himself told Ai Ijima in an interview that he coined the name Amuro because he though it was a strange name that did not exist in the world. Three months after the first Gundam anime series premiered, he and Sunrise found out that there was an island named Amuro in Okinawa, and he visited the island after the series ended. (Namie Amuro comes from Okinawa.)
Update: More backround information added.
Image © Sotsu, Sunrise
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