News

Otakon 2023 Hosts Anime Director Shoji Kawamori

Kawamori is perhaps most famous for being a key creative planner in 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 was chief director on Jūshinki Pandora at Satelight, the anime studio for which he serves as a board director. He has contributed mechanical design work to Patlabor: The Movie, Patlabor 2: The Movie, Eureka Seven, Outlaw Star, Ghost in the Shell, and more. He is credited as the original creator of The Vision of Escaflowne, Basquash!, and Nobunaga The Fool. He has worked in anime production as a director, screenwriter, mechanical designer, and storyboarder.

Outside anime, he designed one of Sony's Aibo robot dog variants and 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. His game contributions include the original mechanical designs for the Armored Core franchise and the Devil Breaker weapons in Devil May Cry 5. SMALL WORLDS, the company behind the world's largest indoor theme park of scale miniatures, appointed Kawamori as its chief creative officer.

Otakon 2023 is scheduled for July 28-30 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. This year's event will also host manga artist Kyōko Aiba and Macross artist Hidetaka Tenjin. It will also host composer Ryū Kawamura. Other guests include voice actress Junko Iwao, mechanical designer and director Shinji Aramaki, composer Yasuharu Takanashi, composer Shota Nakama, and rock ensemble -yaiba-, who will perform. The event announced its COVID-19 policy for this year's event on March 3. The policy says that masks and proof of vaccination are no longer mandatory for attendees of the event in alignment with "local and federal guidance."

Source: Press release