{"id":1948,"date":"2013-06-28T06:00:29","date_gmt":"2013-06-28T06:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/?p=1948"},"modified":"2016-05-28T10:23:06","modified_gmt":"2016-05-28T17:23:06","slug":"674","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/674\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Artist\/Designer Junichiro Tamamori"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“Tama” achieved international recognition with his phenomenal concept art, which updated Yamato<\/em> for modern tastes without losing any of the original magic. To no one’s surprise, his work as a fan earned him the post of mecha designer on Yamato 2199.<\/em> This interview was conducted in December 2011 and January 2012.<\/p>\n

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Elsewhere on this website is a section devoted to the “Legacy Years” of Space Battleship Yamato<\/em>, that long period that began when Final Yamato<\/em> left movie theaters in 1983. In one of many intriguing parallels to Star Wars<\/em>, there was a stretch of time when it seemed like Yamato<\/em> was over forever. But the fans weren’t quite ready to accept that.<\/p>\n

\nFan activity was slow for a while–there was a lot of other anime to watch, after all. But everyone found new reasons to raise the flag when a renaissance of “legacy merchandising” arrived in the 1990s to carry Yamato<\/em> into the 21st century. Now, of course, we’re into a whole new wave of production years that began in 2009 with Yamato Resurrection<\/em>. And in some cases, the fans themselves are steering the ship.
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Junichiro Tamamori is one of those fans. He achieved international recognition with his phenomenal concept art which, in the manner of the Playstation games<\/a> and other projects, updated Yamato<\/em> for modern tastes without losing any of the original magic. “Tama” made friends around the world with his personal website, Yamato Mechanics,<\/em> and gained even greater recognition when he was invited to participate in the Space Battleship Yamato 2199<\/em> TV series. The official 2199<\/em> website’s gallery page (shown above) opened with some of his art in December 2011; click here<\/a> to see it full size.<\/p>\n

\nFortunately for us in the English-speaking world, Tama is also bilingual, which made this interview much easier. It was conducted by email in December 2011 and January 2012.<\/p>\n

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Part 1: History<\/h3>\n

First, please introduce yourself, state your age and where you come from.<\/em><\/p>\n

\nI was born in Okinawa, Japan in the late 1960s when Okinawa was controlled by the U.S. military.<\/p>\n

\nYou are one of the rare bilingual<\/em> Yamato fans. How did you learn your English?<\/em><\/p>\n

\nI learned English at ordinary school the same as other people. About my environment, many Americans and foreigners have lived in Okinawa. I think an international language like English is a convenient and useful tool for communication on this planet.<\/p>\n

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How did you become an anime\/manga\/SF fan?<\/em><\/p>\n

\nIn my childhood, the anime boom occurred in Japan from the first Yamato<\/em>. In the 1980s, many young people became anime fans.<\/p>\n

\nDid you see any anime or tokusatsu before<\/em> Yamato? What are your memories of them?<\/em><\/p>\n

\nSure, I watched anime and tokusatsu every day. There was Kamen Rider, Ultraman, Mazinger Z<\/em> and many others. I liked Getter Robo<\/em> best of all because the giant robot had an innovative, functional combination system. The three different combat machines were able to combine into three different giant robots. I made an animated flip-book of their combination sequence for my friends.<\/p>\n

\nWhat was the first<\/em> Yamato you saw? What are your other anime favorites?<\/em><\/p>\n

\nMy first Yamato<\/em> was the original on TV in 1974. <\/p>\n

\nWas there a single thing in<\/em> Yamato that caught your attention first, or was it everything combined?<\/em><\/p>\n

\n“It’s cool! A rocket combined with a battleship!”<\/p>\n

\nWhat are your favorite things about<\/em> Yamato?<\/p>\n

\nMy favorite thing in Yamato<\/em> is that it has messages for both adults and children. What I admire about Yamato<\/em> is that they don’t use the Wave-Motion gun as a weapon of mass destruction against humans (first series only.) We can experience how vain it is to be both loser and winner, especially in the first series.<\/p>\n

\nIncidentally, I was born near the ruins of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) headquarters which had a long wait for IJN Battleship Yamato<\/em> when a fierce battle was fought during the battle of Okinawa in WWII. I played in an underground air-raid shelter with my friends in my childhood. I pretended these ruins were the underground city and Earth Defense Force HQ attacked by Gamilas in 2199. Today, these ruins have been developed into a Memorial Park<\/a>. (See photos here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

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The shelter interned over 4,000 soldiers. Large numbers of soldiers from both Japan and the US were killed by action along with Okinawan residents. I sometimes visit the memorial of war dead and especially that of the Battleship Yamato<\/em> crew for repose from the time I launched Yamato Mechanics<\/em>. So when I think about Space Battleship Yamato<\/em>, I perceive it to be inseparable from how we make peace.<\/p>\n

\nWhat are your other favorite anime programs?<\/em><\/p>\n

\nMy favorite anime are Mobile Suit Gundam, Space Runaway Ideon<\/em> and Super Dimension Fortress Macross [Robotech].<\/em><\/p>\n

\nThose are strong “SF robot” programs. Was that your favorite kind, or did you also like others?<\/em><\/p>\n

\nSF robot programs in Japan after Gundam<\/em> in the 1980s were in the “Real Robot” genre, explainable by real world science and technology. In their genre, I like Macross<\/em> the best of all. I also recall the great Leiji Matsumoto series Galaxy Express 999<\/em>. It was a beautiful, fantastic anime.<\/p>\n

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What inspired you to become an artist? Did it happen naturally, or through training?<\/em><\/p>\n

\nDrawing and handicraft have been familiar to me since my childhood. Sometimes my father painted as a hobby when I was a child. I knew about art-related jobs like design when I was a student, and then went to art school to receive professional training. I started my career as an industrial designer at Yokohama, Japan.<\/p>\n

\nWhat did Industrial Design teach you?<\/em><\/p>\n

\nEvery part of the product weaves together and has a reason for being, like a living creature.<\/p>\n

\nWere you ever inspired to make your own manga or create your own stories through drawing?<\/em><\/p>\n

\nSure, I want to create anything but I don’t have the skills to create my own manga or stories. I like to draw future vehicles and portraits of cool women nowadays.<\/p>\n

\nWhen did you begin to your focus on<\/em> Yamato art?<\/em><\/p>\n

\nI started to focus on Yamato<\/em> in 2001, the first week of the 21st century.<\/p>\n

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Part 2: Yamato Mechanics<\/em><\/h3>\n

Your personal website<\/em> Yamato Mechanics was very popular with other fans.<\/em><\/p>\n

\nYamato Mechanics<\/em> was my personal, non-profit website to consider a realistic update of the mechanics of Yamato<\/em> from 2001 to around 2006. There were many illustrations of Yamato<\/em> drawn by me, and contributions by other fans. The main contents were an illustration gallery drawn by me.<\/p>\n

\nI stopped gradually from 2005, because official Yamato<\/em> activities started to become brisk and Yamato Mechanics<\/em> had become famous. The Playstation game series was released, and I started to work as mecha designer in the Anime industry.<\/p>\n

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What was your intention in starting the website?<\/em><\/p>\n

\nGundam<\/em> was stacked all over the place in the 1990s, and nobody was able to get any Yamato<\/em> toys, plastic models or books. The space battleship called Yamato<\/em> had been sunk underwater without being baptized in the Real Robot genre, and was held up pending court decisions. I missed it and was determined to revive Yamato<\/em> in a way suitable for the 21st century. It was my personal motive to design a new concept of the Yamato<\/em> world. The motto of Yamato mechanics<\/em> was “update the Yamato<\/em> World.” <\/p>\n

\nSo how did we update it? I started by drawing conceptual illustrations and wrote their captions. I took care to remain objective and represent not only my own personal taste in order to gain the sympathy of as many people as possible. <\/p>\n

\nKnowing the thoughts of many Yamato<\/em> fans around the world contributed to the achievement of the goal. I exchanged communication with fans on the BBS, and I knew about Japanese fandom via the web directory Yamato Web Ring<\/em><\/a> by Kamekichi Osada. I saw the doujinshis Yamato Zakki-cho [Notebook]<\/em><\/a> by Zenta Mizuno, Project PS Story<\/em><\/a> by Tatsuhiko Iida and Galaxy Navy<\/em><\/a> by Takeshi Izumo. They have had the same ambition as me and kept on with fan activities for a long time at Yamato Party<\/a> meetings and such.<\/p>\n

\nI learned about worldwide Yamato<\/em> fandom at Spacecruiseryamato.com<\/a> by Edward Hawkins. I got precious information from US fans who had careers as long as Japanese fans. I saw the chronological table of Yamato<\/em> History<\/a> by “The Iscandar Project” and Bruce Lewis and gained an overall consideration of the Yamato<\/em> world from the Star
\nBlazers Fleet Battle System<\/em> game<\/a>. The book “SBFBS Technical manual” by Keith Johannsen was especially groundbreaking. It had a broad range of chronological tables and the ship-naming doctrine of the EDF, Gamilon Empire and White Comet Empire. It respected the original Yamato<\/em> world and coordinated inconsistencies to make them well-matched. (I hope it can be published as an ebook.)<\/p>\n

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Yamato Mechanics<\/em> closed its activities in cooperative projects with package art for Garage kit maker K2M by Kazuo Kihara (above, top row) and a doujishi series with professional comic artist Michio Murakawa<\/a> (above, bottom row. More info here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

\nYou said you did mecha design for anime. What projects did you work on?<\/em><\/p>\n

\nI designed main mecha for the DVD anime series Hoshi no Umi no Amuri<\/em><\/a> [Amuri in Star Ocean<\/a><\/em>, 2007], written and directed by Yoshitomo Yonetani. I also designed a few vehicles for the TV anime series Scarecrowman the Animation<\/em><\/a> [2008].<\/p>\n

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One of your skills seems to be that you can interpret a simple element in the anime design (for example, the crew uniform) in a new way, and modify it to have a function. Do you modify everything to have a function first, or to look “cool” first with a function to be imagined later?<\/em><\/p>\n

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About the methodology of Yamato Mechanics<\/em>, the order was not very important during the modification procedure. It was iterative and incremental development. There were repeated changes of view for the visual, function and story [background] to draw an illustration. The ideas contained in a scenario supported the illustrations. To be exact, the deliverables of a Yamato Mechanics<\/em> illustration could not exist without the caption text. So the work was to consider the way rather than simply to draw.<\/p>\n

\nDo you work on paper, or digitally, or is it a mix of both?<\/em><\/p>\n

\nIn the early days, I drew the illustrations with a ball point pen or mechanical pencil on paper and painted them digitally. Now I draw them full digitally using a digital pen.<\/p>\n

\nIs there a part of your website now that contains only your art?<\/em><\/p>\n

\nNo, but happily the days have arrived when Yamato<\/em> is attended by many people. Let’s support official Yamato<\/em> content like the live-action movie, Resurrection<\/em>, or 2199.<\/em><\/p>\n

\nWere you contacted by Enagio Studio to work on<\/em> Yamato 2199, or did you apply for the work?<\/em><\/p>\n

\nI create some concept art for Yamato 2199<\/em>. I’m afraid I can’t say more about 2199<\/em> at this moment.<\/p>\n

Part 3: Personal Views<\/h3>\n

Do you have a favorite artist or designer who inspires your work?<\/em><\/p>\n

\nI have many favorite many creators include designers and artists who love Yamato Mechanics<\/em>. All of them are fond of the 1980s Real Robot genre.<\/p>\n

\nWhat is your basic opinion about each Yamato work, including the live-action movie?<\/em><\/p>\n

\nIn the first Yamato<\/em>, the vessel was represented in a stately manner. I like the stately and heavy vessel of the first series. So the live-action movie and Resurrection<\/em> are good. I like them. But I like the modernized version of Yamato<\/em> in Be Forever<\/em> and Final Yamato<\/em>, too.<\/p>\n

\nIf you could remake your least favorite part of<\/em> Yamato, how would you change it?<\/em><\/p>\n

\nI would change Okita’s revival in Final Yamato<\/em> if I could.<\/p>\n

\nIs there any US work that you feel is as good as<\/em> Yamato?<\/p>\n

\nI like Star Wars<\/em>. It is wonderful but I am not so devoted to that as Yamato<\/em>. When Yamato<\/em> was exported, it no longer belonged to just one country. It has built an image in every country. For example, there are the Comico comics<\/a>, the fan art of Brian Rivers<\/a> and the wonderful work of Don Gaiser<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\nWe’ll have to interview you again after we’ve seen<\/em> 2199 so you can talk openly about your contribution. For now, what message can you give to us as we wait for the new launch of<\/em> Yamato?<\/p>\n

\nI hope Yamato 2199<\/em> vitalizes many people, not only Japanese, so we Japanese will bounce back from a disaster. Because humankind will already be doing it from the future in 2199, I think.<\/p>\n

The End<\/h3>\n

Tamamori’s Yamato Mechanics<\/em> BBS features art from many different contributors. Visit it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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