Shoji Kawamori, the creator of several successful "mecha" franchises such as Macross, Vision of Escaflowne and Aquarion, recently promoted Project Anima, a collaboration of Electronic and mobile commerce company DeNA, advertising agency and sponsor Sotsu Company, and radio station Nippon Cultural Broadcasting (NCB).
Kawamori took the time to give his two cents about this generation's anime and, apparently, he was not too impressed. He spoke about how today's anime offerings repeatedly use elements that have become cliché, such as magical academy.
Anime News Network recently posted Kawamori's opinion regarding the matter.
"Sometimes I think, 'Why are they this similar?'" he said.
Entertainment website Comicbook noted how Kawamori wanted to make "Macross" into an anime that would be original and not just something that would capitalize on the success of other series.
"I tried to make something that was absolutely not Gundam. I thought of the GERWALK (an intermediary form between humanoid and aircraft) that doesn't have a humanoid shape. I kept getting told that it wouldn't sell if it wasn't humanoid and airplanes wouldn't sell. We made a prototype, and we made it transform before our eyes," the anime creator stated.
According to an article posted by Forbes in November, Kawamori's latest robot anime, Jūshinki Pandora (Heavy Divine Unit Pandora), is already set for a global release in spring 2018. The anime focuses on protagonist Leon Lau, who must fight for humanity's survival after a quantum reactor's explosion brings the entire human race to the brink of extinction.
The explosion also created a new kind of species on the planet, called Biological Revolutionary of Accelerated Intelligence (B.R.A.I.). These new beings threaten to wipe out the remaining population.
Lau, along with a few others, must join forces to combat this new threat by using Multi-purpose Organic Evolutionary Vehicles (M.O.E.V.).
