News

Shoji Kawamori Directs New Animated Film for 2025

ANN's coverage of Anime Expo 2024 sponsored by Yen Press and Ize Press!

---

Self-described "vision creator" Shōji Kawamori confirmed at his Q&A panel at Anime Expo on Thursday that he is directing a new animation film that is slated for a 2025 opening. He added that this film has not yet been announced in Japan. The planned 2025 opening is for Japan, but he hopes that people overseas can also see the film eventually.

In addition to the new animation film, Kawamori is collaborating with the consumer electronics manufacturer AVIOT on the Ridepiece project. The project's first product is the electric kickboard KB-S350, for which Kawamori drafted the visual design, and Risa Ebata (Macross Frontier) drew the first key visual (pictured below).

Kawamori is also one of 10 co-producers of Expo 2025, the first time Osaka is hosting a World Expo in over five decades. (Kawamori cites the first World Expo at Osaka with inspiring his lifelong exploration of world culture, science, and science fiction.) The "Live Earth Journey" pavilion will feature the latest interactive technologies "to make visitors realize that they are part of the ecosystem." In particular, Kawamori teased that although he avoids revisiting his earlier stories in the same format, he is open to exploring them in a new format, such as hypothetically presenting the climactic scene from a Macross story in an experience such as those being planned for Expo 2025.

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.

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.

Update: In a panel at AVIOT's Anime Expo booth on Friday, Kawamori confirmed that his new animation film is an original work unrelated to existing franchises, such as the previously announced new Aquarion and Macross anime projects.

Source: Shoji Kawamoi Q&A Panel at Anime Expo