A profile of Character Designer Tomonori Kogawa

By Tim Eldred

Tomonori Kogawa isn’t one of those names that leaps off the tongue, but if you’ve looked into SF/adventure anime of the 1980s, you’ve almost certainly seen his work, which is highly individualistic and easy to recognize. He started much earlier than that, of course, but the early 80s saw him hit the peak of his popularity during which time he almost single-handedly trained the next generation of talent. But let’s start at the beginning.

He was born January 1950 in Hokkaido where his natural drawing skills quickly manifested and put him on track for an art career. He wasn’t alone there; he grew up in the same hometown as anime/manga great Yasuhiko Yoshikazu and went to the same high school with him for two years, though the two didn’t actually get acquainted until much later when they both joined the anime industry.

Kogawa set his sights on learning sculpture at Musashino Art University before a friend arranged for him to take an entrance exam at Tokyo Movie, which fast-tracked him to a job offer in 1970. Fast-tracking seems to have been the theme of his early career, since he started as an apprentice animator on the legendary baseball TV series Star of the Giants and was promoted to lead animator in less than a year. But even this turned out to be a stepping stone when he accepted another friend’s invitation to join Tatsunoko Productions, the top producer of TV anime, in 1971.

There he worked as a lead artist on a string of heavy hitters such as the World War II docudrama Animentary Decision, Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, Hurricane Polymer, Space Knight Tekkaman, and The Time Bokan series Yattaman from 1971 to 76. During that time, Kogawa became regarded as the animator who created the Tatsunoko production system, though he denies this and describes his approach simply as Amecomi [American Comic Book] Style.

He left Tatsunoko for Toei Pictures in 1977, starting as a director on a super-robot TV series called Chojin Sentai Baratak. And then–surprise–along came Yamato. Kogawa was positioned to make Farewell to Yamato his next project in 1978 and served as a director for a large portion of the film. Since his specialty was character animation, that became his main focus. It’s the hallmark of a good director to make himself invisible to a degree, but if you know what to look for you can see his influence all over the movie.

For example, he has a penchant for low camera angles and upshots on characters to enhance a dramatic moment, something he probably picked up from American comics. The next time you watch the movie, watch for the upshots; that’s when you see the Kogawa directing style at work. This doesn’t sound unusual, but he had an uncommon knack for figure drawing from the start of his career which brought a greater degree of control to the process. Before Kogawa, upshots were rare because a lot of artists simply couldn’t draw them well. After Kogawa, upshots became commonlaw.

Farewell to Yamato was also one of the projects that reunited him with his former schoolmate Yasuhiko Yoshikazu, who storyboarded the final scenes of the film and worked closely with Kogawa to keep it pure all the way through to the end.

Naturally, Kogawa’s work on Farewell endeared him to the Office Academy staff, so his next job was character designer/art director on Leiji Matsumoto’s Galaxy Express 999 TV series in the latter half of 1978. That might have been enough for anyone to handle, but he also took charge of character design on another TV series called Invincible Steel Man Daitarn 3 at Nippon Sunrise. He adjusted his style somewhat and used a penname (Ichikazu Okuni) since he was still a full-timer at Toei, but the stage was set for the next phase of his life since this was one of the many famous programs produced by Yoshiyuki Tomino.

If that’s a name you don’t recognize, you need to watch more Gundam. The original Mobile Suit Gundam (1979) was Tomino’s next project, which went on the air the very same broadcast day as Yamato 2‘s final episode; a fitting passing of the torch to the next phase of anime history. Gundam, like Yamato, was a ratings bust at first, but Tomino was a storytelling powerhouse and became the hardest working producer at Nippon Sunrise when he turned in one groundbreaking series after another. Kogawa was Tomino’s character designer for three years running, starting with Legendary Giant Ideon in 1980 and continuing with Battle Mecha Xabungle (1981) and Aura Battler Dunbine (1982).

Kogawa’s popularity reached an all-time high during these years. His dynamically-posed, upshotted characters were everywhere, animated in the shows and practically leaping out of an endless number of paintings on books and records. But he wasn’t a solo act anymore, since he’d founded Bibo Studio in 1979 and started gathering an army of protoges to participate in Tomino’s non-stop production juggernaut.

The roster included fledgling character designer Hiroyuki Kitazume, animation director Ichiro Itano (whose million-missile space battle scenes would soon become a highlight of Macross), and another character artist named Toshiyuki Kubooka, who did a lot of package art for Yamato on home video. Other studio members were Hidetoshi Oomori (director of the “Deprive” segment of Robot Carnival), Naoyuki Onda, Toshihiro Hirano, Masayuki Yagi, Eiichi Endo, Hideaki Sakamoto, and Junichi Watanabe. Yet another protoge was character designer Norio Shioyama, who would become another Sunrise heavyweight with Dougram, Votoms, Galient, and Samurai Troopers. Click on any of those names and the mighty Anime News Network will show you just how far one man’s influence can travel.

Kogawa began to ease himself out when Tomino started production on Heavy Metal L-Gaim (1984), giving Kitazume his big break as a character designer (working in concert with superstar Mamoru Nagano) and lining him up to continue onto Zeta Gundam (1985) and Gundam Double Zeta (1986). Kitazume’s Gundam association continues to this day, but he also took time out to do some Yamato video art and participate in the early development of Resurrection in 1993.

While stepping away from Tomino, Kogawa stepped toward producing his own material, drawing manga for Tokuma Shoten’s Motion Comic from 1983-84 and then single-handedly writing, producing, designing, and directing two original SF/fantasy videos, Greed and Cool Cool Bye from 1984-85. He also continued to preside over the other artists at Bibo Studio as they worked on new programs for Tatsunoko such as Southern Cross (known outside Japan as The Robotech Masters), Mecadoc, and others.

Yoshinobu Nishizaki came calling again in 1984 with a new project, and Kogawa was his first choice to take on the character design. It was a feature film called Odin, Photon Space Sailor Starlight, an attempt to begin a new post-Yamato franchise. It inherited the high production values of Final Yamato, but was hampered by a disjointed script formed out of the first three episodes of a proposed 12-hour TV miniseries. Despite the movie’s failure to catch fire with Yamato fans, Nishizaki looked for more opportunities to work with Kogawa. Nishizaki did commission at least one new piece of Yamato art from him, which appeared on the covers of the fan club magazine in 1986 (lower left). Shown at lower right is an earlier painting he did for the cover of Tokuma Shoten’s Yamato Perfect Manual 1 in 1983.

Kogawa’s work even hit Saturday morning American TV in a 1986 TMS series called Galaxy High School, for which he served as animation director. During this time, he authored two of the first textbooks on anime production in 1985 and 86, both of which were updated and reissued under the title Basics and Practical Skills of Animation Drawing/Design Method in 2007 (shown below left). This was the beginning of his career as an instructor, and after Bibo Studio was dissolved in 1989, he went on to lecture and teach at animation schools.

He kept his feet wet during the 90s, working as a storyboard artist and art director for a few productions (usually under a penname) such as Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Casshan: Robot Hunter, and Tekkaman Blade. He also did a stint as the animation director and character designer for two PC Engine Games, Crusader Knight (above right) and Dunbine.

After a long hiatus, he returned to full-scale production in 2005 on an anime feature film titled Ashita Genki ni Nare! [Tomorrow Will be a Brighter Day!], greatly enjoying his work again as a character designer and animation director. The film was based on a book by writer Ebina Kayoko; it takes place in 1945 during the Tokyo air raids, focusing on a brother and sister who are thrown into poverty as war orphans. Similar to a much more downbeat film named Grave of the Fireflies, the movie’s characters endure the age of anxiety immediately after the war in a thoughtful study of the dignity of life and the nobility of love.

Kogawa’s next project was a complete shock, a highly-stylized 2007 TV anime titled Sayonara Zetsubo-Sensei [So Long, Mr. Despair]. Series director Akyuki Shinbo (a major otaku) is a big fan, so he hired Kogawa to take charge of the storyboards. Visit the official website for the series here.

And now, at last, we arrive at 2008/09 and the production of Yamato Resurrection. If you’ve read this far, you should have a clear idea of the pedigree Tomonori Kogawa brings to the table. The stills on this page represent every character scene that appears in the 8-minute promotional piece, a tiny taste of what will almost certainly be a gourmet banquet.

The End

Continue to Report 4

Click here for a Kogawa image collection

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