Macross creator Shoji Kawamori spoke with News’s Tyler Treese about his new anime movie Labyrinth. The legendary mecha designer talked about surprising anime fans with his new film, its themes of smartphone and internet usage, and more. Labyrinth will play in theaters for two nights only on May 10 and 11.
“Shiori is a typical high school student who dreams of online stardom, but struggles to capture attention. After an embarrassing video of her goes viral, she gets trapped in her smartphone and replaced by a charismatic alter ego. As the doppelganger charms the internet and devises a nefarious plot to replace mankind with brainrot, Shiori must partner with other online outcasts to stop her digital counterpart and reclaim her life in the real world,” says the official synopsis.
Tyler Treese: Shoji, this original story that you wrote explores the fears and desires of being online and going viral, especially for youth, as that attention can be so overwhelming, yet also tempting for them. What really made you want to explore that in this film?
Shoji Kawamori: Even for me, like not just youth, I think the internet and technology is just so useful, right? Even now, like, I’m able to do this interview with you even though you’re in a different part of the world. So I really think like this sense of like, it’s such a strong, scary power, and it’s just so easy to use. That was really the first part that interested me in the story.
I think of this use of the internet, you’re able to transmit so much and then try to get a lot of likes, but then you also get a lot of dragging and criticism as well, right? So then, I really think that in that whole process, we’re all losing ourselves, especially as we are filtering our faces to hide ourselves or exaggerating our experiences just so that you can get more likes, et cetera. So we’re really losing a sense of how to connect with each other, and I think this whole process is hurting ourselves.
You’re known for designing iconic mecha. Why was it that, in your original film debut, you went for something outside of that realm? There’s still some great action scenes, but I felt like this was gonna surprise some fans.
Shoji Kawamori Yes. I think the easy answer is that I have such a wide range of interests. So, of course, I like giant robots and mecha, but also I’m also very interested in deep psychology or the idea of consciousness. But also, I like nature, the culture of small tribes, and living deep in the world. So then I really think this accumulation of what I am interested in just came to this movie.
I think the smartphone, even though you could like hold it in your hand, just wields so much power, right? Because you’re just able to access the world with so much information, or like through the information network, right? You could like look up history, but you could also connect with someone on the other side of the world, whether it be an encouragement or being friendly, but you could also attack them or hurt them.
So then this ability to communicate with like billions and billions of people I really think is a superpower of itself. So then I really think a phone is just as has the same amount of power or maybe even more as the likes of Valkyre, Aquarion, or Transformers.
You created the first virtual idol, and you created a virtual band. Some of those ideas are touched upon in Labyrinth with online personas. We’ve seen that expand in the real world, so much so that there are virtual streamers and YouTubers now. How has it been seeing these ideas that you came up with 30 years ago have this real-life impact in the world?
Yeah, so I’m actually surprised that it happened sooner than later. When I was working on Macross Plus, you know, when I was writing the storyboard about like the virtual idol and stuff, and I showed it to my staff, they totally laughed in my face. They’re like, “There’s no way everyone is gonna be like bowing down to idols on a computer.” But it’s happening now. So, yeah, I’m really surprised that it came way sooner than I thought because I really believed that was gonna happen, just not this quickly.
Thanks to Shoji Kawamori for taking the time to talk about Labyrinth.
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