A Day in the life of Final Fantasy Visionary, Yoshitaka Amano
Via A very Dark place
When you think of the most influential and significant creators in the video game industry, few can be spoken of in the same breath as the legendary Yoshitaka Amano. Before putting his fingerprints on the role-playing genre, as one of the original creators of the Final Fantasy series, Amano spent 15 years at renowned animation studio, Tatsunoko Productions, best known for Speed Racer, Gatchaman, various Macross titles, and later, the production of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Amano-san himself created the characters for animated shows like Time Bokan, Tekkaman, Kashaan, Hutch the Honey Bee, and most-famously, Gatchaman, which became famous in the United States as Battle of the Planets (a.k.a. G-Force). Since leaving Tatsunoko, he has become a force to be reckoned with in the art world, with exhibits appearing in galleries all over the world, from New York City, to Los Angeles, to Germany, Switzerland and beyond. His unique, delicate style, and ethereal character designs are instantly spotted a mile away, gracing franchises like Final Fantasy and Front Mission for Squaresoft, Rebus (known as Kartia in North America) for Atlus, and El Dorado's Gate for Capcom.
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No subject is safe from his roving eye, either, as he's painted and published a series of books called NY Salid inspired in Miyamoto-like fashion (see: Pikmin ) by an assemblage of vegetables placed on a bowl in his one time New York City studio, which aren't indigenous to Japan. Beyond whimsical children's books, Amano-san has collaborated with some of the biggest names in the comics industry, like Neil Gaiman on some Sandman collaborations, and done work for Marvel, DC Comics and Dark Horse over the years. There's never a lack of demand for Amano's distinctive style, but even so he still manages to find time to create giant silkscreens of his character "HERO," paint on silk kimonos, pottery and ceramics, and other diverse medium. He is a true artist, one who never stops seeking for ways to bring new ideas into the world, and yet, one of the humblest, most generous people you will ever meet.
I first met Amano-san at the opening of his HERO exhibit at New York City's Angel Orensantz Gallery in late 1999. I was on assignment for Electronic Gaming Monthly, and was there with fellow editors John Ricciardi and Chris Johnston to meet with Amano-san and interview him. That initial meeting would begin a long and occasionally collaborative friendship with the man most gamers consider the heart of the "true" Final Fantasy games, those which sparked imaginations on the Famicom, Super Famicom, and Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and which set the template for nearly every role-playing game after it. Since I was based in New York City, EGM editor-in-chief, Dan Hsu, would ask me to handle the negotiations for commissioned Final Fantasy paintings by Amano-san (who was also based in New York City), which would go out randomly in limited quantities on a small number of EGM covers, not once, but twice. The first one we did together, Amano would ask me what we want painted on the cover, and I had the pleasure of taking Dan Hsu's basic requests (gold, chocobos, FFX's main characters) and shape them into a concept a little more concrete, giving our celebrity painter the direction he needed to complete our first limited edition Amano cover. To help commemorate the process, I visited Amano-san's studio, and documented the process of the work-in-progress painting (then only a pencil sketch) with a new interview, and a photo session (shot by myself), the results of which you see here in this feature. After the interview was over, I took our new collaborator out to dinner at one of New York City's most plush eateries, Montrachet, for a quiet, more relaxed conversation, some delicious French cuisine, and a nice bottle of red wine. Over the years, Dan Hsu would once again ask me to handle the commission and direction and delivery of yet another Amano-created, limited-edition EGM cover, which this time featured a triumphant Tidus riding on the back of a charging chocobo, against a stunning bright blue sky, a decided change of pace from our previous cover. As the years went on, I would catch up with Amano-san at The Happy Lion Gallery in the Chinatown area of Los Angeles, glad to see the show focusing on my favorite childhood show, Gatchaman. While my time with him there was brief, I would catch up with Amano-san on occasion whenever he and I had time during my business trips to Japan. Knowing that I was blessed with the luxury of having such informal access to him, I decided that it would be a good time to do a close-up profile on Amano-san, in the hopes of giving the world a closer, more personal look at the man, than has ever been available before.
Over the course of nearly a year now, I've made numerous trips to Japan to visit Amano (with the help of collaborator, translator and elaborator, Hiroko Minamoto) at his old-Ebisu studio, and at his newer, more elaborate, high-tech, super modern studio, meeting spot, and loft-sized workspace. Soft-spoken, humble, and exceptionally generous with not only his time, but gifts as well, Amano-san is a gracious host, who would cool our overheated selves in the sweltering summer heat of Tokyo with glasses of iced barley tea, and who would not let us leave his studio without practically carrying a bag full of recently published art books, cloisonne pins, stuffed NY Salad "vegetables" and Gatchaman limited-release t-shirts. All I wanted was the definitive interview. During the 12-month process in which we visited, spoke, recorded and filmed these interviews, Amano-san took us on a tour of his office, showed us finished and unfinished projects and paintings, let us take footage of his art supplies, his collection of bric-a-brac, and his entire studio (both of them, new and old) from top to bottom. If you've ever wanted to see what a day in the life of Yoshitaka Amano is like, you'll never find a more accurate telling, right here, right now.
But I've kept the laughing and the conversation with Amano-san to myself for long enough. It's time you got to experience the warmth and kindness of one of the world's most genuine artists for yourself. It's not just about Final Fantasy; far from it. It's about what moves him from project to project, and what keeps him so creatively charged, day after day, and disassembling the mythos that most people only see in rare, public appearances, like Amano's reunion with Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu on-stage at the DEAR FRIENDS concert at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. So please join us, as Yoshitaka Amano himself takes us on an in-depth tour of his life and his home and his work, and shares it all not just with us here at 1UP, but with you, the 1UP reader.
A Day In The Life of Yoshitaka Amano
1UP: Thank you, Amano-san, for taking the time out of your schedule to invite us into your home. Let's start off with the basic stuff. When and where were you born, and what was it like growing up, until you were around 10 years-old or so?
Yoshitaka Amano: I was born in 1952 in Shizuoka, which is close to Mount Fuji, it's close to the ocean, we have several beautiful beaches there. That's where I grew up, and as a kid, I wasn't one of the stronger kids, so whenever I was feeling sick I painted, which made me feel better. I liked going out and having fun with my friends, but whenever I felt like I wanted to paint or draw something I wouldn't show up wherever my friends were meeting, and I'd stay home and paint. That's the way I really enjoyed myself as a kid.
1UP: When did you realize that you wanted to be an artist, not in the sense of it as a hobby, but more as a profession and a way to make a living?
YA: When I was fourteen, I went to see my best friend, who had moved to Tokyo -- I was still living in Shizuoka -- so I went to see him. And I knew about Tatsunoko and I felt like I wanted to join Tatsunoko, so I brought a piece of my art, and I went to see their office and left the piece behind. After I came back to Shizuoka, Tatsunoko had sent a note saying they wanted to hire me, and that's when I joined Tatsunoko and that's when I realized that I wanted to draw and paint as my career.
1UP: What was the accepted idea of a career at the time? Did the Japanese economic climate in the 60s encourage young people to get a more traditional or 'practical' job? And were your parents supportive of your choice, or did they want you to follow a more conventional career path as a youth?
YA: I'm the youngest kid in my family, so my parents weren't on my case all the time. They thought if I was happy and healthy, then it was fine. And I just did it without talking with my family about it. I brought my artwork to Tatsunoko, got hired, and went out to work for them. So I just gave them a report after deciding everything. [Laughs]
1UP: What was their reaction after you told them you got a job in Tokyo? It must have seemed pretty daring, quite cosmopolitan at the time.
YA: My family was very surprised, but I was very very happy, because I loved to paint when I was a kid, but naturally my parents would always say "Oh, you're painting again," or "Do your homework" or "Do what kids are supposed to do," so I always got scolded. So the first thing that came to my mind is that it was an awesome job because no one was going to scold me for painting, and whenever I painted or drew something, people complimented me, so it was an unbelievable environment for me, so I was so happy. I thought it was destiny to have this chance to join Tatsunoko and start my career there. So when it was around when I was 15 years-old that I decided that I wanted to live my life as an artist, painting and drawing, and I thought that I would never regret it, and up to this point I've never regretted it at all.
1UP: What were your early years at Tatsunoko like? Did you begin your career having to do more mundane, apprentice-like chores or were you able to jump right into the character design and create Gatchaman? How did that progress?
YA: The first year I had to learn about animation, so I was part of the production team, and I was involved with all the methods, so I would understand what animation was. The second year I was working as an animator, but back then there wasn't a person called a 'character designer', so every now and then when I was working as an animator, the company would bring me to this private, secret room and force me to create a character...
1UP: On the spot?
YA: On the spot. I couldn't come out of the room until I designed a character. But after a while that room kind of turned into my room, because I was designing the characters the most, so the position as a character designer was created because of me, and that room turned into my room. [Laughs] So I was packed in that room for a week and I couldn't come out. I just had to design the characters. The information inside the room was confidential because they were new character designs, and we couldn't just announce those designs outside, so I was in this secret room a lot.
1UP: So you're the world's first official character designer, and you must be a little claustrophobic, because you were stuck in that small window, and you'd want some air and some sunlight, which would explain this huge loft space for your studio now.
YA: Even though I have a big atelier now, a big space to work in, it's still the same, and I usually stay in a small place to work. When I was working at Tatsunoko, the company was great, because they respected creativity a lot, so they let us go see movies, or study American comics or animation with the company money, and they didn't have strict rules, like you have to be in at 9 o'clock or 10 o'clock. You could just come in whenever, and you could go out to study things, but usually I was out playing. But that's how Tatsunoko supported the creators.
1UP: Did your years as animator help develop this incredible work ethic, like your current project where you have to create a hundred illustrations for TOEI Animation? I've seen you work and you work very fast.
YA: That's one reason why I'm able to work like this, but the big difference is that when I was an animator I was drawing the characters, but the characters were not mine, so I was copying someone else's character design. But what I'm doing for TOEI Animation, the whole design, the story plot is all from me, so that's the biggest difference. So I can't blame anyone for bad work now, because the whole thing is on me right now.
1UP: What was your first major contribution to Tatsunoko?
YA: Maybe, Minashigo Hatchi (Hutch the Honeybee). I don't remember clearly which work was my first one, but I was working on Minashigo Hatchi, Gatchaman (Battle of the Planets) and several other things, like Time Bokkan, an anime series with several characters that every kid grew up with.
1UP: What made you want to leave Tatsunoko? At the time it was traditional for most people to stay with the same company for their entire professional career. What you did was rather bold and not without risk, I imagine.
YA: I stayed at Tatsunoko for fifteen years. From 15 to 30 is when I worked at Tatsunoko. But since I turned 20 and in my twenties, I began to feel that as an artist and as a painter, that I couldn't be doing character design the whole time. I wanted to grow as an artist, so I was painting and drawing on my own outside of my work at Tatsunoko. So I decided to break out on my own when I turned 30, because I wanted my own art to be seen by people, not just as a character designer at Tatsunoko.
1UP: How long was it between when you left Tatsunoko and when you became involved in video games?
YA: Probably about three or four years. After I quit Tatsunoko, there wasn't really a game market for about three or four years.
1UP: So in the intervening years between leaving Tatsunoko and getting involved with the game industry, were you able to support yourself and survive purely as an artist during that whole time?
YA: Yes I was able to support myself as an artist. When I was in Tatsunoko, I only had one category, character design and animation, but after leaving I was relieved because I was able to do anything, in several genres, like science fiction or fantasy, or even humor illustrations. Video games was just an additional genre to all the other things I was doing.
1UP: Was Final Fantasy the first game you became involved with?
YA: Final Fantasy wasn't the first video game-related job I did. So I went to America for a week, which was the first time I went to America, and I don't remember what company it was, but this company asked me to do an illustration similar to Dragon's Lair, the arcade game, and that was the first game-related job I had.
1UP: And what time period did you actually design the character for Vampire Hunter D?
YA: Right around 1983-1984 I did the artwork for Vampire Hunter D, and that was a year after I left Tatsunoko.
1UP: How did you first meet Hironobu Sakaguchi?
YA: The first time I met Sakaguchi-san is when he asked me to do Final Fantasy. It was Sakaguchi-san along with three other people. Back then I was doing fantasy illustration for European novels, so that's probably where they found me, and why they came to me and asked me to do the art for Final Fantasy.
1UP: Was Sakaguchi surprised to find out that you were one who created Gatchaman, among other Tatsunoko franchises?
YA: He probably didn't know back then that I was the one who did the designs for Gatchaman. Of course he probably knew about Gatchaman, but wasn't aware that I was the one who did the designs.
1UP: Since the early video games featured such primitive graphics, how did you feel about seeing your elaborate illustrations transformed into such tiny sprites?
YA: There's actually an interesting story behind that. Because the art was so small and pixelated, I created a design like that. But they came back to me and said "please design it normally so we can shrink it down ourselves into a game character." They wanted a real design from me, not for me making something looking like a game character. [Laughs] What I think is that back then is that my art couldn't just go into the game without major adjustments. So I looked at the sprites as just a symbol of my art. Here's an example, when you say "Mount Fuji" and you make a motion like this [makes a peak sign with his fingers], everybody knows what Mount Fuji looks like, so they get the mental image in their head. So I was in charge of making the master art piece that people would keep in their mind, and people would remember this art because of these symbols in the game.
1UP: Did you think that video games would last as long as they have, and evolve as they have, or did you think it was just a fad, or something that would fade in popularity, like any other toy?
YA: Back then the people around me in my life, like people in the book industry, publishers, didn't see the potential in the games industry. They would ask "why are you working on games?" But myself, I was very interested, and felt a huge potential in games, so I enjoyed working on them.
1UP: What do you think is your best work in the game industry? Whether it is from Final Fantasy, or Front Mission, or anything.
YA: The character I like the most, is Tina from Final Fantasy VI, she was the first HEROine of the Final Fantasy series. I also like the character Faris, from Final Fantasy V, who is a girl, but a bit of a tomboy. I like the simple monsters too, like the Bomb and also the Slime, which is very simple. I feel as if this represents me more, so I like the simple designs. Like when a game or movie is a series, the main character or the monsters or enemies become more complicated as the series goes on. But I like the original the most, the plain, raw character. Like in the Star Wars series, I like the first one the most. I like the impact Darth Vader gave to people. As the series goes on, you're getting used to him, so they try to put more flavor into him, so you begin to lose the original, raw identity. I like monsters like this, that you can draw simply and easily, like this. [Amano draws a Slime from Final Fantasy]
1UP: It's funny how you're always finding new things to paint on. Whether it's kimonos, or even eggs.
YA: I just run into these things, and when I see something like this [motions to the large, wooden egg in his hands] I just feel like I want to do something with it. In this case, it's not 2D, it's 3D because it's a round shape, so if I start painting on this side, I have to think of the ending point as I wrap around to the starting point again. If I just paint on paper, it's just 2D, so even if you walk over here, it won't show up here, but if it's 3D, you'll see it from back here, because it has shape. I find that very interesting. There's a story, in this pond there's a fish. From our point of view, we could just pick up the fish and then put it back in, and that's just normal. But from the viewpoint of other fish, it just disappeared and it reappeared somewhere else, so they'd think that fish is like a god. It's normal to one person, but change the point of view, and it changes into something entirely different. I'm attracted to things like that.
1UP: So it's like perspective, how art is to one person can be entirely different to another.
YA: So video games say something different to me too. I could just express something, in a game world in a different way. That's why I like working in games too. I think it would be interesting if I could express something from a painting in a video game.
1UP: How hard has it been to be accepted by the fine art community? It's a pretty snobbish community, especially towards those who've worked distinctly commercial medium, like comic books, animation, video games and many of the genres you've explored in your career.
YA: I always like something new. Like,animation back then was new too, so games, etc., these are different places where my art is released, but I myself don't change. So my core doesn't change, and as an artist, I'm completely responsible for my art. So sometimes my art comes out in a game, but the game doesn't sell, so my art isn't reflected in a good way, and that's a sad thing. But what I think is that I am solely responsible for my art, so I'm not concerned which path I channel it through. If it's something new, then I am interested. So if it's animation, or games, or some new medium in the future, I would be happy to put my art into it. I'm not sure if there's any criticism, or if I have any frustration with the fine-art community, at least not that I'm aware of. I'm still a newcomer in the community, but as long as I'm doing something new and something different. By doing this, there's always the possibility that there's someone somewhere might be criticizing me about it. But I don't care that much, in fact I would be happy to accept it because it means that I'm doing something new. The other day I went to Rome and saw Michaelangelo's art, and there was a huge line for two hours to see his art. When I saw the whole line, I felt strongly that art has a strong power to attract people and to move the world, and I knew that I had to be responsible for my art, not just now, but ten years from now, forty years from now, I must be responsible for my art.
1UP: How have your different studios affected your work. You've had studios in New York City, Paris, Tokyo and who knows where else? What have these different locales given you for inspiration?
YA: Having studios around the world has influenced me a lot. My New York studio gave me ideas for HERO, and from my Paris studio I got the inspiration for my children's books. I haven't released them yet, but I'm working on some art in that style. The best case scenario is to have a studio in every country in the world [Laughs] -- it doesn't have to be big -- but it's important to have somewhere I can go and be inspired, and it's very important not to get used to that place. So what I want to do right now, the most, is travel around the world with my sketchbook for a year or two, and just draw sketches. Get a backpack, carry that and my sketchbook around the world. By traveling around the world, I'll probably get a lot of new ideas, and get inspiration from that. The point is to get inspired, so I don't want to stay in a hotel. I could even just sleep in the park, and stay there for a while so I can see the atmosphere and get the inspiration. The first thing I was surprised and inspired by when I went to New York was the fire hydrants and the manhole covers in the ground. Things that are not special at all -- people who live there would not even notice it at all -- but the plastic boxes on each street corner that have the free leaflets and newsletters, the yellow color of these boxes has just a bit of blue in it to make it a very unique yellow color. You can't find that color just anywhere. So really, really small things like that, but there's lots of really small things like that all over the world. So things like that are very important to me as an artist.
1UP: It's great how nothing escapes you like that. For my last question, how is your HERO project going, and what can we expect to see in the future?
YA: Right now, I have to finish the illustrations for this Spanish manga cafe this week, then I have to fly to Hong Kong [Laughs] because I have to put the color into 12 large pieces of art this week. In Hong Kong I'll have a gallery of there, which will have huge artworks, but they're not actually there yet. I'll actually be painting in the parking lot because the pieces are so big. I'm a little worried. [Laughs] So when I fly there, I'll make the paintings on the spot. I'm also working on a cover for a novel, as well as some things I can't mention yet, plus the drawings for TOEI Animation. And about HERO, the book will be finished around the upcoming San Diego comic convention. So that's what's going on around now, but in five years, or in the future, the core of my ambition is to keep on painting and drawing. I won't say I'll do this or that or anything specific, because if I do that, then I'll be responsible for doing it. So when there's something new, or offer to do something different, I would love to do that, and have a new experience. By experiencing new things, there's always a chance I'll find something fun, or interesting. I enjoy the unpredictable. So if something comes, that's good, and if nothing comes, that's also good, because I have a line-up of things I want to do.
1UP: Thank you so much for your time, as always. It's always nice to be able to visit you in your studio and see what you're up to.
SPECIAL THANKS TO: Mariko Suzuki and Yoshi Segoshi for their invaluable help in making this all come together. For more info on Amano's world, or to complete your collection of Amano paraphernalia, visit his Website for an up-to-date listing of events, gallery showings, and works-in-progress.
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