Yoshitaka Amano

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Yoshitaka Amano
Birth name	天野 嘉孝
Born	July 28, 1952 (1952-07-28) (age 55) Shizuoka City, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan
Nationality	Japanese
Field	character design, illustration, printmaking, painting, sculpting
Awards	Seiun Award, Dragon Con Award, Julie Award

Yoshitaka Amano (天野 喜孝 (formerly 天野 嘉孝), Amano Yoshitaka^?) (born July 28, 1952) is a Japanese artist known for his illustrations for Vampire Hunter D and for his character designs, image illustrations and title logo designs for the Final Fantasy video game series developed by Square Enix (formerly Square).^[1].

[edit] Biography

[edit] Animation

Amano was born in Shizuoka City, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan; as a young adolescent, he was fascinated with drawing. In 1967, he began working for Tatsunoko Productions in the animation department, where he was introduced to the early Japanese anime movement.^[2][3] His first paid project was for the Speed Racer anime franchise (also known as Mach GoGoGo). He worked in character design for anime shows such as the Time Bokan series, the Gatchaman series, Tekkaman and the Honey Bee.^[4]

In the 1960s, Amano was exposed to Western art styles through comic books and their Japanese Western-influenced counter parts. Amano was also fascinated by the art styles of psychedelic art and pop art of the West, particularly the work of American Pop artist Peter Max.^[5] In the 1970s, Amano's intrigue led him to the study of the artworks of the late 19th century and early 20th century European movement of Art Nouveau, as well as the ancient Japanese hand woodblock printing work of Ukiyo-e. While concentrating on illustration, he was still at Tatsunoko Productions until he left in 1982.^[5]

[edit] Early fantasy works

In the early 1980s, he concentrated on illustrations for Science Fiction and Fantasy, while still keeping the influence of his animation and other illustration works from the 1960s and 1970s.^[4] This in turn created a unique personal style, which was influenced by both modern surrealism as well as realism fluent in many classic and modern techniques.

In 1983, he was behind the illustrations for the novel Demon City Shinjuku and the first of Hideyuki Kikuchi's novel series Vampire Hunter D.^[4] This was adapted to a movie in 1985 for which Amano worked as character designer. The film was one of the first anime movies to be released outside of Japan. In interviews, however, Amano has stated that he was not pleased with the final product of the movie. More involvement in illustration had led to the creation of collections of his artwork being published, such as "Maten" in 1984.^[6]

[edit] Final Fantasy

In 1987, he was introduced to a newly developed art department with a promising future for conceptual design for video games. He joined Square (now known as Square Enix) to work on what was expected to be their last video game for the Famicom (Nintendo Entertainment System): Final Fantasy (released on December 18, 1987 in Japan). This task opened a new realm for Amano to work in. Even though video game technology was very young, Amano produced striking pieces of conceptual design for the games in both traditional and computer designed artwork^[7]. Final Fantasy, the first in a continuing series, was a success and brought Square popularity in the RPG genre in Japan, as well as modest international fame. But the series would ignite extreme international fame as the series continued. At this time, he also worked for another video game company called Kure Software Koubou in which he did box cover illustrations as well as some character designs. This included work on Kure's First Queen series, which, despite being fairly unknown overseas, is regarded a classic in Japan.

[edit] Branching out

In 1989, he had his first exhibition called "Hiten" at Yurakucho Mullion in Tokyo, Japan.^[8] He continued to work with Square and their Final Fantasy series, and in 1990 he started to work as an artist for stage theater. His first work for theater was Tamasaburo Bando's Nayotake, which was in the same year.^[5] During this time while working as illustrator, character designer and set designer, he had exhibitions of his becoming well-known for his printing works.

Yoshitaka Amano designed the characters for the first six Final Fantasy games, as well as providing some conceptual artwork for Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy IX. The above is a depiction of Terra riding a suit of Magitek Armor from Final Fantasy VI, who he has said was his favorite character to design.^[9]

In 1994, after Final Fantasy VI, he was no longer the main character, image and graphic designer of the series (he started to provide promotional and character artwork for the next games, as well as working on the title logo designs for most of the games), but in 1995 he started to become better known world wide with his work at the Biennale d'Orléans in France, and then in his newly established workshop and exhibition "Think Like Amano" in New York in 1997^[10], which followed another exhibition in New York at the Angel Orensanz Foundation entitled "Hero"^[11]. Amano also appeared in the 1998 movie New Rose Hotel which is loosely based on the William Gibson short story with the same name, in which he played the character Hiroshi^[12].

[edit] Freelancing

In 2000, Amano did the illustrations for comic writer and novelist Neil Gaiman on Sandman: The Dream Hunters^[13] which won several awards and was nominated for a Hugo Award^[14], as well as having his character designs used again in another Vampire Hunter D movie entitled Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. In 2001, Greg Rucka and Amano collaborated with another comic book tale, this time for Marvel Comics, Elektra and Wolverine: The Redeemer^[15]. In 2006, he was selected with Final Fantasy video game composer Nobuo Uematsu, by former designer and creator of Square-Enix's Final Fantasy series, Hironobu Sakaguchi to work on video games at his company Mistwalker^[16]. He also stated in an interview in the French magazine "Japan Vibes" that he is working on artwork for Final Fantasy XIII ^[17]. Finally, his series, Hero, will debut to American audiences by Boom! Studios. He has also illustrated three album covers for the Japanese power metal band Galneryus: The Flag of Punishment (2003), Advance to the Fall (2005) and Beyond the End of Despair (2006).^[18].

[edit] List of works

[edit] Illustrations

• Genji
• Rampo
• Chimera
• Vampire Hunter D
• Guin Saga (1984-1997)
• The Sandman: The Dream Hunters
• The Heroic Legend of Arslan
• Sohryuden
• Elektra and Wolverine: The Redeemer
• Mateki: The Magic Flute Adapted by Edmund Shern (2008 Radical Publishing)
• Yoshitaka Amano: The Sky (series of artwork from Final Fantasy to Final Fantasy X)
• Galneryus - Flag of Punishment, Advance to the Fall, Beyond the End to Despair album art
• Elric's saga - Japanese edition of Michael Moorcock's works. Amano also illustrated for some other Eternal Champion novels in Japan.
• The Eternal Champion - In addition to his work on the Japanese editions of some of the novels in the series, he has also provided cover art for the collected omnibuses overseas, such as the UK omnibus The Prince With The Silver Hand

[edit] Video Games

Note: Tetsuya Nomura was the character designer of Final Fantasy VI (only minor characters), the main character designer of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy XIII, and Dissidia: Final Fantasy. Tetsuya Nomura and Nobuyoshi Mihara were the character designers of Final Fantasy XI. Toshiyuki Itahana was the character designer of Final Fantasy IX. Akihiko Yoshida was the character designer of Final Fantasy XII. Yoshitaka Amano has stated that he is currently working on Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII but his role is unknown so far.^[19]. It is confirmed that he will be the Title logo designer and Image illustrator on Fabula Nova Crystallis.

[edit] Animation

• Kagaku Ninja Tai Gatchaman (1972)
• Time Bokan (1974)
• Casshern TV series (1975)
• The Space Knight Tekkaman (1976)
• Hurricane Polymer (1977)
• Genesis Climber Mospeada (1983)
• Okawari Boy Starzan-S (1984)
• Sei Jūshi Bismarck (1984)
• Angel's Egg (1985)
• Vampire Hunter D (1985)
• Amon Saga (1986)
• Gokiburi-tachi no tasogare (1989)
• Fantascope ~Tylostoma~ (2006)

[edit] Notes and references

[edit] External links

• Amano in pinkwork city (interview sound & video)
• Amano's World - The Art of Yoshitaka Amano (English website)
• A Day in the Life of Yoshitaka Amano (videos and interview)
• Yoshitaka Amano's work on Marvel.com
• Interview at Official Dark Horse Website
• Ga-nime Fantascope ~Tylostoma~