A few years ago I was lucky enough to interview a then aspiring mecha designer by the name of Junji Okubo. At that point his work included games like Tekki (aka Steel Battalion) and the Gundam remake For The Barrel. His designs were unique as they depicted machines that looked almost palpably real. Since then Junji has worked on a few anime works, notably that of Appleseed Ex Machina and Viper’s Creed and also contributed to games such as Infinite Space. It seems that his work is finally garnering the appreciation it so sorely deserves.

Not long after this interview was conducted, Junji contacted me to let me know that he was publishing a book of his work and that could he use the interview I did. Naturally, I was happy to oblige. So the following interview is the English translation of the one you read in his book, Izmojuki Industrial Divinities.

Enjoy!

The SRG-03D Ryukooh from Super Robot Wars Alpha and Alpha 2 is getting the toy treatment courtesy of Volks. This was the OG mecha piloted by Kusuha Mizuha and is not to be confused with the later version Shin Ryukooh. The toy of Ryukooh will be available in February next year for a pretty steep 15,750 yen. To see the mecha in action, here is a compilation video of it from Alpha 2.

Over at Game Watch there’s an interesting piece about the upcoming anime series Halo Legends, apart from having a nice trailer there’s also a breakdown on each of the episodes and their directors. A few people have already noticed the presence of Shinji Aramaki (seen above) but few probably appreciate the fact that Aramaki is more renowned for his mecha design prowess, as he made a name for himself during the 80’s creating things like the Garland from Megazone 23 and the Madox-01. His work is very much on the real end of the mecha design spectrum.

In any case, Aramaki is a big bike nut (he also designed the transforming ride armors in Mospeada in case you’re wondering and supervised the designs in the recent Viper’s Creed) and in his Halo Legends episode “The Package” it looks like the Master Chief is effectively sitting on a “space bike” (seen here). That said, the design for this does look awfully reminiscent of the shoulder section of White Glint from Armored Core For Answer. Anyway, considering the powered armor focus of the Spartans it’s nice to see that someone who effectively helmed that part of Japanese mecha design is now finally making his mark on something originally birthed in the West (though if you ask me the the Master Chief does look an awful lot like Yutaka Izubuchi’s work, namely the ARL-99 Helldiver as well as the GM Sniper II and GM Command).

It’s a giant RX-78-2 head, what more could you ask for? Anyway, despite the regal majesty that is the Kunio Okawara’s timeless Gundam design 4gamer has some nice coverage of Bandai Namco’s games at this year’s Tokyo Game Show.

In addition, someone was nice enough to upload a video of the head in action. Specifically due to the fact it moves, which indicates that this is probably the disembodied head from the Odaiba 1/1 scale Gundam that was recently taken down.

Famitsu recently posted an interesting piece of coverage for Front Mission Evolved, most probably to tie-in with its presence at the Tokyo Game Show. Despite the fact that the in-game screenshots look better than expected, the refreshing thing to see is that you can also get out of your wanzer and take on enemies as a mere human. This is something that was recently utilised in the fantastic Yuke’s developed VOTOMS game (which we’ve reviewed in case you’re curious) and naturally there are a large number of thematic links between the narratives, especially as to the scale and technical depiction of the mecha themselves.

That said, the video below doesn’t exactly bode well on how it might actually play…

The newly released arcade game Border Break is receiving some t-shirts at this year’s Tokyo Game Show, all tucked away within Cospa’s stall in case you’re wondering. There are a total of two t-shirts priced at 3,045 yen each (pages are here and here). In addition to these there are some wonderful Sega Saturn t-shirts available as well.

The upcoming release of the 1/100 scale TRV-06k-H Viper II kit has been previewed over at the Kotobukiya blog, prior to its release this month. This is the 1P colour variant from the first Virtual On (we have a nice feature about the Virtual On series if you’re curious). Originally, Viper II was intended to transform but due to the technical limitations of the Model 2 board this wasn’t possible, much to the disappointment of the game’s mecha designer, Hajime Katoki. Naturally, in the sequel the upgrade to Viper II, in the form of Cypher, retained the transformation ability. The kit itself costs 4,800 yen and you can get it here.

On the recent SEGA AGES port of the first Virtual On, the game featured expert matches via its playback feature. Below is a video of two expert Viper II players squaring off, in case you want to see the design in action.

Back in July of 2000, the Fuji-Q Highland amusement park opened Gundam The Ride. You were escorted onto a Federation transport and carried through the final battle of the One Year War, A Baoa Qu, by two chirpy GM pilots. The ride was full of wondrous little references which all zoomed past at lightning speed.

A few years later, in 2003, Bandai released Meguriai Sora on the PlayStation 2 (this was later released abroad as Encounters in Space). Within one of the latter campaign levels there was a nice little reference to the ride, as you encounter the transport and the GM’s in the middle of a Dolos class ship. Naturally, very few in the Western gaming press picked up on this rather cool reference.

Unfortunately, the ride closed down in July 2007 and was replaced by Gundam Crisis. Thankfully, someone managed to capture the ride for posterity before it shut down. So I’ve linked that below as well as a capture from the game that featured the cameo from the ride.

Enjoy!

To the uninitiated the Super Robot Wars games appear to be a terrifying endeavour. Language barrier aside there is an immense cultural chasm present for anyone that didn’t grow up watching anime in Japan as a child. Half a century of mechanical nuance to be exact. All this has very interesting functional ramifications as Super Robot Wars Z is a turn based strategy game, much like chess in fact. Except it’s chess with close to a thousand possible pieces, almost all of which are unique, with gaming idiosyncrasies borne out of the parent anime series that birthed them. Daunting doesn’t quite cover it really.

Super Robot Wars Z is the final PlayStation 2 game in the series and unlike the Original Generation (or OG) games, Z is very much a continuation of the premise where disparate mecha from various anime series effectively high five for the win. However, despite being a follow on from the engorged excess that was Alpha 3, Z is very much a crafted game; from the pristine battle animations to the deeply layered strategy.

The upcoming PSP port of Gundam vs Gundam Next has been finally given its own site. Noteworthy is the information emblazoned across it that it will be present in video form at this year’s Tokyo Game Show. The Japanese release date has also been specified now as being the 3rd December this year.