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“Father of Gundam (Taiwan: Gundam)” Kunio Ogawara has participated in countless Japanese animation productions in the past 50 years, and has been recognized as the industry’s first full-time mechanical designer, receiving global attention. Recently, Hong Kong was honored to be the host of “Okawara Kunio’s 50th Anniversary Exhibition”. More than 300 paintings were exhibited in Ocean Park, covering “Magic King”, “King of Bravery”, “Little Shuangxia”, “Armored Cavalry VOTOMS” (Taiwan : “Armored Cavalry Bodmusz”) and multiple “Mobile Suit Gundam” (Taiwan: “Mobile Suit Gundam”) series and other animations. Among them are 20 authentic works, and there are also illustrations of “Mobile Fighter G Gundam” specially drawn by the master for this exhibition.
After witnessing Kunio Ogawara carefully painting Haro and Zaku on the wall on the opening day, I can’t help but wonder what he thinks regarding the generative AI (artificial intelligence) that has been widely discussed recently. After all, another animation master Hayao Miyazaki Many years ago, the word “end of the world” was used to describe AI painting. However, when I asked in an interview whether this type of technology would pose a threat to artists, I was a little surprised by Kunio Ogawara’s answer.
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“I find it very convenient,” said the master. “If you want to add AI-generated stuff…AI has learned all the history of human painting, so humans have to add personality to design an attractive robot and character. It is convenient to use AI as a tool…It may be It helps animation production even more.”
Ogawara is clearly open to generative AI, but he has never experienced such tools himself.
“Many people around me talk regarding AI, AI, but I should only work for another five years, so maybe AI will not be a big threat to me.” At this time, the master’s entourage begged him not to Only work for five more years.
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Before the exhibition, I accidentally discovered that Kunio Okawara had launched a series of mech NFT works in November last year《Metaka Wars》so I also took this opportunity to ask him why he participated in this project.
“I attend because I rarely turn down a job offer,” says the master. “In addition, because the Japanese market often does not have the freedom to design different robots, the degree of freedom in the market has become more and more narrow. However, “Metaka Wars” allows me to freely create the robot design I want, so I actively participated in this project.” As a result, the master designed 10,000 mecha PFP (personal portraits) for this series in one go.
marine park
Due to the arrangement of the day, the original ten-minute interview only lasted six minutes, so I seized the last opportunity to confess my love for “Mobile Fighter G Gundam” to Kunio Ogawara, and asked regarding the choice of Hong Kong as the main character in the story. Because of the arena.
“At that time, I felt that Hong Kong was very free, so I used Hong Kong as a stage,” the master explained briefly, while mentioning another unique feature of this work.
“When making “G Gundam”, there is actually a lot of freedom. When designing “G Gundam”, we did not cooperate with the model department, but with super alloys and large-scale models. The relationship between the two countries is set to be a war between the two countries. This is different from the current situation of Gundam, so it was well designed at that time.”
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“Ocean Park x Okawara Kunio 50th Anniversary Exhibition” will be held from now until June 4th.Package price HK$448(Same price for size). Ocean Park “Unlimited FUN Admission Pass” holders only need to purchase HK$200 value-added tickets to enter the main exhibition hall.
