Macross Compendium

Memories

STUDIO NUE AND FRIENDS

Kunio Aoi, Hiroshi Ohnogi, Norihiko Harada, Kazutaka Miyatake, Haruhiko Mikimoto, Shoji Kawamori
1980-1981


Before Macross, they were just like you and me—folks who fell for anime and dreamed of creating stories themselves. Some, like Studio Nue co-founder Miyatake and mechanical designer Aoi, had already worked on such classics as Space Battleship Yamato, the second Mighty Atom, and Mobile Suit Gundam. But among them were high school and college classmates Kawamori, Mikimoto, and Ohnogi. The "Young Trio" had just watched those very same anime shows on TV and wanted to create their own masterpieces.

Mikimoto (under his previous pen-name "Yoshiharu Mikimoto") captures this proto-Minmay in a very candid moment. To her left, Miyatake recreates the chimera-like "nue" creature of Studio Nue's namesake (well, after it gorged itself on Char's MS-06S Zaku II mobile suit). When he's not translating Star Wars books and illustrating Roger Zelazny novels, Aoi vents his frustrations on Gundam's Haro pet robot on top.

Before he would write Macross, Zeta Gundam & SEED, and Aquarion, Ohnogi imagines if Aoi's Haro had MS-09 Dom legs. And for my personal favorite sketch, Kawamori draws Haro to the right beckoning to be let in the door, just as Kawamori himself once knocked on Studio Nue's door to look for work—bridging the two generations together.

(Macross: Do You Remember Love? mecha design collaborator, future Zagato/Aston Martin car designer, and another of the Young Trio's schoolmates Norihiko Harada apparently draws the alien/sea horse/dragon in the middle.)
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Egan Loo <eganloo@anime.net>
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