Kupo Chronicle #25 - Transcendentalism
Amano's Journey, Inspirations, and Evolution
Welcome to the Kupo Chronicle, the premium edition of the Wark Digest newsletter, where we explore the Final Fantasy universe in long-form and drill down into unique moments of the series’ history. I’m Chris, aka Hoogathy, and in this installment we travel from Speed Racer to Final Fantasy XIII’s “original trilogy,” from Japan in Nobunaga’s age to turn-of-the-century France, through the works and inspiration of Yoshitaka Amano.
This week’s newsletter is 2488 words, a 12-minute read.
For most gamers, two names spring most readily to mind when Final Fantasy is mentioned: Nobuo Uematsu, and Yoshitaka Amano. Where Uematsu shaped the musical identity of the games, Amano shaped the visual with his unique illustrations and designs. His career has bridged the gap between the traditional and the new to yield dramatic, inspiring scenes, incorporating traditional Japanese art forms and others from various corners of the globe.
In December 2007, Amano was interviewed for the series’ 20th Anniversary Ultimania books (which we previously examined for the story of how Koichi Ishii designed chocobos and moogles). Through his comments and anecdotes, we can trace the unique creative path of this visionary, and see how it helped shape or redefine the games.
Humble Origins
We’ve recently examined how many of the staffers who created Final Fantasy were avid gamers, but this was not the case for Amano. In fact, some people tried to dissuade him from working on video games at all.
In the eighties, Amano had established a name for himself in animation and was branching out. At the age of 15, and still a high school student, he began working at Tatsunoko Studios and was involved in some of the biggest anime series of the era, like Speed Racer, and was character designer for several shows like Gatchaman and Tekkaman. However, believing “once your life is too stable, your creativity dies,” he left Tatsunoko after 15 years and started working as a freelance illustrator.
In this era, his work included the manga Amon Saga and illustrations for the novel series Vampire Hunter D, catching the attention of Hironobu Sakaguchi.
“At one time, I would play Space Invaders or tennis games in coffee shops or bowling alleys until the early hours of the morning,” he said in the Ultimania interview. “Games were something I enjoyed, not something I had to do with work. I think the biggest reason I was able to come into contact with them at work was because fantasy worlds started to be featured in RPGs and the like.”
Perhaps because of the potentially sensitive situation he was in, having left a stable job to freelance, some of his professional associates tried to talk him out of taking up Square’s offer when it came up. “When I told some editors I knew that I had been offered a job in video games, they all opposed it. ‘You should give up on games because they’re an industry you don’t really understand.’ [laughs]
“But I thought it would be a similar job to designing and setting characters in animation, so even though I didn’t know much about the industry, I thought, ‘well, I guess it’ll be okay.’”
