Shōhei Kohara

Shōhei Kohara (小原渉平 Kohara Shōhei) was one of the Takara artists who translated the earliest Transformers' toy designs into character models that formed the basis of the designs used in the cartoon series and comic books.

It is unclear how many first-year characters Kohara designed; as the gallery below shows, he was at least responsible for creating the eight designs that appeared in the small handful of 1984 Transformers commercials, but that may have been the extent of his contributions. The designs were all subsequently simplified by Floro Dery, who generally removed wheels in robot mode and enlarged the characters' heads before the designs saw commercial use, and who would go on to design most Transformers characters for the cartoon.

The early animated comic book and toy commercials utilized a modified Megatron design that was closer to the actual toy than Kohara's original model (based on a toy prototype). However, this modified design still retained many details from Kohara's original model, such as the head and fusion cannon. The design was then modified further by Dery to make it better reflect the toy, and this Dery-revised version was used in the cartoon series and comic books along with the other simplified character models.

Kohara's designs for Prowl, Sideswipe, Jazz, and Optimus Prime.

Kohara's designs for Laserbeak, Soundwave, Starscream, and Megatron.

External links

• Anime News Network profile
• Internet Movie Database profile