Masami ÅŒbari

OBARI AS FRAG.

Masami Ōbari (大張正己 Ōbari Masami, born January 24, 1966) is a Japanese character designer, animation director and overall artist known primarily for his work on mecha-related anime productions. As a director, some of his work includes Super Robot Wars OG: The Inspector, Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture and episodes 5 and 6 of the original Bubblegum Crisis. As a mecha designer, some of his work includes Dancouga, Gravion and Super Robot Wars. He originally worked for Ashi Productions and later formed his own studio, Studio G-1 (later known as Studio G-1 Neo). He was also a member of Studio OX.

According to Pioneer's Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers laserdisc box set booklet, Ōbari made his professional debut on The Transformers, directing and animating Optimus Prime's transformation sequence. Rather than animating Optimus's usual stock footage transformation sequence used in numerous episodes, however, he would confirm what he worked on as the highly stylized transformation sequence seen twice during the episode "More than Meets the Eye, Part 3". He mentioned on Twitter that while working on the sequence, he was given no instruction on what to do with the trailer, so he had to make it up. He also states on Twitter that aside from doing the transformation sequence, he helped design Megatron's spaceship, possibly one seen early on in the series.

Artwork

• The Transformers (stock footage animator, designer: "More than Meets the Eye, Part 3", possibly other unknown episodes)
• Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers 2010 story pages
• Cover art for Pioneer's Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers Autobot Collection laserdisc (and later, DVD) box set for Disk 1

Gallery

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Notes

• It was once speculated that Ōbari had directed the full episode "Call of the Primitives". However, Ōbari was asked on Twitter regarding the episode and he himself did not know! This led to animator Eiji Suganuma chiming in to say that in fact he was the animation director for the episode and to explain that the money shot of the combined Predaking was animated by Shin Matsuo (a different Studio OX artist).

• He went to the same highschool as Satoshi Urushihara, and it was Urushihara who inspired Obari to become an animator.

• Some of his frequent collaborators include Munetaka Abe and Masahiro Yamane

External links

• Masami Ōbari at Wikipedia
• Masami Ōbari at Japanese Wikipedia
• Masami Ōbari at Anime News Network
• Masami Ōbari's Twitter feed