Hirofumi Ichikawa

Years of ~~clean living~~ doing freelance work for Takara can have you looking like this.

Hirofumi Ichikawa (市川裕文 Ichikawa Hirofumi) is a noted Japanese Transformers fan who has made the jump to working on the brand in an official capacity for Takara.

As a fan, he wrote numerous fan-comics and magazines (called dōjinshi in Japan), mainly focusing on introducing Japanese fans to the Hasbro/American version of Transformers and the concepts and characters within. Among them was a very indignant magazine decrying the "funny" dub of Beast Wars that was presented in Japan, as it had removed much of the "serious sci-fi" edge that had made the show immensely popular with the English-speaking fanbase. But perhaps his most well known pre-official work is Transformers Chronicles, a sort of "bridge" story for his take on the lead-up to Generation 2. This book was translated to English, but has long since sold through its short run.

Ichikawa has a definite preference for the Western take of Transformers, enjoying its more sci-fi-oriented and older-aimed feel, though he eschews the more metaphysical/mystical aspects of the fiction, especially Primus.

Writer/Illustrator

Pioneer laserdisk and DVD pack-in booklets
- Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers Box 1 and 2
- Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers 2010

"Linkage"

e-HOBBY toy bios

"Story of Binaltech"

Transformers Collection box illustrations
- Commemorative Series (reused from Transformers Collection)

"Beast Wars Reborn"

Alternity (story contributions)
- "Arch-Nemesis!" (lineart)

"Beast Wars Universe" (co-written with Fumihiko Akiyama)

Toy Designer

With the beginning of Energon, Ichikawa was given the job of "mech design", taking the engineering designs of many toys and finalizing the aesthetic details, sculpts, etc. The toys he has worked on include...