Masami ÅŒbari

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 Production Reed and later formed his own studio, Studio G-1 (later known as Studio G-1 Neo).

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. Exactly which transformation sequence the credit goes to is unspecified. It could be the stock footage transformation sequence used in numerous episodes, or it could be the highly stylized transformation sequence seen twice during the episode "More than Meets the Eye, Part 3" (and bears a number of Ōbari's aesthetic trademarks). He states on Twitter that aside from doing the transformation sequence, he helped design Megatron's spaceship, possibly one seen early on in the series .

It was speculated that he directed the full episode "Call of the Primitives". However, Ōbari was asked on Twitter regarding the episode and he himself did not know! This lead to animator Eiji Suganuma(菅沼栄治) chiming in to say that that in fact he was the Animation Director for the episode and went on to explain that the money shot of the combined Predaking was animated by Shin Matsuo(松尾慎).

Ōbari would later provide cover artwork to Pioneer's Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers Autobot Collection laserdisc (and later, DVD) box set for Disk 1.

External links

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