Shōji Kawamori ( [河森正治](https://www.goodreads.com:443/search/search?q= 河森正治 " 河森正治") Kawamori Shōji, born February 20, 1960) is a Japanese anime creator and producer, screenwriter, visual artist, and mecha designer. Shoji Kawamori occasionally used the alias Eiji Kurokawa (黒河影次 Kurokawa Eiji) early in his anime career when he started as a teenage intern at Studio Nue and worked as assistant artist and animator there during the late seventies and early eighties. Later on his career Kawamori created or co-created the concepts which served as basis for several anime series such as The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, The Vision of Escaflowne, Earth Maiden Arjuna, Genesis of Aquarion, Macross 7, Macross Frontier, and Macross Delta. His projects are usually noted to contain strong themes of love, war, spirituality or mysticism, and ecological concern. Kawamori is currently executive director at the animation studio Satelight. Shoji Kawamori is also a visual artist and a mecha designer—projects featuring his designs range from 1983's Crusher Joe to 2005's Eureka Seven. Also, each and every variable fighter from the official Macross series continuity has been designed by him. In 2001, he brought his mecha design talent to real-life projects when he designed a variant of the Sony AIBO robotic dog, the ERS-220.[2] Kawamori also helped to design various toys for the Takara toyline Diaclone in the early 1980s, many of which were later incorporated into Hasbro's Transformers toyline. Quite a few of them became iconic Transformers: Generation 1 toy designs. Among them the first Optimus Prime ("Convoy") toy design, Prowl, Bluestreak, Smokescreen, Ironhide, and Ratchet. Over 20 years later, he returned to Transformers by designing both the Hybrid Style Convoy and the Masterpiece version of Starscream for Takara.