Designer and original creator Prohiro Shimamoto passionately discusses the "honeymoon period of adolescence and otaku culture" surrounding the female robot plastic model "Mobile Douki Princess MoMo"! Hobby Industry Inside - Vol. 78

A plastic model of a female robot called "MoMo," or "Mobile Douki Princess," is now on sale. Currently on sale is "Orca" in white, black, and gold, with "Dread Red" in black, red, and iron scheduled for release in April 2022, and other variations are on the way.
The plastic model comes pre-colored with snap-fit and can be easily assembled by anyone, but it was released by "Invasion Robot". Many people may have never heard of this manufacturer before, but that's because "Invasion Robo" is the brand name of an individual artist, Mr. Masahiro Shimamoto. We asked Mr. Shimamoto, who gave up his stable life as an office worker to make a plastic model of "Mobile Douki Douki Princess MoMo," "What is so attractive about female robots? We asked him what he was thinking about.

The game world has transformed into a situation where it is difficult for creators to express their "auteurism

─ You used to work for a major game maker, so tell us about your path to the release of "Mobile Douki Hime MoMo".

Shimamoto: I have been an otaku since I was a child, and entered Osaka University of Arts to pursue a career in the art, manga, or animation industry, but during my studies I fell more in love with games than art, and I ended up joining a game maker. I was involved in a variety of titles, but the last one I worked on was a fighting game in which real animals fought each other. It was a card game for kids with impossible situations, such as a shark and a lion fighting, and the series ran for about 10 years before it ended.
It was right around that time that the company merged with another major company in a different industry. My colleagues were happy that this would boost sales, but I honestly had a "hmmm" feeling. I wanted to make an original game rather than use copyrighted characters. For example, if I said, "I want to make an original robot game," they would say, "Then why not a Gundam game?" It was getting harder and harder to compete with original projects.
This is partly due to the fact that the game industry has changed dramatically over the past decade or so. The market is now not only in Japan but also overseas, and the games that sell well overseas are not the sharp, original ones, but the ones that are familiar to everyone, such as golf, racing, sports, fishing, and so on, and suitable for everyone. It wasn't until the era of the original PlayStation that we were able to compete with experimental games that were based on ideas or original games with a unique world view.
Also, with the evolution of hardware, the scale of projects became larger and larger as the expressive power of the hardware improved. As a result, it was common to have 100 to 200 staff members involved in a single game, and the ability to communicate well with everyone became more important than individual talent. It also became common for an individual creator to be in charge of only a small portion of the total work, and the work became less about "creation" and more about "division of labor.
In the case of the card game for kids, for example, I was allowed to be involved in the planning process from the start of the project to the development of ideas, scenarios, dialogues, and character design drafts (see ......), but gradually I had to shift my work to the management side. I was not a great person. It was not that I became a great person, it was simply a matter of age. Managing staff man-hours and scheduling was 80% of my day-to-day work, and in addition to that, I had to do a lot of political work, such as setting up the groundwork with the bigwigs. ...... And even though I learned a lot, it was a local rule that only applied within that organization, or dare I say it, a "tradition". It is a local rule, dare I say it, a "custom. Once you get outside the company, they are of no use to you. In such a situation, I am wondering, "Am I really a creator now? I was busy with my daily work with the question, "Am I really a creator now?


─ ─ During that time, you were still making garage kits under the brand name "Invasion Robot," weren't you?

Shimamoto: Yes, I was making original robots from 1997 to 1998 while working at the company. The "Invasion Robot" that became my trade name was the name of the series at that time.
I loved "Mazinger Z" that I watched as a child. The allied Mazinger is attractive, but the enemy robots (mechanical beasts) are also cool. I had a fantasy that if that was the main character ......, I would design and develop an original robot, a bad guy robot at that. But it didn't sell very well. ......Well, now that I think about it, it's not surprising. We had attacked a place where there was not much demand.
So, we decided to make a female robot next, and released a deformed style robot called "Pico. Just as a motorcycle can be adapted for off-road or racing use by changing its frame and cowl, Pico's body can be transformed into various forms by changing its parts and armor, just like cosplay. Pico sold quite well. I would have liked to have continued with Pico for a longer period of time, but around this time, I had a major project in my main business to start up a new RPG company, so I took a break from garage kit production and event participation for a while to focus on my main business. As a result, there was a 10-year blank in my modeling activities.
Then, in 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred. The company was forced to suspend work for about a week due to the earthquake, so I used the time I spent at home to create the original "MoMo," the "Mobile Douki Hime. I made a replica of this model and presented it at the 2012 Wonder Festival. Because there were too many parts, I did not sell them, but only displayed them at the event for my own enjoyment. It caught the eye of a Chinese venture company, which offered to commercialize it as a finished product. Thanks to their support, "MoMo" was released in 2016 as a PVC figure made in China. Garage kits are hard to complete because of the difficulty in making them even if you buy them. As I had such a problem with ......, I was very happy to be able to sell them as "pre-painted finished products". However, this had the disadvantage of making the price higher and also making it difficult to resell the product.

─ ─ I also heard that the Chinese company was dissolved and the product itself became difficult to obtain.

Shimamoto: Yes. From start-up to withdrawal, everything in China was very fast-paced (laughs). However, the PVC version of "MoMo" received a lot of positive feedback and also gained fans overseas. Since I liked it as well, I wanted to continue it more. So, I thought that if I were to commercialize "MoMo" next, I wanted to make it into a plastic model that users can buy cheaply and can modify and paint, the daring opposite of a "painted finished product".
Then, in 2016, the card game ended its development. I had been working on it for 10 years, but in the meantime, the organization had changed, the executives were gone, the style of gaming had changed, and shadow games were at the height of popularity. It was difficult for me to start up a new title on my own, and I felt like an Urashima Taro, or that there was no place for me here (in the game industry) anymore, given my age.
In the midst of all this, I thought to myself, "I want to create things for the rest of my life. I don't want to be just an old man after I retire. I want to create things by myself, even if I am alone, even if I am 90 years old, and not leave it up to others. I decided to retire in order to develop the skills, connections, and career to achieve this goal.

─ ─ In 2019, you raised funds through crowdfunding to make a plastic model of "Mobile Douki MoMo". The achievement rate was 167% and it looks like a great success. ......

Shimamoto: We are very grateful for the support of so many people. However, as we proceeded with the redesign and design for the plastic modeling, we found that it would cost about twice as much to produce the molds as we had originally estimated. Because I am not good at masking, I had to make all the parts with different colors in the design as separate parts, but this made the molds larger and more complicated. However, I thought there was no point in compromising and making something cheap and appropriate, so I proceeded with the specifications as they were. The funds raised through crowdfunding were not enough, so we poured in our retirement savings as well as our savings, and even borrowed money to finally make the plastic model. However, I would not recommend this approach to others because of the high risk involved.