Hajime Katoki

Hajime Katoki (カトキ ハジメ, Katoki Hajime, born 1963) is a Japanese mecha designer. A member of the studio Sunrise, he worked on the Gundam series[1][2] as well as his work on video games, such as the Virtual On series and Policenauts.

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Biography

Born in 1963, Katoki created designs for the graphic novel Gundam Sentinel. He then worked in the OVA series Gundam 0083, where he designed the majority of the mobile suits in the series, including the RX-78GP03 Gundam Dendrobium Stamen and Orchis mobile weapons. His next prominent work was V Gundam, where he was the main mechanical designer, creating the main mobile suits Victory Gundam, V2 Gundam and the V2 Assault Buster Gundam. After that, he worked on G Gundam, now in design of the antagonist mobile suits. His next work was on Gundam Wing, where most of the enemy mobile suits, including the popular Tallgeese, were designed by him. He also created the mobile suits designs for Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, and re-designed the Gundams with a more fantastic style, creating the XXXG-00W0 Wing Gundam Zero EW. To correspond with these new designs, he also redesigned the 5 original Gundams from Gundam Wing.

Katoki also has worked in Super Robot Wars and Virtual On video games, and in the Patlabor 2 movie. He also collaborates quite frequently with Bandai, often doing touch-up designs for the Master Grade model kits and production of the Gundam fix figuration (G.F.F.) series action figures. He is also working with the company to develop a subcategory of the Robot Damashii mecha action figure line, called the Ka Signature line.

In his art book, Gundam Fix, Katoki said: "Do people, like myself, spend time imagining what it would be like if Gundam robots were actually present on the streets of our cities? Are you sure you're not limiting yourself to the images that were offered in the animated series? One of the reasons that I fell in love with Gundam was that it excites me to imagine what it would be like if these machines actually existed, and I worry that other fans may be losing out..." He said he hopes his work will catch peoples' attention"...then people who had never before been drawn in by the magic of these giant robots may discover their attraction for the first time."

Credited series/works

Super Robot Wars series

Gundam series
  • RX-160S Byarlant Custom
  • MS-05 Zaku I Sniper Yonem Kirks Custom
  • MSA-005K Guncannon DT (Detector)
  • AMX-014 Doven Wolf and Doven Wolf Silver Bullet

Virtual On series

Other works

He was also involved in the color scheme design of Toyota Team Kraft's SC430 (#35, GT500) which participated in Super GT seasons in 2006 and 2007. His colour scheme was later replaced by Gundam Exia-like colour scheme on July, 2007 (race 5 in 2007 season) as a promotion project of Mobile Suit Gundam 00, one of the most recent Gundam Series.

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References
  1. Ledoux, Trish; Ranney, Doug; Patten, Fred (1997), The complete anime guide: Japanese animation film directory & resource guide (2 ed.), Tiger Mountain Press, pp. 101, 160, ISBN 978-0-9649542-5-0
  2. Gill, Bill (2000), Pojo's Unofficial Total Gundam Wing, Triumph Books, ISBN 978-1-57243-417-2
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