Shoji Kawamori’s first-ever original anime film, Labyrinth, will begin airing in Malaysian theatres this March 5. The announcement follows Kawamori’s appearance at Comic Fiesta 2025, where he also hosted a special talk show and meet-and-greet promoting the film.
Kawamori is best known for creating the Macross and Diaclone mecha franchises, with the latter going on to be adapted into the world-famous Transformers series. He has also served as a mechanical designer for anime films such as Patlabor and Ghost In The Shell, as well as the Armored Core videogame franchise, including its 2023 comeback Fires of Rubicon.
Labyrinth will be Kawamori’s first feature-length animated film that is not based on an existing franchise. It follows Shiori Maezawa, a high school girl who finds herself trapped in a parallel world after her smartphone breaks. She discovers that she is stuck inside her smartphone, where an alternate version of herself is causing chaos. Shiori will need to stop her alternate self, while also attempting to escape from the parallel world.
“Labyrinth began with the idea of smartphones as ‘another self’—a vessel that holds your history and personal data. When a phone breaks, it might also represent a fracture in one’s heart. The story follows a girl trapped in a digital labyrinth, while her other self begins to wreak havoc in the real-world Yokohama,” Kawamori shared.
“Moving between this ‘inner world’ and the real world, I wanted to create an emotional and visually striking entertainment piece—a fusion of music and horror, where feelings explode and emojis fly. As my first entirely original feature-length film, I hope audiences will follow the dramatic clash between these two versions of the same protagonist.”
