Katsuya Kondō

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Katsuya Kondō (近藤勝也, Kondō Katsuya^?) is a mangaka, character designer, animator and animation director born June 2, 1963 in Ehime Prefecture, Japan. He is most well known for his character design work on the Studio Ghibli films Kiki's Delivery Service and Ocean Waves, as well as the PlayStation game Jade Cocoon. His character designs are considered the epitome of the Studio Ghibli style.

After graduating from high school, he began working for Osamu Dezaki and Akio Sugino at their Studio Annapuru. Under the direction of Shinji Ōtsuka, Kondō worked as a key animator of the TV anime series Cat's Eye. He then worked as a free agent on such shows as The Mighty Orbots, Rainbow Brite and Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears. His first work with Studio Ghibli was as a key animator on Castle in the Sky. After working on the Gainax film The Wings of Honneamise and the OVAs Devilman and Meikyū Bukken File 538, Kondō began to be known for the high quality of his work.

Kondō collaborated with Ken'ichi Sakemi on a manga retelling of the Joan of Arc story, as well as doing the character designs for the Jade Cocoon video game series. He also collaborated with Sakemi by creating the character designs for the 1990 NTV TV movie Like the Clouds, Like the Wind (based on Sakemi's novel Kōkyū Monogatari), which tells the story of a young country girl who is chosen to become one of the Emperor's concubines. He also worked with Tomomi Mochizuki on the recent NHK Minna no Uta music video titled Kaze no Tōri Michi, produced by Ajia-do Animation Works for Sayuri Horishita. He was recently announced as the supervising animator of the new Studio Ghibli film Ponyo on a Cliff.^[1]

1 Works
2 References
3 External links

[edit] Works

[edit] Animation

The Aurora (2D character design)
Castle in the Sky (key animation)
Cat's Eye (key animation)
Devilman (key animation)
Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears (key animation)
Howl's Moving Castle (animation supervisor, key animation)
Kiki's Delivery Service (animation director, character design)
Like the Clouds, Like the Wind (animation director, character design)
Meikyū Bukken File 538 (key animation)
The Mighty Orbots (key animation)
My Neighbor Totoro (original design)
My Neighbors the Yamadas (key animation)
Ocean Waves (animation director, character design)
Only Yesterday (animation supervisor)
Pom Poko (key animation)
Porco Rosso (key animation)
Princess Mononoke (key animation)
Rainbow Brite (key animation)
Twilight Q (character design)
The Wings of Honneamise (key animation)

[edit] Games

Jade Cocoon (PlayStation) (character design, key animation, animation director)

Kondō Katsuya Art Works, featuring artwork from both Jade Cocoon games.
Jade Cocoon 2 (PlayStation 2) (character design, key animation, animation director)

[edit] Books and manga

Boku ga Suki na Hito e: Umi ga Kikoeru yori (ISBN 4195551714, May 31, 1993, ¥1200)
D'arc: Histoire de Jeanne D'arc, by Kenichi Sakemi and Kondō, Tokuma Shoten
- Volume 1: ISBN 4197700377, September 30, 1995, ¥950
- Volume 2: ISBN 4197700482, September 30, 1996, ¥950
"Kondō Katsuya Art Works: Tamamayu Monogatari & Tamamayu Monogatari 2 (ISBN 4758010064, March 2002, ¥3990)