Yasuo Ōtsuka

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Yasuo Ōtsuka (大塚康生 Ōtsuka Yasuo?) (born July 7, 1931, in Shimane Prefecture) is a Japanese animator who worked with Toei Animation and Studio Ghibli.

He worked in the Ministry of Health and Welfare Kanto Koshinnetsu district drug agent office before becoming an animator. By work of the supporting staff of so-called drug G-man, he seized drugs did and resolution maintenance of a handgun. During this time, two types of firearms, the Beretta of Fujiko Mine and Colt Government of Inspector Zenigata of Lupin III were in governmental use.

In addition, he is proficient in both English and Chinese. Besides being an animator, he is a world-famous collector of Jeeps.


Contents

[edit] Biography

Ōtsuka first started drawing as a small child when he saw trains carrying soldiers off to the war. He was so enamoured with trains that he continued drawing them with greater and greater detail as he aged. This led to a fascination with the machinery that is pervasive throughout much of his anime work.

He entered "Yamaguchi prefectural Yamaguchi industrial junior high school (old system junior high school of five year system) Engineering works department" founded in World War II. He faced the end of the war when was in Shimonoseki City, Yamaguchi in the student going to the front. Although he was able to take the qualification of graduate of a high school of the current system if going to the school during another year, he went out into the world, obtaining only the qualification of a junior high school graduate. He failed to live up to his father's expectation.

Otsuka was surprised to see the jeep and the track of a large amount of the U.S. Forces that had been brought in to Japan after the end of the war immediately, and he stopped drawing the locomotive, sketched military vehicles earnestly. To know the structure of the jeep, he hunted and collected manuals etc. in the dump site of the U.S. military. And, he mastered English as the by-product. As a result, he got the friend of Americans and New Zealander. He associates with them with all his family still now.

Otsuka found employment in Yamaguchi prefectural office General Affairs Department statistics division at first. Then, while working, he came up to Tokyo twice by the business trip. At the time, the current-events satirical comics which he contributed to Yamguchi newspaper were adopted, and the work was temporarily serialized. Afterwards, he decides to go to Tokyo to become a political cartoonist. But, in Tokyo of those days, the inflow of population was restricted. Therefore, he received the employment test of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and passed it. He was assigned to the narcotics agent office of the Kanto Koshin-etsu area. It was what is called drug G-man's work. Every time he found spare time, he went to the sketch cram school, or he copied comics at a library, and was drawing the landscape in his own style. He is impressed by the animation of the Soviet Union " The Humpbacked Horse" (1947), and the feature-length cartoon film of France "Le Roi et l'oiseau" (1952), and came to be interested in animation. However, he suffered from tuberculosis by irregular life, and received medical treatment for two years. He was only able to read enough book.

In 1956, Otsuka finished the recuperation life and found the newspaper article that the production of the cartoon movie “Madame White Snake” was decided to Toei. Then, he visited Nihon Douga (=Japan Animation) company that became the basis of inauguration of Toei Animation, and took the test. The people representing the Japanese animation field such as Yasuji Mori at that time received him, and the result of the examination was passing. He was one of the Toei animators involved in experimenting with frame-rate modulation in animation. This experimentation lead to what is commonly called the "money shot" style, where more important scenes are animated more fully than others. He practiced animation while going to work, and was finally temporarily employed as one of the first employees of Toei Animation. However, unless they did overtime work after finishing the task twice or more the regular employment group, they were not able to live because the salary of the temporary employment group was a half of the regular employment group.

In addition he was a mentor to both Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata and worked with them on many of their early projects. Although he had the chance to do the director several times, he refused it. Possibly, it is because he witnessed that IsaoTakahata faced difficulties during the production of Hols: Prince of the Sun. In a documentary about him, he stated that he revered Takahata's ability as the director in Hols. And, he felt that his ability was insufficient by comparison.

Ōtsuka is currently running a school for animators in Japan, and recently Studio Ghibli produced a documentary about the animator titled Yasuo Ōtsuka's Joy of Animating.

[edit] Animation Director

[edit] Character Design

[edit] References

  • Ōtsuka Yasuo no Ugokasu Yorokobi DVD. Studio Ghibli. 2004.


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