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Toshiyuki Inoue

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Japanese animator

Toshiyuki Inoue
井上俊之
Born (1961-07-07) July 7, 1961 (age 63)
Osaka, Japan
EducationOsaka Designer College [ja]
Occupation(s)Animator, character designer
Years active1982–present
Known for

Toshiyuki Inoue (Japanese: 井上俊之, Hepburn: Inoue Toshiyuki, born July 7, 1961) is a Japanese animator and character designer. He was the representative director of Japanese Animation Creators Association from 2014 to 2016. He is known as the "Perfect Animator", a title given to him by Mamoru Oshii. He is known for influencing the 'realist' style of animation in the 1980s and 1990s, along with animators like Hiroyuki Okiura, Shinji Hashimoto and Mitsuo Iso.

Career

After reading a feature about Future Boy Conan from Animage magazine, Inoue decided to become an animator. He graduated from a vocational school and joined Studio Junio, his first work being on the Stop!! Hibari-kun! (1983) anime as an inbetweener. After just two years as an animator, he was promoted to character designer on the Gu Gu Ganmo (1984) TV anime. Subsequently he became known for his freelance work as a key animator on feature films like Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise (1987), Akira (1988), Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) and Ghost in the Shell (1995).

Inoue animated the opening scene of Jin-Roh (1999). The characters in the scene are described as moving "with a verisimilitude that appears wholly natural and spontaneous, a level of realism which of course can only be achieved by painstaking attention to detail."

Inoue has worked together with Satoshi Kon several times, first on Katsuhiro Otomo's anthologies Roujin Z and Memories, and later on Kon's own films, Millennium Actress (2001), Tokyo Godfathers (2003) and Paprika (2006). There were plans for him to work on Kon's unfinished film Dreaming Machine as animation director as well. Kon considered Inoue to be an animator who had a major influence on him.

He has worked on several anime by studio P.A. Works, including The Eccentric Family (2013), Shirobako (2014) and Kuromukuro (2016), being brought in by studio founder and director Masayuki Yoshihara. His work on The Eccentric Family is described as having "just the right amount of exaggeration", knowing "when to keep the movements restrained and when to go all out."

His first work as "main animator" was in Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms (2018). As main animator, he contributed 120 cuts of finished key animation, 180 cuts of rough animation and 100 layouts for a total of 400 cuts. Inoue's ability to convey character without words impressed director Mari Okada, "when I flip through Mr. Inoue's layouts and key animation, without exaggeration, my heart races and I'm transported to a different world. I can't tell you how many times I uttered the word 'wow'. I was also surprised by the abundance of information that can be expressed in the pictures". Anime News Network reviewer Kim Morissey credits Inoue as the reason why scenes depicting war are "striking and hyper-detailed."

He would work again as main animator on The Orbital Children (2022) and as "chief animator" on The Deer King (2022).

Creative philosophy and influences

Inoue believes that the original goal of animation was "to draw human movements", but due to commercialization, "anime-like movements were developed". With Jin-Roh he tried "to return to the original point of animation, which is expression through drawing" and "abandon the drawing methods that had to be used in commercial animation". As a judge in the 2019 Tokyo Anime Awards Festival (TAAF), Inoue abstained from declaring a winner at a student animation competition as the entrants had failed to "express pain using only movement, without relying on dialogue" and had instead used visual short-hand common in anime to express pain.

Inoue believes that a good animator should have "the ability to create a three-dimensional space on a flat surface, and to draw and move pictures freely within that space." This sense of "volumetric depth" is usually associated with full animation, however much of Inoue's work is limited animation.

Inoue refers to animator Yoshiji Kigami as being his "first concrete goal" in the industry. In an interview with NHK, he said "He struck me as a true professional with his skill and speed." "Even today 20 years later, I find that in some ways I still don’t measure up to him."

Inoue and Mitsuo Iso are great admirers of each others work. Inoue called Iso "a genius that nobody else can imitate." Iso referred to Inoue as "the person that I regard as my teacher" who influenced how he animates movements.

Works

Animated television series

Films

OVA

Games

Pilot film

  • The 2 Queens (2013)

In popular culture

In the first episode of Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, the character Tsubame rushes home to watch a fictional anime by "the dream team, Inoue-san, Iso-san and Ohira-san" referring to Toshiyuki Inoue, Mitsuo Iso and Shinya Ohira.

Inoue appears in the documentary "Hand-Drawn" along with Mamoru Hosoda and Mitsuo iso.

References

  1. ^ "WEBアニメスタイル_アニメの作画を語ろう". www.style.fm.
  2. "『アニメーション・クリエイティブ・テクノロジー・フォーラム(ACTF)』レポート：日本アニメーター・演出協会（JAniCA）". www.janica.jp.
  3. ^ Watzky, Matteo (January 28, 2022). "Toshiyuki Inoue discusses three decades of Mitsuo Iso - Interview". Full Frontal.
  4. ^ "Maquia Main Animator Toshiyuki Inoue's Work Revealed at Sasayuri Café". Anime News Network. November 9, 2023.
  5. ^ Cirugeda, Kevin. "Maquia: When P.A. Works Blooms – Effectively Raising A New Generation Of Animators". Sakugablog.
  6. Watzky, Matteo (May 28, 2021). "The rise of realism". Animétudes.
  7. 安原まひろ (June 29, 2018). "アニメーションにおける｢リアル｣とはなにか『磯光雄ANIMATION WORKS』". メディア芸術カレントコンテンツ (in Japanese). Agency for Cultural Affairs. Retrieved October 12, 2021.
  8. "TAAF2021 Competition Winners Announced | TOKYO ANIME AWARD FESTIVAL 2024". animefestival.jp.
  9. Lopez, Remi. The Impact of Akira: A Manga (R)evolution. Third Editions. p. 49. ISBN 9782377842803.
  10. "人狼 作画担当 - 哔哩哔哩". bilibili.com.
  11. Paik, Peter Y (February 18, 2016). "A Tale Humans Cannot Tell: On Jin-Roh : The Wolf Brigade". Animation. 11 (1): 108–122. doi:10.1177/1746847715625007. ISSN 1746-8477.
  12. "Satoshi Kon's Last Film Officially Resumes Production". Anime News Network.
  13. "KONTACT BOARD 4 - Re: 「素敵なお土産」いただきました！". KON'S TONE. March 16, 2008. Retrieved August 29, 2021.
  14. May, Callum. "The Eccentric Family, P.A. Works and the Perfect Animator | Anime Studio Spotlight" (video). youtube.com. The Canipa Effect.
  15. "The Genius Adaptations of Tomihiko Morimi's Novels [2018-08-16]". Anime News Network.
  16. "制作ブログ｜映画『さよならの朝に約束の花をかざろう』". movie-news.jp.
  17. Morissey, Kim. "Maquia - When the Promised Flower Blooms - Review". Anime News Network.
  18. "『電脳コイル』磯光雄監督による最新オリジナルアニメ『地球外少年少女』が前後編で劇場上映決定！ 舞台は2045年の宇宙ホテル | ゲーム・エンタメ最新情報のファミ通.com". ファミ通.com. October 31, 2021.
  19. Rusca, Renato Rivera (2022). "The Othering of the Otaku: A Transformative, Sociocultural Wild Card for Economics, International Business, and Political Leverage". Mechademia. 14 (2): 27–50. ISSN 2152-6648.
  20. "第１回 井上俊之×押山清高 スーパーアニメーターたちが語る、アニメーターとして活躍していくための基礎技術 | 『アニメ制作者たちの方法――21世紀のアニメ表現論入門』のための補足資料 井上俊之". kaminotane.com.
  21. Lamarre, Thomas (2009). The Anime Machine: A Media Theory of Animation. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. p. 73. ISBN 978-0-8166-5155-9.
  22. "京アニ火災 アニメーター・井上俊之さんが語る、木上益治さん｜NHK". NHK NEWS WEB.
  23. "INTERVIEW: Evangelion, FLCL, Kill Bill Animator Mitsuo Iso". Crunchyroll News.
  24. Seraki, Dimitri (February 6, 2022). "Savin Yeatman-Eiffel about The 2 Queens & Saya no Uta's adaptation - Interview [Archive - 02/2017]". Full Frontal.
  25. "Hand-Drawn：手描きアニメの現状を探るドキュメンタリー映画　細田守監督、磯光雄監督　井上俊之も - MANTANWEB（まんたんウェブ）". Mainichi Shimbun Mantan-Web.

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