Born in Osaka on January, 1932. After graduating the law department
in Osaka University, he once became a businessman. But he became
to do something related to movie production, so he entered the
art department in Nihon University to study film. He decided to
work for animation because he was impressed with Czechoslovakian
animated puppet films(K.Zeman's). He entered MOM Production(co-Production
with Lankin/bass) after graduating in 1961 and took a part in
the production of American TV programs.
In 1964, he founded Echo studio and became a producer and director.
He produced about 37 films and many TV commercials. He is known
for using different material for each film(ex:puppets,relief puppets,
paper craft,cut-out, cartoons, etc)
As well as producing high quality films, he contributed to the
popularization of Animation. Especially "Puppet Anime Show"
which he held with Kihachiro Kawamoto for 5 years from 1972 caught
much attention.
He won a lot of prizes, such as his first work "Magic Medicine"
which got the Ofuji prize. In 1989, he received Mobil prize for
his contribution to Animation field. He passed away on Feb. 16,
1990 due to cancer when he was 58 years old.
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