Hello everyone, it’s been a while but I’m back from the abyss to bring you an article celebrating an animator that I really, really like. He’s not someone that would win any Best Animation awards from either The Sakuga Cartel or even the vast majority of anime fans I’ve come across but I think he’s just very neat.
His impact on anime is understated but has been seen by millions of people around the world and he might actually be one of the most idiosyncratic animators out there. Even the youngest of viewers will know exactly who drew the scenes they’re watching.
I’m of course talking about Nichiasa legend, Mitsuru Aoyama, quite possibly one of the most prolific and speedy animators out there.
At the foot of the mountain…
Aoyama’s first foray into the anime industry was on the 1976 anime Paul’s Miraculous Adventure, after dropping out of the Toyo High School and ending up at the subcontracting animation studio, Studio Look. Aoyama was an animator on the show and was likely just credited under the studio name. Paul’s Miraculous Adventure would get some dubs outside of Japan, with the show being called Il fantastico mondo di Paul broadcasting on Rete A in September 1980.
However it’d be the second show that he worked on with Studio Look, Ippatsu Kanta-kun that Aoyama’s name would first appear on the very first episode of the show. Kanta-kun would be a bit of a notable series in Tatsunoko Production’s history, with it being the final show that co-founder Tatsuo Yoshida would be credited in having died just prior to the show starting. Legendary anime director and basset hound lover, Mamoru Oshii would also make his directorial debut on the show in Episode 28, the even crazier thing is that Aoyama and the Studio Look crew were there too! Though their careers are quite a bit different from each other to say the least.
Actually, Aoyama would also end up on Nobody’s Boy: Remi too so he ended up working with another legendary director in Osamu Dezaki. Amazing how even this early in his career, Aoyama would end up bumping into some of the industry’s current and future greats. Though he would later be known for something all of his own.
After spending three years at Studio Look, Aoyama looked elsewhere for employment instead going to Studio Aton for a bit before going freelance in 1981 which is how Aoyama works right up to this very day.
The Blue Blur
Mitsuru Aoyama is a fast animator. That’s kind of his thing that makes him, him.
Supposedly Toshiyuki Inoue said that Aoyama might be one of the Top 5 fastest animators in Japan alongside Maasaki Iwane, Hironori “TNK” Tanaka and supposedly the fastest of all, Norio Matsumoto. Pretty big stuff. Though the words of some legendary animator that only the sakuga nerds reading this article recognise might not carry very much weight with most of you reading. We need hard evidence that Aoyama is a super fast animator.
Mitsuru Aoyama is quick because he does key animation for entire episodes on his own. Among sakuga fans, this is known as “Solo KA” or 一人原画 (hitori genga), when a person handles all of the key animation for an episode on their own without any assistance.
This is a very rare occurrence and does not happen often in the industry. For short anime of 2-3 minutes, you can expect it as there’s not much to animate for those usually. But for a whole full length episode of anime and for this long? Mitsuru Aoyama must be someone very special!
In fact, the only notable animator that I’m aware of that does the same thing would be Maasaki Iwane on the Pokémon series. He is also well known for his exceptional speed. Both Iwane and Aoyama are known for being pillars in their respective staff rotations. Handling entire episodes worth of animation on their own.
The origin of Aoyama’s solo KA is actually surprisingly murky. Interviews with Aoyama allegedly say that he began handling entire episodes worth of key animation for the 1983 anime Bemubemu Hunter Kotengu Tenmaru though English language sources do not show this to be the case with Aoyama’s Animation Direction debut on Ep.15 supposedly not having any key animation from him at all. Definitely something that some anime credits hunters could take a look into!
What we do know for certain is that the first known documented instance of Aoyama Solo KA came in a timeslot that many anime and tokusatsu fans would know incredibly well and would be the home of Aoyama’s animation for the next 40 years.
Nichasa Pre-Precure
The Asahi TV Sunday 8:30am timeslot, is one of the longest running anime timeslots on Japanese television having anime air in it for over four decades. Since November 1984, Toei Animation has occupied the timeslot with its shows for children. Some of those shows would go on to become cult hits or even unkillable juggernauts within the anime industry.
Despite being a freelancer since 1981, Aoyama had pitched his tent at Toei Animation and had a desk to himself (this is not unique to Aoyama, other freelancers do this too) and got to work animating cinema for years to come.
Mitsuru Aoyama would be at the forefront of nichasa anime right from the very first show Tongari Boushi no Memole which got moved onto the timeslot in November 1984.
Aoyama was involved with the show even before Memole moved timeslots starting on Ep.8 but it was actually Ep.15 that signalled the start of Aoyama’s Solo KA career.
Since this was more the start of Aoyama’s career, we can’t really expect a massive amount of Key Animation going on here from him. Checking through the episodes he handled, he would usually have one or two other people there to lend him a hand. Though that wouldn’t go on for long.
In January 1986, Maple Town Monogatari, the third nichiasa anime would start airing and it is in this series that we would see Aoyama’s power in full display as he would go on to Solo KA eight episodes of the show. Every episode was about 20-22 minutes long meaning Aoyama did the Key Animation for about 3 hours of the show. Think of this as like Lionel Messi in the 2006 World Cup. We’re not even at the true extent of this man’s extraordinary speed and power yet.
You see in the late 1980s, Aoyama would get his big break and become a Character Designer for Bikkuriman, the series in nichiasa after both seasons of Maple Town came to an end. Apart from Magical Taruruto-kun (where Aoyama decided to animate huge amounts of Goldfish Warning), Aoyama was Character Designer for every single episode of anime that aired in the timeslot. Towards the end of this run on Super Bikkuriman and Ghost Sweeper Mikami, Aoyama somehow had the time to Solo KA episodes, despite having to do corrections for literally every other episode in the show in his role as Character Designer!
But is that even the true extent of Aoyama’s power? No. It wasn’t, there was actually more to come.
Marmalade Boy would follow Ghost Sweeper Mikami in 1994, this time with a young Yoshihiko Umakoshi in his first Character Design role. Finally, Aoyama could put his feet up, drink some hot chocolate with the little marshmallows in and somehow Solo KA 8 episodes on the show. You know, just a cheeky 10% of the entire show. Nothing much.
Gokinjo Monogatari would follow, a series with 26 less episodes! Yet Aoyama did Solo KA on even more episodes in this series than Marmalade Boy. He’d animated about 20% of the series on his own here! The same would go for Hana Yori Dango the year after!
It was actually Yume no Crayon Oukoku where Aoyama would be at the peak of his powers. I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t see Prime Messi animate a quarter of Yume no Crayon Oukoku on his own, even if he did score almost 100 goals in a single season. Aoyama was Solo KA on fifteen episodes of the show with over five hours of key animation over the course of the entire series. The show is a showcase of the best in funny face theatre that any magical girl series, let alone just from Toei can muster and a huge part of that came from Aoyama alone.
The greatest magical girl anime ever made, Ojamajo Doremi, had Aoyama’s animation all over it. Over the course of its 201 episode run, Aoyama was Solo KA on 36 episodes, almost an entire seasons worth of the show was just him. Well…I’d say that but that’s not the whole story. One thing I will mention for any show with Umakoshi is that despite Aoyama’s awesome speed, Umakoshi would see fit to correct some of Aoyama’s work. Which he does in his role as Character Designer. You’re still watching Aoyama’s usual silliness but it has been filtered and refined. Whether you’d call it more sophisticated or something is up to you really.
Ashita no Nadja might have been a lost relative of the World Masterpiece Theater but it still had about a tenth of the show animated by Aoyama. Unfortunately, he didn’t appear on any of Mamoru Hosoda’s episodes in the show. Just imagine, if Aoyama was working on Hosoda’s stuff now, it might actually be go…
Nichasa Post Precure
Did you know that Precure has been on the air longer than all the series in Nichiasa that aired before it combined? That’s how long Precure has been going on for. Also as of this season, Star Detective Precure, the only member of Toei Animation’s staff that has worked on every season of the show…is Mitsuru Aoyama.
With the retirement of Precure’s yuri loving nonnas, the Kamikita Twins, the only one left standing is Aoyama.
A couple of years ago, I actually documented how much Aoyama there was in Precure. I have now finally updated this spreadsheet a bit to where we are right now. At the time of writing, Aoyama has done Solo KA on every season apart from two, Healin’ Good Precure and Delicious Party Precure. Delicious Party being the only season of Precure with no Solo KA happening in it whatsoever.
There’s a lot less Solo KA happening in Precure compared to Aoyama’s peak in the 90s. One reason for this is that Aoyama went back to Character Designing, handling all of the All Stars films and even creating Cure Echo (remember her?)! Another reason is that around the time of Healin’ Good Precure, Aoyama took some rookie animators under his wing who assisted him with his episodes. Hanao Iida and Shinnosuke Tanaka both became rising stars in the industry!
Finally of course, by this point Aoyama is now getting on a bit. At the time of writing, he just turned 72 years old. The fact that even now in his 70s he’s still animating about five percent of each season of Precure on his own is still absolutely nuts. This is a man who in 2010 said he’d be done in 10 years, a man who said he’d be done by the time he’s 70. He’s still going at 72 with no signs of stopping.
Archange
There are aces in every generation and Mitsuru Aoyama is an ace animator that has kept up an extraordinary career for almost 50 years. Among Precure fans outside of Japan, he is a much maligned figure. When his name is announced in upcoming credits, I would regularly hear the groans and disappointment from people unaware of quite how incredible the work of this man is. “The graphics will be terrible”, “I hate the weird faces”, “why is he still working on the show?” are some of the comments that I would see week in week out when I read the comments from fans.
When I read the comments from Japanese fans, the comments couldn’t have possibly been more different. People who watch Aoyama would be at ease seeing his familiar wonky faces. You know the one, the one Aoyama face where they look up and have that goofy smile. That one! It’s reassuring that eventually, at some point during a Precure series, you will see those goofy smiles!
There will be a time when Aoyama, like the Kamikitas for the manga, will also finally retire and the series will be changed forever. At a time, where the production for the show is at its most tumultuous in its 22 year history, where episodes are finished days before airing (something that wouldn’t even be a possibility even in 2014, Toei’s craziest year), Aoyama’s contributions are more valued than ever before. He’s still a pillar in Precure’s rotation, even now.
I know, that for as long as he keeps animating, I will keep appreciating Mitsuru Aoyama. I hope that you do too.
But wait there’s more!
Probably because I’m obsessed with Aoyama or I haven’t gotten round to watching Combat Mecha Xabungle (one day I promise!), I neglected to mention one of the earliest of the Solo KA heroes, Nobuyoshi Sasakado. He had been in the industry since the late 60s and has credits right up to the modern day and had done over 200 episodes of Solo KA over the course of his career.
If you’re a big Saint Seiya fan, or love the Brave series (I’ve only watched Goldran and GaoGaiGar, sue me) then you’ll likely have seen Sasakado’s work!
