R.I.P. Osamu Dezaki 1943-2011

Renato · April 20, 2011

(This was very briefly discussed in the Current Anime thread, but since he is such a big name, I figured he deserved his own thread).

Another of the greats has left us.

Dezaki is survived by his older brother, Satoshi (who incidentally, is also an animator and founded the studio "Magic Bus"). Dezaki-sensei was right there at the very start of the TV animation industry in the early 60s, working on Astroboy over at Mushi Productions. Eventually he became director of Ashita no Joe, and had a string of hits under his belt during the 70s, like Ace o Nerae/ Aim for the Ace, Versailles no Bara / Rose of Versailles, Ie naki ko / The Boy without a Home, Takarajima / Treasure Island, Moomin, Ganba no bouken / Adventure of Gamba, etc. Then of course, there's the Tokyo Movie Shinsha period, highlighted by his work on Lupin III and Space Adventure Cobra. He was also co-founder of Madhouse Studio.

Oh, and he worked on Mighty Orbots, The Bionic Six and Visionaries to boot.

From what I heard on Monday, he had just established a new animation studio only a few days ago. At 67, he was gone far to soon, and his passing serves as a reminder of how great, yet how fragile the minds which created this industry are, and is a wake-up call to have the rich history of Japanese animation archived properly as soon as possible.

EDIT -- I suppose I ought to put a couple of reference links here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osamu_Dezaki

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%87%BA%E5%B4%8E%E7%B5%B1 (JP)

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2011-04-17/anime-director-osamu-dezaki-passes-away

Edited April 20, 2011 by Renato