A long interview with animator Satoru Fujimoto! (The 14th "Inside Man" of Anime and Games)

This series brings you the real voices of the animation and game industry. In this 14th installment, we introduce animator Satoru Fujimoto. Mr. Fujimoto is the chief animation director for "Shugo Chara! He is a veteran animator who served as chief animation director for "Shugo Chara! He has also worked on "Sketchbook - full color's," "ARIA The Origin," "Tamayura - hitotose," "Croisee in a Foreign Labyrinth," and "Girls und Panzer: The Movie" as an animation director, and has a long list of achievements in the field of bishojo animation. In this interview, he talks about his influences, his career, his commitment to his work, the qualities and abilities required of animators, and his future goals.

Sailor Moon" sparked my interest in supervising and directing.

Thank you very much for joining us today. First of all, what works have influenced you, Mr. Fujimoto?

Satoru Fujimoto (SATORU FUJIMOTO): I used to watch only "Space Battleship Yamato" (1974-75) and "Mobile Suit Gundam" (1979-80) when I was a child, although they were reruns. I am from Shizuoka, where there were not many anime broadcasts, and at that time there were no late-night programs. I was fascinated by "Yamato," which was on reruns.

Did watching "Yamato" make you yearn to be an animator?

Fujimoto: No. At first, I thought that the manga artist himself was drawing the animation. So I wanted to be a cartoonist too, and I drew cartoons all the way up to junior high school.

When I read in a magazine that animators were drawing animation, I was surprised to see how similar they could make their drawings. I was surprised. At the time, there was a TV special on animators, and I used to draw Doraemon at school. The day after the special was broadcast, I was told by my classmates that I was much better than them, which made me very depressed (laughs).

(Laughs.) I was very depressed because I had drawn "High School! Kiwengumi" (1985), I started to get hooked on animators. I noticed that the pictures were different depending on the number of episodes and scenes, and there were characteristic pictures, which differed considerably depending on the person in charge of drawing the pictures.

By the first or second year of high school, I had already grown up to be a great drawing otaku. On the day "Sailor Moon" (1992-93) aired, I would dash home, thinking, "Today is Ikuko Ito's supervised drawing session, so I have to go home early! I had to dash home.

Judo Club in High School, Fisheries Department at University

Fujimoto: Did your dream change from being a cartoonist to becoming an animator in high school?

Fujimoto: Well, I hardly drew any pictures in high school. I wanted to be strong, so I joined a very strong judo club. We practiced from 6:00 in the morning and until 10:00 p.m. at night, and did nothing but club activities. After returning home, I watched anime until late at night (laughs).

So you were an athletic high school student. What did you do after graduation?

Fujimoto: This is a bit of a leap forward, but I entered the Fisheries University of Yamaguchi Prefecture. My parents wanted me to go to college, so I went there looking for a national university with low tuition fees, while still having some part of me that wanted to be a manga artist. There I studied to become a sailor.

At the university, there was an on-board training program, and while I was on the ship, I had nothing to do. There was no internet, no newspapers, no magazines, and the only videos I had were anime videos left behind by my seniors. I had nothing else to do, so I spent the entire time on the ship watching anime and drawing pictures.

I am sorry to say this to my parents, but I had some money that I earned from their remittances and part-time jobs, so I even formed an animation club. For four years in college, I watched anime with my classmates and exchanged opinions, contributed to magazines, and so on.

So even though you majored in different fields of study, you were immersed in anime during your college years.

Fujimoto: I started watching anime as a director or director in college. I noticed that the interesting episodes of "Sailor Moon" were always directed by someone with the same name. So I wondered what the directors were doing, and paid attention to Junichi Sato and Kunihiko Ikuhara.

I also noticed that all of my favorite animations were made by Toei Animation. I don't know how I can say this, being at Satellite (laughs). (laugh) From there, my admiration for Toei grew, and I began to think that I wanted to become an animator.

Practical work on the day of the entrance examination

What kind of job hunting did you do after you gave up your career as a sailor?

Fujimoto: At first I thought that after graduation I would either draw manga, edit manga, or edit an animation magazine. When I was in my third year of college, I went to a game convention and visited a publishing company in Tokyo, and I told the editor there that I wanted to enter the manga industry. But the editor there told me that I shouldn't do that because he didn't know if the company would still be around in three years (laughs). By the time I was in my fourth year of college, I had narrowed down my decision to become an animator. I had given up after not getting any results with my manga submissions...which is no surprise, now that I think about it, since I wasn't making much of an effort.

And then you became an animator at Toei?

Fujimoto: No, not at all. At the time, I didn't know that Toei had a vocational school (Toei Animation Institute, which closed in March 2011), so I just looked in magazines to find out how to become an animator and enrolled in Yoyogi Animation Academy. When my teacher there asked me, "Why didn't you go to Toei?" I thought, "Oh my God! I thought, "Oh my God!

What was the first studio you joined?

Fujimoto: I was in trouble with my parents, so I looked for a place with a fixed salary, and I joined Janguru Jim. The fixed salary was 75,000 yen, so I didn't have to worry about the pay, but the workload was strictly set. For "Crayon Shin-chan" (1992~), I was told to draw 80 movies a day, and for "Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Koen Mae Hashutsujo" (1996~2004), I was told to draw 50 pictures a day. 50 pictures a day would be 1,200 to 1,300 pictures a month, so the best part was that I could train my speed there.

What was your first job?

Fujimoto: A video for "THE Big O" (1999-2000, 2003). I took a job at Janguru Jimu on the first day of the job tour. During the interview, I was told, "If you start working for us today, we'll hire you," and I was suddenly put into practice. For the next three days, I was allowed to work from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. I was so excited that I finally got an animation job! I remember I was shaking with excitement. It was not until 10 years later that I realized that the job was for no pay (laughs).

Under the guidance of Kazuhiro Ota, I became an original picture man.

When did you start working as an original picture man?

Fujimoto: About a year after I had been working at Janguru Jimu, a friend of mine told me that if I came to A.P.P., I could do original drawings. At the time, I was leading a double life, working at Janguru Jimu from 9:00 to 18:00 and at A.P.P.P. from 19:00 to 23:00. I was nearing the end of my physical strength, and the original picture exam was about to start, so I quit Jungle Jim and moved to A.P.P.P. But in the end, the original picture exam did not take place. But in the end, the original picture exam was not held, and I worked there for about a year and a half doing animation again.

At first, when I brought my L/O (layout) to the great people, they didn't take me seriously. But when I was feeling down, Kazuhiro Ota, my senior, said, "Well, I'll take a look at it," and he taught me from the beginning. Then I was able to successfully move up to the original picture, and I worked at A.P.P.P. for about two years as an original picture artist.

So Mr. Ota was your mentor.

Fujimoto: Thanks to Mr. Ota, I can't say that I became a full-fledged artist, but I think I was able to just barely make a living.

What was the name of your first original work?

Fujimoto: I was working on various projects at the same time, so I can't remember which one was the first... "Aimaimi! Strawberry Egg" (2001), I think.