Yasuomi Umezu, who is currently working on a new animated film, talks about "the past" and "the future" [Watching the Animation Industry No. 85

Animator Yasuomi Umezu, who made a name for himself in the late 1980s with his character designs for "Megazone 23 Part II: Secret, Please" and directed the "A KITE" series, which became very popular overseas as well. This year, he storyboarded and directed the opening of the "Bishonen Tanteidan" anime, once again impressing with his stylish visual sense. Mr. Umezu is said to be working on a new film.
While we cannot go into details about his new work, we asked him to look back on the path he has taken to date and what his thoughts have been on anime productions.

I wanted to draw this character," he said, "so I drew the original drawings for "Genma Taisen.

─ ─ I would like to ask you in chronological order, but I heard that you first joined Tsuchida Productions after graduating from Chiyoda Institute of Technology and Arts.

Umetsu: When I graduated from the technical college, I had no job lined up. I was in trouble, so I consulted with my teacher in charge of my department, and he introduced me to Tsuchida Productions, saying, "I know Tsuchida Productions. However, I didn't really fit in with Tsuchida Productions in terms of picture quality, so I was doing in-house work for another company. Moreover, I was working right next to the in-house supervising animator (animation director), who was working right there, and I was standing right next to him, not taking offense (laughter). What are you doing, Mr. Umezu? I answered matter-of-factly, "This is Toei's work." One day, I was summoned to the rooftop by some of the women who were finishing up the employees and working on the movie, and when I went up there, excited, wondering what it was like to be summoned by so many girls, they hung me up and said, "What are you thinking? I was called up to the rooftop by the women in the video and asked "What are you thinking? I was the worst new employee ever, and I regretted it.

─ I heard that you quit Tsuchida Productions soon after.

Umezu Yes, I left after only one or two months because I felt I had reached my limits, and I joined Toei Doga (now Toei Animation). At first, I was in charge of moving images, and became a moving image inspector for "My Youth in Arcadia" (1982) and a second original artist for "Spider-Man" (1981), a joint production with the United States. Masami Suda, who passed away this year, was in the same room with me, and he taught me how to draw original drawings and how to make the movements more vivid, which was a great learning experience.
Eventually, I was able to create "Stop! Hibari-kun! (1983), I was selected as a production supervisor. I was only about 23 years old at the time, so my seniors were very critical of me and told me that "the stake that sticks out gets hammered down" (laughs). (laugh). At that time, many people at Toei Doga had a craftsman's spirit, just like in the world of live-action films. When I was getting a little uncomfortable, I heard about "Genma Taisen" (1983) and decided that I would love to draw the characters of Katsuhiro Otomo, so I moved to Madhouse.

───Since then, you have participated in a succession of Madhouse theater productions.

Umezu: I did the original drawings for "SF New Century Lensman" (1984), "The Sword of Kamui" (1985), and "Time Traveler" (1986).

─ In "Lensman," you drew the scene in which the main character Kim makes his first appearance aboard a small spaceship. What scene did you draw in "Genma Taisen"?

Umetsu: The scene where the main character, Jyou, is listening to music on a boom box and his sister brings him a cup of coffee, and the scene where the black boy, Sonny, is crying in New York City, running away from a huge fireball. In "Kamui no Ken," the heroine Oyuki appears on a ship in rough seas and fights the hero Jiro underwater, and Oyuki is stabbed to death by the villain Tenkai.

──This was right around the time you attracted attention for your character designs for "Megazone 23 Part II: The Secret" (1986).

Umetsu: After participating in "Megazone 23" (1985) as an original artist, I was asked to design the bikers in "Part II. It was my first time to create original characters, so I ended up having a lot of fun and drew the main characters as well. I showed the sketches to AIC presidents Toru Miura and Ichiro Itano, and they said, "Let's use the same design for all the characters. Therefore, I went to Toshihiro Hirano (now Toshitaka), who designed the characters in the previous work, to apologize to him, as well as to explain in advance that we were going to change the design.

──It was the following year that you made your directorial debut with "Presence," an episode of the OVA "Robot Carnival" (1987). What made you decide to direct it?

Umezu: Hiroyuki Kitakubo brought Katsuhiro Otomo and other famous animators together and asked them, "Why don't you join us, Ume-chan? Umezu: At the time, Kitakubo was the first person to ask me if I wanted to participate. At that time, Mr. Kitakubo was playing the role of producer, and he was very active. For my part, I was disappointed that I could not fulfill my duties as animation director for "Megazone 23 Part II" in a satisfactory manner, and that the film was released in theaters and packaged without any character development. I was so frustrated that I decided to make my directorial debut, partly as a way to make up for my failure.

─ The following year, "AKIRA" (1988) attracted a distinguished animation staff.

Umetsu: In the scene where Kaneda yells at Tetsuo, "Put a "san" in front of you, you dekosuke bastard! and yells at Tetsuo. The other animators were very good, and I regret that I should have been more persistent, studied harder, and hungrily pursued the scene myself (......), but I think I did a good job with that cut. I like it myself.

───At that time, you were not an employee of Madhouse, were you?

Umezu: Mr. Maruyama (Masao) of Madhouse saw my supervised production of "Hibari-kun" and called me in, but since I was not an employee of Madhouse, he was not angry with me even though I was working for another company. I was not an employee, so he did not get angry at me for doing work for other companies. I took the stance of approaching the work I wanted to do, rather than waiting to be called somewhere else.