42 Facts About Mitsuo Iso

Mitsuo Iso worked as a freelance artist through Neomedia, Studio Zaendo, and Studio Ghibli.

Mitsuo Iso joined the 1988 film Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack.

Mitsuo Iso was credited as a key animator under both his real name and pen name Mikio Odagawa, and served as mechanical animation director under the name Odagawa.

The scenes Mitsuo Iso drew in what he called a 'full-limited' manner shocked animators of the time, so much so that a collection of copies of key animations was circulated.

Mitsuo Iso was recruited directly by Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli, who saw his work on the television film Like the Clouds, Like the Wind, which many Ghibli staff participated in.

Mitsuo Iso drew keyframes in Only Yesterday, Porco Rosso, Ocean Waves.

Mitsuo Iso joined Roujin Z, based on Katsuhiro Otomo's manga, as a mechanical animation director at the request of director Hiroyuki Kitakubo.

Mitsuo Iso then joined in the omnibus animation film Memories, for which Katsuhiro Otomo was the executive producer and general director.

Mitsuo Iso participated in the planning meetings for Morimoto's Noiseman Sound Insect.

Mitsuo Iso joined the Neon Genesis Evangelion television series and the film.

Mitsuo Iso initially joined the project as an animator, but the storyline from the middle of the series onwards was largely undefined at that point.

Mitsuo Iso created the supplementary settings for episodes 13 and 15, including the design of Lilith and Seele marks, rough sketches of underground facilities, etc.

Apart from those, Mitsuo Iso provided settings and ideas for the entire series, albeit uncredited, and many of the dialogues and plots he created were used in the middle and later episodes of the TV series.

Mitsuo Iso worked with director Kazuya Tsurumaki for about six months on a preliminary project, titled Furi Chiru.

Mitsuo Iso joined Blood: The Last Vampire, which marked the beginning of the trend towards digital animation production in Japan.

Mitsuo Iso worked in visual effects as well as key animation.

Mitsuo Iso negotiated directly with director Hiroyuki Kitakubo and accepted the key animation on condition that he would handle the entire process, including visual effects and cinematography.

Mitsuo Iso then completed all of his own keyframe parts using self-taught After Effects.

In RahXephon, Mitsuo Iso worked as Digital Works and cinematographer positions throughout this television series.

Mitsuo Iso decided to join the work on the condition that he would work on an entire episode by himself.

In 2007, Mitsuo Iso directed his first animated television series, Denno Coil.

Mitsuo Iso wrote the original story and the screenplay for all the episodes, and won the Nihon SF Taisho Award and the Seiun Award as a science fiction writer.

Mitsuo Iso announced the production of The Orbital Children in 2018, and began full-scale production of the film in 2020.

Mitsuo Iso wrote the original story and screenplay for the work, and directed it.

Mitsuo Iso is known for his jerky yet detailed animation, full of dense sophisticated motion.

Mitsuo Iso refers to his own style as "full limited".

Mitsuo Iso's idea of "full limited" is a method for controlling the image from the animator's standpoint, and he has the calculation that if he draws everything in key animation, the timesheets will not be modified by the director.

Mitsuo Iso is one of the animators who played a central role in the movement from the late 1980s to the 1990s, when the expression of "realistic" animation matured in the Japanese animation industry.

Mitsuo Iso has changed the technique of animation and has done so many times.

Mitsuo Iso has pioneered new expressions in animation with movements that give a sense of the mass and inertia of objects, and effects such as explosions, smoke and flames, and has influenced many creators.

Mitsuo Iso's drawings are very realistic and photorealistic, and the reality of his movements comes from his thorough, scientific observation.

Mitsuo Iso's drawing philosophy of building up a series of possible phenomena on the screen had a major influence on later realistic drawing.

Under directors with varied artistic backgrounds, including Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, Yoshiyuki Tomino, Hideaki Anno, Satoshi Kon and Katsuhiro Otomo, Mitsuo Iso has worked not only as a key animator but in various positions, including animation director, scriptwriter, mechanical and firearms designer, digital works, setting development and visual effects.

Mitsuo Iso has covered a wide variety of genres and professions, and has demonstrated his talent in each of them.

Mitsuo Iso has a consistent orientation of wanting to dig deep and touch something that lies at the root of a work, even if it is someone else's work.

Every time Mitsuo Iso makes a new work, he takes on a new role other than animator, such as screenplay for Evangelion, cinematographer for Blood: The Last Vampire, and direction for RahXephon, new techniques such as digital animation, computer graphics, and special effects, new drawing tools and software.

Mitsuo Iso was one of the first animators to actively adopt digital technology, and when the animation production system shifted from analogue to digital, he even began to work with cinematography.

Mitsuo Iso used to write the scales on paper and hand them over to the cinematographer during the analogue animation era, but after digital animation he controls them himself in After Effects.

Mitsuo Iso is a director who can create all the ideas for producing an animation work by himself, including visual aspects such as character, mechanic and prop design.

Mitsuo Iso is involved in almost every step of the director's work, including the original, and controls everything himself.

Unlike when working as an animator, Mitsuo Iso focuses more on dialogue and story development and does not try to move the animation too much.

Mitsuo Iso makes as many variations of the story as possible when creating original works.