Person: Ootsuka Yasuo

Ootsuka Yasuo, born July 11, 1931, in Shimane Prefecture, Japan, was an animator who worked with Toei Animation, A Production, and Telecom Animation Film.

Prior to becoming an animator, Ootsuka worked in the Kantou Koshinnetsu district drug enforcement office at the Ministry of Health and Welfare. As a member of the support staff (a so-called "Drug G-man"), he was responsible for the seizure of drugs and was required to operate and maintain a handgun. During his tenure as a Drug G-man, Ootsuka would see the release of two types of firearms that later would show up in his animations: the Beretta and the Colt Government - both appearing in (appearing in the Lupin III series (the former used by Fujiko Mine and the latter by Inspector Zenigata).

Ootsuka was proficient in both English and Chinese. Besides being an animator, he was a world-famous collector of Jeeps.

Ootsuka first started drawing as a small child when he saw trains carrying soldiers off to the war. He was so enamoured with trains that he continued drawing them with greater and greater detail as he aged. This led to a fascination with the machinery that is pervasive throughout much of his anime work.

He entered "Yamaguchi prefectural Yamaguchi industrial junior high school (old system junior high school of five year system) Engineering works department" founded in World War II. He faced the end of the war when was in Shimonoseki City, Yamaguchi in the student going to the front. Although he was able to take the qualification of graduate of a high school of the current system if going to the school during another year, he went out into the world, obtaining only the qualification of a junior high school graduate. He failed to live up to his father's expectation.

In 1956, Ootsuka found the newspaper article that the production of the cartoon movie "Madame White Snake" was decided to Toei. Then, he visited Nihon Douga (=Japan Animation) company that became the basis of inauguration of Toei Douga, and took the test. The people representing the Japanese animation field such as Mori Yasuji at that time received him, and the result of the examination was passing. He was one of the Toei animators involved in experimenting with frame-rate modulation in animation. This experimentation lead to what is commonly called the "money shot" style, where more important scenes are animated more fully than others. He practiced animation while going to work, and was finally temporarily employed as one of the first employees of Toei Douga. However, unless they did overtime work after finishing the task twice or more the regular employment group, they were not able to live because the salary of the temporary employment group was a half of the regular employment group.

In addition he was a mentor to both Miyazaki Hayao and Takahata Isao and worked with them on many of their early projects. Although he had the chance to do directing work several times, he refused it. Possibly, it is because he witnessed that Takahata Isao faced difficulties during the production of Hols: Prince of the Sun. In a documentary about him, he stated that he revered Takahata's ability as the director in Hols. And, he felt that his ability was insufficient by comparison.

Ootsuka ran a school for animators in Japan, and Studio Ghibli produced a documentary about the animator titled Yasuo Ootsuka's Joy of Animating.