was a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

animator. From 1965 until his death he completed at least 37 short subject films in a wide variety of

mediums Mediumship is the practice of purportedly mediating communication between familiar spirits or spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known as "mediums" or "spirit mediums". There are different types of mediumship or spir ...

, many of them winning award-winning, his honorific nicknamed "

Sheldon Cohen Sheldon Cohen (born October 11, 1947) is the Robert E. Doherty University Professor of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. He is the director of the Laboratory for the Study of Stress, Immunity and Disease. He is a member of the Depart ...

and Hans Fischerkoesen of Japan".

Career and legacy

Eight of his films have been awarded the

Ōfuji Noburō Award The is an animation award given at the Mainichi Film Awards. It is named after Japanese animator Noburō Ōfuji. History Following the death of pioneering animator Noburō Ōfuji in 1961, Mainichi established a new award in his honour to recogni ...

at the

Mainichi Film Award The are a series of annual film awards, sponsored by Mainichi Shinbun (毎日新聞), one of the largest newspaper companies in Japan, since 1946. It is the first film festival in Japan. History The origins of the contest date back to 1935, ...

s (more than any other

director Director may refer to: Literature * ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine * ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker * ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty Music * Director (band), an Irish rock band * ''D ...

in the history of the prize) and his films have altogether earned at least 24 other awards internationally. His work is also the subject a two-hour-long documentary ''The Magic Ballet'', released in 1990, and in 2003 four of his films placed in a list of the best 150 animated films and series as voted for by practitioners and critics of animation from around the world in a survey commissioned by

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

's Laputa Animation Festival: most notably with , which came twenty-eighth. After working at MOM Productions, known for its

stop motion Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...

work for

Rankin/Bass Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment (founded and formerly known as Videocraft International, Ltd. and Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc.) was an American production company located in New York City, and known for its seasonal television specials, usual ...

, he founded his own

production company A production company, production house, production studio, or a production team is a studio that creates works in the fields of performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, comics, interactive arts, video games, websites, music, and v ...

, Echo Incorporated, in 1964, and soon after made a trip to visit

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places * Czech, ...

animator and director

Břetislav Pojar Břetislav Pojar (7 October 192312 October 2012) was a Czech puppeteer, animator and director of short and feature films. Born in Sušice, Czechoslovakia, Pojar started his career in the late 1940s with his work on ''The Story of the Bass Cello'' ...

. One of his last films, , was commissioned and broadcast across the nation by

NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...

, the national

public broadcasting Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...

organization of Japan, as one of their ''

Minna no Uta , literally ''Everyone's Songs'' (English title: ''Songs for Everyone''), is a five-minute NHK TV and radio program which is broadcast several times daily. The program started on April 3, 1961. It is one of NHK's long-running programs. The pr ...

interstitial program In television programming, an interstitial television show (or wraparound program or wraparound segment) refers to a short program that is often shown between movies or other events, e.g. cast interviews after movies on premium channels. The t ...

s. He died during the production of , an adaptation of the

Kenji Miyazawa was a Japanese novelist and poet of children's literature from Hanamaki, Iwate, in the late Taishō and early Shōwa periods. He was also known as an agricultural science teacher, a vegetarian, cellist, devout Buddhist, and utopian social act ...

story of the same name for which he enlisted the talents of

Reiko Okuyama , née, was a Japanese animator, notable for being one of the first female Japanese animators. She has also been credited as and . The 2019 asadora Natsuzora is loosely based on her life and career. Early life Okuyama spent much of her early li ...

, a former Tōei Dōga animator and

animation director An animation director is either the director in charge of all aspects of the animation process during the production of an animated film or television, and animated segment for a live action film or television show, or the animator in charge of co ...

who had for many years abandoned animation in favour of illustration, including copperplate

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...

, to aid in realising the engraving-inspired visual style envisioned for the film. Posthumously completed under the supervision of

Kihachirō Kawamoto was a Japanese puppet designer and maker, Independent film, independent film director, screenwriter and animator and president (corporate title), president of the Japan Animation Association from 1989, succeeding founder Osamu Tezuka, until his ...

, it débuted in 1991 and was awarded with, amongst others, that year's Ōfuji Noburō and Minister of Education prizes (the latter being an NHK Japan Prize for achievement in an audiovisual work relevant to primary education) and prompted a special lifetime achievement Mainichi Film Award for Okamoto.

Home media

A selection of Okamoto's films was released on Laserdisc on August 24, 1986 and re-released on September 25, 1994. A more complete collection was released across three DVD-Video discs on June 24, 2009: these were available separately or as a box set, exclusive to which there was a fourth disc of additional materials such as

university A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

and

advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...

work.

Filmography

* ''Fushigi na Kusuri'' (ふしぎなくすり, ''The Mysterious Medicine'', 1965) * ''Kitsutsuki Keikaku'' (キツツキ計画, ''The Woodpecker Plan'', 1966) * ''Hana to Mogura'' (花ともぐら, 1970) * ''12-gatsu no uta'' (12月のうた, ''December Song'', 1971) * ''Chikotan'' (チコタン, 1971) * ''Nanmu Ichibyō Sokusai'' (南無一病息災, 1973) * ''Mizu no Tane'' (水のたね, 1975) * ''Frypan Jiisan'' (ふらいぱんじいさん, 1981) * ''Metropolitan Museum'' (メトロポリタンミュージアム, 1984) * ''Chūmon no Ōi Ryōriten'' (注文の多い料理店, ''The Restaurant of Many Orders'', 1993), based on Kenji Miyazawa

References

External links

Tadanari Okamoto
at Anido Web Page * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Okamoto, Tadanari Anime directors Japanese animators Japanese film directors Japanese film producers Japanese animated film directors Japanese animated film producers 1932 births People from Toyonaka, Osaka 1990 deaths Osaka University alumni

Career and legacy

Home media

Filmography

See also

References

External links