Mitsuo Iso

Mitsuo Iso (磯 光雄) is a Japanese animator, director.

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

When he participates in anime works as an animator, he sometimes uses aliases such as Mikio Odagawa and Hideo Tateda, or does not give his name.

Iso is known for his offbeat key animation in the prologue of Gundam 0080, large portions of Asuka's battle in The End of Evangelion and the first half of the tank battle in Ghost in the Shell.

As a director, Den-noh Coil, a science fiction TV Animation series for which he wrote the original story and screenplay, storyboarded and directed, won the 29th Nihon SF Taisho Award, the 39th Seiun Award Best Dramatic Presentation, the Japan Media Arts Festival Animation Division Excellence Award, and the 7th Tokyo Anime Award TV Animation Division Excellence Award.

After dropping out of university, Iso began working as an animator in the mid-1980s.

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

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

The battle scene at the beginning of the 1989 OVA Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket made a strong impression on the anime industry and anime fans about Iso.

The scenes 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.

Director Fumihiko Takayama gave him the opportunity to do some niche design work, and he designed some of the mechanics and military equipment.

He was with Studio Ghibli from 1990-1992.

He was recruited directly by Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli, who saw his work on the television film Like the Clouds, Like the Wind (1990), which many Ghibli staff participated in.

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

Iso joined Roujin Z (1991), based on Katsuhiro Otomo's manga, as a mechanical animation director at the request of director Hiroyuki Kitakubo.

However, he was not involved in the actual production as he was asked to participate in Only Yesterday at the meeting stage.

He then only worked on additional designs at the request of Kitakubo.

After leaving Ghibli, he lived in Shanghai for four months to work on Madhouse's OVA Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals.

He then joined in the omnibus animation film Memories (1995), for which Katsuhiro Otomo was the executive producer and general director.

He received an offer from Studio 4°C to work on props for Episode 1: Magnetic Rose, directed by Kōji Morimoto.

Iso joined the Neon Genesis Evangelion television series (1995-1996) and the film (1997).

As an animator, he drew scenes for episodes 1 and 19 of the TV series, episode 21 of the video format version, and the movie The End of Evangelion (episode 25 of the video version).

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

So he came up with various plots and ideas and proposed them to director Hideaki Anno.

His plot for episode 13 was then adopted, and he co-wrote the script with Anno and screenwriter Akio Satsukawa.

Iso also 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, Iso also 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.

Iso's idea for the plot of the last episode was not adopted, so he diverted part of it to the final episode of Den-noh Coil.

In Ghost in the Shell (1995), he not only drew the key animations, but also designed all the firearms.

As an animator, Iso was in charge of the shoot-out at the museum between the main character Motoko Kusanagi and the multi-legged tank.

In order to draw the spider-like tank, he actually captured a live spider and placed it in a beaker to observe its complex leg movements, centre of gravity shifts and other behaviour all day.

The layouts were filled with detailed explanations, instructions and requests to the art direction, and sometimes this was not enough, so he went directly to the art director for explanations and meetings.

He also participated in the planning meetings for Morimoto's Noiseman Sound Insect (1997).

In FLCL (2000), he drew the key animations.

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

Some of his ideas were adopted, but the project itself was never realised.

This is because Iso created most of the settings and storylines, although Tsurumaki came up with the terminology and character names.

Iso joined Blood: The Last Vampire (2000), which marked the beginning of the trend towards digital animation production in Japan.

He worked in visual effects as well as key animation.

He 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 (digital compositing).