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is a Japanese film director, animator, screenwriter and producer who has earned critical international acclaim for his work as a director of anime films. Takahata is the co-founder of Studio Ghibli along with long-time collaborative partner Hayao Miyazaki. He has directed films such as the grim, war-themed ''Grave of the Fireflies'', the romantic drama ''Only Yesterday'', the ecological adventure ''Pom Poko'', and the comedy ''My Neighbors the Yamadas''. Unlike most anime directors, Takahata does not draw and never worked as an animator before becoming a full-fledged director. Takahata's most recent film is ''The Tale of the Princess Kaguya'', which was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Best Animated Feature Film at the 87th Academy Awards. According to Hayao Miyazaki, "Music and study are his hobbies". He was born in the same town as fellow director Kon Ichikawa, while Japanese film giant Yasujiro Ozu was raised by his father in nearby Matsusaka. ==Life and career== Takahata was born in Ujiyamada (now Ise), Mie prefecture, Japan. He survived a major US air raid on Okayama City as a child on June 29, 1945.〔Mainichi shimbun (June 17, 2015 Studio Ghibli film director Takahata reflected on war experience in 'Grave of the Fireflies' ) Retrieved June 17, 2015〕 He graduated from the University of Tokyo French literature course in 1959. Takahata was originally intrigued by animation after having seen the French animated cartoon feature ''Le Roi et l'Oiseau'' (''The King and the Mockingbird'') based on a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. He was impressed by the film, asking "Can these kind of things be done by animation?" While he was job hunting at his university, Takahata was tempted to join Toei Animation by a friend who knew the company wanted an assistant director. For fun he took the company's entrance examination as he had been originally interested in animation. When he was notified of the informal decision, he joined the company. The reason he decided to join the company was his thought that "If it was animation, I can be something interesting, too." However, there were more than ten people joining the company that same year, two recruited by Toei Animation and the surplus workers sent by Toei head office. Because of the competition, he had a hard time achieving the status of director. Takahata finally directed his first film after he was recommended for the position by Yasuo Ōtsuka, who was both his and Hayao Miyazaki's instructor. His directorial debut was ''Hols: Prince of the Sun''. ''Hols'' was a commercial failure. He was a member of the production team deemed responsible for the failure and was accordingly demoted. He also had difficulty making a new film since the remaining staff members who had not been demoted for the failure of ''Hols'' were working on a different Toei film. In 1971, to make the animated feature ''Pippi Longstocking'', Takahata left Toei Animation along with Yoichi Kotabe and Hayao Miyazaki and transferred to "A Production" (present: Shin-Ei Animation), an animation studio founded by his former superior, . They travelled to Sweden to acquire the animation rights and to hunt for locations, only to be turned away at the door by author Astrid Lindgren. Though their plan was frustrated, Miyazaki found inspiration in the fortified town of Visby and would later set both Stockholm and Visby as the stage of ''Kiki's Delivery Service''. In 1971, Takahata and Miyazaki requested to direct episodes seven and onward of the first ''Lupin III'' TV series anime,〔(Lupin III // Nausicaa.net )〕 due to the low ratings and, for the time, exceptionally high levels of sex and violence in the initial episodes directed by Masaaki Osumi.〔(Conversations on Ghibli: Movie Night - Lupin III 1x01 )〕 Since the animation director was Yasuo Ōtsuka, an old acquaintance, they accepted the offer under the condition that "the names of the two people were not released, and direction was credited only to 'A production directors group.'" Unlike Miyazaki, he did not participate in the second series, though his directing in the original was well received. Later in 1971 Zuiyo Enterprise invited Takahata, Kotabe and Miyazaki to direct an animated series of the novel ''Heidi'' and all three took the offer. The result was ''Heidi, Girl of the Alps''. Afterwards, when the production section of Zuiyo was established as a subsidiary company of the animated cartoon production of Zuiyo Eizo (present: Nippon Animation), they both joined the company. On the picture side, animators drew carefully the nature of Europe and a change of season, and the everyday life of people on location in Switzerland. On the other hand, on the story side, Takahata made the animation version easy to accept by thinning a Christian element of the original besides the earnest Christian (especially, in the latter half). ''3000 Leagues in Search of Mother'' generally followed the original story it was based on, but because the story was less than 100 pages, Takahata himself created many additional episodes and characters. He portrayed the protagonist Marco as an independent child who did not care to flatter adults, and the adults as the ones who committed the crime even if they were relatively good people. In so doing, he brought the world of the anime closer to reality. Takahata directed ''Anne of Green Gables'' along the lines of the original story, but he gave it further depth by portraying the relationship between Marilla and Anne as para-parenthood, something not suggested by the original. In ''Jarinko Chie'', ''じゃりん子チエ'' (meaning ''Chie the Brat'') in 1981, Yasuo Otsuka who belonged to Tokyo Movie Shinsha/Telecom Animation Film Co., Ltd. offered Miyazaki, a Telecom colleague, to turn this comic into an animated cartoon, but he refused. Therefore, Otsuka consulted Takahata, but he also expressed disapproval first. However, Takahata who had visited Osaka (which was the stage for the story) felt that the world drawn in the comic was actually there. He took the request, left Nippon Animation, and moved to Telecom. This work, which paired Yasuo Otsuka and Yoichi Kotabe, was praised and settled for a TV animation series because it got a favorable reception, and Takahata became the chief director. In 1982, Takahata was elected the director of ''Little Nemo'' — the work that tried to be produced so that Telecom could move to the United States. With Miyazaki and Otsuka, who started at Telecom earlier, Takahata went to America, but the discord between in the Japan-U.S. difference in production technique, meant Takahata resigned and left Telecom. Miyazaki and others followed him. On the other hand, the cultural exchange was born between Japanese animator and seniors of Disney who had been cooperating in this project. Afterward, Takahata was invited by Miyazaki to join his animation production company Studio Ghibli after the success of Miyazaki's ''Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind''. The first movie directed by Takahata for Ghibli was ''Grave of the Fireflies''. The film was widely acclaimed by film critics, like prominent and influential film critic Roger Ebert who considered it "one of the greatest war films ever made". In ''Kiki's Delivery Service'', Takahata did the music direction for Miyazaki. Takahata was awarded the Special Award at the Kobe Animation Awards on November 4, 2007. After more than ten years in November 2013 his latest movie ''Kaguya-hime no Monogatari'' was released, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Isao Takahata」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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