Noboru Ishiguro

For the Japanese Olympic athlete, see Noboru Ishiguro (athlete).
Noboru Ishiguro
石黒 昇
Ishiguro at Otakon 2009
Born(1938-03-24)24 March 1938
Tokyo, Japan
Died20 March 2012(2012-03-20) (aged 73)
Saiwai, Kawasaki, Japan
Occupations
Years active1958–2012
Known forFounder of Artland
Notable workSpace Battleship Yamato series, Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Megazone 23 and Legend of the Galactic Heroes series
SpouseYumi Ishiguro

Noboru Ishiguro (石黒 昇, Ishiguro Noboru, August 24, 1938 – March 20, 2012) was a Japanese anime director, anime producer, and animator.[1] He was the founder and chairman of the animation studio Artland.[1]

Ishiguro is an anime director who has been active in the Japanese animation industry since the 1970s. His representative works include Space Battleship Yamato, Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Megazone 23 and Legend of the Galactic Heroes.[2][3]

As a director, he did not emphasize his own style, and instead entrusted important positions to talented and motivated people, regardless of their career.[4]

For Super Dimension Fortress Macross and Megazone 23, he selected young artists such as Haruhiko Mikimoto, Ichirō Itano, and Toshihiro Hirano (currently Toshiki Hirano), most of whom were amateurs except for Itano, and placed them at the core of the production to create works of youthful sensibility.[4][5] Hiroyuki Yamaga and Hideaki Anno of later Gainax, who were still in college, also joined as part-time workers.[5] They only gathered at Artland for about three years, but many of them got their break through with Macross, and later became representative of Japanese animation.[5]

Ishiguro became interested in the animation industry after seeing Disney's animated feature film Sleeping Beauty.[6] As an animator, he specializes in effects animation and has made it widely known to the Japanese animation industry that such techniques exist.[6] In Space Battleship Yamato, he worked on many of the effects scenes, which was one of the factors that made the work so special.[6] These techniques were then passed on to Ichiro Itano and Hideaki Anno.[6] Anno refers to himself as a "third generation" in the lineage of Ishiguro and Itano's realism-based effects.[7] These animators, along with Yoshinori Kanada, have led the Japanese animation industry by positioning the effects animator in animation as the F/X or VFX creative director in live action.[7]

Ishiguro was good at music, especially classical music, and was one of the few directors in the anime industry who could read music.[8] His participation in the Space Battleship Yamato project was due to the fact that he was favored by producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki, who had musical experience.[8] He also used classical music as background music for the fleet battle scenes with space battleships in Legend of the Galactic Heroes.[8]

Ishiguro was a science fiction enthusiast, and the success of Space Battleship Yamato was greatly influenced by Ishiguro's sci-fi imagination in terms of visuals.[6]

  1. ^ a b "Noboru Ishiguro's Yamato 2 Memories". THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE OF THE BLAZERS ANIMATED SERIES. Archived from the original on June 12, 2012. Retrieved May 15, 2024.
  2. ^ Hikawa, Ryusuke (March 28, 2012). "Interview 第3回 石黒 昇 (総監督)" [Interview No. 3 Noboru Ishiguro (General Director)]. Legend of the Galactic Heroes on the web (in Japanese). Tokuma Shoten. Retrieved May 15, 2024.
  3. ^ "演出家・石黒昇さん逝去 ヤマト、マクロス、銀河英雄伝説で活躍" [Director Noboru Ishiguro, who was active in Yamato, Macross, and Legend of the Galactic Heroes, passes away]. Anime!Anime! (in Japanese). iid. March 21, 2012. Retrieved May 15, 2024.
  4. ^ a b Zusetsu Terebi Anime Zensho 1999, p. 370.
  5. ^ a b c "プロダクション探訪 第2回 アートランド (後編)" [Exploring Production Vol. 2: Artland (Part 2)]. Web Anime Style (in Japanese). Style. January 10, 2007. Retrieved May 15, 2024.
  6. ^ a b c d e Hikawa, Ryusuke (March 28, 2012). "『超時空要塞マクロス』の石黒昇監督、ご逝去を悼む" [I mourn the passing of Noboru Ishiguro, director of The Super Dimension Fortress Macross]. Anime!Anime! (in Japanese). iid. Retrieved May 15, 2024.
  7. ^ a b Sudo, Tadashi (October 30, 2014). "庵野秀明が自身のキャリアを振り返る! アニメーター編】師匠でもある天才・宮崎駿の仕事を大いに語る! Part2" [Hideaki Anno looks back on his career! Animator Edition] He talks a lot about the work of the genius Hayao Miyazaki, who is also his mentor! Part 2] (in Japanese). Movie Walker. Retrieved May 15, 2024.
  8. ^ a b c "【明田川進の「音物語」】第6回 OVA「銀河英雄伝説」のBGMにクラシック音楽を使った意外なきっかけ" [Susumu Aketagawa's "Sound Story" No.6 The Unexpected Reason for Using Classical Music as the BGM for the OVA The Legend of the Galactic Heroes]. Anime Hack (in Japanese). eiga.com. June 13, 2018. Retrieved May 15, 2024.