LA Cinema Youth » Blog Archive

Takuji Endo

I swear I haven’t abandoned you guys, but I’ve been focusing on Fangoria recently. One project I’m putting the finishing touches on seems to have ballooned into a multi-page epic. My, my…

Nicholas sent me some sad news today. While I had never known Takuji Endo by name, it appears as though I’ve encountered his work in the show Paranoia Agent. He has written up a thoughtful obituary for the man, a moving one of great eloquence and sincerity. I hope you’ll all use this to educate yourselves about this man’s work.

Takuji Endo: A Remembrance

By Nicholas Zabaly
Last week, on Wednesday morning, July 8th, the international world of animation suffered a saddening loss. Takuji Endo, veteran director at Japan’s Madhouse studio, passed away due to complications from an illness. He was an important and dedicated member of the company, and his death has produced a wave of sadness as it reminds me, and all who follow the brief endeavors of a human life, how ephemeral our existence is.

As described in a tribute on her blog by fellow Madhouse staffer and animator Cindy H. Yamauchi, Endo-san was “cynical, intelligent, and had a twisted sense of humor.” He was also the go-to guy on tough projects, “a real pro when it came to accomplishing ‘mission impossible.’” Over the nearly 20 years that he worked at Madhouse, Endo-san was assigned as an episode director to such varied and acclaimed shows as Record of Lodoss War, Phantom Quest Corp., Space Pirate Captain Herlock: The Endless Legacy, and Paranoia Agent. As an animation director, he served on Patlabor WXIII and the X: Zero OVA (original video animation) episode. For X: Zero, he collaborated with the senior Madhouse director Yoshiaki Kawajiri. Endo-san worked with Kawajiri again, becoming the assistant director on the ensuing X TV series, and then as visual director for 2007’s Highlander: The Search for Vengeance. Early in his career, he broke new ground with the 1992 OVA Zetsuai 1989, a landmark gay-themed sci-fi film that came a full decade before boys-love became acceptable enough to be mainstream. In exploring inclusive, innovative content, in creating finely crafted episodes of meticulous quality, and in his tremendous spirit of professionalism, Endo-san set the bar high not only for Madhouse, but for episode directors around the Japanese industry, for two decades.

Yet, he was not the sort of person who was necessarily easy to get along with. “I’ll bet no one he worked with would ever describe him as a pleasant guy,” Ms. Yamauchi remembered. Nonetheless, she said, “we got along very well despite all the arguments we had over the years. I hate to admit it, but his arguments were sound 90% of the time. His outbursts turned out to be a great learning experience for me, for he would often spill out his trade secrets in an attempt to get his point across.” If Ms. Yamauchi’s experience is any indication, Endo-san seems like one of the ornery master geniuses of animation, a type that any student of the art or historian of the medium is sure to recognize in legends from Milt Kahl on down. Despite their temperaments, it is these men who’ve built the bedrock for generations of new talents.

More than just a respected figure in animation, Takuji Endo’s work meant a lot to me personally. I became aware of him six years ago, when I watched the X: Zero OVA for the first time. The episode touched me deeply and helped shape the philosophy I was building for myself at the time. Because I wanted to know who had crafted this meaningful work, I looked up everyone involved. Endo-san, as the animation director, naturally caught my eye. From that time on, he joined the shortlist of talents that I kept in the registers of my mind, and as I drifted through years and anime like a falling leaf, I kept encountering his name and remembering that first time I’d seen his work and opened up my heart to animation’s art. Eventually, in 2007, I started watching more Madhouse series as part of an internship with that company, and it was then that I discovered Paranoia Agent. I liked it immediately, but it was the second episode, titled The Golden Shoes, that totally sold me on the series. Something about the flow of that episode, the excellent pacing, the meticulous building of scene upon scene, up until the distorted, twisting climax, made me realize that it was one of the single best anime episodes I had ever seen. As the credits rolled, I watched eagerly, waiting to see who had been responsible. To the accompaniment of Susumu Hirasawa’s creepily excellent score, the name of the episode director passed into view.
“Of course it was so good,” I said to myself, “it was Endo.”

Takuji Endo went on to direct four more episodes of Paranoia Agent, more than any other episode director, but it was The Golden Shoes that stuck with me as my favorite.
He was at work on the Stitch! TV series, at Madhouse’s partner studio DR Movie in Korea, when he fell ill. He died shortly thereafter, far from home and the people whose lives he had touched at Madhouse.

Just as he had come by chance into my awareness as an artist, so too did he quickly and quietly pass from life. He was a man I’d very much hoped to meet someday, to compliment on a career’s worth of outstanding works. The part of me that wants to work in this business, I think, would have overcome my nervousness and braved his reported bristly nature to learn his tips of the trade. In other words, he was one of the old veterans who are passing from the world, leaving the young who admired them behind, with an unexplainable emptiness in their hearts.

Less than a week from now, at the Otakon convention in Baltimore, Maryland, Takuji Endo’s final work will receive its premiere. Along with designer Yoshinori Kanemori, Endo-san co-directed the opening animation clip for that venerable event. I wonder how many of the attendees, the fresh-faced and optimistic hopefuls, will take note of that clip as a man’s last work. It is hard, of course, to have the knowledge that a little bit of life is wrapped up in a minute or two of drawings, often hastily done with a deadline to meet. It is harder to know that a certain few minutes contain the last of a life’s flame, before it goes out. Over the years, there have been many animators, many artists, many directors who have passed on leaving only their works as testaments. Like all humans, those of us who aspire to create sincerely hope we can make things that are good, things that will make a difference to the fellow beings around us who share our thoughts and emotions. Although now I can never tell him, I can truly say that Takuji Endo was one of those successful creators, a man whose work touched my life and, in its own subtle ways, shaped who I am. And I am sure, very sure, that regardless of the transitory nature of living and dying, it is in good art that one can become immortal.

He will be dearly missed, and remembered, by all who loved that art.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 12th, 2009 at 6:55 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Leave a Reply

financial software reviews?

Windows 7 vs windows vista windows 7 wallpaper 302.

oem iso software

Windows 7 Windowsxp,

Windows 7 Windowsxp,

Windows 7 Windowsxp,

Buy cheap software Adobe Acrobat Pro 8 oem

oem iso software

Autocad Microsoft

Windows 7 Windowsxp,

Windows 7 Windowsxp,

oem iso software

Buy cheap software Adobe Acrobat Pro 8 oem

oem iso software

Autocad Sales In

oem iso software

Autocad Microsoft

Autocad Microsoft

Windows 7 Windowsxp,

oem iso software

oem iso software

Windows 7 Windowsxp,

oem iso software

Autocad Sales In

Autocad Sales In

Autocad Sales In

Autocad Sales In

Windows 7 Windowsxp,

Buy cheap software Adobe Acrobat Pro 8 oem

oem iso software

oem iso software

Windows 7 Windowsxp,

Autocad Sales In

Buy cheap software Adobe Acrobat Pro 8 oem

Autocad Sales In

Buy cheap software Adobe Acrobat Pro 8 oem

Buy cheap software Adobe Acrobat Pro 8 oem

oem iso software

Buy cheap software Adobe Acrobat Pro 8 oem

Autocad Sales In

Autocad Sales In

Autocad Sales In

accounting system software

Buy cheap software Adobe Acrobat Pro 8 oem

Autocad Mechanical Desktop?

Buy cheap software Adobe Acrobat Pro 8 oem

Buy cheap software Adobe Acrobat Pro 8 oem

Autocad Sales In

Buy cheap software Adobe Acrobat Pro 8 oem

Buy cheap software Adobe Acrobat Pro 8 oem

Windows 7 vs windows vista windows 7 wallpaper 302.

Autocad Sales In

Windows 7 Windowsxp,

oem iso software

oem iso software

accounting system software

oem iso software

Windows 7 Windowsxp,