The History of Mushi Pro – 06 – Towards the World Masterpiece Theater (1971-1973)

While Mushi’s decline from 1970/1971 is an undeniable fact, I believe it would be better not to read the studio’s last years as an inevitable fall leading to its ultimate bankruptcy. As explained in the previous piece, following Tezuka’s semi-departure, Mushi thoroughly changed: Eiichi Kawabata tried to restructure it to better adapt to the quick changes the entire anime industry was going through. Kawabata’s management is often described in the continuity of Tezuka’s: “too kind”, “too emotional” and not following what should have been a “rational” economic strategy [1]. But, just as I have tried to reevaluate Tezuka, I want to show that this view of Kawabata may be mistaken. His failure to save the studio must instead be attributed to pre-existing conditions – Mushi’s debt and the remains of the now inadapted Anami system, by which Mushi Trading brought down the entire company -, flight of talents – of which the creation of Madhouse is the most obvious symptom – and circumstantial factors such as infighting and incompetence among non-creative staff, illustrated by the controversial beginnings of Yoshinobu Nishizaki’s career. These subjects will be covered in this article and the next.

Here, then, rather than narrate Mushi’s supposedly inevitable fall, I’d like to paint a related, but different picture: that of a studio which, by the end of Tezuka’s presidency and the entire course of Kawabata’s, had lost almost all agency. Between 1970 and 1973, it was completely dependent on other entities –  chaotic producer Nishizaki, longtime partner Fuji TV, and the planning company Zuiyo Enterprises. Here, I will focus on the last two. The triangular relationship they formed with Mushi laid the ground for what would become one of anime history’s most famous programs – The World Masterpiece Theater.

However, it is necessary to note that there seems to be few sources detailing the internal situation in Mushi at the time. Outside of well-covered productions – such as Kanashimi no Belladonna – or famous individuals – notably Nishizaki -, it’s hard to obtain a complete picture of how things really went. But the general impression one gets from both the planning office and the production ground is one of complete chaos and constant improvisation. In spite of Kawabata’s best efforts, the situation in Mushi didn’t really improve. While I will be more speculative this time, I hope to show how this translated into the works themselves.

From TCJ to Zuiyô, from Tokyo Movie to Mushi Pro

If, as just written, Mushi became increasingly dependent on external entities, it is natural that actors from outside the studio should take a greater role. In the case of this piece, the most important individual would be producer Shigeto Takahashi. It would be possible to start in 1969 with the creation of Zuiyô Enterprises and the preproduction of Moomin, but a brief recap on Takahashi’s earlier career is a good occasion to provide a point of comparison with Mushi’s development throughout the 1960s.

Takahashi joined studio TCJ – Television Corporation of Japan, often confused with broadcast station NTV, Nippon Television – in 1956. The company had been created in 1952 with the intent of importing television sets from the US. Indeed, its creator and president, businessman Jirô Yanase, had many connections overseas and intended to turn this new company into an international enterprise [2]. This didn’t really work, but an important point to keep in mind is that, from the very beginning, TCJ was turned towards other markets than Japan. On the other hand, it was well-connected to Japanese companies, especially those in the animation industry. Indeed, with TV set sales remaining low, TCJ quickly turned towards actual production, notably of commercials, but also shorts: in 1954, TCJ contributed to the production of a 10-minutes Maya the Bee adaptation alongside Iwao Ashida, whose studio,  one of the most important in pre-Tôei Japanese animation, has already been mentioned earlier in this series. It was from Ashida’s Cartoon Films Institute that most of TCJ’s animation and photography staff would be recruited.

With its focus on TV, TCJ took little notice of the developments that happened in Tôei from 1956 onwards. It was growing at its own pace: when Takahashi joined, the company counted around 30 employees. It was only when Mushi’s Tetsuwan Atom hit the airwaves that TCJ made its move: it initiated production of two animated series, Sennin Buraku and Tetsujin 28-go. Takahashi, former chief of the general affairs division, became a manager of the production department, now renamed TCJ Film Division. Soon, it gathered around 300 employees [3].

Despite its quick growth, TCJ’s situation was not as favorable as Mushi’s: it had no rights to the properties it adapted, and in Tetsujin’s case, only had to bring to the screen a readymade plan brought by the advertiser Dentsû and station Fuji TV. In other words, like Mushi, TCJ lost money from its show; but, unlike Mushi, it had no way to recoup the costs [4]. It apparently took 5 years for Takahashi to reverse this situation, with Sasuke in 1968. He had created an internal planning office which he personally supervised, struck a deal with mangaka Sanpei Shirato to settle rights repartition before any other companies were involved, and sold the project himself instead of receiving it from outside [5].

Just as Sasuke concluded, however, TCJ imploded. TCJ Film Division became TCJ Animation Center, now far more independent from its parent company, although the latter still held shares of it. Disillusioned by the state of TV animation and following a conflict with Film Division/Animation Center president Hidenori Murata, Takahashi took the opportunity to leave and create his own company, Zuiyo Enterprises. With 700,000 yen obtained from TCJ, Takahashi started planning his next work: Moomin [6].

As such things often go, Takahashi’s encounter with Moomin, the consequences of which were so decisive for anime history, has become semi-legendary. The canonical version, told by Kaori Chiba, tells that some day at the end of his time at TCJ, Takahashi found one of his younger colleagues in the studio’s planning room reading an English version of the Moomin books. Curious, he borrowed it and instantly became a fan. Convinced that something had to be done with this, he had Hiroyasu Ishiki, chief of TCJ’s color design team, color Jansson’s illustrations – and found out that the results worked out [7]. Strangely, in an interview, Takahashi himself simply says that he discovered the books in a foreign language library in Tokyo (he seems to have been fluent in both English and German). Whatever happened, he got in contact with Jansson’s Japanese editor, Kodansha, and got the information he needed: with a general idea of the number of sales and more context on the original work, he knew that there was indeed a market for Moomin, both in Japan and overseas [8]. From that point on, he set on planning an animated adaptation.

Rather than going through Kodansha for the entire process, Takahashi decided to approach Jansson himself – he obviously respected her and her work a lot and wanted her personal and direct approval. Letters were exchanged at first, and then, with the money he had gotten from TCJ, Takahashi made the trip to Stockholm, where he met the Finnish author [09]. He managed to convince Jansson, and came back to Japan with the rights for an adaptation. It was probably the first time in Japanese animation history that a Japanese party had acquired adaptation rights from a foreign author. The next step was getting that adaptation off the ground. Despite Kodansha’s support, Takahashi didn’t think the project would work easily in Japan – Moomin’s leisurely atmosphere was too different, and perhaps the art style wasn’t “Japanese” enough. Plans for selling the show to Finn TV stations seem to have been projected but never happened [10].

The circumstances that led Tokyo Movie to be put in charge of the adaptation have, to my knowledge, never been explained. From his long career in the anime industry, Takahashi might have known people from there, or maybe it was advertiser Dentsû or Fuji TV who brought the project to the studio. Maybe other companies were approached, but what is certain is that Mushi Pro wasn’t. Indeed, they were defending a competing project to Takahashi’s Moomin for Fuji TV’s “Calpis Manga Theater” timeslot: an adaptation of Gô Nagai’s Harenchi Gakuen, produced by Masao Maruyama and directed by Rintarô [11]. It seems that Fuji and Dentsû were rather favorable to Mushi’s proposal, but Takahashi won the contest by using his personal connections – he was a close acquaintance with the leader of Calpis’ advertisement division and had them buy Moomin [12].

For Tokyo Movie, Moomin was not much more than a stand-in between more important projects. Most of the studio’s main staff, and notably its subcontractor A Production, was busy on Star of the Giants, while a smaller team led by director Masaaki Osumi and animator Yasuo Otsuka was fresh out of the Lupin III pilot and waiting for it to be sold somewhere. It was in that meantime that they were transferred to Moomin [13].

Under the supervision of Takahashi, who kept exchanging letters with Jansson, Osumi and Otsuka were probably earnest in their attempt to stay as close as possible to the original. They had notably received one instruction: “No money, no cars, no fights” – or the alternative “no money, no machines, no TV” [14]. Because of the distance, language and culture differences, and perhaps also because of Takahashi’s mediation – meddling? -, communication was difficult. In the end, Osumi based himself as much on Jansson’s original books as on her brother Lars’ comics – not just an excuse for a more liberal adaptation, but also something of a commercial necessity, as Kondansha released the comics version alongside the anime [15]. In fact, according to Osumi, he was on the conservative side: people from Dentsû (and perhaps from Kodansha and Calpis as well?), who “probably hadn’t even read the books” came up with even more outrageous ideas than him, preoccupied that they were about merchandising.

In the end, though, the question of accuracy to the original is a false problem: as we will see, Jansson had little to no direct influence over the show’s fate. The fact simply is that, regardless of its relationship or lack thereof with Jansson’s books, Tokyo Movie’s Moomin isn’t very good. Certainly, the Osumi/Otsuka duo produced interesting results, with strong layouts and shot compositions and occasionally creative direction, especially in the first few episodes. But the rest didn’t follow. Otsuka and his two students Tsutomu Shibayama and Osamu Kobayashi were on animation direction (it wouldn’t be surprising if Otsuka left most of the work to his two younger colleagues), but aside from that, most of the animation seems to have been largely outsourced – at least, A Pro itself had little to no hand in it – to mixed results. It doesn’t so much look “bad” as not really move or never do so in interesting ways. Even Hayao Miyazaki’s uncredited contributions to episodes 21 and 23 fail to prove really worthwile. Moreover, the in-house Tokyo Movie staff that worked on it was still inexperienced – in fact, Tokyo Movie’s in-house animation was never something memorable, even on other shows.

Some of Moomin‘s interesting shot compositions

There is no other word to describe Tokyo Movie’s Moomin than “strange”. Osumi and his team seem to have understood the eerie atmosphere of Jansson’s work as an excuse for absurd, sometimes surreal storytelling. The first few episodes are by far the wildest in that regard, especially episode 3 which begins with the (fake) death of Moominpapa and Moominmama, sees the main characters stranded for days at sea and forming a theater troupe in a foreign land before settling back to Moominvalley… The “no guns” prescription was turned on its head and the show instead features regular displays of gratuitous cartoon violence. Certainly, Moomin was different from other anime, but perhaps not different enough: it strayed too far from the original books, but was still restrained by them and its own production circumstances, thus failing to become a completely absurd comedy in the vein of, say, Mushi’s earlier Goku no Daibôken.

Through a probably dissatisfied Takahashi, Jansson was shown some episodes [16]. There is, to my knowledge, no way to know exactly what was her reaction or feedback, but it doesn’t seem to have been entirely positive. She certainly voiced complaints, some of which reached Osumi [17], but they seem to have been formulated on the tone of advice – not completely rejecting the show, but rather suggesting going in such and such direction instead. In Yûsuke Nakagawa’s words, she did not so much complain as simply “voice her opinion as the original author” [18]. Still according to Nakagawa, it was rather Takahashi, who wanted to stay faithful to Jansson’s work, who was the most dissatisfied.

After 26 episodes, Tokyo Movie’s contract with Fuji TV was fulfilled: indeed, the show had only been planned for 2 cours, just like its predecessor Dororo had been. But not everybody wanted it to end: it seems that Moomin had reached a certain degree of popularity, and Calpis wanted to extend it for another 2 cours [19]. The problem was whether Tokyo Movie would agree to keep working on the show – in fact, it didn’t.

There were multiple reasons for that. According to Otsuka and Osumi, they simply didn’t want to work on Moomin anymore, and decided to drop it in common agreement. More importantly for the two of them, Lupin III had been sold to Yomiuri TV, and it was now time to shift their priorities – Lupin was the reason Otsuka had joined A Pro in the first place, after all [20]. Moreover, it’s been said that Moomin was over-budget, and that Tokyo Movie’s executives thought it better to stop losing money on a property they were ultimately just a subcontractor for [21]. This is however contradicted by Tokyo Movie producer Keijirô Kurokawa, who unambiguously stated that Moomin wasn’t on deficit, but instead provided another budget-related explanation: Tokyo Movie’s condition for working on the extension was a budget increase. But it was refused, leading the studio to not reiterate the contract [22]. Long story short, everybody in Tokyo Movie had their own reasons, but they all agreed on one thing: they didn’t want to keep working on Moomin anymore. Jansson’s so-called “complaints” played no part in it: everything was settled on the Japanese side.

The circumstantial evidence provided by episodes 25-26 further supports the fact that Tokyo Movie had been preparing for a 2-cour show. Indeed, their part of Moomin concludes on a dramatic 2-parter which is obviously written as a finale, built around a climax and a near breakup in the relationship between Moomin and Non-Non.

In any case, Zuiyô, Calpis, Dentsû and Fuji TV needed to find someone to work on the second part of the now-extended series. Why Mushi Pro was chosen to take Tokyo Movie’s place on Moomin remains, as far as I know, unexplained. The most natural answer would be to turn towards Keijirô Kurokawa, who had by this point spent most of his career in Mushi – but he denied having had any involvement in bringing Mushi over [23]. Otsuka hypothesized that Mushi took the project because it was in such a dire financial situation that it would accept anything, regardless of how low the budget was [24]. This explains why Mushi accepted, but not why it was approached in the first place. But in my opinion, this issue is actually without any difficulties; it is just that, to resolve it, we have to leave aside Takahashi.

Fuji TV had been a regular business partner of Mushi for nearly a decade by this point, and was among its main creditors. They, alongside Calpis and Dentsû, had already contracted the studio for the previous show in the same timeslot, Dororo. They probably all knew that Mushi was in no financial position to refuse and were well connected to it: in other words, Mushi may have been the most natural studio to turn to. When exactly Mushi was approached is unknown, but it must have been relatively early: indeed, the studio had the time to produce a “test film” submitted to Jansson for approval [25]. Takahashi probably took the chance opened by the change in animation studio to push for something closer to what he wanted – in test film’s co-animation director Nobuyoshi Sasakado’s words, something more “realistic” and less “cartoony”. But, still according to Sasakado, Mushi didn’t really deliver on these expectations: the test film was approved, but the actual series proved to look completely different and its quality was even “awful” [26]. Even Rintarô agreed, saying that, in terms of fidelity to Jansson’s work, his version was even “worse” than Osumi’s [27].

Going from Mushi Moomin character designer Mitsuo Morita’s testimony, the test film’s staff included Moribi Murano and Mitsuo Kimura, either of whom might have done the initial redesigns [28]. Kimura’s presence is the most interesting: he seems to have been a TCJ employee and had done the character designs on Sasuke one year prior. He was therefore close to Takahashi, and his presence was perhaps the reflection of the producer’s wish to reorient the show. But, for some reason, they both left their positions: Kimura only did animation direction on one episode, while Murano instead switched to episode direction. Given that he was director of Mushi’s first episode, #27, it may be possible to make one of two hypotheses: #27 was a reworking of the Murano-directed test film, or Murano might have been expected to become chief director of the show. Regardless of these suppositions, the first few episodes of Mushi’s Moomin were undoubtedly an awkward transitional period which left some time for director Rintarô and character designer Mitsuo Morita to take possession of the show they had been suddenly given.

As all this last-minute reshuffling illustrates, the production on Mushi’s side was a confusing affair. Even if they had been contacted some time in advance, taking charge of a show in the middle of broadcast was unprecedented; moreover, most of Mushi’s staff was busy elsewhere. As already explained, Cleopatra and Ashita no Joe were sucking in most of the studio’s staff, not to mention coproductions with US studio Rankin/Bass, which I discuss in more detail below. The result was that, just like Tokyo Movie’s part, most of Mushi’s Moomin would be outsourced, with only some of the episode and animation direction being done in-house.

Some of Moomin‘s designs by Otsuka (left) and Morita (right). From here and here

In any case, Morita’s Moomin designs were a big departure from Otsuka’s. The latter’s designs were round, simple but almost heavy; in movement, they had some real volume which, alongside Otsuka and Osumi’s approach to layouts, contributed to make the characters “real”, in the sense of giving them a footing in a three-dimensional world. Against Sasakado’s previously-cited claims, Morita’s designs were much simpler and flatter: they made Mushi’s Moomin look like a moving picture-book – which might have played in its favor, for Takahashi at least. However, the characters are far less expressive and feel less animation-friendly. Mushi’s part of the show does not necessarily move less or less well than Tokyo Movie’s, but it still feels stiffer, no doubt partly because of the change in design. In fact, one of the core aspects of Osumi’s Moomin is how the titular character behaves like a real child – that is to say, can be annoying and even mean at times. This is something that had been present to some degree in Jansson’s stories, but the anime pushed it further, and Otsuka’s designs grounded it visually. Morita’s almost expressionless designs, in contrast, reproduced the eerie dimension of Jansson’s art, but in turn deprived characters of some of their humanity and relatability.

Recent publication online of both versions’ settei has, however, revealed an interesting twist. Aside from Otsuka’s finalized drawings that made it into the show, another design draft was made, probably also by Otsuka, for what I suppose would have been Tokyo Movie’s pilot film. These designs seem to have been almost directly traced on some of Jansson’s art given how close they sometimes look – but, in their simplicity, they seem almost impossible to animate. The most curious thing about this is that some of Morita’s own reference drawings appear to have directly referenced this early version, as some poses and expressions are the very same. This would mean that there was at least some exchange between Tokyo Movie and Mushi, if only in terms of documents, during the transition from the first to the second half of the show.

In general, what remains of Rintarô’s first take on Moomin is hardly memorable. As mentioned above, it seems to have aimed for a “picture-book” aesthetic – flat, slow, atmospheric, with a strong focus on family and relationships instead of the gag and adventure-centered storytelling of the first part. With this, Rintarô had effectively redirected the show towards something different and laid the ground for what may be called the first true slice-of-life anime. But there were still ways to go for these attempts to truly succeed; thankfully, the director had a chance to try it over again, with the same property, in 1972.

The Calpis Manga Theater and beyond

Before Rintarô’s New Moomin, however, came Andersen Monogatari. It is one of Mushi’s most obscure shows (for good reason, as far as I’m concerned) and there is, as far as I know, nearly no information on how it came to be. Takahashi’s only comment on the series is that he wished to adapt the Grimm fairy tales instead, but that Andersen’s were “easier” to do for whatever reason [29]. Takahashi himself is not credited on the show, but it was planned by Zuiyô, and this is in itself significant: while the Calpis Manga Theater and its following labels would come to exclusively air works by a single studio – Zuiyô Eizô and its follower Nippon Animation – such a state of affairs was by no means a given in 1971. But Moomin had evidently pleased Calpis, and the personal connection Takahashi had with them could only encourage them further to keep working together. Takahashi was probably the one who decided to keep Mushi on board, initiating a short-lived but symbiotic relationship and laying the foundation for what would become some of the World Masterpiece’s core staff.

A good sign of the tightening relationship between all the actors involved in the early Calpis Manga Theater – Calpis, Fuji TV, Dentsû, Zuiyô and Mushi – can be seen in the length of the shows. Dororo had lasted 2 cours – 26 episodes -, neither an exceptional nor a particularly ambitious length. Moomin was supposed to do the same, but was extended, presumably for 2 cours more, bringing its airtime to a year. However, the show ended up lasting 65 episodes – that is 5 cours, 1 year and 3 months, a rather unusual length. While this may be due to yet more wishes for extension based on the show’s success, I believe that the ultimate cour of Moomin illustrates the emergence of the Calpis Manga Theater as a specific year-long program: indeed, extending it in that way meant that Moomin ended on December 27th, 1970. The show that followed it, Andersen Monogatari, would therefore start in the next year and last all year long. All following series in the timeslot lasted around 52 episodes – 4 cours amounting to a year – airing from January to December, thus establishing one of the core characteristics of the World Masterpiece Theater.

Further defining the program’s identity, Takahashi probably brought in the two individuals who created Andersen’s visuals: former animator and mangaka Keiichi Makino and animator and designer Shûichi Seki. Takahashi knew both of them from TCJ: Makino had worked there until 1964 and Seki until 1969, the year he became character designer of Kamui Gaiden, a show Takahashi had planned before leaving. The extent of Makino’s work, described as “genga design” in the credits, is unclear. Takahashi states that he only designed the two mascot characters, Kanty and Zucco, and that the rest were in the hands of the “Mushi staff” [30]. However, according to Seki himself, Makino was in charge of the original designs of all characters, which he then revised and cleaned up – for the first half of the show, after which he left [31]. This description seems a better fit for the credit, but the mention that Makino left halfway is curious: indeed, Makino kept being credited throughout the entire show, whereas it is Seki’s name that disappears, only to be replaced by Masami Hata’s under the credit sakuga settei – “animation design” – whereas Seki was clearly credited under “character design”. Until that point, Hata had rather been credited as “animation director”, in transcribed English.

In any case, Seki’s presence is important to note. Alongside Makino’s, it highlights the increasing importance of Takahashi and his network, especially since Seki would be a mainstay on future Zuiyô productions and the World Masterpiece Theater. But it also provides an occasion to discuss the other major development going on at Mushi at the time: subcontracting for US productions. Before anything, I want to note that, whether we’re speaking of the 60s, 80s or 90s, Japan/US coproductions/subcontracting is a nearly uncharted continent. Aside from the better-known works (such as The Last Unicorn or some of TMS’s work in the 90s), information is extremely hard to come by: Japanese staff are very rarely credited in full and most artists never discuss their work on such productions. For instance, it’s only thanks to a works list included with an interview from the November 1978 issue of Animage that we know that Yoshikazu Yasuhiko worked on Mad Mad Mad Comedians – to my knowledge, he never discussed it in any interview. Similarly, without Gisaburô Sugii’s testimony, we would perhaps never know that other Japanese companies than Children’s Corner contributed to the animation of Johnny Cypher [32]… The narrative I’m going to try to piece together here is therefore very fragmentary and incomplete.

As briefly discussed, TCJ had close relationships with the US and did subcontracting throughout the 60s. Their prime partner was, unsurprisingly, Rankin/Bass productions. Throughout the decade, the American company had worked with multiple Japanese studios – MOM Productions for stop-motion, Toei and TCJ for cel animation. It seems that TCJ’s only complete work for Rankin/Bass was the 1967 film The Wacky World of Mother Goose, on which Seki participated as an animator (he was in charge of animating the Prince) [33]. When TCJ Animation and Zuiyô both took their independence, Mushi took the role: between 1969 and 1972, Mushi animated 6 of Rankin/Bass’ works – Frosty the Snowman, Mad Mad Mad Comedians, The Tomfoolery Show, The Reluctant Dragon & Mr. Toad Show, Mad Mad Mad Monsters and Family Classics [34]. For Mushi, these were perhaps a sort of extension of their previous relationship with NBC: a way to get easy money in. But this time, it wasn’t about selling an already finished product, but producing entirely new animation: this subcontracting work made apparent the lack of staff in the studio, and proved detrimental for all of its late productions, which had to resort to heavy outsourcing to compensate.

Going back to Seki, it was through such coproductions that he first came in contact with Mushi. After Kamui Gaiden, he went freelance and served as “character designer” – that is adapting illustrator Paul Coker’s work for animation – on Rankin/Bass productions such as Frosty the Snowman and, most probably, The Reluctant Dragon & Mr. Toad Show [35]. By mid to late 1970, when work started on Andersen Monogatari, Seki was close to both Mushi and Takahashi – it was just a matter of time before he would start working on the Calpis Manga Theater.

On Mushi’s side, Andersen illustrates some of the difficulties the studio was going through, notably lack of staff. Besides constant outsourcing, Group TAC (who may not have joined yet back then?) animator Tsuneo Maeda, one of the most regular artists on the show, mentioned that most episodes were actually solo-animated, at a pace of 1 a month or less – in his case, he claims to have done one episode in 20 days [36].

This testimony sheds some light on Andersen’s strange animation credits – or at least, what credits are available during the first half, as animators stopped being credited in the second one. A single individual is systematically credited under “layout”, and then others under “animator”; however, most of the time, the “animators” are credited as a group: for instance, Maeda on layout and a “Maeda Group” on animation. This leads me to believe that Andersen’s layout system was less like the one later adopted on Heidi and closer to a traditional first/second key animation system: the animator credited on “layout” would have done both all of the layouts/rough key animation themselves, before it was cleaned-up and in-betweened by the “animators”.

A sample of Andersen Monogatari‘s animation credits: Minoru Tajima solo-credited on layout and a “Tajima Group” under “animator”

Regardless of the actual organization, it did not help to improve the actual quality of the show. In the first place, the designs – whether they were by Makino, Seki or Hata – are incredibly hit-and-miss and the direction is often nonexistent. With so little to build on, the animation is minimal and what little movement there is is, at best, awkward. The only few highlights are those provided by Shin’ichi Tsuji (layout) and Toyô Ashida’s (top credited animator) team, which include some decent movement and remarkable layouts, and episode 49, directed by Osamu Dezaki under his Makura Saki pseudo.

A masterpiece in the midst of chaos

Following Andersen came Takahashi and Rintarô’s second take on Moomin, commonly referred to as New Moomin. Why anyone would have wanted to repeat the experience is unknown. Perhaps that, after the failure to sell the first series overseas, Takahashi wanted to try his luck again – but to no avail. Indeed, the main difference with the first version, besides the fact that it was entirely handled in Mushi, was that there was no more explicit intent to export the new series. However, unlike what is commonly stated, it seems that this new orientation was taken rather late – only 2 months before New Moomin started airing in January 1972.

Indeed, Hiromitsu Morita attributes the refusal to show New Moomin outside of Japan to Jansson herself: she disagreed with some of his design decisions, insisting for instance that Mii and Snufkin’s hands be colored black. Upon his (and probably Rintarô’s) refusal, she declared that she wouldn’t officially approve of the adaptation [37]. Morita situates this exchange at the time of the first series, but he quite obviously confused the dates: both Jansson’s correspondence and a report from the December 1971 issue of COM date her first trip to Japan and visit to the studio to November of that same year. Perhaps the issue had already been raised 2 years earlier, but it couldn’t have been through direct dialogue between Jansson and Mushi’s staff, as Morita describes. In any case, what appears to have been a last-minute decision imposed on the studio cut new avenues for funding – though, with Takahashi handling the deal, it’s unclear whether any of the money would have gone back to Mushi – and gave the creative team more freedom, unconstrained that it was by Jansson’s demands for more proximity to the original. What was Takahashi’s own position in all this is unclear.

New Moomin’s main staff gathered many people who had been there on the first series: Rintarô and Morita, of course, but also art director Katsumi Handô and episode directors such as Noboru Ishiguro or Mitsuo Kaminashi. Many of them had gone through Andersen Monogatari, and animators such as Toyô Ashida also transferred from it, thus slowly consolidating a “Calpis Manga Theater” core team. Most importantly, however, New Moomin benefited from the near-simultaneous end of Mushi’s two other TV productions, Sasurai no Taiyô and Ashita no Joe in September 1971. Whereas the animation for Joe’s follow-up, Kunimatsu-sama no Otoridai, was largely outsourced, New Moomin gathered most of Mushi’s remaining in-house talents, from experienced artists like Akihiro Kanayama to up-and-coming artists such as Ikuo Fudanoki, Yoshiaki Kawajiri and Yoshikazu Yasuhiko.

Some of Yasuhiko’s costume designs for Sasurai no Taiyô. From here

Before getting into the details of New Moomin, the latter’s quick ascension is worth some attention: it is indeed characteristic of the chaos and opportunities developing in Mushi’s last years. Yasuhiko joined the studio in 1970 and started training as an in-betweener under veteran animator Kiyomi Numamoto. However, upon being transferred to the production of Sasurai no Taiyô, he was immediately promoted to character design (he seems to have mostly designed costumes and guest characters, under main designer Shin’ya Takahashi) and assistant animation direction [38]. While we may praise Numamoto and Sasurai chief director Katsui Chikao for instantly noticing Yasuhiko’s potential, he himself attributed this sudden ascension to the complete chaos and lack of staff within the studio, which led a newbie such as him to be chosen. When he was transferred to New Moomin and did his first key animation on the opening, his experience gave him a strange status within the team, especially in regards to his colleague Yoshiaki Kawajiri, who was technically his senior within the studio but had only done in-betweens up to that point.

The New Moomin opening, animated by Mitsuo Shindô, Yasuhiko and Kawajiri

Another vital member of New Moomin’s staff came from outside Mushi: it was ex-Tôei animator Toshiyasu Okada. He had also taken part in Andersen Monogatari (Okada and Minoru Tajima’s Ad 5 was one of the main studios in Andersen’s rotation, though Tajima’s team was far more regular than Okada’s), initiating a long relationship with Zuiyô-related shows that would make him become one of Japan’s greatest character animators through his work on the World Masterpiece Theater. Unlike Andersen, where Okada’s episodes might shine through their layouts but not their movement, the animator’s work on New Moomin prefigures these future heights, supported that it is by stellar writing and direction.

Indeed, New Moomin is perhaps among Mushi’s best works. The best episodes perfectly embody what Morita describes as the “marshmallow” feeling he had been going for since the first series: soft, elastic bodies that squash and stretch according to characters’ emotions and sometimes move in remarkably elegant ways – a characteristic of Yasuhiko and Okada’s work, but also, more surprisingly, of Kanayama’s or Kawajiri’s animation. Sometimes pure slice-of-life, sometimes incredibly well-written fantasy or fairy tale, New Moomin is carried throughout by a focus on atmosphere, by repeated and often successful attempts to give a rich, complete impression of life in Moominvalley. Moominvalley as both a place and a feeling was something that the first series – even its Tokyo Movie section – had attempted to depict, but it feels like only New Moomin truly managed to pull it off.

In that regard, New Moomin seems to have been explicitly conceived as a direct sequel or continuation of the 1969 series. This is visible in the continuities between both productions: it seems like Morita only lightly reworked his designs, and many of the 1969 series’ most iconic dimensions – notably its sound design, from Snufkin’s song to the strange sound of Moomin’s run – were kept. This also comes through in New Moomin’s wonderful and strange first episode, a sort of reunion with all the characters through their dreams and a meta-fictional device involving the repeated use of postcard memories and a “book taking life” approach. The narratively and visually original structure of this opening episode is but a taste of a show which, without getting completely “experimental”, kept playing with multiple techniques, from live-action inserts to cut-out animation sequences.

What is remarkable about New Moomin is that, even though it had its low points, it maintained such a level of quality in what was now a crumbling studio. Things seem to have been relatively stabilized when it started airing in January 1972. But, as it went on, they quickly deteriorated, starting with chief director Rintarô’s departure from Mushi in the middle of the production. Hiromitsu Morita claimed that he quit the show altogether [39], though this is contradicted by Rintarô’s official filmography in the Plus Madhouse book dedicated to him [40], which states that he kept working from Group TAC. If it weren’t for Morita’s testimony, I would be inclined to think that Rintarô’s sudden and unexplained departure had little to no effects. TAC was, by all means, Mushi’s sister studio by this point, and its director Atsumi Tashiro was New Moomin’s sound director. It’s even possible that production of TAC’s Jack and the Beanstalk had already begun by then, in Mushi Studio 1’s own facilities. There was therefore little to no distance between the two companies.

However, Rintarô wasn’t the only one to leave. In September and October respectively, two teams split off from Mushi to create their own companies, Sunrise and Madhouse. While we focus on them now because of their later importance, they were just a drop in the ocean: from the 230 employees it had at the date of Tezuka’s departure, Mushi only numbered around 100 by late 1972 [41]. It seems to be at this point that the rumors of the studio’s impending bankruptcy started circulating. 

While I can’t pinpoint any particular event that triggered the flight and the rumors, a particularly indicative and important one would have been Fuji TV giving up on Mushi. The TV station and the studio had been in a close relationship for almost a decade by now; but what had started as something mutually beneficial slowly turned into the latter becoming completely dependent on the former. With the situation in Mushi itself and in its subsidiary Mushi Trading worsening, Fuji TV finally decided to find new partners [42].

The symbol of that break was the series Hazedon, which started airing in October 1972 on Fuji’s airwaves. Apparently a commemorative project for the TV station, it seems to have been initiated in Mushi [43]. However, when Fuji decided to stop working with the studio, they turned to the people who had just left it – a group of producers who had just created their own company, Sunrise. Fuji even seems to have promised to support Sunrise financially on top of commissioning them for the show [44]. Even though that didn’t happen in the end, Sunrise would inherit Mushi’s good relationship with the TV station.

Inside the studio itself, there was the paradoxical issue of not enough and too much work coming in at the same time. First, there was one ongoing project, Kanashimi no Belladonna. Going by Yamamoto’s chronology, the dummy film was completed in August 1972, and the animation for the “retake” version produced between September and December of that same year. The staff overlap between the film and New Moomin is obvious; I won’t try to guess who was on the dummy film and who only joined for the retakes, but it makes no doubt that most of Belladonna’s animation was done in parallel with, or during lulls in New Moomin’s production throughout 1972.

Then, there were two additional Rankin/Bass works, both of whom aired in the US in September 1972: the TV special Mad Mad Mad Monsters and the TV series Festival of Family Classics, out of which Mushi is said to have animated the first 17 episodes. But then, some time in 1972-1973, Rankin/Bass stopped working with Mushi, instead turning to the newly created Topcraft, which would remain its most consistent business partner in Japan for nearly a decade. The lack of new capital this entailed probably spelled the end for a nearly-hopeless Mushi Pro. However, Eiichi Kawabata did not give up: Yûsuke Nakagawa mentions an attempted adaptation of the SF/ero-guro novel Livestock Man Yapû co-produced with France and Italy, probably in an attempt to revive the Animerama project [45]. There was also NTV Animation’s 1973 Doraemon, with which Mushi may have been involved in some capacity, though the precise extent and nature of that involvement remains unclear [46]. In any case, by December 1972, Kawabata and Eiichi Yamamoto made one last desperate attempt at revival by accepting the offer for what would be Mushi’s last TV series, Wansa-kun.

At the same time, if we believe the words of Osamu Dezaki and Masao Maruyama, some at least in and around Mushi did not find enough work to sustain themselves [47]. While most of Ashita no Joe’s team was working on Kunimatsu-sama no Otoridai, Dezaki kept himself busy directing episodes both inside – Kunimatsu itself, Andersen Monogatari, New Moomin – and outside of Mushi – Lupin III, Akado Suzunosuke, Hazedon – under his pseudos Makura Saki and Sai Kuiyô. He was evidently biding his time until an offer to direct came, whether from Mushi or elsewhere. At some point, one did come from Tokyo Movie president Yutaka Fujioka to fund a new studio – Dezaki and his closest circle accepted it, and created Madhouse on October 17th, 1972 [48].

Dezaki was a freelancer, and so his working outside Mushi raised no issue. Such was not the case for 4 of the 5 animators in this “close circle” – Akio Sugino, Yoshiaki Kawajiri, Nobuyoshi Sasakado and Ikuo Fudanoki, all in-house (the last one being Manabu Ohashi). Although themselves busy on Mushi’s series – Kunimatsu and New Moomin -, they also took whatever work they could outside of the studio. Indeed, according to Sasakado, what is generally believed to be Madhouse’s first works – episode 10 of Gatchaman and the team’s earliest episodes of The Gutsy Frog – were actually done in Mushi itself [49]. If that is indeed the case, it means that this group was already something of a studio within the studio, taking work on its own, possibly completely outside of the official channels provided by Mushi’s in-house production staff. I’ve always been suspicious of reports by Mushi’s producers of moonlighting – animators working part-time for other studios instead of properly working in Mushi where they got their salaries – but it seems to be what happened to what we may call proto-Madhouse.

It is in such a context that Shigeto Takahashi made the jump and created his own animation company, Zuiyô Eizô, subsidiary to Zuiyô Enterprises. Yûsuke Nakagawa dates it to June 1972 and claims that it was simultaneous with the first discussions about Vickie the Viking. He notes that, against Takahashi’s claims to have created the new company because he saw where Mushi was going, June is quite an early date and that Mushi’s fate was far from determined at this point. In other words, it may not have been a preventive move to anticipate his main contractor’s bankruptcy [50]. Given the elements provided by Vickie, which I discuss below, I lend some credibility to this hypothesis. 

That Zuiyô Eizô’s creation was related to Vickie, however, is a reasonable assumption. Vickie was not planned for the Calpis Manga Theater, and Takahashi may have realized that, impending collapse or not, Mushi was no longer able to support two production lines at the same time. Moreover, if Fuji TV indeed decided to discontinue any relationship it had with the studio, it would have been difficult for Takahashi to keep them on one of the station’s primetime slots. Rather than looking for another subcontractor, he then decided to create his own company.

Throughout the second half of 1972, Zuiyô Eizô started recruiting. Its most important member was Junzô Nakajima, former leader of Zuiyô Enterprise’s CM division and key producer of the World Masterpiece Theater. He was the one to invite director Masaharu Endô, whom he probably knew from the productions of Ganbare! Marine Kid and Kaitei Shônen Marin in previous years. Endô seemingly admired the works of studio Tôei and of its lead animator and character designer Yasuji Mori: he visited his house and convinced him to join the new company to design the characters of his new series, Yamanezumi Rocky Chuck [51], thus opening a new sequence for the Calpis Manga Theater.

Mushi’s forgotten last (?) series

Unlike the other shows discussed here, Vickie the Viking was not part of the Calpis Manga Theater. It would rather be the first of what one may call Zuiyô/Nippon’s “B series”, long-running adaptations similar to the World Masterpiece Theater but made by different (although sometimes related) teams, not aired on a specific timeslot, and often explicitly produced for export. It’s even questionable whether it is really a Mushi Pro series – it isn’t included in the Mushi Pro Materials Collection (where even the Rankin/Bass works are), and the studio’s name never comes up in any credits or official accounts. However, both surviving credits and multiple testimonies by the show’s staff [52] make it clear that its initial 26 episodes were indeed made in Mushi.

Unlike Takahashi’s previous ventures, he was not at the origin of the project. He was approached by the German company Taurus Film, who seems to have had some sort of connection to Takahashi – perhaps they had met during the Japanese producer’s previous trips to Europe. In any case, Taurus was aware that “Japan was pushing into the European market at the time and was looking for European material” – which might have included Moomin, but also Tokyo Movie’s unrealized Pippi Longstockings. On the European side, German station ZDF teamed up with the Austrian ORF, while on the Japanese one, Zuiyô was commissioned to do the animation [53].

The unsourced English Wikipedia page claims that Vickie’s copyright was registered in 1972. Even if that were true, it would not be enough to provide significant information on when the show, and particularly Mushi’s episodes, were produced. Indeed, if they were made after New Moomin, that is sometime in 1973, it would lend strength to the idea that by creating Zuiyô Eizô, Takahashi did not completely give up on Mushi: he simply changed its function as a subcontractor within a wider business strategy. 

Whatever we can infer from the chronology of Vickie’s production comes from its broadcast dates. Its first 26 episodes aired from January to August 1974 in Germany, and the rest aired from March 1975. There are two possible explanations for this blank: either the initial contract had only been for 26 episodes, or Takahashi was taken unawares by Mushi’s bankruptcy, leading him to suddenly interrupt the production. Just like for Moomin, the finale structure of episode 26 makes me lean towards the first interpretation, though both aren’t mutually exclusive. Takahashi may have expected Mushi to keep working with him on another series. In any case, by April 1974, when Vickie started airing on Fuji TV in Japan, an extension to at least 52 episodes may already have been decided; but there was enough time, anyways, for Zuiyô’s in-house teams to take over.

Unfortunately, Vickie’s credits are incomplete, making it difficult to paint an accurate picture of its production. The first thing that must be noted is that, at least at the storyboard level, the transition between Mushi and Zuiyô-related staff was progressive: this notably applies to Noboru Ishiguro, Yoshiyuki Tomino and Watazu Mizusawa, who did not immediately leave the show’s rotation once studios changed. Especially in Tomino’s case, this could just be a coincidence, but it might also relativize how sudden and long the potential blank in production had been. Another interesting element is that, in the continuity of Shin Moomin, most of Vickie’s initial staff had been on Zuiyô’s shows since Andersen or First Moomin. A few of them would keep working with Zuiyô/Nippon, whether on the “B shows” or the World Masterpiece Theater, while the others moved to other “post-Mushi” studios like Sunrise or TAC. 

Regardless, Vickie shares little of New Moomin’s strengths – though perhaps that would be too much to ask. Not a poor show by any means – it is far better than Andersen Monogatari in any case – it just isn’t particularly memorable. But it does represent an interesting attempt at “de-Japanazing” an anime, and represents in that sense the conclusion of Mushi, Takahashi and Seki’s efforts since the late 60s. I can’t speak for fidelity to the original, but the designs are unlike anything else produced for Japanese TV by that point, and work far better than Seki’s previous attempts. The animation itself, while never outstanding, is never out of interesting ideas and, in its best moments, is visibly trying to find new ideas and principles on which to build its comedic language. Neither revolutionary nor completely bland, Vickie is perhaps the most quiet, least-discussed testament left by Mushi Production.

Conclusion: the new anime industry

Over the course of this article, I have focused little on the circumstances within Mushi, and rather discussed how all the events happening outside of it impacted it. Rather than evoking things at the narrow scale of a single studio, I have been analyzing things at a wider level – that of business strategies, companies networks, copyright holders and subcontractors… All that makes up the wider “anime industry”. The reason is that this industry was changing at a fast pace between the late 60s and the early 70s, and that Mushi was both a sign and a victim of these changes.

If I were to sum up Eiichi Kawabata’s strategy, it was to give up on any ambitions, to turn away from the self-sufficient studio model that had more-or-less worked out during the early years to turn Mushi into what would now have been a “normal” studio – a subcontractor for TV stations, sponsors, advertising companies and copyright holders. Therefore its passive position, which did not necessarily mean a complete lack of creativity, but did entail major changes in the organization and perception of what an animation studio was. Of course, this model had existed since 1963, as TCJ’s case illustrates. Mushi had always been something of an exception; and this exception could no longer exist by the early 70s.

All the developments discussed here – studios as subcontractors, the rise of outsourcing, the development of companies specialized in planning shows for their subsidiaries to animate – had been developing tendencies throughout the 60s. But they suddenly became the norm by the beginning of the next decade. Mushi changed its production model because of its own internal circumstances, but it was anything but exceptional. In fact, precisely because its situation was so bad that it led to bankruptcy, Mushi became something of a symbol of that transition – the end of the era of strong studios based on a high number of employees and business initiative.

Footnotes

[01] See Eiichi Yamamoto’s portrayal of him (1989) or Eiji Yamaura in Sunrise World 2017, https://sunrise-world.net/feature/feature.php?id=7708

[02] Takahashi & Kosei 2013, p.191

[03] Takahashi & Kosei 2013, p.197; Chiba 2017, p.37

[04] Takahashi & Kosei 2013, p.196

[05] Takahashi & Kosei 2013, p.196

[06] Takahashi & Kosei 2013, p.197-198. According to Takahashi, Murata’s refusal to produce the film Cricket on the Hearth for Rankin/Bass played a major part in his departure. He sadly does not go into the detail of TCJ’s relationship with Rankin/Bass at the time, but they were close enough for TCJ to produce a pilot for the film before Murata decided to drop the project

[07] Chiba 2017, p.44; Nakagawa 2020, p.327

[08] Takahashi & Kosei 2013, p.199 

[09] Takahashi & Kosei 2013, p.199; Chiba 2017, p.46

[10] Chiba 2017, p.52

[11] Rintarô 2009, pp.53-54

[12] Takahashi & Kosei 2013, p.202

[13] Otsuka & Osumi 2008

[14] The first, most famous formulation is from Otsuka & Osumi 2008; the alternative one by Takahashi himself in Takahashi & Kosei 2013, p.201

[15] Otsuka & Osumi 2008. In this interview, Osumi apologetically notes that he didn’t know that Lars’ comic was not really appreciated by his sister. However, perhaps he had no way to know: I didn’t have the opportunity to see the books themselves, but following the catalog of the Japanese National Diet Library, Kodansha’s Moomin comics seem to only credit Tove as author.

[16] A quick look at Jansson’s correspondence (Letters From Tove, ed. Boel Westin and Helen Svensson, University of Minnesota Press) reveals that, when the show started airing, she had not been shown anything from the series. However, in the same October 1969 letter, Jansson mentions that Takahashi was scheduled to come to Finland in November. If he indeed made the trip, it is most probably at this occasion that he would have shown her episodes from the anime and that she made her feedback – which would mean that there is no written record of it.

[17] Otsuka & Osumi 2008

[18] Chiba 2017, p.51; Nakagawa 2020, p.346

[19] Otsuka & Osumi 2008; Chiba 2017, p.51

[20] Otsuka & Osumi 2008

[21] Toadette 2023

[22] Kurokawa 2018, p.294

[23] Kurokawa 2018, p.294

[24] Cited in Nakagawa 2020, p.346

[25] Sasakado 2008, p.282

[26] Sasakado 2008, p.282

[27] Rintarô 2009, p.50

[28] Morita 2016, p.227

[29] Takahashi & Kosei 2013, p.203

[30] Takahashi & Kosei 2013, p.203

[31] Seki 2007, p.285

[32] Sugii 2015, pp.160-165

[33] Seki 2007, p.282

[34] The list is taken from the Mushi Production Materials Collection

[35] Seki 2018, p.50

[36] Cinema Novecento 2020, p.72

[37] In Mushi Production 1977, p.78

[38] Yasuhiko 1998, p.166

[39] Morita 2016, p.228

[40] Rintarô 2009, p.03

[41] Yamamoto 1989, p.326; Nakagawa 2020, p.417

[42] Yamamoto 1989, p.309

[43] Sunrise World 2017, https://sunrise-world.net/feature/feature.php?id=8195 

[44] Sunrise World 2017, https://sunrise-world.net/feature/feature.php?id=7770 

[45] Nakagawa 2020, pp.417-418

[46] The messy production of the 1973 Doraemon series is a complicated affair in which I’d rather not go in detail at the moment. In any case, Nakagawa 2020, p.418, states that by late 1972, Mushi’s remaining in-house animators were “preparing” for the show. The main connection between the show and Mushi was its production manager Jun Masami (working under his real name Hiroshi Shimozaki), a former Mushi and Tezuka Pro employee. For what seems to be the best-sourced and most easily accessible synthesis aside from Masami’s own website, I refer to the Japanese Wikipedia page of the show 

[47] Madhouse 2001, p.67; Maruyama 2017, p.96

[48] Madhouse 2001, p.67; Maruyama 2017, p.96. The exact circumstances behind the creation of Madhouse and Dezaki’s works in that transition period raise a lot of questions, that I’ll address in the final article of this series

[49] Sasakado 2008, p.284. Sasakado 2006 reiterates that Gatchaman was done in Mushi (given that Gatchaman’s animation director was Sasakado’s senpai Sadao Miyamoto, he might have been the one to personally invite him) but claims, this time, that Dokonjo Gaeru was in Madhouse. What sounds most probable, then, and works out with Sugino’s own testimony (Sugino 2019), is that what began as subcontracting to Mushi turned into subcontracting to Madhouse midway. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same thing happened to Dezaki with Hazedon: if the planning indeed started in Mushi, he would have been involved in it there; but then the show started airing just before the actual creation of Madhouse. 

On the other hand, one may argue that only Sasakado remained in Mushi for Gatchaman while the others were already in Madhouse, but it fails to explain the presence of Kawajiri, Fudanoki and an uncredited Sugino (given both Sasakado and Sugino’s testimonies, his choice to go uncredited might come from the extreme difficulty he had in working on both Gatchaman and Dokonjo Gaeru and a potential choice to not put his name on either)

[50] Nakagawa 2020, p.387

[51] Chiba 2017, pp.56-57

[52] Nozaki 2011, p. 273; Seki 2018, p.53; this Yasuhiko interview https://otocoto.jp/interview/furukawa-yasuhiko-03/ ; see also Chiba 2017, p.55

[53] See this interview of original Vickie author Josef Göhlen http://web.archive.org/web/20160104133827/https://presseportal.zdf.de/pm/ein-neuer-look-zum-40-wickie-und-die-starken-maenner-in-3d-optik/