Mitsuyo Seo (瀬尾 光世,Seo Mitsuyo; 26 September 1911 – 24 August 2010[1]) was a Japaneseanimator,screenwriter, anddirector ofanimated films who played a central role in the development of Japaneseanime. He was born inHimeji,Hyōgo Prefecture.
Initially working as a sign painter, Seo began dabbling in drawing animation by working at atoy film company that made short movies for home entertainment.[2] Although his most famous films werepropaganda forJapan duringWorld War II, Seo's political sympathies wereleftist, and early on, he was actually a member of theProletarian Film League of Japan, where he helped out on such animated films asSankichi no Kūchū Ryokō. In 1931, he was arrested for his activities, tortured, and spent 21 days in jail.[3][4] Seo metKenzō Masaoka and joined his company, working on Japan's first sound animation film,Chikara to Onna no Yo no Naka, before starting his own production company in 1935, where he made cartoons featuring the characterNorakuro.[3] He joined theGeijutsu Eigasha studio in 1937[5] and madeAri-chan in 1941, the first Japanese work to fully use themultiplane camera.[6] His most famous works are two propaganda animated films produced during World War II:Momotarō no Umiwashi, which featuredMomotarō and his animals bombingPearl Harbor; and its sequel,Momotarō: Umi no Shinpei, which was made forShōchiku and was Japan's first realfeature length animated film. (Momotarō no Umiwashi was advertised at the time as the first feature-length anime, but since it is only 37 minutes long, today most recognize the 74-minuteUmi no Shinpei as the first.)[3][7]Osamu Tezuka, the father of Japanesemanga and a later anime artist himself, said he was so impressed withUmi no Shinpei as a teenager that he wanted to become an animator for a time.[8] After the war, Seo joinedNihon Manga Eigasha and made the filmŌsama no Shippo as a pro-democracy anime in 1949, but whenTōhō, which was supposed to distribute it, found it politically too leftist, the film was left without a distributor.[9] Nihon Manga Eigasha went bankrupt, and Seo, finding the conditions for animation in the immediate postwar too difficult, left the industry and became anillustrator forchildren's books.[5][9]
