Unpublished anime documents by Osamu Tezuka found

Several unpublished documents for anime works by Osamu Tezuka are in the possession of Tezuka Productions. The materials include original drawings, storyboards and character designs created by Tezuka. These items were not included in the seven-volume storyboard collection published in 1999 or any other previous publications.

They will be included in a new publication to be released by Genkosha on June 17.

Archiving project Since 2022, Tezuka Productions has been archiving animation materials as part of a project subsidized by the Agency for Cultural Affairs. By March this year, it had completed the digitization and restoration of 130,000 pages. The newly found documents illustrate his constant pursuit of new forms of expression through trial and error, as well as suggest his direct involvement in every stage of anime production.

and industry formats In "Astro Boy," Japan's first television anime series, which aired from 1963, Tezuka introduced a groundbreaking method that reduced the number of animation cels to cut costs and shorten production time. The series became a hit with a peak viewing rate of 40 percent.

The series established anime formats, including one 30-minute episode per week and the adaptation of popular manga series. According to Nobuyuki Tsugata, a specially appointed associate professor at Digital Hollywood University, these formats, which continue to this day, are "extremely rare in the world," leading to the uniqueness of Japanese animation.