My name is Sadao Tsukioka.
After graduating from a high school with an architecture program, I entered this world as an assistant to the legendary Osamu Tezuka. In 1959, when Tezuka participated in Toei Animation’s feature film Journey to the West, I was dispatched alongside Shotaro Ishinomori as Tezuka’s stand-ins — that was my start as an animator. My drawing speed and skill were quickly recognized, and at just 24 years old, I directed Wolf Boy Ken, Toei Animation’s very first TV anime series, also serving as original creator. I was right at the heart of the birth of Japanese television animation.
After that, I worked at Mushi Production, then co-founded the animation company NAC with my colleague Seiichi Hayashi. In 1970, my short animation Genesis won the Grand Prix at the Kraków International Short Film Festival. I have been creating animation for over half a century. During that time, I spent nearly 60 years teaching at universities — as a special professor at Takarazuka University and a lecturer at Nihon University’s College of Art. In 2022, I was honored with the Special Award at the 45th Japan Academy Film Prize, which felt like a meaningful milestone for my life’s work.
Having finally reached a belated retirement, I was looking forward to leisurely drawing whatever I pleased, when a friend in China proposed, “Why not try making picture book manga?” That was in 2024. However, in November of the following year, Sino-Japanese cultural, educational, and economic relations suddenly froze, and everything came to a halt.
Still, I had already completed two picture books, and it seemed a waste to let them gather dust. So, despite having no backing, I decided to publish them myself through Kindle and other online platforms — that was November 2025. When I consulted a friend about copyright registration for the characters, an administrative scrivener advised me that I should first present them publicly on a homepage or social media. And so, this blog was born.
Now, I didn’t start this blog with the intention of writing a diary, but the recent evolution of AI is truly remarkable. It threatens to surpass even 2D animation and 3D CG — my own fields of expertise. I intend to share a few thoughts on this from time to time.
In fact, when I was about 27, having left Tezuka’s Mushi Production, I worked for Nippon Television’s news division on a documentary series called Wonderful World Travel (around 1967), producing the futuristic episodes through animation. The fifth piece I created was titled “Computopia” — a portmanteau of “Computer” and “Utopia,” depicting a fictional ideal society brought about by computers.
The original concept, written by a university professor, described a cashless, ticketless, paperless society — nothing but good things. But my young self thought, “There’s no way it could all be rosy.” After consulting with scriptwriter Masaki Tsuji, we built the story around a musical quartet, imagining what computer society would look like 50 years into the future. One of the four becomes a politician who monopolizes information, eventually rising as a Hitlerian parody to become a dictator.
After the broadcast, the network’s sales department raised a major complaint — the sponsor was one of Japan’s largest electronics manufacturers, after all. I was summoned by my department head, thoroughly scolded, and promptly fired. (I hope to write in more detail about that confrontation someday.)
But here we are, some 50 to 60 years later. Today, “centralization of information” is discussed as a serious global issue. Even in the 21st century, the world is full of authoritarian leaders. All around me, people face the real possibility of losing their jobs to AI.
I am now officially a “late-stage elderly” citizen, but I intend to face this blog and write freely. I may be criticized, but at least I can’t be fired anymore.
Sadao Tsukioka