Atsushi Aono

Atsushi Aono
Profile
Gender:	Male
Date of birth:	July 12, 1964
Place of birth:	Muroran, Hokkaido, Japan
Location:	Tokyo Metropolis, Japan
Nicknames:	青野厚志

Atsushi Aono (青野 厚司 ,Aono Atsushi), born July 12, 1964, is a Japanese animation director and freelance animator from Hokkaido. He is exceedingly well-known for his participation in Detective Conan, as well as his delicate drawings for Ai Haibara; even the author Gosho Aoyama took the name "Atsushi" as the name for Haibara's father in the manga as a sort of tribute.

Biography

Aono is a freelance animator, and his hobbies are related to cameras, model trains, tokusatsus etc. He made his debut as an in-between animator in 1985, via the anime Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (機動戦士Ζガンダム); and first served as animation director in 1989 within the anime Madö King Granzört (魔動王グランゾート). Since then, he has been involved in several major new animation works, until the present.

Nowadays, he mainly works for short-running series, and mostly with animation done by Bones (株式会社ボンズ) and Brain's Base (ブレインズ・ベース).

Works in Detective Conan

• See Animation directed by Atsushi Aono

Just like other veteran staff, Aono joined the production of the Detective Conan anime in the first year the anime began to broadcast - as animation director for the fifth episode The Shinkansen's Bomb Case. Thereafter, he kept active within the production team and constantly did key animation and animation direction in several episodes. In the beginning, his work was not that noticeable, yet after some time, he started to craft his personal style (especially when the new millennium began). During the first half of 2001, Aono's drawing style increased drastically and reached its splendor - examples include the Haibara with the red hoodie in the 2nd part of The Mysterious Passenger. Most of the frames corrected/drawn by him were memorable since they were mostly close to the original manga style, and in great proportion. Another thing worth mentioning, is that in the case of Hooligan's Labyrinth, Aono was responsible for the animation correction for both two parts, this is extremely rare in the Detective Conan anime.

Nonetheless, after several years, the style of the manga has changed, and the anime character design has changed as well. Aono's peculiar style for drawing Detective Conan characters was far off the anime character design (despite undergoing the change from celluloid conventional production to digital production; the alteration in colour design and character design in Masato Sato era). Aono eventually terminated the long-term cooperation with the Detective Conan production team after 2005, after finishing the animation direction for the 1st part of Conan and Heiji's Deduction Magic. After that, he only served as the chief animation director for OVA7 A Challenge from Agasa! Agasa vs. Conan and the Detective Boys.

It was not until 2015 that he merely returned to the Detective Conan anime and did key animation for episode 783 (The Scarlet Truth). And surprisingly, in 2018, Atsushi Aono, was back in the anime and served as animation director after entirely 14 years. The reason behind it was to "return a favour" (there was an episode in the sixth season of anime Natsume's Book of Friends (夏目友人帳) that was outsourced to V1 Studio). As a result, Studio Shuka requested Aono to temporarily take over the job for the 2nd part of The New Teacher's Skeleton Case. During that episode, Aono worked with Seiji Muta and Masatomo Sudo, and the huge difference between them and Aono can be seen, which also implied that Aono's style might not be as befitting as the current anime character design anymore.

Participation in: 1 ending

• Aoi Aoi Kono Hoshi ni (Ending 13): Key animation

Participation in: 5 movies

• Countdown to Heaven (Movie 5): Key animation
• Magician of the Silver Sky (Movie 8): Key animation
• Strategy Above the Depths (Movie 9): Key animation
• Sunflowers of Inferno (Movie 19): Key animation
• The Darkest Nightmare (Movie 20): Key animation

Participation in: 2 OVAs

• Conan vs. Kid vs. Yaiba - The Grand Battle for the Treasure Sword!! (OVA 1): Character deign, Animation director
• A Challenge from Agasa! Agasa vs. Conan and the Detective Boys (OVA 7): Chief animation director

Participation in: 1 game

• Detective Conan: The Great Deduction of Three People (2000): Animation director

Gallery

• 

  Episode 189

• 

  Episode 231

• 

  Episode 279

• 

  Episode 313

• 

  Episode 890

Other notable works

Anime

• Ah! My Goddess: The Movie: Key animation
• Baccano!: Animation director
• Cardcaptor Sakura Movie 2: The Sealed Card: Key animation
• Durarara!!: Animation director, Assistant animation director, Key animation
• Great Teacher Onizuka: Key animation
• Last Order Final Fantasy VII: Key animation
• Macross Plus: Animation director
• Steamboy: Key animation
• Vermeil in Gold: Chief animation director

See also

• Johei Matsuura

References

1. Page partially or completely translated from the Chinese version of August 13th, 2023.
2. Twitter Account (Japanese)
3. 青野厚司 - Wikipedia (Japanese)
4. Anime News Network