Masato Sato

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Revision as of 03:52, 30 October 2023 by Jefflie (talk | contribs) (Biography)
Masato Sato

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Profile
Gender: Male
Date of birth: unknown
Place of birth: Japan
Location: Japan
Also known as Masuku Taiga.
The last name can also be pronounced Okawa, Daiga, Oko or Oga[1]. The first name can either be read Masuhisa, Masuki or Masutama[2][3].

Masato Sato (佐藤 真人 Satō Masato?) is a Japanese animation director, screenplay writer, storyboard artist, and technical director. He was assistant director from episode 318 to 332, before replacing Yasuichiro Yamamoto as director from episode 333 to 504. Occasionally he uses the alias Masuku Taiga (大河 桝玖 Taiga Masuku?) for some storyboard and episode directing work.

Biography

He used to work as a video operator at Ajia-do (亜細亜堂). After switching to do directing, he established his own animation studio named Axel (アクセル).

He was involved in the Detective Conan anime production since it was first broadcast. He first did organizer, storyboard, and episode director work for the third episode An Idol's Locked Room Murder Case; during this period, he also had been the director of the anime in episode 162 and episode 219. Afterwards, he became the assistant director, starting with the 1st part of The Lucky Cigar Case; then the long-term director, starting with the 1st part of The Similar Princesses.

During his period as director, the Detective Conan anime production became rather chaotic; there was a huge alteration in the staff team, most storyboard artist began to quit the anime production, and a lot of animators were diverted to work on the movies, even the anime character designer Masatomo Sudo temporarily ceased serving as the role. As a result, the anime character designer was changed to Mari Tominaga forcibly. The color design was also switched to Fusako Nakao, and the queer color tone had brought a few questionings. This caused the unsteadily of the animation back then, leading to the increase in the demand of the involvements of outsource companies as well.

Special extended episodes (1-2.5 hours) are more commonly found in the Masato Sato era (mostly during YTV schedule rearrangement in Fall 2007). Amusingly, they made different versions of the same opening for each special episodes - for example opening 21 has different versions of opening animation for each episodes (including the remaster episodes).

Until the last episode of the Clash of Red and Black series, which was aired in mid 2008, Sato eventually retired from the director role; Koujin Ochi took over the director position thereafter (Sato did not take part in the Detective Conan production for some time after his resignation as director, but surprisingly returned in 2011 and served as the director for OVA Detective Conan vs. Wooo).

In 2007 and 2013, Sato worked on some episodes under the pseudonym Masuku Taiga, which seems to be a direct reference to the boxing name and manga series Tiger Mask (タイガーマスク / Taigā Masuku).

Works in Detective Conan

As Masato Sato

Participation in: 55 cases (74 episodes)

Participation in: 5 openings and 5 endings

Participation in: 4 movies

Participation in: 5 OVAs

As Masuku Taiga

Participation in: 5 cases (5 episodes)

Other notable works

Anime

  • Lupin III: Part III: Original drawings
  • Soreike! Anpanman: Technical director
  • Slayers: Technical director, Storyboard
  • Slayers Next: Storyboard
  • Doraemon: Technical director, Storyboard
  • Yatterman: Storyboard
  • Ultimate Otaku Teacher: Storyboard (Credited as "大河桝玖")

References

  1. 佐藤真人 - Wikipedia (Japanese)
  2. 大河桝玖 - Atwiki (Japanese)
  3. 大河桝玖 - AllCinema (Japanese)
  4. Anime News Network