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Director of Kaiju Girls, Re:Zero Gag Anime Shorts is a Veterinarian By Day
posted on by Amanda Ellard
Minoru Ashina is the creative mind behind a bevy of comedic shorts like Kaiju Girls, Re:Zero and Macross Delta and the ONA episodes for Lord Marksman and Vanadis. Despite all of his animation ventures, he had another very different job by day. He's a veterinarian at Tsukuba Minopu Animal Hospital in Tsukuba city, Ibaraki Prefecture.
He started animating in the early 2000s when he made flash animation at night while attending veterinarian school. He continued with the hobby as he moved to Ibaraki Prefecture to practice nine years ago. While waiting for patients and in any down-time, he would connect his digital drawing tablet to the personal computer used for accounting in the hospital, and work on his own works and contracted outsourced projects.
During the overnight times a the hospital, he said he noticed other friends online in the middle of the night and he would try to recruit them into helping with his projects. One of those men was Minoru Takehara who is now vice president of Ashina's animation studio. Ashina produced the scenarios, staging, and sound and Takehara the character designs and animation.
Eventually Production I.G contacted him and he received his first full job with BLOOD-C. Now he says that, "besides myself, there are four people on the hospital staff and seven on the animation staff. The animation staff sometimes help out around the hospital and vice-versa." He also explained his busy schedule, with examinations in the morning and afternoon, stealing naps or running errands during the lunch break, and working on animation during other time frames.
Ashina's newest work is the Kaiju Girls shorts. The Ultra Monster Anthropomorphic Project's characters came out to be petite and cute with his group's designs. Ashina had a lot of story he wanted to put in and it was difficult with the 5 minute episode constraint. When asked why he made Agira the center of the show, he explained that "arranging it with three people at the time was a good silhouette balance, and the idea of the hero sandwiched between the energetic character (Miclas) and the calm character (Windom) was also good."
Tsuburaya Productions created the Ultra Monsters Anthropomorphic Project and it's based on past monsters and creatures that appeared in the Ultra Series. Ashina directed the Kaiju Girls anime shorts for the project, which first aired on September 27 and is currently streaming on Crunchyroll. Other projects, such as a manga series, are also in the works.
Source: Animate Times
