Kise, Kazuchika

Twitter: @kazuyachaude

Kazuchika Kise was born on March 6, 1965 in Osaka. After graduating from high school, he enrolled into animation school but voluntarily dropped out after only four days because he could not study the animation he was looking for. He then joined AnimeR, where he studied under Hiromi Muranaka and Moriyasu Taniguchi.

During the production of Future Police Urashiman (1983) he met Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, at the time production staff member at Tatsunoko Production. Later, Kise made his debut as an animation supervisor on another Tatsunoko Pro TV series, Red Photon Zillion, which was produced at a branch which later became Production I.G. This lead to him joining the production of Patlabor: The Movie, where he served as the animation supervisor. As the animation supervisor, he also defined the look of Oshii's future feature films such as Mobile Police Patlabor 2: The Movie and Ghost in the Shell. He also served as the animation supervisor on The End of Evangelion.

After the production of Patlabor: The Movie wrapped up, he planned to return to Osaka, but Ishikawa offered him to stay and become one of the Production I.G's founding board members. To everyone's surprise, Kise decided to stay and was then put in charge of I.G's Studio 2, which he still oversees to this day.

As an animator, Kise specializes in realism and is one of the most prominent animators of realist school. Alongside Hiroyuki Okiura and Tetsuya Nishio, he is known as one of "The Three Gods I.G."

He is also known for his cool and easy-going personality. His easy-going manner might be the reason for what distinguishes Studio 2. Even within I.G, which has become more established in terms of company organization, Studio 2 still keeps the essence of a typical free and open anime studio. People most often attribute this to the uniqueness of the staff in Studio 2 as compared to Studio 1. When it comes to hiring new staff, Kise says, "I take him/her out and have a drink together to see whether we've got an interesting kid."

(Source: Production I.G, Wikipedia, atwiki.jp)