Katsuya Kondou

Katsuya Kondou (sometimes spelled "Kondo") is one of the top animators at Studio Ghibli. Born on June 2, 1963, he has been working on Ghibli movies since Laputa in 1986. He was the animation director for Kiki, Only Yesterday, and I Can Hear the Sea. He did the character designs for Kiki and I Can Hear the Sea, and also worked as a Key Animator on Mononoke Hime and Yamada-kun.

To make things more complicated, Yoshifumi Kondou was also an animation director on Kiki and Only Yesterday! They are not related, though.
 

Non-Ghibli Works by Kondou
|| Kumo no you ni, Kaze no you ni ||   In addition to working on Studio Ghibli films, Kondou has worked on his own projects. Because of the similarities to Miyazaki's art style, Kondou's works are often mistaken as such. One of the most commonly mistaken movies is Kumo no you ni, Kaze no you ni (Like the Clouds, Like the Wind), a 1990 NTV television movie set in China. Some people have commented that the main character, Ginga, looks like an Asian Kiki (picture on right). Snapshot 1 Snapshot 2 Snapshot 3 Snapshot 4 Title logo Ginga Kumo no you ni, Kaze no you ni Copyright 1990 Studio Pierrot & Katsuya Kondou   || Tamamayu Monogatari ||   Kondou also worked on Tamamayu Monogatari (Jade Cocoon), a Sony PlayStation video game released in 1998. He was the character designer and scenic designer for the game. The game was released in Japan by Genki, and licensed for release in North America by Crave Entertainment. There is a sequel scheduled for the Sony PlayStation 2 console, though no release date has been set yet, and it is not known if Kondou will do the character designs for the second game. Tamamayu Monogatari Copyright 1998 Genki & Katsuya Kondou		|| The Aurora ||   Kondou also created the character designs for the NTV movie Umi no Ourora (The Aurora/The Sea's Aurora). The film premiered in Japan on August 5, 2000, in Tokyo and Osaka, and on October 7, 2000, in the United States at the New York Anime Festival. The film follows a team of deep-sea archeologists as they seek to uncover the ancient mysteries of the Earth's origins. As they are digging, they uncover some strange, glowing bacteria, and the bacteria aren't happy about being awakened... Movie poster Scene 1 Scene 2 The videos of this film have been released. Color, Stereo, 91 minutes. DVD: VPBV-11160, Dolby Digital, ¥4800 VHS: VPVV-64730, HiFi, ¥15,800 Umi no Ourora Copyright 2000 NTV & Katsuya Kondou More Information: You can learn more about Kondou by visiting the following links: Filmography Books by or about Kondou A short profile on Genki's Tamamayu site (in Japanese)