Mr. Ishiguro, long-time anime industry veteran and director at Artland Studios.

If you're looking for anime studios in the middle of the urban sprawl known as Tokyo, your best starting point is Chuuoh line's Shinjuku, heading west. The Chuuoh ("central") train line runs east to west right through the heart of Tokyo, and as a result meanders its way through the relatively less expensive real estate to the west of Shinjuku station. Even in an age where most of the grunt animation work of 'tweening and inking has been offloaded to studios overseas, every effort is made to keep domestic overhead to a minimum. Here you will find Ghibli, which is a few train stops from AIC, which is a few train stops from Production IG, which is is a few stops from Gainax, which is a few train stops from Studio Nue, which is ...
Artland's main studio itself is on the Musashi-Sakai stop, with its typical Tokyo neighborhood of winding narrow streets and mom-and-pop shops along the main throughway. Like most anime studios, it is tucked away on an upper floor of a small building, hidden except for a small sign or the name on the mailbox. In this otherwise nondescript setting, president Ishiguro Noboru directed an ever-changing crew of animators through several decades of anime classics from YAMATO and MACROSS to MEGAZONE 23 and more recently, the LEGEND OF GALACTIC HEROES (GINGA EIYUU DENSETSU or "GinEiDen"). Due to Ishiguro's work on these series and his teaching post at the Yoyogi Animation Gakuin (Institute), the industry considers Ishiguro an affable and respected veteran.
In the past, Artland was a bustling operation spread across three studios in different locations. A book by the name "It's Artland" was even written about the various artists and creators from director Hirano Toshihiro to designer Yuuki Nobuteru (and not incidentally, iconoclast Anno Hideaki) who earned their laurels in Artland. Even EX's own Scott Frazier made his way up the industry in Artland before establishing his own studio and later moving into Production IG.
(In one humorous cartoon penned by Ishiguro himself, Ishiguro walked the aisles overseeing his troops, including a harried Mikimoto Haruhiko swamped with drawings. Off to the corner, a dozing man's dark-tanned feet stuck out from underneath curtains -- an affectionate inside joke on Studio Nue's Kawamori Shouji. He spent more nights sleeping at Artland than at Nue or even home while working on many episodes of MACROSS.)
Since the bubble burst on Japan's economy several years ago, almost every studio in the industry struggles to find work from short-run video series and video game tie-ins, and Artland has become a somewhat quieter operation. Fortunately, Artland has kept busy with LEGEND OF GALACTIC HEROES, a sprawling yet tightly written space epic which may have at long last reached its ending. This anime based on novels by Tanaka Yoshiki (SOURYUUDEN, ARSLAAN WARS) first came to the silver screen in February of 1988, and has since spawned four video series encompassing 110 episodes as well as a second movie and a video side story.
Since the EX contingent arrived at Artland in Friday afternoon last December, few of the workers had yet to even come in for work. Animators being animators, many drop by the studio in late afternoon or early evening and work through the night. While EX waited for more to come, Ishiguro sat down and described some of the current and future projects of Artland (continued)