Renzo's autograph from Hiroshima 96 to our own Wendy Jackson.

After about a year at Mushi Productions, Renzo left and got into making his own films, while I stayed on doing TV series and feature films. Renzo met Sayoko at Mushi, where she was sort of a secretary to an executive. She had gone to art school and hung out with our crowd. That's how they met. About three years later, after he started his own studio, they got married.

Renzo had a unique style, and I remember when I became one of the premiere animators in Japan and had had the chance to evaluate a lot of artist portfolios. But when I would see Renzo's work, I got the feeling that if they were for sale, they would be worth buying, they were that good.

Renzo was quite involved with the independent filmmaking movement and ASIFA, but I was not closely in touch to talk about these things. However, I vividly remember when he and Sayokosan were the motivating force to get the Hiroshima Festival off and running. Sayoko was always very much involved in the creative part of it. She would go out and really promote a lot of their travels to ASIFA events, which they always did together.

He was quite famous in Japan, not for his own films, but for the work he did on a 90 minute TV show back around 1965 called Geba Geba. He did brief, five second spots, with a character spaced throughout the show called Geba Geba Ozisan (Uncle Geba Geba.) which they blended optically with a live-action comedian and they would banter back-and-forth. And that was a very popular character for Renzo. But Renzo's main focus was his own little films and documentaries. But to make money in order to keep these films in production, he would make commercials to subsidize his independent films. His company was always a two man studio. It was him and Sayokosan. He would hire people like me to come in and help him out on a film, but he never had like a full-time crew. Renzo was essentially the art crew, while Sayokosan would do the ink and paint and background.

Among his tight circle of friends, there are some very famous illustrators who all kind of learned together. Renzo could always depend on them to come in and help them out on a film. So, he was able to get the best designers and illustrators and all that. He was very dedicated in making his films and developing his craft, and he was very proud of it, but in a low key sort of way.

It's ironic about the film he made about Hiroshima and the A-bomb. You see, I was born in Hiroshima and experienced the bombing as a child and saw the mushroom cloud. I never talked about what I saw or experienced to Renzo, but what he depicted in his film was so true to life: the bomber flying over, the blue sky, and the smokey part; I was just absolutely flabbergasted at how real Renzo's image was; it was exactly like what I actually saw.

It was funny, because as fellow animators, we would always discuss what we're working on, what are our new ideas. But that was one film that we never actually talked about. If we did talk about it, I would have described it vividly, because as an animator you're able to describe things that way. But in spite of that, Renzo captured it all.

Kinoshita's Made in Japan (1972).

When we were students and learning the craft, we would talk for hours about American animation. We always spoke of how someday we would come to the United States and work in the animation business there, which I eventually did. I would write letters and at Christmas we would exchange cards, where I would say, "Come on, when are you ready to come to America and work here?" And he would say, "I would love to, but you know how much I like apple pie. Do you have a good recipe for apple pie?" So, I said, "My wife makes wonderful apple pies, so if you come you can have all you want." And that was the very last note I sent to him in my last Christmas card I sent him. In that note, I also said, "I will be coming back to Japan in May, so we will get together and we'll talk more about American animation."

I heard the news of his death from a friend we both worked with in Osaka, who sent me the obituary in an Osaka newspaper. It's rather poignant that we ended up talking about apple pies and American animation.