Portfolio. Animation Staff
Akihiko Takahashi 高橋 明彦 · たかはし あきひこ
The all-rounder, key animator, art director, cinematographer
Came into PAC in the mid-1980s and moved between key animation, art direction and cinematography across the studio's output. Season 1 ThunderCats credit.
- Born
- Active in animation from the early 1980s
- Role on ThunderCats
- Animation Staff (Season 1)
- Season involvement
- Season 1, the founding-block crew alongside Akiyama, Kubo and the Topcraft veterans.
Biography
Akihiko Takahashi joined Pacific Animation Corporation in the mid-1980s as part of the studio's founding-era hire wave. His role at PAC was unusually broad, he is credited variously as animator, art director and cinematographer across the studio's output, the profile of someone the production manager could move between roles as the schedule demanded.
On ThunderCats specifically he sits on the Season 1 animation staff alongside Akiyama, Kubo, Yatabe, Nomura, Sato and the rest of the founding crew. PAC's Season 1 was a 65-episode order under intense schedule pressure; the studio needed flexible senior staff who could swing between roles, and Takahashi was one of them.
After ThunderCats he stayed at PAC through SilverHawks, the other Rankin/Bass productions and the early years of Walt Disney Animation Japan.
On ThunderCats
Season 1 animation staff, part of the founding-era crew that established the show's look.
Selected works around and after ThunderCats
- SilverHawks 1986
PAC continued at Pacific Animation.
- Walt Disney Animation Japan slate 1988 onwards
Continued post-Disney acquisition.
Why this credit matters
Takahashi is the example of the PAC swing-player, the kind of senior animator a small studio cannot run without.
Sources
Cover artwork and portrait images here are reproduced under fair use for editorial commentary. Image sources: Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons (work cover art); Rick Goldschmidt, "Masaki Iizuka remembered" (2020) for the Iizuka portrait; Z&G Animelab (zganimelabo.co.jp) for the Akiyama 2024 photographs. Japanese-language biographical sources cited per page above.