Portfolio. In Charge of Production

Masaki Iizuka 飯塚正樹 · いいづかまさき

The Rankin/Bass producer in Japan, for thirty years

Co-founded Pacific Animation Corporation in May 1983. Was already the senior Japanese producer on Rankin/Bass productions a decade before that. Stayed at the helm through the Disney acquisition.

Born: Active in Japanese animation production since the early 1970s. Active at Mushi Production by 1963 on the original Astro Boy run.
Died: Early 2020 (per Rick Goldschmidt remembrance, February 2020)
Role on ThunderCats: In Charge of Production
Season involvement: All four seasons. Producer-side leadership across the studio's entire ThunderCats output.

Masaki Iizuka with Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass at the Museum of Television and Radio, New York, 2003 — Iizuka (centre) with Arthur Rankin Jr. (left) and Jules Bass (right) at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York, 2003. Photograph by Rick Goldschmidt. This is the most-shared verified image of the Pacific Animation production head, taken on an evening that honoured Rankin\'s body of work.

Masaki Iizuka speaking at a microphone, undated photograph — Iizuka speaking at an event, undated. Photograph from the Rick Goldschmidt archive.

Iizuka at an event — Another Iizuka portrait from the same archive run.

Masaki Iizuka at a dinner table at home, giving a thumbs up to camera — At home: Iizuka at the dinner table in his Tokyo house. Goldschmidt\'s informal digital-camera shot from the same visit-cycle as the 2011 reunion photo below.

Iizuka informal photo — Iizuka in conversation, same visit.

Biography

Masaki Iizuka (飯塚正樹) appears on the production credits of the original 1963 Astro Boy at Tezuka's Mushi Production, and was a senior producer on the early Yamato production at Sunrise. By the 1970s he was overseeing the Japanese end of Rankin/Bass productions, first through Topcraft as their primary Japanese partner, then increasingly on his own. He was, in producer Rick Goldschmidt's blunt description, "the Rankin/Bass Producer/Director in Japan."

In May 1983, months before Topcraft's formal dissolution into Studio Ghibli. Iizuka founded Pacific Animation Corporation (パシフィック・アニメーション・コーポレーション) as a continuity vehicle for the Rankin/Bass account. The corporate registry lists the studio's address as 杉並区松庵3丁目40番12号 (Shōan 3-40-12, Suginami-ku, Tokyo), three subway stops west of Topcraft's old Asagaya offices, in the heart of the Tokyo animation belt. Roughly a fifth of Topcraft's staff came across with him.

Pacific Animation's first major production was ThunderCats. Iizuka took the "In Charge of Production" credit on every one of the 130 episodes, plus the same credit on SilverHawks, The Comic Strip, and the 1986 The New Adventures of Jonny Quest. He continued in the same role after Disney bought the studio in 1988 and renamed it Walt Disney Animation Japan. The studio went on to handle action sequences across the Disney Afternoon shows and the direct-to-video Disney sequel features through to its closure in 2004.

Iizuka died in early 2020. Rick Goldschmidt's blog post that February stands as the most personal English-language tribute. The photograph below. Iizuka standing between Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York in 2003, is the most-shared verified image of him, taken on an evening that honoured Rankin's body of work. On the walk back to Rankin's apartment afterwards, Iizuka talked about how the Animagic stop-motion crew "never quite lived up to the legend of Tad Mochinaga and what he did with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."

On ThunderCats

Production lead across all 130 episodes. The person who actually got the show drawn, on schedule, every week, for four years.

The home gathering, March 2011

In March 2011, on the day after the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Arthur Rankin Jr. flew into Tokyo and a group of Rankin/Bass\'s Japanese animators gathered at Iizuka\'s home to mark the occasion. Rankin called the photograph from that evening a "reunion." It is, as far as is documented, the largest single group photograph of the Japanese R/B family ever taken. Iizuka is one of the men on the staircase; Rankin is the elderly man at the back with white hair; Jules Bass stands beside him. Rick Goldschmidt published the image in February 2014, alongside the Arthur Rankin obituary coverage.

Rankin/Bass animators gathered at Masaki Iizuka's home in Tokyo, March 2011, one day after the Tōhoku tsunami. ~14 people including Arthur Rankin Jr., Jules Bass, and members of the Pacific Animation Corporation team — The Rankin/Bass family at Masaki Iizuka\'s Tokyo home, March 2011. © 2011 Olga Rankin / Rick Goldschmidt Archives.

Topcraft. Iizuka was the long-time Rankin/Bass producer in Japan; PAC was founded as a continuity vehicle when Topcraft began dissolving into Studio Ghibli.

The Hobbit (1977) Rankin/Bass poster — The Hobbit (1977). Topcraft production, Iizuka producing on the Japanese side. 40,000 cels, 817 cuts, 380 colors, five years to make.

The Last Unicorn (1982) poster — The Last Unicorn (1982). Topcraft's first theatrical feature; Iizuka producing.

Walt Disney Animation Japan offices — Walt Disney Animation Japan. After Disney bought PAC in 1988, Iizuka continued in the production lead role through the studio's closure in 2004.

Selected works around and after ThunderCats

SilverHawks 1986
Sister Rankin/Bass show, also produced at PAC.
The Comic Strip 1987
Four-show R/B anthology block, PAC production.
The New Adventures of Jonny Quest 1986
PAC handled animation.
Walt Disney Animation Japan slate 1988–2004
Production leadership through the WDAJ era; action sequences on The Return of Jafar, Aladdin and the King of Thieves, the Lion King sequels, and DTV titles through Pooh's Heffalump Movie (2004).

Why this credit matters

Iizuka is the rarest kind of credit in animation: the line on a closing crawl that quietly held an entire pipeline together. Three decades of Rankin/Bass output and a decade and a half of Walt Disney Animation Japan output passed through him. He is the single point of continuity between the Animagic Christmas specials your parents watched and the action sequences in Aladdin and the King of Thieves.

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.

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