Hiroyuki Morita

Life and career

Morita hails from Fukuoka Prefecture and finished his schooling at Fukuoka Kenritsu Chikushikoto School. While still in high school, he made an independent animated short that took a prize in a contest run by an animation magazine; one of the crew members on that film was Katsuyuki Toda, who would go on to become a manga artist. After earning a degree in mechanical engineering from Fukuoka University, he started his career at the animation studio Shaft. His first animator credit was on Hiatari Ryōkō!. He then went freelance, handling inbetween work on features like Akira and Kiki's Delivery Service, and later serving as a key animator on Roujin Z, Hashire Melos!, Memories, Perfect Blue, and many other projects. He also directed an episode of the OVA Golden Boy. For Perfect Blue, Morita personally performed the dance steps for the idol characters, showing his dedication to getting the basics right. He contributed to Studio Ghibli on My Neighbors the Yamadas and the short Koro no Daisanpo for the Ghibli Museum, which paved the way for him to direct The Cat Returns. In 2007 he directed his first TV series, Bokurano: Ours. On February 27, 2011, he was elected director of the Japanese Animation Creators Association, stepping down from that board in June 2015 after roughly four years. Until mid-2017 he worked at Polygon Pictures, a digital animation studio, and was involved in running ACTF, a forum focused on digital animation. He now works as a freelancer. While Bokurano was airing, Morita used his blog to post production updates and hold Q&A sessions about each episode, drawing a mix of criticism, support, and questions from viewers. On that same blog, he wrote, "I dislike the original work, and I admit that I made some malicious changes to the original when making it into an animation." This statement sparked viewer backlash not only against the adaptation but against Morita himself.