Shirobako is set in an anime studio, giving viewers an interior (and often, clever) watch how the anime is made. A lot of the characters are inspired by people who work in animation.
Which makes sense! If this is going to be an insider look at the anime, then it should be filled with insiders, right?
When characters clearly inspired by real people appear on the show, they are given slightly different names. So, for example, Hideaki Anno becomes “Mitsuaki Kanno”.
Similarities have already been pointed out (here, Twitter user Yebi_Fly noticed last fall). Most recently, a Twitter user Gundam_TV created an exhaustive comparison. Let’s take a look!
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Animated director Seiji Mizushima has run shows like Fullmetal Alchemist and Mobile Suit Gundam 00.
Long-time industry veteran, Masao murayama co-founded the Madhouse animation studio. He now runs a new studio called MAPPA.
Yoshikazu Iwanami is a sound director who has worked on a range of anime, including Blood c, Ghost in the Shell: Arise, JoJo’s bizarre adventure, and much more.
Hideaki Anno is probably best known for Neon Genesis Evangelionm Currently he is working on the new Godzilla movie.
The multi-talented Ichiro Itano is famous for his elaborate mecha action sequences, known by Macross fans like “Itano circus”.
Masahiko minami started at Sunrise, but then co-founded BONE.
Mai Nakahara is a voice actor who is perhaps best known for voicing Nagisa in clandestine.
Shizuka Ito is a prolific voice actor. More recently she has recorded music.
Likewise, Aï Kayano is another comedian and singer.
Shiro Hamaguchi is a composer, who composed the A play anime and, more recently, Shirobako. He also made arrangements for Final Fantasy VII and Monster hunter.
Hirokazu Hamamura was previously the editor of game mag Famitsu. He is now president of the magazine’s parent company, Enterbrain.
Naoyuki Onda is an anime vet with a long credit list and a buff look.
Yuji matsukura produced cartoons Azumanga Daioh, Bakouman, and Ikki Tosen– among many, many others.
This is Yuta Todoroki, an anime producer who previously worked at Bandai Namco.
Takeshi Nogami is a manga artist.
Takashi Ikebata worked as a screenwriter and anime director.
Hiroyuki yoshino is a screenwriter with credits like My-HiME.
Masayuki yoshihara is an anime vet with credits on everything from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex to Crayon Shin-chan.
Mitsuhisa Ishikawa co-founded IG Production and supervised Kill Billanime sequence from.
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