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NTV Chair/Anime Film Producer Seiichiro Ujiie Passes Away (Updated)
posted on by Egan Loo
NTV Chairperson Seiichiro Ujiie passed away on Monday, March 28 in a Tokyo hospital due to multiple organ failure. He was 84.
Ujiie produced most of the projects from Studio Ghibli, including almost all of the films and television specials from 1993's Umi ga Kikoeru (Ocean Waves) to 2008's Ponyo. He also produced most of the Detective Conan films from 2002's Detective Conan: The Phantom of Baker Street to 2010's Detective Conan: The Lost Ship in The Sky. His other productions include the Inuyasha films, the live-action Death Note films, two Lupin III films, the 2005 Black Jack: The Two Doctors Of Darkness anime film, the 1990s live-action special-effects Gamera films, and the first two live-action film adaptations of the Sanchōme no Yūhi - Yūyake no Uta (Always: Sunset on Third Street) manga.
Source: Mainchi Shimbun via animeanime.biz
Update: Ujiie also served as the head of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, which held exhibits devoted to the works of background artist Kazuo Oga, production designer Yohei Taneda, and other Ghibli creators. Ujiie was a former chairperson of the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan.
Ujiie joined Yomiuri Shimbun-sha, the newspaper publisher and the parent company of NTV, in 1951 after graduating from the University of Tokyo's Faculty of Economics. He rose through the ranks to become the president of NTV in 1992, and then started his first tenture as its chairperson in 2001.
His family plans to hold a service, followed by a separate service by NTV.
Source: Asahi
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