Mitsuru Hongo

Mitsuru Hongo is a Japanese animation director whose work moves between long-running television comedy, science-fiction adventure, and fantasy. He became closely associated with the early theatrical expansion of Yoshito Usui’s Crayon Shin-chan, directing four consecutive annual films: Action Kamen vs. Haigure Maou, released in 1993; The Hidden Treasure of the Buri Buri Kingdom (1994); Unkokusai’s Ambition (1995); and Adventure in Henderland (1996). These films place the irreverent five-year-old Shin-chan and his Kasukabe friends in adventures much larger than ordinary television episodes: a costumed-hero conspiracy, a hunt for a mythical kingdom, a time-traveling villain, and a sinister amusement park controlled by adult antagonists.

In 1998, Hongo directed Sunrise’s Outlaw Star, a twenty-six-episode space western adapted from Takehiko Ito’s manga. Its protagonist, Gene Starwind, begins as a Jack-of-All-Trades worker on the backwater world of Sentinel III alongside young partner Jim Hawking. After a clash involving space pirate Hilda and the bio-android Melfina, Gene takes command of the experimental grappler ship XGP15A-II, renames it the Outlaw Star, and pursues the legendary Galactic Leyline. The crew eventually includes assassin Suzuka and Ctarl-Ctarl pirate Aisha Clanclan, while Gene’s rival Harry MacDougall uses a similar ship, the Outlaw Star’s sister vessel.

Hongo also directed the 2003 television adaptation of Eiji Nonaka’s Sakigake!! Cromartie High. The series turns Kamiyama’s enrollment at an absurd delinquent school into short, deadpan sketches populated by leather-clad students, a robot, a gorilla, and Freddie, a silent singer who strongly resembles Freddie Mercury. In 2005, he directed Starship Operators, where students from Kibi Academy buy their training spacecraft after their home planet surrenders and finance its defense by broadcasting battles as a television program. His Deltora Quest, broadcast from 2007, follows Lief, Barda, and Jasmine as they seek seven gems for the Belt of Deltora to overthrow the Shadow Lord.

He was also a director on World Trigger, Toei Animation’s 2014 adaptation of Daisuke Ashihara’s manga. Its Border organization battles invaders called Neighbors, while Yuma Kuga, Osamu Mikumo, and Chika Amatori form Tamakoma Second. Hongo subsequently directed Ascendance of a Bookworm at Ajia-do Animation Works. The 2019 series begins when book-loving college student Urano Motosu dies and awakens as Myne, a frail young girl in a world where books are scarce and expensive. Unable simply to purchase the reading material she loves, Myne resolves to make books herself, a practical goal that drives the story’s early inventions, family relationships, and conflicts with the society surrounding her. The adaptation continued through multiple seasons, following Myne’s gradual social advancement closely.