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A-1 CEO Hideo Katsumata Assumes New Title at Aniplex
posted on by Egan Loo
Sony Music Enertainment (SME) announced on Friday that Hideo Katsumata, the founding CEO and President of SME's anime studio A-1 Pictures, will now serve as a representative director of Aniplex, SME's anime production company and A-1 Pictures' parent company. The current president of Aniplex, Kōichirō Natsume, will continue in his role and will work with Katsumata to guide the company. Katsumata has also been promoted to the role of senior executive officer at Aniplex.
Masuo Ueda is succeeding Katsumata as the CEO and President of A-1 Pictures, since Katsumata is leaving that role but remains as a board director.
Sony Pictures Entertainment established what would become Aniplex as the subsidiary SPE Music Publishing in 1995. It became SPE Visual Works in 1997 as it focused more on animation production and distribution. Under its current name of Aniplex, it is a wholly owned subsidiary of SME. Aniplex itself established A-1 Pictures as its anime studio subsidiary in 2005. In the past five years, A-1 Pictures has animated Big Windup!, Birdy the Mighty: Decode, Kannagi, Black Butler, the Anime no Chikara projects, Welcome to THE SPACE SHOW, and others.
Katsumata had led A-1 Pictures since Aniplex launched the studio in 2005. He served as executive producer on Fullmetal Alchemist, Blood+, Rurouni Kenshin, and many other Aniplex projects. Ueda began his anime career as a producer in the anime studio Sunrise, but joined Aniplex in 2003 and later A-1 Pictures at its 2005 founding. His works have included Mobile Suit Gundam - The Movie Trilogy, City Hunter, Escaflowne: The Movie, and Inuyasha.
Source: animeanime.biz
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