The Origin of Yasuji Mori

On a great Japanese animator.

A still from The White Snake Enchantress (1958)

Welcome! It’s another Thursday edition of the Animation Obsessive newsletter, and this one is about Yasuji Mori (1925–1992).

He was an animator in postwar Japan, and the words used for his impact are grand ones: “fundamental,” “incalculable,” “immeasurable.” At Tokyo’s Toei Doga, he was key to the look, tone and motion of films like The White Snake Enchantress (1958). And he taught the future artists of Japanese animation.¹

“I can’t exactly say when I was first able to understand what Mori-san gave me. … I can only say that I gradually became aware of having been handed something very important,” wrote Hayao Miyazaki.²

Those who knew Mori recalled him as quiet, unassuming and shy. He didn’t chew people out, and he hated conflict, and he would cover his drawings when someone approached his desk. Many younger artists at Toei Doga looked up to him, and often gathered near him.

“Around such an important person,” Isao Takahata remembered, “everyone seemed happy and at ease.”³

But Mori was a perfectionist, too. He rarely accepted animation without revisions, and he frequently worked late to correct it himself. Animator Yasuo Otsuka, a Mori apprentice, wrote that his mentor’s critiques were detailed when a pupil was willing to improve. When they weren’t, he was silent — essentially giving up on them. “In that respect, he was truly scary,” Otsuka remarked.

Mori’s mix of kindness and exacting ability made him central to postwar animation. Kazuko Nakamura, an early Toei Doga artist, credited him with inspiring her to stick with the job. “During my time at Toei, in my clumsiness, I couldn’t come close to the adorable, delicate movements and drawings of Mori-san,” Nakamura wrote, “but through my association with him I received the essence; you could call it the joy of putting life or heart into things.”

The Mori known to Toei’s people didn’t come into being all at once. He was made by the postwar era — and the spirit of his animation, which so informed Toei Doga, was born in the medium’s struggling years.