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Hisato Inoue

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Hisato Inoue (井上•ヒサト; pronounced He-Sou-Tow Ee-no-ay) was a staff member who created six different Sanrio characters in total; Badtz-Maru, Hangyodon, Donragon, Donjarahoi, JungleBikky, and Accyan ga Ichiban.


Hisato was born in Katsushika City on July 10th, 1957. He went to Tama Art University, one of the top art schools in Japan, and graduated with Graphic Design as his major.

Sometime in the 1980s after graduating from Tama Art University, he got hired and worked for Sanrio initially as a position in planning and designing various characters. During his time at the company, Hisato created Hangyodon in 1985 and Badtz-Maru in 1993, who both were incredibly popular and continue to be so today. Donjarahoi and Accyan ga Ichiban—his final Sanrio character created in 1994—weren't as well known but still received plenty of attention, merchandise, and even being featured in Sanrio OVAs in the case of the former. However, Donragon and JungleBikky remain fairly obscure due to reasons mentioned on their respective pages.

Hisato left Sanrio in 1995 to start work as a freelancer in Character Design, Celebrity caricature creation, Three-dimensional doll production for media such as postcards, and has created more characters unaffiliated with Sanrio such as Nemuta who has been in picture books by Hisato. He has also been involved in game development and designing characters for video games including バッドばつ丸 ゴージャスタウンは大さわぎ! where Hisato is credited as a director. His first character he made unaffiliated with Sanrio after his leave was Korasho.

Hisato is also the creator of the toilet humor themed comic/manga series Boo Boo Paradise, which has been given it's own social media accounts on different platforms including Instagram to showcase the comics that also have animated counterparts. The series stars Nakamura Bootaro, a salaryman in his thirties who is usually seen in a yellow pig mask and he seeks equality without discrimination in the world.[1] His sister Puppi is a junior high school student who also wears a pig mask and dreams of being an idol.[2]

He now resides in Kanagawa Prefecture where Hisato served as a part-time lecturer at Joshibi University of Art and Design since 2011 until his retirement on December 20th, 2021.[3]

Recently, Hisato has been making animations and drawings using an IPad Air he purchased in early September of 2021[4] which he regularly shares on Twitter and Instagram, and has published videos on his Youtube channel of him creating art with it.

Trivia

  • Hisato Inoue appears as a character in Rururugakuen known as Professor Inoue who looks similar to how he does in real life.
    • A character resembling Hisato also appears in the OVA Hangyodon no Parallel Daisakusen: Mirai Sekai wa Oosawagi, as one of the first characters Hangyodon and friends meet in the future.
    • Hisato appears as himself in the spaceship in the opening that precedes the Hangyodon no Parallel Daisakusen series.
  • Hisato frequently appeared at different Sanrio events where he would interact with fans and sign autographs.
  • Although Hisato has designed merchandise for his own characters, he did not come up with the English taglines that sometimes appeared on them.[5]
  • Hisato is a fan of the American animated comedy television series Spongebob Squarepants, which is also popular in Japan.
  • Hisato enjoys collecting merchandise based on his characters (with a focus on the retro goods) which he usually showcases on his social media accounts and provides his thoughts on the items.
  • Hisato is a fan of several different Sanrio characters including My Melody and Peek-a-Boo (which he helped with creating a Filing Pocket for).
  • To this day Hisato remains friends with a lot of the old staff who have since left Sanrio including Roko Maeda, the creator of Patty & Jimmy.
  • One of his more recent characters named Bootaro (main protagonist of Boo Boo Paradise) has a character design that Hisato has drawn a lot over the years. You can see this pig design also appear in Bad Badtz-Maru no Ore no Pochi wa Sekaiichi as a minor character.
  • As a kid, Hisato enjoyed lots of anime and manga such as Astro Boy, Tetsujin 28-go, and Osomatsu-kun.
  • Hisato is a fan of the Hong Kong filmmaker, actor, and producer Stephen Chow, with his favorite movies of Chow's being Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle because of the humor in the films.
    • As for television, Hisato enjoys watching TBS Sunday Theater and Shōten, with the latter currently being the second-longest running variety TV show in Japan.
  • One of Hisato's favorite memories of working at Sanrio was getting promoted to chief, but felt disappointed he'd been left out at the monthly company meeting taken place around that time. Later that day, Hisato was surprised at his desk by none other than Shintaro Tsuji and several women who were a part of the Strawberry News team to congratulate his new position.
  • Even though he no longer works at Sanrio, Hisato still has positive feelings about the company and would work there again.
  • Hisato is fond of characters like Snoopy and Moomin which in his words "grew up against the background of the culture of that country".
  • Hisato affectionately refers to Hangyodon and Badtz-Maru as his sons on Twitter from time to time.
  • Regarding the popularity of Badtz-Maru since his creation, Hisato was very surprised and was not expecting his character to become one of Sanrio's most well-known characters.

Gallery

Sources

  1. ↑ https://twitter.com/boo2_paradise/status/1455705050118967304?t=5feG3QfztTPuXRE-47HrEQ&s=19
  2. ↑ https://twitter.com/boo2_paradise/status/1443849524804415492?t=yrUKrvi2n9Y8HN0B4OFv2A&s=19
  3. ↑ https://twitter.com/HISATOonHashtag/status/1472839561609084928?t=udVN8YxwjvmJiGWfsI9WeA&s=19
  4. ↑ https://twitter.com/HISATOonHashtag/status/1434154408338546691?s=20
  5. ↑ [1]
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