Ryûichi Yokoyama

When his mangas gave him enough popularity, the film industry began to take an interest in him and he was hired to do the cartoon sequences of the films "Enoken's Millions" (1937). Shortly after he created his most famous manga series, "Fuku-Chan" (1938-71), which was converted in two short animation films (1942-44) the first directed by reputed Kenzo Masaoka. Yokoyama wrote the script himself and co-directed the second one, which was his debut as a director; he directed several short films more and finally, after creating his own studio, Otogi, in 1957, he did two long-feature animation films, "Hyotan Suzume" ("The Sparrow in the Empty Pumpkin", 1959) and "Otogi no Sekai Ryoko" ("Journey Around Otogi's World", 1962). Yokoyama was also creator and director of the Japan first animation TV series, "Instant History" (1961-62), followed by "Manga Calendar" (1962-63). Yokoyama also directed a live-action film with animation sequences, "Watashi wa nisai" ("I Am Two Years Old", 1962), and also appeared as an actor in a film based on the manga of his little brother Taizo Yokoyama, "Pu-San" ("Mr. Poo").