Umanosuke Iida (hellsing)

[BobTD]

Is anyone else familiar with him as a director? Or seen anime by him?

I was looking up people that worked on Origin: Spirits of the past (nexflix) to see who was all on it. it defiantly felt like Miyazaki film, but its turns out there is just an actress with that last name. So I did some more digging trying to validate my suspicion that this style and quality was inspired by the legend. I didnt find anything. But I did find the story was by a guy named Umanosuke Iida.

I looked him up and it turns out he was the director of two of my favorite anime of all time, Hellsing and Gundam 08th MS Team. unfortunately he died a few years ago:

Wikimedia Error
Hellsing Director Umanosuke Iida Passes Away (Updated) - News - Anime News Network

I find it surprising that both Hellsing and Gundam 08, having been long time favorites sitting on the same bookshelf of mine where directed by the same person. This has inspired me to check out some of his other works.