Michihiko Suwa

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Michihiko Suwa

Michihiko Suwa.jpg

Profile
Gender: Male
Date of birth: April 14, 1959
Place of birth: Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, Japan
Position: Planning
Chief producer
Producer
Supervisor
Years active: 1983-present
Nicknames: スワッチ
Website: Twitter Account
Personal Blog
Personal Blog (Old)

Michihiko Suwa (諏訪 道彦 Suwa Michihiko?) is a Japanese television producer formerly worked for Yomiuri TV. He is also a visiting professor at Digital Hollywood University[1]. He did a small cameo in Metropolitan Police Detective Love Story 8: The Left Hand's Ring Finger which he voiced a police detective.

Suwa is an essential person for the Detective Conan anime, as he was the producer for the anime from episodes 1 to 332 and chief producer from episodes 333 to 940. He was also the producer from movies 1 to 20, and was in charge on the planning work of the anime until episode 974; and the movie until movie 23. From episode 975 until episode 1099 he became the supervisor of the anime. He is also one of the production committee representing Yomiuri TV from movies 24 to 26.

Biography

Suwa graduated from the Faculty of Engineering, Osaka University (大阪大学工学部) and has studied at Toyota City Koromo Elementary School (豊田市立挙母小学校), Toyota City Soukakan Junior High School (豊田市立崇化館中学校), and Aichi Prefectural Okazaki High School (愛知県立岡崎高等学校) before[2]. In 1983, he joined Yomiuri Television Broadcasting (YTV) and got deployed to its head office production department one month later[3]. After he was promoted to director for the March 5, 1985 broadcast programme[4], he was transferred to the Tokyo Production Bureau in 1986 and began producing anime works, starting with Robotan (ロボタン)[3].

Michihiko Suwa at Japan Expo 2008

He was the producer of several well-known anime produced by Yommiuri TV, such as City Hunter (シティーハンター), Inuyasha (犬夜叉), and Black Jack. (ブラック・ジャック); as well as another detective anime, The Kindaichi Case Files (金田一少年の事件簿). Speaking of the Detective Conan anime, he first told the editorial department that he wanted to adapt Detective Conan into anime around the serialization of chapter 5 and 6.[5] He was also the person who made the series more famous even though the TV rating of it back then was way lower than Crayon Shin-chan (クレヨンしんちゃん) and was on the verge of cancellation. He was also a proposer of movie adaptations, which expanded the Detective Conan series (with movie 1 being released in 1997); thus he received the Fujimoto Prize Special Award in 2013 for his work on the Detective Conan series[4].

Furthermore, he also established a project in the 1980s named Anime Daisuki! (ニメだいすき!), which is a short-term intensive broadcast of OVA works and anime movies on Yomiuri TV during student holidays, as he wanted to "explore the possibilities of anime". Moreover, he always carries around a trunk with characters from his works drawn on it, and he reads about 10 manga magazines a week in search of animation projects[3].

In April 2012, his radio programme Michihiko Suwa's Swaraj (諏訪道彦のスワラジ) began to broadcast[3], co-produced by Nippon Cultural Broadcasting and Super!A&G+; he accomplished his dream of becoming a show personality when he was a child[3].

On July 1, 2013, he was promoted to director status; starting June 23, 2017, he was promoted to Executive Producer in the Animation Department of the Executive Officer Programming Department. On June 1, 2019, he announced that he left YTV animation department because he reached the retirement age and was transferred to YTV Nextry, an affiliated company, where he became Managing Director[6]. Despite that, he still continued his work regarding TV animations after this transfer; in June 1, 2023, he returned to his old YTV programming bureau and animation department as a special contract worker[7].

On September 29, 2023, Suwa claimed in his personal diary that he would quit the company (Yomiuri TV), where he had worked for forty and a half years[8]. Starting October 2023, he began running his own company, Asuwa PP Co., Ltd. (株式会社アスハPP), and he disclosed that the name of the company is taken from the katakana of ”明日は“ (ashita wa) which means "tomorrow", while including the pronunciation "suwa"[9]. Therefore, he ceased serving as the supervisor for the Detective Conan anime thereafter (he has been part of the Detective Conan staff team for 27 years and 9 months).

In Detective Conan

Anime version

In TV Station Murder Case (Manga: 102-104, Anime: 31), he appeared as the producer from Nichiuri TV (modelled after Yomiuri TV), a supporting character with the same name, "Michihiko Suwa". However, he was murdered by Takashi Matsuo, also a supporting character modeled after a real celebrity. Afterwards, Suwa mentioned in a conversation with the author of the manga Gosho Aoyama, that "many people said, 'Mr. Suwa was killed' after watching Detective Conan".

Some years later, in anime original episodes The Seven Wonders of the Hiroshima Miyajima Tour and The Most Useful School in the World Case, a character named Mikihiko Kamisuwa, appeared and was obviously named after him.

Other notable works

Anime

See also

References

  1. 諏訪道彦 - Wikipedia (Japanese)
  2. Anime News Network
  1. ^ デジタルハリウッド大学
  2. ^ "橋詰美幸「こころは三河 私の古里　アニメプロデューサー 諏訪道彦さん」". 中日新聞: 24. October 14, 2013. 
  3. ^ a b c d e "スワッチ プロフィール". October 10, 2017. https://www.ytv.co.jp/anime/suwa_wp/?p=202. 
  4. ^ a b "藤本義一さんと大阪イレブン". November 18, 2012. https://www.ytv.co.jp/anime/suwa_wp/202.html. 
  5. ^ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named interview
  6. ^ "人事異動｜すわっち日記". May 30, 2019. https://www.ytv.co.jp/anime/suwa_wp/4895.html. 
  7. ^ "異動報告です｜すわっち日記". June 2, 2023. https://note.com/suwacchi2/n/n96daa83c79db. 
  8. ^ "最後の会社出勤日｜すわっち日記". September 29, 2023. https://note.com/suwacchi2/n/n4f95c0c278d3. 
  9. ^ "アスハPP始動です！｜すわっち日記". October 2, 2023. https://note.com/suwacchi2/n/n86e432c88a83. 
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