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Tomonori Ochikoshi Becomes New President at A-1 Pictures
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Sony Music Entertainment (SME), the parent company of Aniplex and its subsidiary animation studio A-1 Pictures, announced on Wednesday that A-1 Pictures company executive Tomonori Ochikoshi has become the new representative director and president of the animation studio as of April 1.
Former president Masuo Ueda is retiring from his president and CEO position, and he will continue on as executive vice president, but without the right to represent the company.
Ueda assumed the role of CEO and president of A-1 Pictures in June 2010 after Hideo Katsumata, the founding CEO of the company, switched roles to serve as representative director of Aniplex. Katsumata then stepped down from that role in September 2012.
Ueda will still serve as the president of Aniplex alongside chief operation officer Kōichirō Natsume.
Ochikoshi joined A-1 Pictures when it was founded, and he formerly held positions as the production group's general manager and the creative group's general manager. Ochikoshi will now serve a concurrent position as Aniplex's executive vice president. Ochikoshi has posted a new message in both Japanese and English on A-1 Pictures' official website.
Sony Pictures Entertainment established what would become Aniplex as the subsidiary SPE Music Publishing in 1995. SPE Music Publishing became SPE Visual Works in 1997 as it focused more on animation production and distribution. Under its current name of Aniplex, it is a wholly owned subsidiary of SME. Aniplex itself established A-1 Pictures as its anime studio subsidiary in 2005. In the past five years, A-1 Pictures has animated Sword Art Online, Silver Spoon, Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic, The Seven Deadly Sins, Space Brothers, The IDOLM@STER, anohana, Saint Young Men, and others.
Source: Anime!Anime! Biz
