Takuya WADA
A true animation legend, Takuya WADA can boast of having worked on some of the biggest titles in history, including Hokuto no Ken and the celebrated Cobra. But as a jack-of-all-trades, he has also worked on films such as Ring and Ring 2!
Takuya WADA began his career as an animator. After high school, he went straight into the world of professional animation with his work on Lupin III. Building on this experience, in 1982 he contributed to the anime adaptation of the famous manga Space Adventure Cobra. As a key animator, he brought Buichi Terasawa's drawings to life, making the series an international success.
But his anime work didn't stop there: in 1984, he became animation director on the Hokuto no Ken series, better known as Fist of The North Star. Tetsuo Hara's work, under the direction of Takuya Wada, quickly became a staple of the genre, and played an active part in the rise of anime in France via its broadcast on Club Dorothé.
Since then, he has continued in this vein, working on recent titles such as Megalo Box in 2018 and Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead in 2023!
His work is not limited to anime: after moving to the United States, he trained in make-up techniques and special effects. There, he had the opportunity to work on the film Guyver: Dark Hero. With the help of this new experience, he returned to Japan to work as a make-up art director on horror films. His debut was Masayuki Ochiai's Parasite Eve, based on the novel of the same name. Although the film's reception was lukewarm, it was an important one in the history of Japan's horror film boom of the 1990s and 2000s.
Takuya WADA's work on the film Ring in 1998 gave the audience nightmares. Takuya WADA was responsible for the ghost Sadako's terrifying appearance in Ring and its sequel Spiral, and Ring 2 the following year. His work on the specter's appearance helped bring this character into the horror pantheon.
He continued in cinema, this time as director on the tokusatsu films Jushin Thunder Liger: Fist of Thunder and Yajuu Densetsu: Dragon Blue.
This year, you can find him at Japan Expo on Thursday, Friday and Sunday for conferences and signing sessions!