Maruyama produced Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, one of many titles in a career spanning more than five decades of Japanese animation. His producing model has been consistent throughout: identify a director with a distinctive approach, secure the funding and then protect the project from interference.
He co-founded a studio in the nineteen seventies that became one of the most respected in the industry, known for backing directors with strong individual identities rather than for a house style. He later left to found another studio, and then a third, each time in order to keep working on projects the previous structure could not accommodate. He was in his seventies when he founded the last one.
Recurring subjects: authorship, directors given genuine freedom, and a preference for adult oriented material in an industry weighted toward younger audiences. His catalogue is unusually varied, spanning horror, sports, psychological drama and action, unified only by the seriousness of the direction rather than by genre.
The studios he founded produced a substantial share of the most admired Japanese animation of the past forty years, and directors he backed early went on to define the medium internationally. He is frequently described within the industry as the producer most responsible for its auteur tradition.
For viewers who want to trace a producing sensibility across decades. Suited to anyone approaching adult oriented Japanese animation, and to those interested in how studios are actually built.
