I’ve written an obituary of Osamu Dezaki, director of Golgo 13, Aim for the Ace and Black Jack, among many others. It’s up online at the Manga UK blog. Not something I was expecting to have to write this morning, but when is it ever?

Dezaki was one of the few animators working in the Japanese business who had a readily identifiable style. You could always tell you were watching a Dezaki anime, regardless of the subject, thanks to his “Postcard Memory” cutaways.

I always enjoyed his insistence on taking things seriously — even comedy. This attitude even cost him work, such as the time he refused to direct a school drama about boys falling in love with other boys, because the gayness wasn’t real enough, and the realness wasn’t gay enough.