Masamitsu Hidaka

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Masamitsu Hidaka (Japanese: 日高政光 Hidaka Masamitsu) was a director and storyboard artist for the Pokémon anime.

Biography

Hidaka was born on October 19, 1960, and went on initially to become an architect. After losing his job at an architecture design office, however, he went into the animation industry and soon became a noted director. In addition to Pokémon, he has also worked on various other series, including Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.

He directed the Pokémon anime up to the Battle Frontier arc, and he continued to be a storyboard artist until Pokémon the Series: Black & White.

On March 10th, 2022, Mitsuo Fukuda announced on Twitter, that Hidaka had passed away.

Interviews with PokéBeach

Most notably, Hidaka has been interviewed by PokéBeach webmaster Water Pokémon Master twice in July 2008.

He confirmed that Celebi was related to the GS Ball before it was relocated to the fourth movie, and that Brock left the show briefly during the Orange Islands arc due to fears that Americans would find him a racist stereotype. He also confirmed that Misty would not return to the main cast. In another comment made in the second interview, he joked that part of the reason for changing Ash's female companion from Misty to May, and then to Dawn is that "boys need a new piece of eye candy to look at every once in a while".