Mahiro Maeda (前田真宏) stands as a pillar of the animation industry, with a career spanning over 40 years and many acclaimed works as a director such as Blue Submarine No.6, Gankutsuou or The Animatrix: The Second Renaissance.

In this documentary ( by youtube channel Archipel ), Maeda reflects back on his career, exploring the turns his path took throughout the years, from his early days at Ghibli all the way to Evangelion and his current position at Studio khara.

My first exposure to Mahiro Maeda’s work was through the OVA anime series Blue Submarine No.6, which was released during the late 1990s when I was still a budding animation student. Back in those days the use of CGI in anime was still very novel, so the hybrid 2D/3D approach that Blue Submarine took was very exciting.

Personally, I wish the documentary had included more video footages of Mahiro-san’s wide portfolio of anime work he was involved in for better context, especially for viewers who might not be super familiar with all the IP discussed, but I do recognize that doing so might have required much more work ( and perhaps money ) to obtain the necessary rights.

Nonetheless, the documentary is still a fantastic and illuminating peek into Mahiro Maeda’s very impressive and extensive body of work, and makes me appreciate his contributions to the anime industry even more than before.

I highly recommend checking out his 2025 art book Zatsu ( image below ), which collects many of the concept art and illustrations featured in the documentary. He has also done fantastic visdev and concept art work for Hideaki Anno’s Shin-Godzilla as well as Shin Kamenrider.

You might also be interested in these items :