Satoshi Iwataki, animator and director known for his work on Attack on Titan, passed away on December 30. In a post shared on Iwataki’s Twitter/X account, his wife revealed that he died after a two-month battle with illness: “Even in his hospital bed, he never became distraught, and he died with compassion for those around him. I think my husband, who loved animation, still wanted to create more.”
In addition to his work on Attack on Titan (he did storyboards, key animation, and was an animation director on episodes over the years, including The Final Season), Iwatashi recently worked on Jigokuraku: Hell’s Paradise, Spy x Family, and the newest Mari Okada’s movie, Maboroshi (Alice to Therese no Maboroshi Koujou), for which he was an animation director. He did storyboards for titles such as Do It Yourself!, Ghost Hunt, A Certain Magical Index, Seraph of the End, Rage of Bahamut: Genesis, and Berserk: The Golden Age Arc movie trilogy. He started his career as a key animator for the Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam anime series in the 1980s and over the years he has worked in the game industry on Sailor Moon games (1993 and 1997) and TYPE-MOON’s Fate/tiger colosseum.
As an animation director, Iwataki worked on Hell’s Paradise, Attack on Titan Final Season Part 2 (as mentioned), MAPPA’s Yasuke and Dororo (he was also a character designer), The Irregular at Magic High School, Berserk: The Golden Age Arc, A Certain Magical Index, and Ghost Hunt. He did prop design for titles such as A Certain Magical Index and Zoids Fuzors.
Satoshi Iwataki was born on December 19, 1963. At the time of his death, he was a freelancer: his account states that he stopped accepting new work in mid-November of 2023.
Source: Twitter/X