public in principle. Episode 1 of this series is introduced on the company's official website, but this was illegally uploaded to YouTube without Tokyo Movie's consent, and the link is displayed on the website. Production In the 1960s, sports dramas and slapstick comedies were the mainstream of Japanese TV animation at that time. Therefore, Calpis Co., Ltd., the sponsor of the animated program in Fuji TV, wanted to offer a family-oriented animation that was distinctly different from those fields. At that time, "Moomin," which had just been imported from abroad as children's literature, caught their attention. And so the project was launched. A short time later, the proposal was sent to Tove Jansson. Jansson's response was positive, so Shigeto Takahashi, a producer at Zuiyo Enterprise who was in charge of the project, decided to meet directly with Jansson to proceed with negotiations. Jansson suggested the following conditions for the production of the animation. No money, no machines, and no television. Development and pre-production Tokyo Movie, now TMS Entertainment, was chosen to produce the animation. The director was chosen to be Masaaki Osumi, who has the unique background of having come from a puppet theater company. Osumi, who knows Moomin well, initially thought the content was too static to be suitable for animation, but accepted the position. The company hired Yasuo Otsuka as the animation director. He was considered to be one of Japan's foremost animators, and he was an important mentor to Hayao Miyazaki. He thought the cuteness of movement and the roundness of his drawings as important, and never used straight lines to draw characters such as the Moomins. The initial meetings were confusing. Takahashi, who respected Jansson's opinions and aimed for a plot that was faithful to the original work, was at odds with the advertising agency, which aimed for a plot that did not respect Jansson's original work on the grounds that "the style as it is will not be popular in Japan". When Osumi attended a meeting invited by the advertising agency, he felt that the meeting was amazingly stupy, because comments such as "Let's run a bullet train in the Moomin Valley". He thought about quitting the job, but, he was fascinated by the animation shown by Mr. Otsuka just before leaving company, and he broke off that thought. Osumi later said of the participants in this meeting, "Perhaps, but they had not even read