Norio Matsumoto

Birth : , Japan

History

Prolific action and character animator. Began career after graduating from Tatsunoko's animators training program, where he met Atsushi Wakabayashi. Worked as an "inbetweener" for Oh! Productions (1987-89). Mentored under Tomohiro Hirata, and influenced by Satoru Utsunomiya and Takashi Nakamura, for which he has adapted elements of their approach for a wider audience. Norio is perhaps best known for his work on the Naruto franchise, being the lead animator on Wakabayashi's episodes 30, 71, 133; and episode 167 of Shippuden.

Movies

Lonely Castle in the Mirror
Key Animation
Shy outcast Kokoro has been avoiding school for weeks when she discovers a portal in her bedroom mirror. She reaches through and finds herself transported to an enchanting castle where she is joined by six other students. When a girl in a wolf mask explains that they have been invited to play a game, the teens must work together to uncover the mysterious connection that unites them. However, anyone who breaks the rules will be eaten by a wolf.
Inu-Oh
Key Animation
Born to an esteemed family, Inu-oh is afflicted with an ancient curse that has left him on the margins of society. When he meets the blind musician Tomona, a young biwa priest haunted by his past, Inu-oh discovers a captivating ability to dance. The pair quickly become business partners and inseparable friends as crowds flock to their electric, larger-than-life concerts. But when those in power threaten to break up the band, Inu-oh and Tomona must dance and sing to uncover the truth behind their creative gifts.
The Wonderland
Key Animation
The story follows Akane, a girl with no self-confidence. On the day before her birthday, she meets a mysterious alchemist, Hippocrates, and his student, Pipo, who both tell her they're on a mission to save the world. Together, they set out from the basement for "Wonderland," and Akane finds herself labelled Wonderland's savior.
Night Is Short, Walk On Girl
Key Animation
As a group of university students go out for a night on the town, a sophomore known only as "The Girl with Black Hair" experiences a series of surreal encounters with the local nightlife – all the while unaware of the romantic longings of "Senpai", a senior student who has been creating increasingly fantastic and contrived reasons to run into her in an effort to win her heart.
Your Name.
Key Animation
High schoolers Mitsuha and Taki are complete strangers living separate lives. But one night, they suddenly switch places. Mitsuha wakes up in Taki’s body, and he in hers. This bizarre occurrence continues to happen randomly, and the two must adjust their lives around each other.
Boruto: Naruto the Movie
Second Unit Director
The spirited Boruto Uzumaki, son of Seventh Hokage Naruto, is a skilled ninja who possesses the same brashness and passion his father once had. However, the constant absence of his father, who is busy with his Hokage duties, puts a damper on Boruto's fire. He ends up meeting his father's friend Sasuke, and requests to become... his apprentice!? The curtain on the story of the new generation rises!
Boruto: Naruto the Movie
Storyboard Artist
The spirited Boruto Uzumaki, son of Seventh Hokage Naruto, is a skilled ninja who possesses the same brashness and passion his father once had. However, the constant absence of his father, who is busy with his Hokage duties, puts a damper on Boruto's fire. He ends up meeting his father's friend Sasuke, and requests to become... his apprentice!? The curtain on the story of the new generation rises!
Boruto: Naruto the Movie
Key Animation
The spirited Boruto Uzumaki, son of Seventh Hokage Naruto, is a skilled ninja who possesses the same brashness and passion his father once had. However, the constant absence of his father, who is busy with his Hokage duties, puts a damper on Boruto's fire. He ends up meeting his father's friend Sasuke, and requests to become... his apprentice!? The curtain on the story of the new generation rises!
Boruto: Naruto the Movie
Animation Director
The spirited Boruto Uzumaki, son of Seventh Hokage Naruto, is a skilled ninja who possesses the same brashness and passion his father once had. However, the constant absence of his father, who is busy with his Hokage duties, puts a damper on Boruto's fire. He ends up meeting his father's friend Sasuke, and requests to become... his apprentice!? The curtain on the story of the new generation rises!
Miss Hokusai
Key Animation
A daughter is constantly overshadowed by her famous father, but she is determined to make her own mark in the world.
The Tale of The Princess Kaguya
Animation
Found inside a shining stalk of bamboo by an old bamboo cutter and his wife, a tiny girl grows rapidly into an exquisite young lady. The mysterious young princess enthrals all who encounter her. But, ultimately, she must confront her fate.
One Piece: Episode of Luffy - Hand Island Adventure
Key Animation
As Luffy and the crew were attacked by several marine warship they were forced to use Coup de Burst to escape. Crash landing on an island the crew decided to explore while some repairment is made. Upon meeting an wax artisan and learning the truth behind the island Luffy offer his help.
Naruto x UT
Key Animation
Naruto x UT is the eighth Naruto OVA. Approximately 200,000 copies of this OVA were distributed by Uniqlo to promote a line of Naruto-themed shirts designed by Masashi Kishimoto in conjunction with Studio Pierrot. It shows the aftermath between a fight between Naruto and Sasuke and shows clips of their times together and the story so far.
Colorful
Key Animation
Upon reaching the train station to death, a dejected soul is informed that he is lucky and will have another chance at life. He is placed in the body of a 14-year-old boy named Kobayashi Makoto, who has just committed suicide. Watched over by a neutral spirit named Purapura, the soul must figure out what his greatest sin and mistake in his former life was, before his time limit in Makoto's body runs out. He also has a number of other lesser duties he must complete, such as understanding what led Makoto to commit suicide in the first place and learning how to enjoy his second chance at life.
Welcome to the Space Show
Key Animation
Five children save the life of a dog-like alien while at a self-run summer camp. He attempts to reward them by taking them to an alien colony on the Moon. Events take a turn for the worse when his report on that attack that injured him causes passage from the Moon to the Earth to be banned, and children are stranded in space. The children need to find a way back home before camp ends and their parents discover that they are missing. They also have to avoid the poachers that injured their alien friend, and now seem to be stalking them all.
Ranma ½ Nightmare! Incense of Spring Sleep
Key Animation
Doraemon: Nobita and the Green Giant Legend
Key Animation
Nobita’s troubled about what to do with his zero test marks once again. A gust of wind scatters his test papers and he falls into a garbage dump trying to gather them together again. There he finds a young withered tree that caught one of his papers and he decides to take it home. He tries to plant it in his garden but gets caught by his mother who doesn’t allow him to grow it.
Sword of the Stranger
Key Animation
Pursued by formidable Chinese assassins, young Kotaro and his dog run into No Name, a mysterious stranger who gets pulled into the chase. The unlikely companions form a bond over saving the dog from a poison attack, but chaos erupts when the assassins find Kotaro, and No Name must face his past before a horrible fate is met again.
Naruto the Movie: Guardians of the Crescent Moon Kingdom
Storyboard Artist
Naruto Uzumaki, Kakashi Hatake, Sakura Haruno, and Rock Lee are assigned to protect the prince of the Land of the Moon, Michiru, during his world trip; other escorts had been hired, but quit due to being treated poorly. The Land of the Moon is a very wealthy nation, so Michiru tends to buy whatever he wants, and has a very materialistic worldview. His Hikaru, also acts in much the same manner.
Naruto the Movie: Guardians of the Crescent Moon Kingdom
Key Animation
Naruto Uzumaki, Kakashi Hatake, Sakura Haruno, and Rock Lee are assigned to protect the prince of the Land of the Moon, Michiru, during his world trip; other escorts had been hired, but quit due to being treated poorly. The Land of the Moon is a very wealthy nation, so Michiru tends to buy whatever he wants, and has a very materialistic worldview. His Hikaru, also acts in much the same manner.
Doraemon: Nobita's Dinosaur
Key Animation
After bringing a fossilized egg back to life with the Time Cloth, Nobita finds himself the owner of a baby dinosaur. Everything is fine until it grows up. Nobita and friends use Doraemon's time machine to return it back to its own time.
Naruto the Movie: Legend of the Stone of Gelel
Key Animation
Naruto, Shikamaru, and Sakura are executing their mission of delivering a lost pet to a certain village. However, right in the midst of things, troops led by the mysterious knight, Temujin, attack them. In the violent battle, the three become separated. Temujin challenges Naruto to a fight and at the end of the fierce battle, both fall together from a high cliff...
One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island
Key Animation
The Straw Hats visit a recreational island, run by Baron Omatsuri, who asks them to complete a series of ordeals if they wish to stay on the island. Luffy accepts and the Straw Hats work together to complete them, but as the island's mysteries unfold, their lives and friendships are put to the test. It's up to Luffy to stop the Baron's plot and keep his crew together.
Tokyo Godfathers
Key Animation
On Christmas Eve, three homeless people living on the streets of Tokyo discover a newborn baby among the trash and set out to find its parents.
Blood: The Last Vampire
Key Animation
In Japan, the vampire-hunter Saya, who is a powerful original, is sent by her liaison with the government, David, posed as a teenage student to the Yokota High School on the eve of Halloween to hunt down vampires. Saya asks David to give a new katana to her. Soon she saves the school nurse Makiho Amano from two vampires disguised of classmates and Makiho witnesses her fight against the powerful demon.
Tenchi Forever!
Key Animation
One day, Tenchi disappears in the forest near his house. Six months later, Ayeka and Ryoko locate Tenchi living in a city, but with a mysterious woman. What's more, Tenchi appears to have aged several years. Whenever Ayeka and Ryoko catch up to him, he disappears into thin air, apparently existing in a fabricated alternate dimension where he has no knowledge of his past.
Spring and Chaos
Key Animation
Set in the beginning of the 20th century Japan, the film follows the bright and eccentric Kenji from his late student years through his adulthood. Kenji suffers the tragedy of being an artist whose art isn't recognized during his lifetime. Based on the life of the author Kenji Miyazawa, the film depicts his brief but intense existence.
Gunsmith Cats
Key Animation
Rally Vincent and Minnie May Hopkins are just a pair of gun shop owners who do a bit of bounty hunting to make ends meet when a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms agent comes to them. Using the threat of arresting them for their lack of a retail license for their merchandise and the resulting unpaid taxes, he forces them to agree to cooperate in a sting to break a gun running ring. They have an initial success, but that brings new problems as the ring's leader brings in a merciless assassin to eliminate these new enemies. It will take all their skill, allies and some luck to come out this crisis alive.
Macross Plus: The Movie
Key Animation
Three decades after the great war between the humans and the Zentradi, the U.N. government is developing new technologies to use in their transforming fighter aircraft by running tests on the colony planet Eden. Military test pilots and former childhood friends, loose cannon Isamu Alva Dyson and the Zentradi mixed race Guld Goa Bowman, are selected to each pilot a new aircraft (Shinsei Industries' YF-19 & General Galaxy's YF-21) for Project Super Nova, to choose the newest successor to the VF-11 Thunderbolt variable fighter which is currently still in use by the U.N. Spacy military forces. Their own personal grudges end up disrupting the tests, and begin to wreak havoc on the program.
Roujin Z
Key Animation
Mr. Takazawa, an elderly invalid who is cared for at his home by Haruko, a young nursing student, is chosen by the Japanese Ministry of Public Welfare to test the Z-001, a computerized hospital bed with robotic features that allegedly displays more efficiency and skills than any human nurse, but Haruko mistrusts a machine unable to consider human feelings.
MAROKO
Key Animation
Theatrical anime movie created from the OVA 'Gosenzosama Banbanzai', written and directed by Mamoru Oshii.