Kenji Itoso is a Japanese animation and film director, business executive, and professor. Born in 1978 in Hiroshima Prefecture, he studied at Tokyo Zokei University. In his teens, he was a student of Hayao Miyazaki at Studio Ghibli’s Higashi Koganei Son Juku seminar, an experience that profoundly shaped his artistic worldview. He later worked on notable series such as Yu-Gi-Oh!, Attack on Titan, Fruits Basket, Fire Force, and Macross Delta. Itoso is the founder of KENJI STUDIO and serves as a professor and the chair of the Department of Art and Design at Osaka Seikei University.

Itoso is best known for creating the original anime Santa Company and Coluboccoro. The Santa Company franchise began as a manga concept that he developed into a short film. The story reimagines Santa Claus’s operations as a corporate entity, allowing him to deliver presents in a single night. The original Santa Company short was released in 2014, following a successful crowdfunding campaign. An extended theatrical version, Santa Company: Christmas no Himitsu (also known as Santa Company: The Secret of Christmas), premiered on November 29, 2019. Itoso continued the franchise with Santa Company: Manatsu no Merry Christmas (Santa Company: Midsummer’s Merry Christmas), released on January 29, 2021, for which he served as director, scriptwriter, and original creator.

The fantasy anime Coluboccoro originated as a short film created by Itoso in 2007. The story follows a girl named Suzu who discovers a nature spirit. Itoso produced the independent version almost single-handedly. A renewed theatrical version was released on November 29, 2019, simultaneously with the Santa Company film. For the theatrical version, Itoso held all copyrights to the work, a structure that differed from Japan’s traditional production committee model. The film received awards including the Institutional Prize at the 2008 Tokyo Anime Awards and was invited for screening at the Cannes Film Festival.

A recurring element of Itoso’s artistic identity is his ambition to innovate the business and production side of the anime industry. He has accumulated approximately 850 million yen through crowdfunding campaigns, a feat recognized by Guinness World Records. He has stated that he structures his productions, such as Santa Company, so that his studio holds all copyrights, allowing him to freely use data for educational materials or share production processes online. His goal is to make anime production transparent to train the next generation of creators and engage global fans. He was selected by the late director Satoshi Kon to work on the unfinished film Dreaming Machine. Kon’s advice to create his own work immediately rather than “someday” directly led to Itoso’s focus on producing the Santa Company film.

Itoso’s industry significance lies in his dual role as a creator and a strategic businessman. By utilizing crowdfunding and retaining full copyright ownership of his original works, he has demonstrated an alternative path for financing and controlling anime projects outside of the traditional production committee system. His efforts to use his own works as open educational tools represent an attempt to address labor and training issues within the Japanese animation sector. He later directed the television series Aquarion: Myth of Emotions, which premiered in 2025.