<figure id="attachment_303739" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-303739" style="width: 6000px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="518ad885"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2023/03/KIN_0149.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-303739" class="wp-caption-text">Takayuki Ito was promoted to head of TV Tokyo&#8217;s production department as of April 1.</figcaption></figure>
 I&#8217;m going to miss you &#8230;&#8230;, but I don&#8217;t see any reason to hold you back. I would rather push back.&#8221;
 In March 2008, Nobuyuki Sakuma (47), Ryohei Kamide (34), and Hiroki Takahashi (41) left TV Tokyo in June of last year and February of this year, respectively. The person we asked how he, as a manager, thinks about the outflow of human resources is Takayuki Ito (50), who was promoted to head of the company&#8217;s production bureau as of April 1.
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 He is a charismatic man who has not only created numerous hits such as &#8220;Moya Moya Samaazama 2&#8221; (&#8220;Moya Moya Sama&#8221;) and &#8220;Emergency SOS!
 He is a charismatic figure who has nurtured a number of junior staff, including Mr. Sakuma, the creator of &#8220;GOTTAN. TV stations should have a culture in which human resources are metabolized more and more. Even if they quit, they can still work together, and it would be better if they could grow up outside of the station. TV people are creators, too, and they should be more free. If there is something that can&#8217;t be done at the station, and you see a view outside the station where you can do it, you should go ahead. In return, I want more and more people who say, &#8216;I want to work at TV Tokyo.
 It was Mr. Ito who drew Mr. Sakuma, who was in the drama team when he first joined the company, into the variety business.
 I&#8217;m not very good at comedy, so I was looking for someone who liked comedy. I asked him, &#8216;Would you like to try comedy? I asked him if he wanted to try comedy, and he said, &#8220;He seems happy. He also seemed to like cool things, so I gave him the title of &#8216;general director,&#8217; which the station didn&#8217;t have. We were both still in our twenties, and everyone around us scolded us for being so arrogant, but he was in high spirits (laughs).
 The key to success is to recognize character and change the way you say things and the points you need to convey depending on the person you are talking to. This is an indispensable skill for influencing people. However, surprisingly few people can do it well. If you only throw the same pitch, you can&#8217;t catch the ball. We are different people, so it&#8217;s natural, isn&#8217;t it? Ito laughed.
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" You should be a beast of prey."></div>
When asked what he thought of Sakuma, the &#8220;beast of prey,&#8221; he replied, &#8220;A beast of prey is a bit of an exaggeration. &#8230;&#8230;,&#8221; but he was adamant that he was a &#8220;comedy monster.
 There are not many people who love comedy so much and are loved so much. Sakuma loves comedy and has never changed. (Laughs.) But he is a little scary, isn&#8217;t he? (Laughs) But the fact that he keeps doing what he loves and never changes is amazing. When I say to him, &#8220;Aren&#8217;t you a genius? I say, &#8220;You&#8217;re a genius, aren&#8217;t you? I think I&#8217;m going to punch him in the face (laughs). But he is full of self-love, and there is no need to stop loving what he makes. For Sakuma, the engine is writers and comedians who love comedy, such as Okura-san, for example. I think it&#8217;s a pleasure to be able to work with them and create something funny.&#8221;
<figure id="attachment_303740" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-303740" style="width: 6000px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="bdbd8645"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2023/03/KIN_0041.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-303740" class="wp-caption-text"> With Rina Sobue, the producer of such notable dramas as &#8220;I&#8217;ll Do It Right in My Next Life&#8221; and &#8220;Sigatella&#8221;. Proactively chatting with people in different areas of responsibility to create solutions</figcaption></figure>
 Mr. Takahashi, who worked on the popular variety show &#8220;Ie, Tsuki Dorei Iai Can I Follow You? (Ie, Tsukuyodteirimasu ka?), a popular variety show, and he feels that Mr. Takahashi has a talent as a documentarist.
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 Hiroki Takahashi is the type of person who enjoys making anything interesting, but that changed with &#8220;Can I Follow You Around the House? changed him. I think his passion as a documentarist came out, or rather, the way he pursued &#8230;&#8230; the amateur variety and the difficult parts of human documentaries. I think it&#8217;s amazing that he found a format that, after reading the book, says, &#8220;If you put &#8216;Let It Be&#8217; on, everything falls into place.
 As a charismatic producer, Mr. Ito has been involved in many hit productions. The job of overseeing a program is similar to managing a team at a general company. It is understandable that a publishing company would ask him to write a management essay, knowing how busy he is, but he says, &#8220;I said, &#8216;Not now.
 He continues, &#8220;Different people do things differently, but I choose a director and other staff members, as well as performers, and leave the project with them. I have a proposal, but I fill in the title and key visuals on the first page, so I show them that and entrust them to &#8216;think about it. I don&#8217;t want it to be something that &#8220;Mr. Ito told me to make,&#8221; so I don&#8217;t give him a specific image. I look for someone who fits the project and assign what he or she is good at. I believe that if I do that, they will go beyond my imagination, and the project will take a better shape if I leave it to them.
 There are many people who stick to the plan and control the project as they imagine it. However, Mr. Ito leaves it to the staff and performers. The key word he values is &#8220;passion.
 I am not a very passionate person (laughs). To create something good, you need love and the passion to give it your all, and the staff who directly create the program and the cast members who appear in it are by far the most passionate. It is the producer&#8217;s job to create an environment that amplifies their enthusiasm and drive. If there is someone who says, &#8220;I really want to do this! I will push them if they say, &#8216;I absolutely want to do this!
 Results are always demanded in the work we do. In television, ratings are used to evaluate the work, but the numbers and reprimands from upper management are rarely communicated to the frontline.
 I get told about the numbers intensely (laughs), but that&#8217;s just a result of the situation. But that&#8217;s just a consequence. If the numbers are low, everyone feels disappointed, even if they don&#8217;t say so. I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s right to just talk about the results when everyone is doing the &#8220;best&#8221; they can at the time. If the same project is done three years later, it may be a hit. I do reflect on what I have done, and I take responsibility for what I have done. But when it comes to results, I use a grammar that says, &#8220;I&#8217;ll say the good things first. Even if we don&#8217;t get into the results, when we take stock, we talk about what we should make the most of next time. Don&#8217;t start with the negatives. No project is ever bad. If you say no, it&#8217;s gone.
 He also keeps proposals that have not been accepted. Recently, he sorted through the past five years&#8217; worth of proposals, and 30 remain. He will re-submit them with frames, casts, and titles that match the current era. This is because sometimes the times catch up with the plans. Mr. Ito says, &#8220;I feel the same way about the way I look at people as I do about planning. He also encourages his junior staff members to do what they are good at, and if he feels their enthusiasm, he encourages them to give shape to it.
 Yuichiro Iwashita, who is the general director of &#8220;Ariyoshi eeeeee!&#8221; and producer of &#8220;Yarikiri Toshidensetsu,&#8221; blurts out, &#8220;Pokemon cards are hot, aren&#8217;t they? He talks about how excited he is with the kids in the event division, so I told him, &#8216;Just one card, put it all together in a project, and you two go to the animation department. Since you are passionate about what you like and you are at TV TOKYO and it&#8217;s &#8220;Pokemon,&#8221; you should explore the possibility of giving it shape, whether it&#8217;s through events or distribution. We can answer the difficult factors such as rights issues by thinking about it with the person in charge of animation.&#8221;
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Producers in charge of TV TOKYO&#39;s variety programs"></div>
TV Tokyo has been in the news for the outflow of human resources, but even if we look only at the Variety Team, there are many producers who will lead the next generation. One such producer is Wataru Kabuki, who also serves as director of &#8220;Moyasama.
 He was the first one to say, &#8216;Please include me in &#8220;Angry Dad 3&#8221;. I want to do it. I had the impression that he was a smart director who had done &#8220;TV Champion&#8221; and other TV programs. Then, with &#8220;Moyasama,&#8221; he said, &#8220;Can I change the whole package? He would say, &#8220;Can I change the whole package?
<figure id="attachment_303741" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-303741" style="width: 1478px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="8f341b7d"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2023/03/A.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-303741" class="wp-caption-text"> Drinking with staff and junior members is an important time. A junior staff member says, &#8220;I&#8217;m having a drink with a member of another department. Can you come over now? I was very happy when he called me up.</figcaption></figure>
 Once he took charge, he changed the package of tickers, sound effects, etc., and the program quickly became more interesting. I thought he had a good sense of how to make the program more lively without making too many unnecessary changes. I originally didn&#8217;t think he was the type to do comedy, but that changed when he met with the &#8220;wanderers. He has a knack for editing that shows, or rather, you can see the editing in your mind as you are filming. That&#8217;s why I can give a &#8220;shot OK&#8221; message while shooting on location. I thought to myself, &#8216;Wow, there&#8217;s a great guy! I thought.
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 Moyasama&#8221; is a show that mainly focuses on wandering around town and has almost no script. Normally, this is the type of program where a lot of material is gathered and then edited afterwards, but the fact that he can &#8220;see&#8221; the assembly while recording is certainly an extraordinary sense of style.
 When he invites me to appear on the show, he thinks it won&#8217;t be interesting if I hand him the script the day before and he is ready for it, so he deliberately and suddenly says, &#8220;Today, Mr. Ito will appear. I don&#8217;t like it when I, as a TV producer but an amateur, appear on the show and make it look like I&#8217;m a polished amateur. I&#8217;d say, &#8216;You&#8217;re not funny today, Mr. Ito. He is not intimidated, so when we do something big, like a 50th anniversary special, I make sure to include him. When I give him something big and thick, I have confidence that he will cook it up in his own way.
 TV Tokyo&#8217;s variety shows are not limited to comedies featuring comedians. There is also &#8220;I&#8217;m home, may I follow you? What are you doing in Japan? and &#8220;You wa nani shite nihon e he? and &#8220;Naze There?
 When I joined &#8220;Are Hen Eternal World&#8221; as an advisor in its early days, he suddenly said, &#8220;I don&#8217;t want to become Mr. Ito! I don&#8217;t know, but I don&#8217;t want to be you. I don&#8217;t know, did I do something bad to you? (laughs). Mizutani&#8217;s logic for variety was totally different from mine. I don&#8217;t need to be funny.&#8221; He is pursuing a form of entertainment that does not involve working with comedians to make people laugh. He wants to revive &#8220;TV At Random&#8221; and &#8220;Kazuo Tokumitsu&#8217;s Information Spirits,&#8221; which used to be broadcast on TV TOKYO, in a modern style, and I feel that he has inherited the &#8220;TV TOKYO gene.
<figure id="attachment_303742" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-303742" style="width: 4032px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="b507ce98"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2023/03/image_50444801.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-303742" class="wp-caption-text"> In between other recordings, I had a meeting with the staff of &#8220;Uchimura&#8217;s Tsuboru Video&#8221;. Ideas often grow not only in a formal setting, but also through chit-chat with the scriptwriters and outside staff (courtesy: TV Tokyo).</figcaption></figure>
 In addition to producers who have been trained as producers, he also has high expectations for young people who are still in the process of development.
 He says, &#8220;Even if they are young or inexperienced, I want them to output what they can only do at their age, with a sensitivity that can only be achieved at that age. There is also the pain of throwing yourself into it, but you never know where that experience will lead you. Even if it is hard, I think it is better not to stop thinking about it. Our generation needs to create an environment where they can do that. This may sound a bit abstract, but I hope that the young people of the future will be the ones who break the &#8220;ideals and correct answers of today&#8217;s TV.
 Does Mr. Ito himself have any desire to &#8220;break the current TV&#8221;? I don&#8217;t think I can break it much anymore. I&#8217;m old enough now to wear a suit when I go to apologize (laughs). If there are adults like that, in an environment where there are people who will wear suits and apologize together, then perhaps the kind of people who will &#8220;destroy today&#8217;s TV&#8221; will be born.
<figure id="attachment_303743" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-303743" style="width: 4000px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="7bdd41c4"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2023/03/KIN_0238.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-303743" class="wp-caption-text"> Mr. Ito answering an interview</figcaption></figure>

 Miho Kuwata

 Takeshi Kinugawa

 What is the next generation of TV Tokyo producers that the former bosses of famous Ps such as Nobuyuki Sakuma and Hiroki Takahashi have high expectations for?　Organizational theory of Mr. Takayuki Ito, the head of the Production Bureau, who is in charge of TV TOKYO, a company full of different talents.

TV TOKYO’s charismatic “P. Ito”‘s approach to utilizing human resources: “Just be a beast of prey.

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