Toshio Okada (岡田 斗司夫) is an anime producer, author, and lecturer. He is a co-founder and former president of the production company Gainax. He is portrayed by actor Gaku Hamada in the 2014 J-drama Aoi Honō based on the autobiographical manga by his fellow Kazuhiko Shimamoto. He is representative director of Otaking Inc. and Cloud City Inc., as well as the founder of FREEex Inc. He also served as a part-time lecturer at the University of Tokyo's college of art and sciences and as a visiting scholar at Osaka University of Arts' character creative arts department.
Biography
Childhood
Okada was born on July 1, 1958, in Osaka, Japan. He has written several Japanese-language books on otaku culture, and lectured on the topic as an adjunct instructor at University of Tokyo from 1996 to 1997.[1] He is considered the foremost authority on otaku and in addition, in a tribute to his own otaku-ness has been called "Otaking" amongst his colleagues and fellow otaku.[2]