Episode 4: "And he asked again, 'Are you STILL reading this stuff?'"
— by Scott Frazier

Producer

This one's easy. A producer produces. (You should know this by having read the I.G. tour.) See David Ho's wonderful explanation of what a producer does.

Planning (Kikaku)

US animation studios often call this development. These people are the ones who take the original idea, be it manga or novel or whatever, and help it make the transition to animation. They often choose what part of the story to do, help choose the staff, and bring everything to the stage where the staff can start the production.

Presentation/Production (Seisaku) (lit. work)

This is normally the main sponsor of the show and the company who put together the product, whether it is a TV show, OVA, movie or whatever. The sponsor may be a company like Bandai Visual, King Records, Pioneer, Sony Music Entertainment, or another large sponsor.

Animation Production (Animation Seisaku)

The studio who did the actual animation work. For instance, King Records is the sponsor of Bakuretsu Hunter and would appear as "seisaku" on the credits and Xebec, who produced the actual drawings and cels and such, would appear as Animation Production.

Production (Seisaku)		Production Manager (Seisakubuchou)
Production Controller (Seisakudesuku)		Production Assistant (Seisakushinkou)

The seisaku department manages the show through the production process. The production workers monitor every sheet of paper, every cel, every pixel, every drop of paint, every script book that the assistant directors lose, every time that the key animators miss a production meeting because they are asleep or eating at the filthy little noodle shop next door (or both) and so on. This is a very hard department to work in. The phones ring constantly and it seems like everyone who can steal even a minute of extra time to do their work is doing it, so the production workers must be polite but firm.
Most production workers work 14 hour days and often weekends and holidays when the schedule is really tight. They also have to spend a lot of time travelling, driving around the city to pick things up or drop them off or to go to meetings. When the rest of the staff is celebrating the end of the production, the production staff is already working on the next show. The reward of this position is that you can look at a show that you managed and think, "That couldn't have been done without me!" (Depending on the show, you might not want to say this out loud because you could get stomped to death.)
(Usually, production workers are 18 - 23 year old men but one prominent company president preferred to hire only women for the production department. When asked why he said, "Women are meaner and all the men know it so they never even think about going over the schedule or budget." Not exactly a progressive company...)

Art Director (Bijutsukantoku)

The "bikan" creates "image boards", illustrations from the major points and locations in the script, defining the setting, colors and other details. This is much like the illustrations done by Syd Mead for Blade Runner. The art director then creates a detailed settei (model pack) for the background artists and key animators to work from and "art boards" which are rough backgrounds (BGs) to show the BG artists how the actual BGs will look.
When asked what the requirements for becoming an art director were, a well-known art director said, "Well, you have to be able to deal with the schedules the (expletives deleted) production people make so you have to be able to drink a lot." (A job interview would be much like the scene in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly where Blondie and Tuco are given an "enlistment test" by the commander of the Union forces at a river where both sides were fighting over a bridge.)

Background (Haikei)

(continued)