WKazuki Akane is a Japanese director of Japanese animation. Until the early 2000s, he was a staff member of the anime studio Sunrise, where he collaborated with Shoji Kawamori to direct his most famous work, The Vision of Escaflowne. Since that time, he worked extensively with Satelight before going freelance once more to direct the Birdy the Mighty TV series, among other projects.
WKeita Amemiya is a prolific Japanese character designer and director from Urayasu, Chiba. Amemiya is known for his distinctive fantasy designs and directorial style.
WHideaki Anno is a Japanese animator, filmmaker and actor. He is best known for creating the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995). His style is defined by his postmodernist approach and the extensive portrayal of characters' thoughts and emotions, often through unconventional scenes presenting the mental deconstruction of those characters. The Evangelion franchise has had a significant influence on the anime television industry and Japanese popular culture, with many deeming Anno as one of the medium's first auteurs.
WShingo Araki was a Japanese animation artist and character designer.
WKazuhiro Furuhashi is a Japanese anime director and supervisor, born in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture. He is amongst anime's most foremost directors, having directed and helmed the Rurouni Kenshin series, Zipang, the You're Under Arrest series, GetBackers, Hunter × Hunter, Le Chevalier D'Eon, Real Drive and most recently, Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn.
WShinji Higuchi is a Japanese filmmaker and anime storyboard artist, and one of the top special effects supervisors in Japan, best known in the west for his work on Shusuke Kaneko's Gamera trilogy in the 1990s. He works on both anime and tokusatsu projects.
WKon Ichikawa was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. His work displays a vast range in genre and style, from the anti-war films The Burmese Harp (1956) and Fires on the Plain (1959), to the documentary Tokyo Olympiad (1965), which won two BAFTA Film Awards, and the 19th-century revenge drama An Actor's Revenge (1963). His film Odd Obsession (1959) won the Jury Prize at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival.
WHiroyuki Imaishi is a Japanese key animator and animation director and one of the co-founders of Studio Trigger. His style is marked by fast and frantic animation combined with elaborate storyboarding and punchy direction. Prior to founding Trigger, he was an animator and director at Gainax. His most well-known works include Gurren Lagann (2007), Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt (2010), Kill la Kill (2013), Promare (2019), and Star Wars: Visions (2021).
WIsamu Imakake is a Japanese animator, screenwriter, television director and producer. He also worked as illustrator for some manga like Geobreeders.
WNoboru Ishiguro was a Japanese animator best known for directing the anime series Space Battleship Yamato II, Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Century Orguss, Humanoid Monster Bem, Megazone 23 - Part I, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, and Tytania.
WKunio Katō (加藤久仁生) is a Japanese animator known for the short film La Maison en Petits Cubes which won the 2008 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. He also created The Diary Of Tortov Roddle, a surrealistic dream adventure.
WToshihiro Kawamoto is a Japanese animator. He is co-founder and director of the anime studio Bones. He was character designer and animation director of Cowboy Bebop.
WYoshiji Kigami was a Japanese animator, director and storyboarder. He started working at Shin-Ei Animation, later became part of Animaruya and then he became affiliated with Kyoto Animation.
WOsamu Kobayashi was a Japanese animator, illustrator, mechanical designer, and animation director primarily known for BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad and Paradise Kiss; his guest appearance as director of episode 4 of Gurren Lagann, and, most recently, episode 15 of Dororo. After graduating from high school, he worked as a designer and manga artist, but following his participation in Grandia he was mainly active in the field of animation. He originally directed avant-garde shorts and music videos for Studio 4°C and has more recently done two TV series for Madhouse Studios. He died of kidney cancer on April 17, 2021.
WKazuo Komatsubara was a Japanese animator, animation director and character designer born in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. He worked as an independently contracted character designer for Toei Animation in the 1970s and 1980s. He was a member of the board of directors of animation studio Oh! Production. He died on March 24, 2000 due to a cancerous tumor on his neck.
WFumio Kurokawa , is a Japanese storyboard artist and animated film director. He directed a number of animated television series produced by Nippon Animation during the 1970s and 1980s. Kurokawa was the series director of Animated Classics of Japanese Literature, included among the "100 Must-See Japanese Animation Masterpieces" in the 2007 encyclopedia Anime Classics Zettai!.
WTomoki Kyoda is a Japanese animation director and animator.
WHayao Miyazaki is a Japanese animator, director, producer, screenwriter, author, and manga artist. A co-founder of Studio Ghibli, he has attained international acclaim as a masterful storyteller and creator of Japanese animated feature films, and is widely regarded as one of the most accomplished filmmakers in the history of animation.
WTensai Okamura , born Yutaka Okamura on December 13, 1961, in Fukushima Prefecture, is a Japanese anime director and animator. Okamura grew up in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture. He is a graduate of Waseda University's department of science and engineering. In 1991, he changed his first name to Tensai.
WKatsuhiro Otomo is a Japanese manga artist, screenwriter, animator and film director. He is best known as the creator of Akira, in terms of both the original 1982 manga series and the 1988 animated film adaptation. He was decorated a Chevalier of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2005, promoted to Officier of the order in 2014, became the fourth manga artist ever inducted into the American Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 2012, and was awarded the Purple Medal of Honor from the Japanese government in 2013. Otomo later received the Winsor McCay Award at the 41st Annie Awards in 2014 and the 2015 Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême, the first manga artist to receive the award. Otomo is married to Yoko Otomo. Together they have one child, a son named Shohei Otomo, who is also an artist.
WYasuhiro Takemoto was a Japanese animator and television and film director. He worked at Kyoto Animation for almost his entire animation career after joining the company in 1996 until his death in 2019.
WYoshiyuki Tomino is a Japanese mecha anime creator, animator, director, screenwriter, songwriter and novelist best known for creating the Gundam anime franchise. He was born in Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, and studied at Nihon University's College of Art.
WShinichirō Watanabe is a Japanese anime television and film director, best known for directing the critically acclaimed and commercially successful anime series Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo. An auteur of the industry, Watanabe's work is characterized by evocative uses of music, mature themes, and the incorporation of multiple genres.
WKōji Yamamura is a Japanese independent animator who, after leaving a career as a background artist at an animation studio, directs, writes, edits, animates, creates the model sheets and background art for and sometimes produces his own short films and has worked on many commissions such as music videos, television advertisements, title sequences and station idents, both on his own and under or with other directors. He is also a regular illustrator of children's literature and textbooks.
WYoshikazu Yasuhiko is a Japanese animator, manga artist, and director in the anime industry.
WHiromasa Yonebayashi , nicknamed Maro (麻呂), is a Japanese animator and director, formerly for Studio Ghibli. After his directorial debut with Studio Ghibli, he became the youngest director of a theatrical film produced by the studio. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2015 for his second film, When Marnie Was There.
WYasuhiro Yoshiura is a Japanese writer and director of animated short films. Many of his works such as Pale Cocoon and Time of Eve have garnered awards and featured at film festivals. His production studio is called Studio Rikka.