Curated playlist
Anime directors
- Seitarō KitayamaSeitarō Kitayama's 1917 anime, made for paying audiences, retold Japanese folktales.
- Hiromasa YonebayashiHiromasa Yonebayashi became Studio Ghibli's youngest feature director at 37. He had spent years as a key animator.
- Noburō ŌfujiNoburō Ōfuji animated with patterned handmade Japanese paper. He used washi, including Edo chiyogami.
- Hayao MiyazakiHayao Miyazaki was told as a boy he would not live past 20. He went on to found Studio Ghibli in 1985.
- Mitsuyo SeoAnimator Mitsuyo Seo was jailed as a leftist in 1931, then made a film of Momotarō bombing Pearl Harbor.
- Yoshifumi KondōYoshifumi Kondō directed only one film before he died at 47. Many at Studio Ghibli saw him as heir to Miyazaki.
- Goro MiyazakiGoro Miyazaki was hired to draw storyboards and ended up directing Tales from Earthsea.
- Hideaki AnnoHideaki Anno wrote his own experiences of depression into the characters of Neon Genesis Evangelion.
- Katsuhiro OtomoManga artist Katsuhiro Otomo planned Akira as only about ten chapters. It ran for eight years and two thousand pages.
- Yoshiyuki TominoMobile Suit Gundam was cut short in 1979 and still became one of anime's longest-running franchises.
- Hiroyuki MoritaHiroyuki Morita danced the idol choreography himself before drawing it into Perfect Blue.
- Tomomi MochizukiTomomi Mochizuki directs anime under one name and writes under another. His writing alias is Gō Sakamoto.
- Osamu DezakiOsamu Dezaki made anime fade into a painted still. He called the technique a "postcard memory."
- Makoto ShinkaiAnime director Makoto Shinkai studied Japanese literature, not filmmaking.
- Tadahito MochinagaTadahito Mochinaga began stop-motion in China because paint and film were scarce. Puppets saved paint.
- Kenji TeradaKenji Terada, a history graduate, wrote the first three Final Fantasy games. He was a freelance anime writer.
- Osamu TezukaOsamu Tezuka was a licensed physician who never practiced medicine. He is the manga artist behind Astro Boy.
- Kihachirō KawamotoPuppet animator Kihachirō Kawamoto said his puppets only came alive after a year studying in Prague.
- Go NagaiGo Nagai started drawing manga because he thought he was dying. The illness was catarrh of the colon.
- Isao TakahataIsao Takahata survived an air raid at age nine, then made Grave of the Fireflies.
- Shūkō MuraseShūkō Murase is a Japanese anime director and animator whose credits begin in the 1980s and reach all the way to a film dated 2026. He was born in 1964 and is a member of Sunrise. His name appears beside many different jobs: animation…
- Yoshikazu YasuhikoYoshikazu Yasuhiko answered a newspaper ad on a whim and became Gundam's character designer.
- Satoshi KonWhen Satoshi Kon died in 2010, the news landed as a shock. He had kept his illness private, and only a short time earlier he had appeared at public events with no visible sign that anything was wrong. Kon was a Japanese film director,…
- Kenji KamiyamaKenji Kamiyama began his anime career as a background painter.