Hiromasa Yonebayashi

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Hiromasa Yonebayashi was, according to producer Toshio Suzuki, the most skilled animator at Studio Ghibli. That is a remarkable thing to say about anyone at a studio whose name is synonymous with the highest standards in Japanese animation. Yet Yonebayashi spent years near the back of the credits, a key animator whose name most audiences would never notice. Then, at 37, he became the youngest director to helm a theatrical feature at Studio Ghibli. His debut film arrived not because he campaigned for it, but because Hayao Miyazaki believed a younger filmmaker should carry ideas that originated in Miyazaki's own youth. Who is this person who impressed one of animation's most demanding masters, was jokingly accused of haunting a film as a ghostly spirit, and then walked away from the studio that made him to start something entirely new?

• 2. Roots in Ishikawa

  ›

  Yonebayashi was born in Awata, Nonoichi Town, Ishikawa District, Ishikawa Prefecture, a place that has since been incorporated into Nonoichi City. He attended Kanazawa Izumigaoka High School, where he studied in the science and mathematics track. During his third year, he decided he wanted to pursue art instead and began preparing for admission to an art university. That pivot was not random. From childhood, he had loved manga, reading Weekly Shonen Jump and copying the styles of artists such as Akira Toriyama. Because he had a younger sister, he also read shojo manga magazines like Ribon. He drew comics and showed them to family members, and he was the one his classmates called on whenever they produced a wall newspaper.

  At Kanazawa College of Art, he majored in commercial design. The choice was deliberate. He felt that solitary disciplines such as oil painting and traditional Japanese painting were not suited to him. He wanted to make art as part of a team. That instinct toward collaboration would shape everything that came after. A fellow student at the same university, though not overlapping in their years of study, was animator and director Mamoru Hosoda. While working part-time at a local video production company, Yonebayashi came across Hosoda's graduation project and was struck by its quality.

• 3. Learning Under Miyazaki

  ›

  In 1996, Yonebayashi left university and joined Studio Ghibli. His first screen credit came the following year on Princess Mononoke, where he worked on in-between animation and clean-up. Over the next decade and a half he accumulated credits on some of the studio's most celebrated films: Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, and Ponyo as key animator, and Tales from Earthsea as assistant animation director under Goro Miyazaki.

  The scene that defined his reputation came during the production of Ponyo. Yonebayashi animated the sequence in which Ponyo runs across the ocean waves. That sequence greatly impressed Hayao Miyazaki. It is the kind of scene that demands a precise understanding of weight, rhythm, and character energy. His earlier work on short films also stood out: he served as animation director on Imaginary Flying Machines and as animation supervisor on Mei and the Kittenbus.

  His relationship with Miyazaki was not without its sharp edges. A well-known anecdote from the studio describes a moment when it began to rain. Yonebayashi closed only the skylight above his own desk. Miyazaki reportedly became furious and told him to go back to his country. It is the kind of story that captures something real about the atmosphere Miyazaki cultivated, and about the pressure young animators faced inside that building.

• 4. The No-Face Rumor

  ›

  Few anecdotes from Ghibli history have circulated as widely as the claim that Yonebayashi was the model for No-Face, the silent, absorbing spirit at the center of Spirited Away. Producer Toshio Suzuki promoted the story. The reality, as Yonebayashi himself explained, is more specific. The rumor began when Miyazaki watched a stretch of No-Face animation that Yonebayashi had drawn. Miyazaki looked at it and joked, "Isn't that Maro?" Maro is Yonebayashi's nickname. The implication was that Yonebayashi had somehow put himself into the character through his draftsmanship. What started as a director's quip became, through repetition, a piece of studio legend.

  The story matters beyond its entertainment value. It points to something about how Yonebayashi worked. He animated No-Face with enough distinctiveness that his collaborators could see a personality in the movement, one they recognized as his own. Suzuki's decision to repeat the story also signals the affection and regard in which Yonebayashi was held at the studio. Miyazaki's joke was not dismissive. It was the kind of teasing a master reserves for someone whose work has earned it.

• 5. Directing Arrietty

  ›

  When Miyazaki decided that someone younger should direct The Secret World of Arrietty, he did not immediately accept Suzuki's suggestion of Yonebayashi. Suzuki later said that the two of them persuaded Yonebayashi to take the role. The story behind the film traces to ideas Miyazaki had carried since his youth. Entrusting those ideas to a younger filmmaker was, in Miyazaki's framing, a responsibility to pass something on rather than hold it.

  Arrietty was released in 2010. Yonebayashi was 37 years old when it came out, making him the youngest director to lead a theatrical Studio Ghibli feature. On the film he served as director, storyboard artist, and unit director. The directorial style he brought was shaped by the same instinct toward collaboration that had led him to choose commercial design over painting. Where Ghibli had long been defined by the strong individual visions of Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki, Yonebayashi was known for actively drawing in ideas from a wide range of staff, from veteran Ghibli animators to outside talent.

• 6. When Marnie Was There

  ›

  Yonebayashi's second feature as director, When Marnie Was There, was released in 2014. He also co-wrote the screenplay. At the 88th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. That nomination placed Yonebayashi among a short list of animation directors whose work had drawn the attention of the Academy.

  The film's release year also marked the end of his time at Ghibli. In December 2014, after 18 years at the studio, Yonebayashi left along with producer Yoshiaki Nishimura, who had also worked on Marnie. The two had spent nearly two decades inside an institution that had shaped Japanese animation. Walking away from that was not a small thing. Nishimura moved first: he founded Studio Ponoc in April 2015, two months before Yonebayashi's departure date from Ghibli is sometimes cited as June 2015. The new studio was built around the goal of producing Yonebayashi's next project.

• 7. Studio Ponoc and Beyond

  ›

  Mary and the Witch's Flower, released in 2017, was Yonebayashi's first film at Studio Ponoc and his third as a feature director. He again served as director and co-wrote the screenplay. The following year he directed Modest Heroes, a 2018 anthology. He also returned to key animation work on Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron in 2023, a credit that suggests the ties between Yonebayashi and his former studio were never entirely severed.

  Yonebayashi has spoken about what he wants animation to do. He has said he hopes to create films that stimulate all five senses and allow audiences to experience the story alongside the characters, describing Miyazaki's works as the model for that ambition. The Ghibli influence he first encountered in fifth grade, when he saw Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and reinforced in junior high school with Castle in the Sky, has remained the compass by which he measures his own work. His credit on The Boy and the Heron, decades after Princess Mononoke, shows that compass still pointing in the same direction.