Michiyo Yasuda died on the 5th of October 2016, at the age of 77, leaving behind a legacy that colored the visual landscape of Japanese animation for five decades. Her final work, The Wind Rises, released in July 2013, was an Academy Award nominated feature that showcased her mastery of digital media alongside traditional inks and paints. Yet, her true power lay not in the fame of the films she touched, but in the quiet, deliberate choices she made to ensure every hue told a story. She was a woman who understood that color was a storytelling tool as powerful as words, a philosophy that guided her from the ink and paint section of Toei Doga to the highest echelons of Studio Ghibli. Her career began in the post-war era when women had few options outside of banking or retail, yet she chose a path that would eventually define the aesthetic of a nation's most beloved stories.
A Childhood of Freedom
Born in Tokyo's Nakano ward, Yasuda grew up in the Tokyo metropolitan area, spending most of her childhood and adolescence in Higashi-fushimi, a neighborhood that would later become part of Nishitōkyō city as of 2001. Her father was a university professor, and she grew up with an older brother, an older sister, and three younger brothers. She has described her youth as very pleasant with a lot of freedom, mentioning that she received encouragement to excel in any field. This upbringing instilled a sense of possibility that would later fuel her career in animation. When she was 14 years old, her parents divorced, a significant event that altered the trajectory of her life. In November 1954, her father fell ill, and in spite of their divorce, he was nursed by her mother until his death in March 1955. In April 1955, Yasuda enrolled in high school, but without the opportunity to continue into higher education, she started looking for a job to support herself.The Ink and Paint Section
Yasuda joined Toei Doga in April 1958, immediately after her graduation from high school. She applied not knowing what the job entailed but submitted her application because she did not fancy employment in any of the other jobs available for most women at the time, such as bank teller or store clerk. Instead, she took the opportunity to work in a creative field. She started out in the Toei finishing department, in the ink and paint section, where she worked on TV series and commercials as a tracer. In traditional animation, a tracer is a person whose job involves transferring cleaned up line drawings onto the cels. Through her work and union activities at the company, she made the acquaintance of Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki, whose careers also began at Toei, joining in 1959 and 1963 respectively. These relationships would become the cornerstone of her professional life, enduring for over 40 years.