Akiyuki Shinbo

Akiyuki Shinbo (新房 昭之) is a Japanese animator, director, compositional writer, and storyboard artist.

Best known for his works with Shaft, he has attained international recognition for his unique visual style and storytelling methods.

Shinbo was born on September 27, 1961, in Koori, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.

Due to the town not having many bookstores, and his parents not buying much manga for him, Shinbo's main source for manga was Weekly Bokura Magazine, which ran form 1969 to 1971.

Although he noted that he was broadly influenced by the magazine, he emphasized that he was a fan of Tiger Mask prior to its move to Weekly Shōnen Magazine.

He was also a fan of Go Nagai's manga, and volume 3 of Nagai's Devilman was the first manga tankōbon that he ever bought himself.

Later, he found himself attracted more towards anime, especially with the release of Space Battleship Yamato in October 1974 during his first year of junior high school, and Galaxy Express 999 a few years later.

After high school, he wanted to study anime, but also move away from the countryside that Koori was a part of, so he moved to Tokyo and attended Tokyo Designer Gakuin College.

Initially, he wanted to become a manga artist, but after moving to Tokyo said that there were better artists than him suited for the job.

Kazuki Takahashi, whom Shinbo befriended soon after his move to Tokyo, exemplified what kind of a person Shinbo saw as professional manga artist.

During his studies at college, Shinbo was unable to watch much anime, but he was a fan of the works that involved Osamu Dezaki, Akio Sugino, and Yoshinori Kanada, so he asked his brother to record episodes for him to watch when he could.

The students of the college, during his second year, were given the opportunity to tour studios in search of jobs, and Shinbo thought it might be interesting to direct "strange" works, but to become a director at the time usually meant becoming a production assistant (制作進行), a job he had no interest in, so he thought becoming a director was impossible.

Shinbo had already been contacted about the work and was originally supposed to storyboard an episode; but Birukawa happened to watch the 74th episode of Yu Yu Hakusho, which Shinbo had both storyboarded and directed, and thought he was "amazing."

Birukawa didn't know how to read Shinbo's name correctly and misread it as "Niibusa" in his attempt to hire him, but in the end Shinbo was chosen as the replacement director.

Although Shinbo hadn't directed a series before, there weren't very many other opportunities to do so; and coupled with the fact that he only had experience as a director on Pierrot's works—which he described as mainstream but not otaku-orientated, as opposed to J.C. Staff's original video animation (OVA) approach—he took the offer.

Born in Koori, Fukushima Prefecture, Shinbo began his career in the early 1980s as an animator, but his true rise to fame in the industry occurred when he received the opportunity to direct for series produced by Pierrot at the turn of the decade and early 90s.

After graduating from college, Shinbo entered the industry as an animator in the early 1980s at Bebow, the studio founded by Tomonori Kogawa, and shared a room with colleague Hirotoshi Sano.

His time at Bebow was brief, and he soon after joined Kaname Production, but quickly left to join Masahito Yamashita's animation collective Studio Oz. He joined the group sometime during their rebranding to the name Studio One Pattern (supposedly due to confusion with another animation studio named OZ).

He and Studio One Pattern colleague Shinsaku Kozuma shared a room for some amount of time during his tenure with the group.

Although not much is known about Shinbo's time as an animator, due to a lack of sources and a lack of credits, Kozuma stated that he was good at drawing.

However, he worked on several other productions uncredited—the full extent of which is not known—some of which he and those who know him have confirmed, such as Serendipity the Pink Dragon (1983), Igano Kabamaru (1983), and GoShogun: The Time Etranger (1985).

His earliest known given credit in the industry is GeGeGe no Kitarō 3rd Series episode 3 (1985).

Yamashita heard that Studio Pierrot was looking for directors in the early 1990s for Musashi, the Samurai Lord, and he subsequently recommended Shinbo.

He joined the production early in its run, and initially served as director Akira Shigino's assistant for the first episode.

He debuted as a full-fledged episode director himself on the fourth episode of the series.

Later on in the series, he also made his debut as a storyboard artist and animation director.

Reflecting on the experience, Shinbo said that the production was a difficult time due to the necessity to order the key animation from Korean sub-contractors and the in-between animation from Chinese sub-contractors, oftentimes leaving only as little as a single day for the episode directors and other staff to do their final checks before the animation cels were photographed; and, according to Shinbo, it was not unusual for staff to spend nights at the studio working, and both he and his colleagues developed temporomandibular joint dysfunction due to pressure and, at least in Shinbo's case, nervousness in making his debut as a director.

Despite the difficulties of the work, Shinbo views Shigino as his directorial mentor.

Succeeding Musashi, the Samurai Lord, Shinbo worked on Marude Dameo (1991), which is where he met animator and storyboard artist Motosuke Takahashi, whose storyboards were so well-crafted that Shinbo had little to worry about in processing the storyboards besides the timing and tempo of actions and lines.

Takahashi also taught Shinbo other parts of the production process, like how to read time sheets.

No longer an animator at Studio One Pattern, Shinbo received steady episodic work from Pierrot, and he eventually joined the studio's production team for Yu Yu Hakusho (1992–94).

Shinbo directed 19 episodes of the series and storyboarded 13 under the series direction of Noriyuki Abe, a colleague from Musashi, the Samurai Lord.

In particular, Shinbo's involvement with the series is noted for his work on the Dark Tournament arc, which is regarded as the first appearance of his visual style.

Speaking on his motivations in the series, he spoke highly of animation director Atsushi Wakabayashi, whom Shinbo described as the driving force behind his work, and previous collaborator Motosuke Takahashi, whom Shinbo regards as another mentor; although, he mentioned that storyboarding for the series could be difficult due to the screenplay often including onomatopoeic sounds found in the manga.

His unique style developed across the studio's productions, cultivating in Yu Yu Hakusho, which led to his debut as a series director with the J.C.Staff television series Metal Fighter Miku (1994).

While Shinbo worked on Yu Yu Hakusho, J.C.Staff attempted to produce its first original television series, Metal Fighter Miku (1994); however, the director who was originally attached the project left partway through its pre-production, and Nippon Victor producer Hiroyuki Birukawa had to find a replacement director.

Over the next several years, Shinbo developed his directorial style through numerous avenues in the industry; and the pure form of his style has been described as coalescing in series like The SoulTaker (2001) and Le Portrait de Petit Cossette (2004).

In 2004, Shinbo was invited by newly appointed Shaft president Mitsutoshi Kubota to collaborate with the studio as a director.

Since the newfound collaborative effort's debut with Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase (2004), he has mentored various directors and won numerous awards for his productions with the studio.

His notable directorial works with Shaft include the Monogatari series (2009–present), Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011), and March Comes In like a Lion (2016–2018).