Yasuichiro Yamamoto

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Yasuichiro Yamamoto

Yasuichiro Yamamoto.jpg

Profile
Gender: Male
Date of birth: January 6, 1961
Place of birth: Chigasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan
Location: Saitama Prefecture, Japan
Position: Director
Chief director
Supervisor
Screenplay
Organizer
Storyboard
Episode director
Assistant technical director
Sub-character design
Key animation
Layout
Years active: 1983-present

Yasuichiro Yamamoto (山本 泰一郎 Yamamoto Yasuichirō?), born January 6, 1961 in Chigasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, is a Japanese anime director, and storyboard artist from Saitama Prefecture. He directed Detective Conan from episode 119 to 332, before being replaced by Masato Sato. He later became the director from movie 8 to movie 14, chief director for movie 15 and movie 16, and supervisor for movie 17.

In September 2012, he came back as the director for the anime since episode 667, and still directing the anime until now (except for episodes 678-679, which is directed by Koujin Ochi). Since episode 975, he co-directs the series along with Nobuharu Kamanaka.

Biography

Yamamoto joined Studio Boomerang in 1983. After serving as an animator, he then became a director in 1991. In the same year, he was also involved in the production of the anime Red Baron (レッドバロン), working with Masato Sato already (the two of them both joined the Detective Conan production later). Afterwards, Yamamoto joined the production of the Detective Conan anime in 1996. At first, he did several organizer, storyboard, and episode director works within the anime, representing Studio Boomerang, starting with the first part of Mountain Villa Bandaged Man Murder Case.

Photo of Yasuichiro Yamamoto taken in 2009.

When his teacher Kenji Kodama resigned as director and only served as the chief director for the anime, Yamamoto became the director of the Detective Conan anime. At the same time, he also quit Studio Boomerang and went freelance; therefore, he no longer worked on episodes outsourced to the studio. Minoru Tozawa thus took over the job as an episode director for most Studio Boomerang episodes (even until the present). During this period when he first directed the Detective Conan anime, the TV rating of each episode had increased to a great extent; the animation quality of the episodes during his directional era were also fairly high, by virtue of his animation background before he became the director.

He then suceeded the director role for the movies from Kenji Kodama as well, being the director of seven Detective Conan movies. The movies that he directed for Detective Conan possess the highest evaluation among the industry, compared to the other two directors. Starting with movie 10, the Detective Conan movies (under his direction) invariably appeared in the list of "eminent animated films" of Japan Academy Film Prize (日本アカデミー賞). Whereas movie 9, is also the only Detective Conan work to win an award at the Tokyo Anime Award (東京アニメアワード) - one of Japan's most important animation awards. What is more, most of his directed movies contain splendid story settings, in terms of the story premises: from plane to ship, from ship to airship... On the other hand, he also attempted to mingle elements such as romance, friendship, and even action into the movies. After he directed movie 14, he stepped down from the movie director role and served as the chief director for movies 15-16, and the supervisor for movie 17. Later on, the Detective Conan movie director position was passed down to Kobun Shizuno.

After quitting the direction of Detective Conan movies, he returned to anime, continued to contribute storyboards, and became the anime director once again after Koujin Ochi's resignation, until present. He then continued Ochi's legacy by introducing a proper "Animation Supervisor" (作画監修 ?) role for the anime to maintain the stability of the anime quality (the role didn't become regular until 2014 with episode 738). During this second trial for his direction of the anime, the episodes remain of high TV ratings and compliments; the case Shinichi Kudo's Aquarium Case and the series The Scarlet Return are highly rated, the original author Gosho Aoyama also praised them (via the game Animal Crossing). In addition, he also manifested repects towards the original manga, in which he recified the fault character design of Wataru Takagi that was caused by the loss of character sheet in early anime production; he also corrected the scenario "Akemi's death" by releasing the TV special Episode One: The Great Detective Turned Small in 2016; and allegedly, he often asks the original author for lines' adjustments when executing manga adaptations.

However, some of his storyboard/technical director works for the Detective Conan openings and endings, especially during his 2nd directional era, are not very innovative, a lot of the fans constantly make jokes with regards to them. This is because most of the storybaords he drew for these openings and endings are merely stretching shots and using animation effects (in contrast to those by Koujin Ochi which they are mostly narrating a story). Another thing worth mentioning, is that in these openings that he was in charge of, tree and grassland are the indispensable components, and characters usually run on the grassland. This type of opening already existed since opening 7 Mysterious Eyes.

Furthermore, when he was still the director of the Detective Conan movies, he also drew some key animation frames for the movies, but was not credited in the ending of the movies.

Works in Detective Conan

Anime

Participation in: 77 cases (99 episodes)

Openings and Endings

Participation in: 19 openings and 19 endings

Movies

Participation in: 21 movies

Specials

Participation in: 2 specials

OVAs

Participation in: 11 OVAs

Other notable works

Anime

  • Detective Conan: Zero's Tea Time: Key Animation (TIME.4)
  • Lupin III: Bye Bye Liberty Crisis: Key Animation
  • Lupin III: Dragon of Doom: Key Animation
  • Lupin III: The Pursuit of Harimao's Treasure: Key Animation
  • The Mischievous Twins: Episode Director
  • Once Upon a Time (Windaria): Key Animation
  • Project A-Ko 4: Final: Key Animation
  • Puppet Princess: Key Animation
  • SD Gundam Musha, Knight, Commando: Key Animation
  • Space Adventure Cobra - The Movie: Animation
  • Urusei Yatsura: Only You: Assistant Animator, In-Between Animation

Non-anime

  • Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin: Animator
  • Heathcliff & the Catillac Cats: Key Animation

See also

References

  1. 山本泰一郎 - Wikipedia (Japanese)
  2. MyAnimeList
  3. Anime News Network
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