In my entire anime watching life—which is coming up to 15 years now—there has always been one person who has caught my eye time and time again. That is none other than Kyoto Animation director Naoko Yamada, who is celebrating her 35th birthday today!
At 35 years young, Yamada is still considered one of the younger anime directors in the business who works at such a high level. She started her TV directorial career at 24 and film career at 26. To compare to her contemporaries, Makoto Shinkai (your name.) made a name for himself at 34 years old with 5 Centimeters per Second, Mamoru Hosoda (Wolf Children) was 33 when Digimon the Movie released. Conquicidently, this year is also the 10th anniversary of Yamada’s directorial debut, K-ON!, the series where I first discovered her and fell in love with her style.
Naoko Yamada started at Kyoto Animation as an animator, working on the in-betweens of InuYasha—which was out-sourced to the studio at the time. Very quickly, Yamada gained the trust of her coworkers with her passion, work ethic, and personality. Through every interview I read of hers, or about her, Yamada is portrayed as someone, while unsure of herself at times, who cares deeply about her co-workers and characters. Even when I saw her speak at a screening of A Silent Voice in Shinjuku, she came across as a kind, genuine human being who seemed super sweet.
Yamada moved quickly up through the animation studio. During the production of Clannad, Yamada was given episode 17 to direct, as well as the extra episode, of which she also did the storyboards. This was the first time Yamada—and her style—was unleashed onto the world.
If you’re familiar with Yamada’s more modern works (A Silent Voice, Liz and the Blue Bird), you know that there is a lot of digital post-processing done on the animation to emulate camera effects. While these techniques are time-consuming, they’re a lot easier to do in 2019 than they were in 2007, using a pre-Creative Suite program. But, as you can see from the image above, Yamada (with her team) does her best in the primitive days of digital animation to give the line-art a soft filter pass.
Thanks to her work on Clannad After Story, Yamada was given the directorial duties for K-ON! in my favorite story about her. Yamada was brought into the offices of the producers and senior staff of Kyoto Animation, at the young age of 23 she thought she’d be fired. Instead, she was asked if she’d like to direct her own series, not even knowing what that series was. K-ON! would then go on to become one of the highest-selling anime of all time and is still loved to this day.
As the director of a series, Naoko Yamada was able to flex her full creative muscles. While K-ON! was a more subdued affair, owing mostly to Yamada’s lack of experience and confidence, the second season, K-ON!!, was able to invite the world into the mind of Naoko Yamada.
Personally, I think Yamada shines most when she’s directing work and able to leave her own mark on a series. Yeah, you can tell when she directs a certain episode of an anime series – mostly thanks to the low angle shots and overabundance of legs—Yamada flourishes when she’s able to create her own characters and flesh them out.
Yamada is a self-described observer of the world. She tends to watch people and study how they act, how they belong in the setting they’re living in. Answering a question on why Yamada uses legs as a visual motif in her work, she explained “It might sound awkward, but when you’re nervous, you move your legs around. I think it would be nice to express emotion like that.” Voice actor Minoru Shiraishi (Taniguchi in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Himself in Lucky Star) mused it was a “leg fetish” after fellow Kyoto Animation director, and mentor to Yamada, Tatsuya Ishihara outed her by saying “Legs are Yamada, right?”
Being empathetic and observant comes with their own drawbacks for Yamada though. When reading the outline of the second year stories for Sound! Euphonium from author Ayano Takeda, Yamada’s chest got tight and “it felt like it hit a critical weak part of [her].” While it has always been easy for her to direct female characters, it wasn’t until A Silent Voice when she dived into the mind of Shoya Ishida where she learned how to deal with male characters. When tackling male characters, Yamada always had the mind of “a guy wouldn’t do something like that” but learned that it wasn’t about guys or girls but “what kind of person are they,” finding that “the differences between genders are incredibly trivial.”
This is only a minor snapshot on how Naoko Yamada has grown from an in-betweener to one of the most acclaimed anime directors in the world (before she turned 35!), there is so much more to talk about with her (like her love of music, or her actual animation style). For me, I’ve loved seeing Yamada grow as a director and come into her own. I can clearly tell with Liz and the Blue Bird she’s completely comfortable with her own style now and I can’t wait to see how it evolves further.
Further Naoko Yamada reading:
➡️ KYOANI & DO FAN DAYS 2015 – 4 DIRECTORS STAGE EVENT
➡️ A SILENT VOICE COMIC NATALIE INTERVIEW
➡️ Interview with A Silent Voice Director Naoko Yamada
➡️ Sound Euphonium Films Preview Interview
➡️ A SILENT VOICE NAOKO YAMADA Q&A – GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL 2017
What is your favorite Naoko Yamada work? Let us know down below or on social!
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Daryl Harding is a Japan Correspondent for Crunchyroll News. He also runs the YouTube channel about Japan stuff called TheDoctorDazza, tweets at @DoctorDazza and posts photos of his travels on Instagram.
Source: Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!
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