Remembering Animator and Director Yuuki Kinoshita

#feature #anime #sidebar January 03, 2026

by Sarca

Animation director Yuuki Kinoshita (木下勇喜 / 木下ゆうき) died from complications related to COVID-19 in 2022.

Kinoshita was not interested in an animation career at a young age. After graduating high school, he became a chef and got a job at a restaurant in Kyoto. He was unsure of himself and wondered if it was the correct path for him until one day he saw Walt Disney Productions' Fantasia (1940) at a theater showing. The next day, Kinoshita quit his job to leave for Tokyo and pursue animation.

At the age of 20, around 1970, Kinoshita, now in Tokyo, happened to see a recruitment advertisement for Toei Animation's Tiger Mask in a newspaper at Shibuya Station. The advertisement was looking for animators, and so he joined Taka Production (one of the series' subcontracting studios). Throughout the 1970s, he worked at Taka Production and later Studio Mates, where he developed his work as a key animator. In 1977, he was promoted to the job of animation director for the first time on Toei's Dino Mech Gaiking, and was an animation director on rotation on Galaxy Express 999 (1978). In 1985, he debuted as an episode director and storyboard artist on Musashi no Ken.

Kinoshita is perhaps most known for directing the 2006 TV anime Musashi Gundoh, his series directing debut, which was produced and funded by photography studio ACC Production alongside E-Net Frontier. The series is known for its subpar quality in technical execution, with issues ranging from poor drawings, un-synced sound effects, and poor use of live-photography images for backgrounds. The series gained infamy, and the series has been used as a reference point for series with uniquely low production values.

According to Kinoshita, in an interview for the Game Lab Special Edition published in December 2006, he didn't intend to make a bad anime, but the project's circumstances allowed for little work to be done on his part, as most of the animation was outsourced to China. Being the mid-2000s, animation still required physical delivery between studios, and there was no clear communication between the domestic studio and overseas outsourcing studios. Typically, these materials would get back to the studio with somewhere between days to two weeks before the deadline, but according to Kinoshita, he wouldn't get the materials until the day before they were due, which left no time for corrections. Although he gave intention of making corrections for the DVD release, the show ultimately remained uncorrected.

Despite the failures of Musashi Gundoh, Kinoshita left behind a more important legacy: his mentorship.

Around 1981, Kinoshita founded his own studio called Anime Toro Toro. The studio was founded as a small subcontracting company, and he was its representative director up until the late 1990s or early 2000s. Although it never produced any works of its own, Anime Toro Toro has fostered a plethora of animation talents.

Notable former members of Anime Toro Toro include Key the Metal Idol creator/director Hiroaki Satou (佐藤博暉); Shin Getter Robo and Baki 2018 character designer Fujio Suzuki (鈴木藤雄); Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway's Flash co-character designer Shigeki Kuhara (工原しげき); My Hero Academia assistant character designer and Soul Eater main animator Atsushi Hasebe (長谷部敦志); Fullmetal Alchemist main animator Takashi Tomioka (富岡隆司); and Sengoku Youko director Masahiro Aizawa (相澤昌弘). Famed animator Yutaka Nakamura (中村豊) continues to be affiliated with Anime Toro Toro since he first joined in 1994.

After leaving Anime Toro Toro, Kinoshita founded Studio Graffiti around 2001. He had also been doing part-time work as a judo instructor for some years, which is how he met Masato Jinbou (神保昌登) during the latter's middle school years, and invited him to work at Studio Graffiti. Jinbou later co-directed seasons of Fate/Kaleid: Liner Prisma Illya and The Rising of the Shield Hero season 2, and operates his own subcontracting studio PartsCraft.

Other talents fostered at Studio Graffiti include Death Parade and The Saga of Tanya the Evil main animator Shousuke Ishibashi (石橋翔祐); Revue Starlight director Tomohiro Furukawa (古川知宏); Revue Starlight main animator Yuuki Koike (小池裕樹); JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders and Golden Wind action animation director Takahito Katayama (片山貴仁); Oshi no Ko chief animation director Tomoya Atsumi (渥美智也); Ranma 1/2 2024 sub-character designer Shiho Tanaka (田中志穂); and Ranma 1/2 2024 main animator Rie Aoki (青木里枝).

Kinoshita was also an instructor at Nihon Kogakuin College. It was during that time, around 2009~2010, that he met Taiwanese animator Chang Shaowei (張紹偉), who was a student at the college, and whom Kinoshita invited to Studio Graffiti in January of 2015. Kinoshita left his position at Studio Graffiti in April of that year and established a new studio, Poirot, in October. Chang followed Kinoshita to the studio, where he was promoted to the position of animation director.

Poirot remained the smallest of Kinoshita's studios, and in 2017, he retired from his position as its CEO, with Chang succeeding him. Animators fostered at Poirot include My Hero Academia: You're Next sub-character designer Lai Zhiqing (頼志青) and My Hero Academia regular Jason Yao (姚杰善).

After leaving Poirot, Kinoshita continued his work as an animator, where he was involved with projects like the Seirei Gensouki, the first My Hero Academia film, and Attack on Titan. He storyboarded, co-directed, and was an animation director for the second episode of Love After World Domination in 2022, which was his final directorial work.

Kinoshita's last works were broadcast posthumously in 2023: he was an animation director on the first episode of An Angel Spoils Me Rotten, and he contributed key animation to five episodes of Vinland Saga season 2.