Sayo Yamamoto
Birthday: April 13, 1977
Notable Works: Michiko and Hatchin, Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, Yuri!!! on Ice
Sayo Yamamoto is one of the comparatively few women to sit in a director’s chair in the anime industry, particularly the series director chair. And she’s one of the even smaller group that has done so prominently and with much acclaim.
In recent years, there has been an upward trend in the number of women in high level positions on anime staffs. I’m not Japanese and I’m not well-acquainted with the inside of the anime industry so I’m not going to belabor the point. Yamamoto is one of the few women directing anime, and what she directs is good.
Yamamoto got her start at the College of Art and Design in Tokyo, where her student project was an animation about samurai. While job hunting, she was able to show this animation to noted director Satoshi Kon. Kon wanted her to work on his Millennium Actress, but she ended up leaving due to studio politics.
She joined Madhouse as a storyboarder on X, a project headed by Ninja Scroll director Yoshiaki Kawajiri. She would work with directors Takeshi Koike and Katsuhito Ishii for the first time on Trava: Fist Planet, and she would first sit in the director’s chair as episode director for three episodes of Dragon Drive.
Yamamoto would jump to Manglobe and begin working on Samurai Champloo where she met two more frequent collaborators, series director Shinichirō Watanabe and writer Dai Satō.
At Manglobe, she was asked to direct her first series, and she finally developed Michiko & Hatchin after a post-breakup trip to Brazil. The series follows an ex-con and a young girl in search of her father. Yamamoto says she developed the concept hoping to reach women.
She was the first woman to direct a Lupin III anime, and she was given full creative control over The Woman Called Fujiko Mine. She built her own team, including bringing in Watanabe to supervise music and Satō as a writer.
Her third series is Yuri!!! on Ice, a sports show about male figure skaters. It’s sparked some controversy due to the heavily, heavily implied homosexual relationship of its protagonists.
Throughout her career, Yamamoto has worked on a number of other high profile and influential shows, some of which appear on the essential anime list from Sunday. She directed episodes of Samurai Champloo, Eureka Seven and Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt. She has also worked on storyboards and opening animations for shows and movies such as Death Note, Highschool of the Dead, Psycho-Pass, Attack on Titan, Space Dandy, Persona 5, Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance and Redline.
If the titles above don’t impress you, I’d like to point out that she has worked with five different directors whose works appear in the essential anime list, and it shows. Yamamoto makes bold artistic decisions, giving each of her works a distinct look and feel. She’s also unafraid to take on controversial subjects like sexuality, abuse, poverty and international politics. In Fujiko Mine we even encounter a version, perhaps a heroic one, of Fidel Castro with the serial numbers filed off.
I found her entry into the world of Lupin III beautiful and challenging. I wish I had time to delve into Michiko & Hatchin and Yuri!!! on Ice, but I’ve got to move on to the next director to keep up the pace. For some added insight into her creative process check out this summary of a couple of panels she did right around the time Fujiko Mine was coming out. Until tomorrow!
chasetriesagain.com 