Akiyuki Shinbo

Shinbo was born in Fukushima Prefecture. After high school, he attended Tokyo Designer Institute before entering the anime industry.[1]

After graduating from Tokyo Design Institute, Shinbo worked as an animator for the 1981 anime series Urusei Yatsura.[1] Shinbo participated with Studio Pierrot in 1990 as an episode director in Musashi, the Samurai Lord. His first full directorial debut was in 1994, where he helmed J.C.Staff's Metal Fighter Miku.[2] He continued his early directional career with several OVA series, such as Devil Hunter Yohko 6: Double Jeopardy in 1995, and in 1996: Galaxy Fraulein Yuna: The Abyssal Fairy, Debutante Detective Corps, and Hurricane Polymar: Blood War.[3] Shinbo participated with Seven Arcs starting with Triangle Heart: Sweet Songs Forever in 2003 and then became director for 2004's spin-off Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha.[4]

His style in particular became noticed during his episode direction work on Yu Yu Hakusho's Dark Tournament arc.[5] After seeing Shinbo's stylized presence, the new president of Shaft, Mitsutoshi Kubota, approached Shinbo with the desire to make Shaft a distinctive studio among animation companies. In an interview, Kubota cited Le Portrait de Petit Cossette and The SoulTaker among Shinbo's most distinctive products that caught his eye.[6]

His work at Shaft has been characterized by extensive experimentation within the visual medium of animation, and often includes pictures taken from real life cut into scenes, as well as art shifts, beat panels (despite the fact that his work is animated), kabuki sound effects, textures that remain stationary when the textured object moves, showing symbols or defining parts of a character (ahoge, hair decorations, foreheads, or more bizarre symbols) in place of characters during dialogue, written text in place (in opposition to dialogue), precise use of fan service, and head-turning cinematography (head-tilting, a style known as a Shaft specialty).[5]

After being introduced to Shaft, Shinbo brought the talents of his professional friends Shin Ōnuma (who later became the most prominent director of Silver Link) and Tatsuya Oishi. While Shinbo did direct various series at the studio, his role shifted to more of a mentoring and supervision-based role, and his job in all of these works was to ensure that they all kept the signature "Shaft style."[5]

During the production of Hidamari Sketch and Bakemonogatari, Shinbo expressed to Aniplex producer Atsuhiro Iwakami his desire to create a new magical girl series, thus spawning the development of Puella Magi Madoka Magica. During the early planning stage, Iwakami decided not to adapt an existing work in order to give Shinbo more freedom in his direction style.[7] Another goal of the project was to develop an anime that could appeal to a wider audience than the usual demographic for media within the magical girl genre. Shinbo and Iwakami intended for their series to be accessible to "the general anime fan."[8] Shinbo then contacted Gen Urobuchi to work on the project as a scriptwriter and Ume Aoki as a character designer.[7][9]

Shinbo won the 11th Tokyo Anime Award,[10] and the 2011 Newtype Anime Award for directing Madoka Magica.[11] In 2017, Shinbo was chosen by Japanese critics as one of the greatest anime directors, for directing Madoka Magica.[12][13]

Hentai series directed by Shinbo under the pseudonym "Jyuhachi Minamizawa"