Naoko Yamada

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Naoko Yamada is a Japanese animator and director. She worked at Kyoto Animation from 2004 to 2020 and is currently affiliated with Science SARU.

Yamada enjoyed drawing as a child and would copy images from the Patlabor and Dragon Ball series. She joined the volleyball club in primary school and the tennis and photography clubs in high school. At the Kyoto University of Art and Design, she studied oil painting and was a member of the special effects club. She intended to work in film after university, but instead decided to join Kyoto Animation after seeing an advertisement. Her first assignment at the studio was drawing in between frames for Inuyasha, which Kyoto Animation helped produce. She was eventually promoted to a key animator for Air.

After working as an episode director of Clannad, she was asked to make her chief directorial debut with K-ON!, an adaptation of a slice-of-life manga. The series was very successful, spurring a second season and a film. In 2013, she directed Tamako Market, and followed it with the film Tamako Love Story in 2014. For Tamako Love Story, she was awarded the New Face Award at the Japan Media Arts Festival. She storyboarded the entire film herself, and also wrote the lyrics for the opening theme song, “Everybody Loves Somebody.”

Yamada's next project was the feature film A Silent Voice, an adaptation of Yoshitoki Ooima’s manga by the same name. The film reflected on elements of bullying and physical impairment in Japan. The film opened at #2 in the Japanese Box Office and grossed a total of ¥2.3 billion (~$21.7m USD), the 19th highest-grossing film in Japan in 2016. The film also received multiple award nominations, including Best Animation Film in the Mainichi Film Awards and the Excellent Animation of the Year in the Japan Academy Prize.

For Yamada, the most important part of being a director is to observe people. She describes herself as a "method" director, emphasizing the minds of the characters.

(Source: Wikipedia)