Masaaki Yuasa (Director)
Masaaki Yuasa was born on March 16, 1965 in Fukuoka, Japan, and is a Japanese animation director, script writer, designer and animator. He is one of the co-founders of Science SARU. After graduating from Kyushu Sangyo University’s Art Faculty, he joined the animation studio AJIADO co., LTD. He has since been working as an illustrator for “Chibi Maruko-chan”. After becoming a freelancer, he has been working on the film adaptation of the series “Crayon Shinchan” as a set designer and original picture animator. In his first film “Mind Game” (2004), he was a script writer, and won many awards including Grand Prix for the Animation Competition at the Japan Media Arts Festival. Furthermore, he also won awards for his first original TV series “Kemonozume” (2006), “Kaiba” (2008), and “The Tatami Galaxy” (2010), which was written by Tomihiko Morimi. In 2014, he worked on “Food Chain”, an episode of popular US animation series “Adventure Time”. It was nominated for Best TV Production for Children at the Annie Awards, which is equivalent to the Academy Awards for the animation industry, and also won Grand Prix at Annecy International Animated Film Festival. It had been 22 years since a Japanese director had won the award. Masaaki Yuasa has a very distinct animation style that commonly incorporates fairy tale characteristics.