BIOGRAPHY

Born on the 24th of March 1962 in the prefecture of Osaka, Kazuki AKANE is a film director, storyboarder and animation series and movie director.

He started his career at the Sunrise Studio as a production assistant in the 80s, soon after graduating from the Chiba Institute of Technology. At the end of the decade, he became an episode director and storyboarder on many of the studio’s works.

It is in 1996 that his career really took off, when he collaborated with Shôji KAWAMORI. If KAWAMORI was the one responsible for the script of the animation series Vision of Escaflowne, Kazuki AKANE directed it. He then worked on a few projects at Sunrise such as the Escaflowne movie (Escaflowne - A Girl in Gaia) for which he conceived the storyboard.

In 2000, he left Sunrise to join Shôji KAWAMORI, executive director at Satelight studio where he directed series such as Geneshaft, Heat Guy J and Noein until 2005, which are other famous titles of Japanese animation.

That’s not where his career ends. Kazuki AKANE also collaborated with other masters of animation, such as Masahiko MINAMI, on famous animation series as famous as Mobile Suit Gundam, Cowboy Bebop or Samurai Champloo. Recently he joined the A-1 Pictures studio where he works on the new series Birdy the Mighty avec Yuuki MASAMI.

As a talented draftsman, Kazuki AKANE will give an exclusive performance such as it has never been done in the entire history of the Japan Expo festival: a public storyboard masterclass! There is absolutely no way you can miss this during the 2nd wave of the festival!

SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY

ANIME

• Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam et Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (Production assistant)
• Ronin Warriors (Episode director and storyboarder)
• Dragon Quest (Storyboarder)
• Crayon Shin-chan (Storyboarder)
• Vision of Escaflowne (Director, storyboarder and episode director)
• Cowboy Bebop (Storyboarder)
• Geneshaft (Director, scriptwriter and storyboarder)
• Heat Guy J (Director, chief scriptwriter and storyboarder)
• Samurai Champloo (Storyboarder)
• Noein (Director, co-scriptwriter, storyboarder and episode director)
• Ergo Proxy (Storyboarder)
• Birdy the Mighty and Birdy the Mighty 2 (Director, storyboarder and episode director)

ANIMATION FILM

• Escaflowne - A Girl in Gaea (Director and co-scriptwriter)

Visuel © YUUKI MASAMI ・Shogakukan / PROJECT BIRDY