Nobuyuki Takeuchi

Nobuyuki Takeuchi is a Japanese animator, director, character designer and production designer. His work with directors Akiyuki Shinbo and Kunihiko Ikuhara have gained noteworthy fame since the late 1990s and especially through the mid-2000s.

Career

Takeuchi was originally from sub-contracting animation studio Dragon Production, which he belonged to sometime during the mid-1980s. His tenure at the company was relatively short-lived as he transferred to Studio Lions, the in-between division to Studio Giants, soon thereafter; and eventually, he became a part of the larger Studio Giants entity. In the early 1990s, however, Takeuchi went freelance. Around 1994, he was offered a seat as a freelancer at Shaft and started to work on a number of their outsource works and eventually made his debut as an animation director on the studio's first original televised work, Juuni Senshi Bakuretsu Eto Ranger.
In 1997, Takeuchi worked as the animation director for Shaft's outsourced episodes of Revolutionary Girl Utena directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara. Takeuchi's work on the series gained particular interest from Ikuhara, who invited him to work on the succeeding movie as an animation director. Also that year, Takeuchi participated as a character designer for Shaft's Sakura Diaries OVA series. The following year, in 1998, studio Radix was set to produce an adaptation of Silent Möbius, but the production ended up being outsourced to Shaft. Chief director Hideki Tonokatsu worked at Shaft, and Shaft became the main production site and also the company responsible for finding the series' staff; and finding interest in Takeuchi's work, saying that Takeuchi had a clear vision and direction, he was given the role of series "animation director". Takeuchi's work from the series garnered interest from then-managing director of Shaft Mitsutoshi Kubota, who felt that Takeuchi would be a central figure in Shaft's succeeding productions.
For the next several years, Takeuchi continued to freelance as a key animator and animation director across several studios, even doing work for Studio Ghibli, but he gained prominence in 2004 when Shaft teamed up with Akiyuki Shinbo to produce Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase, the start of Shinbo and Shaft's long collaborative history. Shinbo was concerned with having a strong visual foundation for the series, and wanted someone with strong sensibilities for art setting material to work with; however, he did not want someone from a background art studio to take on the role, as was traditional. Kubota, who succeeded Shaft founder Hiroshi Wakao as CEO following Wakao's retirement, recommended Takeuchi to Shinbo, who then took on the role of "visual director". Takeuchi's work on the series, which featured cross-sections of buildings to show their insides, almost like a stage production, inspired Shinbo to use similar techniques on his next work, Pani Poni Dash!, despite Takeuchi not working on the series. However, Takeuchi collaborated more with Shaft in large roles as a production and concept designer in several succeeding works. In 2009, he participated again as a visual director on Shinbo and Tatsuya Oishi's adaptation of Bakemonogatari. Although he didn't continue throughout the rest of the franchise as its visual director, his work became a vital part of its production, and he contributed as an art setting or production designer across all other iterations of the series with the exception of the final two parts, Owarimonogatari II and Zoku Owarimonogatari.
Takeuchi did occasional storyboard work and directing work since Silent Möbius. He storyboarded the first five episodes of Bakemonogatari, and also storyboarded, directed, and did key animating work in Penguindrum episode 9 entirely by himself. In 2017, Takeuchi made his directorial debut anime film adaptation of Shunji Iwai's 1993 live-action film Fireworks, Should We See It from the Side or the Bottom?. He and the film's composer, Satoru Kōsaki, were both longtime fans of Iwai's films. The first film Takeuchi had seen from Iwai was Ghost Soup, and he thought that it was an impressive film. As the film's director, he said he was honored to work with Iwai. In 2019, he chief directed Ikuhara's Sarazanmai, and in 2022 contributed to both of Ikuhara's Re:cycle of the Penguindrum films as their assistant director and Shaft's RWBY: Ice Queendom as its visual director.

Works

Teleivison series

In "Director" column highlights Takeuchi's directorial works.

Year	Title	Director	Studio	SB	ED	AD	KA	Other roles and notes	Ref
1986	Machine Robo: Revenge of Cronos	Hiroshi Yoshida	Ashi Productions					In-between animator
1988	Maison Ikkoku	Naoyuki Yoshinaga	Studio Deen					In-between animator
1994	The Legend of Snow White	Kunitoshi Okajima	Tatsunoko Production
1995	Juuni Senshi Bakuretsu Eto Ranger	Kunitoshi Okajima	Shaft						-
1997	Revolutionary Girl Utena	Kunihiko Ikuhara	J.C. Staff
1997	Hareluya II Boy	Kiyoshi Egami	Triangle Staff
1997	Battle Athletes Victory	Katsuhito Akiyama	AIC
1997	Berserk	Naohito Takahashi	OLM
1997	Burn-Up Excess	Shinichiro Kimura	Magic Bus
1998	Silent Möbius	Hideki Tonokatsu	Radix					Series animation director
1998	Generator Gawl	Seiji Mizushima	Tatsunoko Production
1999	Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventures	Katsuhito Akiyama	AIC
1999	Magic User's Club	Junichi Sato	Madhouse Triangle Staff
2000	Sakura Wars	Ryūtarō Nakamura	Madhouse
2000	Android Kikaider: The Animation	Tensai Okamura	Radix Studio OX
2001	Cyborg 009: The Cyborg Soldier	Jun Kawagoe	Japan Vistec
2002	Ai Yori Aoshi	Masami Shimoda	J.C. Staff
2002	Mahoromatic: Something More Beautiful	Hiroyuki Yamaga	Gainax Shaft
2003	Heat Guy J	Kazuki Akane	Satelight
2004	Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase	Akiyuki Shinbo	Shaft					Visual director
2004	This Ugly yet Beautiful World	Shouji Saeki	Gainax Shaft
2004	Uta Kata	Keiji Gotoh	Hal Film Maker
2005	Pani Poni Dash!	Akiyuki Shinbo Shin Oonuma	Shaft
2005	Capeta	Shin Misawa	Studio Comet
2005	Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's	Keizō Kusakawa	Seven Arcs
2006	Negima!?	Akiyuki Shinbo Shin Oonuma	Shaft					Production designer
2006	Kaiketsu Zorori	Tsutomu Shibayama Mitsuko Kase	Ajia-do Sunrise
2006	Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora	Yukihiro Matsushita	Group TAC
2006	Air Gear	Hajime Kamegaki	Toei Animation
2006	D.Gray-Man	Osamu Nabeshima	TMS Entertainment
2007	Hidamari Sketch	Akiyuki Shinbo Ryouki Kamitsubo	Shaft
2007	Heroic Age	Takashi Noto Toshimasa Suzuki	Xebec
2007	Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Strikers	Keizō Kusakawa	Seven Arcs
2008	Ef: A Tale of Melodies	Shin Oonuma	Shaft
2009	Tears to Tiara	Tomoki Kobayashi	White Fox
2009	Maria Holic	Akiyuki Shinbo	Shaft					Concept design
2009	Natsu no Arashi!	Akiyuki Shinbo Shin Oonuma	Shaft					Design works
2009	Bakemonogatari	Akiyuki Shinbo Tatsuya Oishi	Shaft					Visual director Assistant animation director
2011	Maria Holic Alive	Akiyuki Shinbo Tomokazu Tokoro	Shaft					Concept design
2011	Penguindrum	Kunihiko Ikuhara	Brain's Base					Design assistance
2012	Nisemonogatari	Akiyuki Shinbo Tomoyuki Itamura	Shaft					Production designer
2012	Nekomonogatari: Black	Akiyuki Shinbo Tomoyuki Itamura	Shaft					Production designer
2012	Hidamari Sketch x Honeycomb	Akiyuki Shinbo Yuki Yase	Shaft
2013	Monogatari Series Second Season	Akiyuki Shinbo Tomoyuki Itamura Yuki Yase	Shaft					Production designer
2014	Hanamonogatari	Akiyuki Shinbo Tomoyuki Itamura	Shaft					Production designer
2014	Tsukimonogatari	Akiyuki Shinbo Tomoyuki Itamura	Shaft					Production designer
2015	Owarimonogatari	Akiyuki Shinbo Tomoyuki Itamura	Shaft					Production designer
2018	Fate/Extra Last Encore	Akiyuki Shinbo Yukihiro Miyamoto	Shaft
2019	Sarazanmai		Lapin Track MAPPA
2019	The Price of Smiles	Toshimasa Suzuki	Tatsunoko Production
2020	Magia Record	Doroinu	Shaft
2020	Warlords of Sigrdrifa	Hirotaka Tokuda	A-1 Pictures
2022	RWBY: Ice Queendom	Toshimasa Suzuki Kenjirou Okada	Shaft					Visual director
2023	Kawagoe Boys Sing	Jun Matsumoto	evg
2024	Shōshimin Series	Mamoru Kanbe	Lapin Track					2nd key animator