Yoshiaki Kawajiri

After he graduated from high school in 1968, he worked as an animator at Mushi Production until it closed. He then founded Madhouse together with fellow former Mushi Pro employees, Masao Maruyama, Osamu Dezaki and Rintarou. At Madhouse, he debuted as a director on 1984's Lensman, albeit still jointly with the more experienced Kazunori Hirokawa. Kawajiri made his full-fledged directorial debuts in 1987, with Wicked City and Running Man, the latter being a short film a part of an anthology collection, Neo Tokyo. Wicked City was originally meant to be a short film as well, but the producers were impressed enough in Kawajiri to let him turn it into a feature-length film. After these, Kawajiri directed the third installment of Madhouse's adaptations of the highly acclaimed Osamu Tezuka manga series, Phoenix.

Wicked City received critical and commercial success upon its release, giving Kawajiri more creative freedom. As a result of this he began writing the script for his own original film, Ninja Scroll, a movie set in feudal Japan following a mercenary swordsman battling a team of ninjas with supernatural powers who are intent on overthrowing the Tokugawa shogunate. After the movie's international release, Kawajiri's status as a director received global recognition and he went on to direct multiple other works in the late '90s and early '00s.

In recent years, Kawajiri has taken a step back from directing, but has been guest appearing as a storyboard artist all over the industry.