Hiroyuki Imaishi


Hiroyuki Imaishi is a Japanese key animator and animation director and one of the co-founders of Studio Trigger. His style is marked by fast and frantic animation combined with elaborate storyboarding and punchy direction. Prior to founding Trigger, he was an animator and director at Gainax.

Early career

After drawing the manga for doujinshi circle, Imaishi worked as a creator.
He worked at Gainax in 1995 as a key animator for Neon Genesis Evangelion. Some of his early works include animation direction, storyboarding and key animation for FLCL, Diebuster, Oval X Over, and the ending animation of Paradise Kiss. Imaishi is known for manga scenes in Kare Kano and FLCL. He went on to direct Dead Leaves, a 2004 anime film produced by Production I.G. and the first episode of .

Director

His series director debut was Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. The anime received an Excellence Prize at the 2007 Japan Media Arts Festival, and Imaishi himself received an individual award at the twelfth Animation Kobe Festival. In 2008, the anime received both "best television production" and "best character design" from the Tokyo International Anime Fair. Later he went on to work as director in the 2010 anime series, Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt. His main influence of being an animator and director are Yoshinori Kanada and his works, in which all his anime titles such as Dead Leaves, Gurren Lagann and Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt pay special tributes to him and his art.
In 2011, Imaishi branched off Gainax to form a new studio, Studio Trigger, alongside Masahiko Ohtsuka and others. His first directorial work at the studio is Kill la Kill. He directed the opening for season 2 of Black Dynamite.

Notable works

Director