Yutaka Izubuchi

A notable mechanical and character designer for both anime and tokusatsu series.

He aspired a career in the industry after having seen Space Battleship Yamato, a franchise in which he would eventually serve as a director in 2012. His career began in 1978, debuting as a mechanical designer on Toushou Daimos, designing the enemy robots. Few years later in 1981, he made his tokusatsu debut on Robot 8-chan.

The following decade he worked on industry shaping series such as Gundam, Macross and Patlabor. During this time he also had ties to Parallel Creation, a creative group led by sci-fi writer Aritsune Toyota. This led him to work as an illustrator on novels such as Record of Lodoss War, in which his designs were deeply influential for Japanese fantasy series.

In 2002, he directed RahXephon, an anime original created by him. Izubuchi said that his attempt was to set a new standard for mecha anime, as well as to bring back aspects of '70s mecha shows like Brave Raideen.

A trademark in his mechanical designs is the Buchi-hole (ブチ穴), a series of round holes embedded, usually in a cluster pattern of three holes above and two below, located somewhere on the mecha.