Yutaka Yamamoto

山本寛

Yutaka Yamamoto is a director, scriptwriter, lyricist and storyboarder. Infamous for his incendiary behavior on Twitter and for having been fired from Kyoto Animation and Ordet, the latter of which he helped co-found.

As a member of Kyoto Animation, he rose to prominence within the company after serving as assistant director on Munto 2: Beyond the Walls of Time. In 2006, he was selected to be the chief episode director of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, after which he became well known among anime fans for the ending dance theme he choreographed. He was to make his full directorial debut with Lucky Star, but was replaced after four episodes due to "performance issues." In a later radio interview, Yamamoto confirmed he was fired by Kyoto Animation and unsuccessfully attempted to win back his job.

Yamamoto has threatened to quit his career in anime production six times over the years. In May 2019, Yamamoto vowed never to "work on anything related to animation again" after finishing Hakubo. He has become notorious for his incendiary behavior on Twitter, including calling fans of anime "mentally disabled," discriminatory remarks about Chinese and Korean anime fans, and attacking his former cast members, which resulted in him being temporarily suspended from Twitter in 2018.