<!-- -->

is a Japanese animator, manga artist, and anime director. He is best known for being the character designer and animation director of the original Mobile Suit Gundam anime, which began in 1979. That same year, he began working as a manga artist, which had been his dream since childhood. His manga have been critically acclaimed and have won numerous awards.

Early life

Born 1947 in Engaru, Hokkaidō, Yasuhiko started to draw manga in third grade of elementary school. In high school, he learned the basics of Marxism from a teacher and was inspired by it. At the time, the world's focus was on the Vietnam War, a proxy war between the capitalist United States and socialist Soviet Union. Yasuhiko said seeing a superpower such as the US burn down a small country naturally made him "anti-American". In September 1969, Yasuhiko was arrested on suspicion of breaking and entering into Hirosaki University, and subsequently expelled.

Career

After moving to Tokyo at age 22, Yasuhiko joined Mushi Productions' training school and began working as an animator despite dreaming of becoming a manga artist.

Yasuhiko said he had given up on manga because he was under the impression that manga artists had to use pens and he was personally unable to draw sufficiently with one. In the mid-1990s, Yasuhiko created works such as Joan, a three-volume story of a young French girl living at the time of the Hundred Years' War, whose life parallels that of Joan of Arc; and Jesus, a two-volume biographical manga about the life of Jesus Christ.

Yasuhiko serialized Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin for ten years, from 2001 to 2011. He stated that, in his mind, "Gundam" is only the original 1979 anime series and that it is the only one that he takes responsibility for. The artist also said that subsequent installments in the franchise focused more on the "Newtypes" seen in the series, which lead to critics and otaku misunderstanding the theme of Gundam. Yasuhiko further stated that the perpetrators of the Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995 were "undoubtedly familiar" with Gundam and the "Newtypes". and earned him the 2012 Seiun Award in the comics category. He returned to animation in the 2010s to direct Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origins anime adaptations. In 2015, he won a special award for lifetime achievement at the Animation Kobe Awards. Yasuhiko began Inui to Tatsumi -Siberia Shuppei Hishi- in Monthly Afternoon on September 25, 2018. The historical series set during the Siberian Intervention was announced as being his last serialized manga. It ended on May 24, 2024. Yasuhiko was honored with a special award for lifetime achievement at the 44th Japan Academy Film Prize in 2021. He also received a lifetime achievement award at the 2022 film awards held by the Agency for Cultural Affairs. Yasuhiko stated that the 2022 film Mobile Suit Gundam: Cucuruz Doan's Island, which he directed, would be his last work in animation. Yasuhiko began the short-term manga series Giniro no Michi -Handa-yama Ibun- in Weekly Young Jump on March 6, 2025. Published in the magazine once every two weeks, the story follows Godai Tomoatsu and how he facilitated the recovery of the Handa Silver Mine.

  • "The Beyond" (2020) – single from the band Luna Sea – cover illustration

References

  • Yoshikazu Yasuhiko's manga at the Media Arts Database
  • Yoshikazu Yasuhiko's anime at the Media Arts Database