Hideaki Anno

Hideaki Anno (庵野 秀明), born May 22, 1960, in Ube, Yamaguchi Prefecture, is a renowned Japanese animator, director, screenwriter, and producer. He is the founder and representative director of Studio Khara. Anno’s career began in the early 1980s as a student at Osaka University of Arts, where he was a key member of the amateur film group DAICON FILM. His early professional work included significant contributions as an animator for The Super Dimension Fortress Macross and Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, where he famously animated the God Warrior sequence.

Anno is most famous for creating and directing the landmark anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995), which became a cultural phenomenon and earned multiple Animage Anime Grand Prix awards. His directorial portfolio includes various anime such as Gunbuster, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, and Kare Kano, as well as live-action films like Love & Pop and Shin Godzilla. In recent years, he has led the Shin Japan Heroes Universe, directing Shin Godzilla (2016), Shin Ultraman (2022), and Shin Kamen Rider (2023). He also voiced the protagonist Jiro Horikoshi in Miyazaki’s film The Wind Rises. Anno is married to manga artist Moyoco Anno.