Tadayoshi Yamamuro

Tadayoshi Yamamuro
	山室直儀
	和田篤志 / 菊地寛子; Tadayoshi Yamamuro in the 2015 Super Start Guide.
Born	1960
Occupation	Director; Series Animation Director; Character designer; Animation supervisor; Key animator
Years active	1984-present
	v · d · e

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Tadayoshi Yamamuro is an animator who served as character designer and animation director for Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball Super, Super Dragon Ball Heroes, and several franchise films beginning with Dragon Ball Z Movie 8. He was born in 1960.

Biography

After attending a Shaolin temple and learning martial arts, Tadayoshi Yamamuro was hired as an animator by the recently founded Shindō Productions animation studio sometime in 1984. He immediately began working as an in-between animator on Akira Toriyama's first series, Dr. Slump – Arale-chan, under the supervision of Mitsuo Shindō. When they moved on to work on Toriyama’s next hit series, Dragon Ball, just two and a half years later, Yamamuro had already been promoted to a key animator position. Yamamuro's uncredited corrections are evident in the Namek arc, so when Shindō later stepped down from his role as animation supervisor following Dragon Ball Z Episode 116, it was only natural that he promoted Yamamuro to fill his role. It soon became quite evident just how talented Yamamuro was, as the already superb animation quality from Shindō Productions in Dragon Ball Z became the new standard of excellence.

Following Minoru Maeda's departure from the series as chief animator, Toei Animation quickly began looking for a suitable replacement as the series' character designer. They initially promoted in-house animator Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru to take over the role, but Yamamuro's skill had obviously gotten their attention. While Nakatsuru was officially credited as the series' character designer, Yamamuro contributed numerous designs for the Dragon Ball Z TV series and even designed the villains for Dragon Ball Z movies 8 to 13. In addition, Toei Animation had Yamamuro take over Maeda's responsibilities of providing promotional artwork for the series. Nearly every movie poster from Dragon Ball Z Movie 8 and beyond was drawn by Yamamuro, along with many of the wallscrolls, cards, and calendars during that period.

Yamamuro began contracting with Toei Animation as a freelancer, apart from Shindō Productions, some time around the end of Dragon Ball Z. Yamamuro would remain on the animation staff when Dragon Ball GT began in 1996, but merely as an animation supervisor, as Nakatsuru completely took on the role of character designer. Following GT, Yamamuro would go on to be the character designer and animation supervisor for Toei Animation's 90s version of Doctor Slump and Adventure King Beet. Shortly after that, in early 2000, Yamamuro joined the staff of One Piece for a short time as an animation supervisor and occasional key animator. After working on a few smaller projects, he would return to the Dragon Ball franchise in 2009 to oversee the animation of the opening and endings for the Dragon Ball Kai series, along with the cover art for both its DVD and Blu-ray releases. With its cancellation in 2011, Yamamuro moved on to be an animation supervisor for its successor, Toriko.

Prior to working on Dragon Ball Kai, Yamamuro had become Toei Animation’s go-to guy for anything Dragon Ball-related. Starting in 2005 he was tasked with drawing the cover art for the "Dragon Box The Movies" DVD box, and eventually all of the Dragon Box individual disc releases. In 2008 he provided the character designs for the Dragon Ball "Jump Super Anime Tour 2008" special, along with all of the special's promotional illustrations. He would return in 2010 to be the animation supervisor and character designer for the Raging Blast 2 bonus feature, "Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans", and then again in 2011 for the Jump Festa 2012 special, "Episode of Bardock".

When it was announced that Dragon Ball Z would be returning with the 2013 theatrical film Battle of Gods, the franchise's first new film in 17 years, Yamamuro was once again called on to fill the roles of chief animation supervisor and animation character designer, in addition to providing storyboards for the scenes he animated. Shortly thereafter in 2014, the Toriko series was canceled and Dragon Ball Kai returned to retake its previous time slot on Fuji TV, picking up where it had left off. Yamamuro again resumed his roles with the series, although this time instead of merely overseeing the animation of the opening and endings, he almost single-handedly animated the opening and endings himself (with some minor help with the later endings), along with all promotional and product artwork.

Following the success of Battle of Gods, and with Dragon Ball Kai currently in syndication, Toei Animation began production on a sequel film, Resurrection 'F', which premiered in April 2015. While still performing the roles of chief animation supervisor and animation character designer, Yamamuro also stepped into the role of director, making his directorial debut. Shortly after the film was released worldwide, Toei Animation announced a new series, Dragon Ball Super. Yamamuro served as series animation director and character designer throughout the 131-episode series. Naohiro Shintani took over these roles for the series' first film, Dragon Ball Super: Broly, making it the first major Dragon Ball production to depart from Yamamuro in more than 20 years.

Before the release of Broly, Yamamuro began work on Super Dragon Ball Heroes, a promotional anime with a skeleton crew. Yamamuro himself handled character design, most animation supervision, most storyboarding, and occasionally episode direction as well. Through Dragon Ball Super, Yamamuro continued to provide the majority of the promotional artwork for the franchise, including video games, guide books, and promotional videos.

Dragon Ball Roles/Positions

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Notable Anime Roles/Positions

A list or table of the person's notable anime roles (cast) or positions (staff) throughout their career.

Notes

Information that does not fit into any other category.

Interviews

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External Links

References