is a Japanese animator, director, compositional writer, and storyboard artist. Best known for his works with Shaft, he has attained international recognition for his unique visual style and storytelling methods.
Born in Koori, Fukushima Prefecture, Shinbo began his career in the early 1980s as an animator, but his true rise to fame in the industry occurred when he received the opportunity to direct for series produced by Pierrot at the turn of the decade and early 90s. His unique style developed across the studio's productions, culminating in Yu Yu Hakusho, which led to his debut as a series director with the J.C.Staff television series Metal Fighter Miku (1994). Over the next several years, Shinbo developed his directorial style through numerous avenues in the industry; and the pure form of his style has been described as coalescing in series like The SoulTaker (2001) and Le Portrait de Petit Cossette (2004).
In 2004, Shinbo was invited by newly appointed Shaft president Mitsutoshi Kubota to collaborate with the studio as a director. Since the newfound collaborative effort's debut with Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase (2004), he has mentored various directors and won numerous awards for his productions with the studio. His notable directorial works with Shaft include the Monogatari series (2009–present), Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011), and March Comes In like a Lion (2016–2018).
Early life Shinbo was born on September 27, 1961, in Koori, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. Due to the town not having many bookstores, and his parents not buying much manga for him, Shinbo's main source for manga was Weekly Bokura Magazine, which ran from 1969 to 1971. Although he noted that he was broadly influenced by the magazine, he emphasized that he was a fan of Tiger Mask prior to its move to Weekly Shōnen Magazine. He was also a fan of Go Nagai's manga, and volume 3 of Nagai's Devilman was the first manga tankōbon that he ever bought himself. Later, he found himself drawn more towards anime, especially with the release of Space Battleship Yamato in October 1974 during his first year of junior high school, and Galaxy Express 999 a few years later.
After high school, he wanted to study anime and leave the countryside, so he moved to Tokyo and attended . Initially, he wanted to become a manga artist, but after moving to Tokyo decided that there were better artists than him more suited for the job. Kazuki Takahashi, whom Shinbo befriended soon after his move to Tokyo, exemplified the kind of person Shinbo saw as professional manga artist. During his studies at college, Shinbo was unable to watch much anime, but he was a fan of the works that involved Osamu Dezaki, Akio Sugino, and Yoshinori Kanada, so he asked his brother to record episodes for him to watch when he could. The students of the college were given the opportunity to tour studios in search of jobs. Shinbo thought it might be interesting to direct "strange" works, but to become a director at the time usually meant becoming a , a job he had no interest in, so he thought becoming a director was impossible.
Career Early career After graduating from college, Shinbo entered the industry as an animator in the early 1980s at Bebow, the studio founded by Tomonori Kogawa, and shared a room with colleague Hirotoshi Sano. His first job in the industry, he was fired for showing up late at work all the time due to playing BurgerTime (1982) at an arcade. and he soon after joined Kaname Production, but quickly left to join Masahito Yamashita's animation collective Studio Oz. He joined the group sometime during their rebranding to the name Studio One Pattern (supposedly due to confusion with another animation studio named OZ). He and Studio One Pattern colleague Shinsaku Kozuma shared a room for some amount of time during his tenure with the group. Although not much is known about Shinbo's time as an animator, due to a lack of sources and a lack of credits, Kozuma stated that he was good at drawing. His earliest known given credit in the industry is GeGeGe no Kitarō 3rd Series episode 3 (1985). However, he worked on several other productions uncredited—the full extent of which is not known—some of which he and those who know him have confirmed, such as Serendipity the Pink Dragon (1983), Igano Kabamaru (1983), and GoShogun: The Time Etranger (1985).
Yamashita heard that Studio Pierrot was looking for directors in the early 1990s for Musashi, the Samurai Lord, and he subsequently recommended Shinbo. He joined the production early in its run, and initially served as director Akira Shigino's assistant for the first episode. He debuted as a full-fledged episode director himself on the fourth episode of the series. Later on in the series, he also made his debut as a storyboard artist and animation director. Reflecting on the experience, Shinbo said that the production was a difficult time due to the necessity to order the key animation from Korean sub-contractors and the in-between animation from Chinese sub-contractors, oftentimes leaving only as little as a single day for the episode directors and other staff to do their final checks before the animation cels were photographed; and, according to Shinbo, it was not unusual for staff to spend nights at the studio working, and both he and his colleagues developed temporomandibular joint dysfunction due to pressure and, at least in Shinbo's case, nervousness in making his debut as a director. Despite the difficulties of the work, Shinbo views Shigino as his directorial mentor.
Succeeding Musashi, the Samurai Lord, Shinbo worked on Marude Dameo (1991), which is where he met animator and storyboard artist Motosuke Takahashi, whose storyboards were so well-crafted that Shinbo had little to worry about in processing the storyboards besides the timing and tempo of actions and lines. Takahashi also taught Shinbo other parts of the production process, like how to read time sheets.
No longer an animator at Studio One Pattern, Shinbo received steady episodic work from Pierrot, and he eventually joined the studio's production team for Yu Yu Hakusho (1992–94). Shinbo directed 19 episodes of the series and storyboarded 13 under the series direction of Noriyuki Abe, a colleague from Musashi, the Samurai Lord. In particular, Shinbo's involvement with the series is noted for his work on the Dark Tournament arc, which is regarded as the first appearance of his visual style. Speaking on his motivations in the series, he spoke highly of animation director Atsushi Wakabayashi, whom Shinbo described as the driving force behind his work, and previous collaborator Motosuke Takahashi, whom Shinbo regards as another mentor; although, he mentioned that storyboarding for the series could be difficult due to the screenplay often including onomatopoeic sounds found in the manga.
Breakthrough productions While Shinbo worked on Yu Yu Hakusho, J.C.Staff attempted to produce its first original television series, Metal Fighter Miku (1994). However, the director who was originally attached the project left partway through its pre-production, and Nippon Victor producer Hiroyuki Birukawa had to find a replacement director. Shinbo had already been contacted about the work and was originally supposed to storyboard an episode; but Birukawa happened to watch the 74th episode of Yu Yu Hakusho, which Shinbo had both storyboarded and directed, and thought he was "amazing." Birukawa didn't know how to read Shinbo's name correctly and misread it as "Niibusa" in his attempt to hire him, but in the end Shinbo was chosen as the replacement director. Although Shinbo hadn't directed a series before, there weren't very many other opportunities to do so; and coupled with the fact that he only had experience as a director on Pierrot's works—which he described as mainstream but not otaku-orientated, as opposed to J.C. Staff's original video animation (OVA) approach—he took the offer. Birukawa was specifically interested in Shinbo's usage of colors and his ability to surprise the audience, though Shinbo commented that as a first time director the series was difficult for him. As the previous director had left during pre-production, the series was in an awkward state for a replacement director due to episode three's storyboards already being complete, which meant Shinbo had to make corrections to the 'completed' storyboards that already had corrections from the previous director. Since the storyboards, and the work as a whole, weren't his, it was difficult for him to bring out his own tastes and style while keeping the work cohesive. He not only had to find himself as a series director, but also how to not only include his own tastes and put the work together. His motivation was lowered by the fact that he was making so many storyboard corrections, and he said that during production he thought he might have been better off processing all of the episodes at the episode directing stage instead. However, when he saw episode 11 of the series, he was surprised and had the thought that he could not "lose to" the work of episode director Naohito Takahashi and animation director Yuriko Chiba; and so in the final episode, which he directed and storyboarded himself, he worked with the motivation of not being outdone by anyone. Birukawa believed that the episode was produced perfectly.
From 1995 to 1999, Shinbo participated in a number of OVA productions with various studios and varying success. In 1995, he directed the sixth and final episode of Madhouse's OVA series Devil Hunter Yohko, which he cited as a major point in his development as a director. In 1996, he returned to J.C.Staff to produce Galaxy Fräulein Yuna Returns, a sequel series to the 1995 OVA directed by Yorifusa Yamaguchi, which Shinbo had served as storyboard artist for.; and that same year with J.C. Staff, he directed the 3-episode OVA Starship Girl Yamamoto Yohko, which spawned its own animated franchise consisting of a sequel 3-episode OVA series in 1997 and a 26-episode television series in 1999. Also in 1996, he directed Debutante Detective Corps at Daume, his first of two projects with the company.
The Starship Girl Yamamoto Yohko television series was Shinbo's first collaboration with character designer and animator Akio Watanabe. The OVAs had character designs by Kazuto Nakazawa, but Shinbo wanted the characters to feel more realistic while keeping their "cute" qualities. Shinbo found out about Watanabe after he did research and asked J.C. Staff producer Yuuji Matsukura to offer Watanabe the role of character designer, and since Watanabe had already known about Shinbo and was a fan of Metal Fighter Miku, he accepted the job. Shinbo discussed the initial story with series composition writer Mayori Sekijima, who had written the screenplay to two of the OVA series' episodes, and decided that he wanted to make a narrative similar to the Space Cobra anime series directed by Osamu Dezaki; and as production started, Shinbo gave up his New Years' vacation to storyboard the first episode. The series was also the second collaboration between Shinbo and animator Toshiaki Tetsura, who worked on the second OVA series and was brought onto the TV series as both mechanical designer and visual director, whom Shinbo described as indispensable to the development of his works following Starship Girl Yamamoto Yohko, and that he couldn't imagine them without Tetsura's help.