Akiyuki Shinbo
[10] 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.
[48] Admittedly, when Shinbo worked on the series, he focused more on making unique shot compositions and imagery than creating a story, and left all organization of the narrative to previous collaborator and scriptwriter Mayori Sekijima.
[48] The series' production faced many difficulties, and two of the most prominent issues included episode 10's storyboards taking too long to complete,[18] and the team being unable to get many other companies to work on the show.
[58] The series served as a starting point for the creation of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha the following year, which featured the return of Seven Arcs, Shinbo, and Tsuzuki.
"[70][71] In 1995, Shaft managing director Mitsutoshi Kubota asked Shinbo to direct episodes to the studio's first original television work, Juuni Senshi Bakuretsu Eto Ranger, but was unable to due to conflicts with his schedule.
[73] Kubota eventually heard about the offer and accepted it, citing the answering machine issue as comically bad timing due to the staff always being out when Shinbo called.
's success to King Records producer Atsushi Moriyama and TV Tokyo manager Fukashi Azuma, who fought for Shaft's ability to use certain references and parodies, thus giving the team a higher degree of overall freedom.
[90][98] When he received the offer to direct the adaptation of Ume Aoki's Hidamari Sketch, Shinbo was initially worried that the viewer would change the channel if it was too boring as a slice of life work.
[99] Knowing Aria's success, he was convinced not to overdo himself on Hidamari Sketch, but he also found himself conflicted on whether or not he should use experimental visual elements like live-action photography and manga-like backgrounds.
[108] After he discussed with the art team, Oonuma decided that the shading and lit areas by the sun would have substantially different contrasts in order to bring out a feeling of harsh heat from the sunlight.
[108] Shinbo himself contributed to the look of the lighting itself, which takes the form of linear and geometric shapes, a style that art director Yuuji Ikeda influenced him with when they worked together on Marude Dameo.
[119] Pondering this, he thought about Isao Takahata's 1979 anime series Anne of Green Gables and its portrayal of mundane and daily life, much of which also consisted of a lot of dialogue.
[129] Atsuhiro Iwakami heard about Shinbo wanting to produce a magical girl series around Bakemonogatari's production, which spawned the initial development of Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
[159] Retrospectively, anime director Tatsuyuki Nagai considered Madoka to be the culmination of Shinbo's directing works throughout the years, especially in regard to Nanoha and Hidamari, which he believed were essential to its success.
[165] To help with the process, Shinbo asked editor Rie Matsubara to create a rough template outlining what parts of the story could be condensed into what sections of the film, and then he made suggestions, cuts, and additions from there.
[178] In 2012, he directed Hidamari Sketch x Honeycomb with Yuki Yase,[179] and this year marked the continuation of the Monogatari series with Nisemonogatari and Nekomonogatari: Black, with director Tomoyuki Itamura replacing Tatsuya Oishi.
[186] For that reason, he directed the series as if it was an older anime, using less-common techniques in the modern era of the time like people reflected in objects and fish-eye lenses.
[201] Initial planning for the film began with 7 to 8 members of the production team (including Ōne, Shinbo, Iwai, and Kawamura) meeting every two weeks for about half a year to discuss ideas.
[213] In 2016, Shinbo also expanded his work outside of Shaft alongside light novel author Reki Kawahara and novelist and scriptwriter Ichiro Okouchi as shareholders and collaborators to the then newly-established Egg Firm production studio.
[217] As "animation supervisor", Shinbo often made suggestions and supervised the work at scenario meetings and the post-recording sessions, and he mainly assisted with setting up the connections between Magia Record and Madoka Magica.
[110] This ties in with Shinbo's emphasis on visual representation, style, and "good pictures" in his works, rather than a focus on traditional storytelling or strong narratives, to which he has said that he "hates making ordinary stuff.
[14] Some artists Shinbo likes or has taken inspiration from include Yukinobu Hoshino (in particular his black-and-white pattern style),[143][230] Hokusai,[143] Tadanori Yokoo,[143] Pablo Picasso,[143] Egon Schiele,[143] Gustav Klimt,[143] and Andrew Wyeth.
[232] Aside from unique compositions, Shinbo also uses a variety of abnormal angles, which was one of the reasons he hired Akio Watanabe for the Starship Girl Yamamoto Yohko TV series (alongside his "realistic" but "cute" drawings).
[74] This style has been described as including pictures taken from real life cut into scenes, art shifts, beat panels (despite working in the animation medium), kabuki sound effects, textures that remain stationary when the textured object moves, showing symbols or defining parts of a character (ahoge, hair decorations, foreheads, or other symbols) in place of character shots during dialogue, written text in place (a style used mainly by Tatsuya Oishi, which was incorporated into Shinbo and other Shaft director's visual lexicons),[234] precise use of fan service, and head-turning cinematography (head-tilting).
[236] Shaft was open to Shinbo's experimentation, and he said they "[put] up with my requests wonderfully", which gave him and the staff newfound creative control and availability for artistic expression over their projects.
[241] At the same time, Shinbo continued to adhere to his philosophy of making interesting images so that the audience (and himself) wouldn't get bored, and he has made a point of constantly trying to show new or intriguing things with every work or every episode.
[243] Shaft animation producer Yasuhiro Okada stated that his works often take on the challenge of combining new things and that he was skilled at bringing out ideas that would not normally come out during the production process.
In the 90s and early 2000s, he influenced the likes of Masami Shimoda, Katsuichi Nakayama, Yoshimitsu Ohashi,[249] Masashi Ishihama,[250][251] Shintarou Inokawa, Yasuhiro Takemoto,[252][229] and Keizō Kusakawa.
[253] Among the directors he has mentored and influenced at Shaft are: Suzuki,[254] Shin Oonuma,[255] Tatsuya Oishi,[255] Nobuyuki Takeuchi,[229][256] Koutarou Tamura,[257] Kenichi Ishikura, Takashi Kawabata,[258] Ryouki Kamitsubo,[259][260] Shinichi Omata,[25] Masahiro Mukai,[238] Yuki Yase,[261] Naoyuki Tatsuwa,[262] Tomoyuki Itamura,[262] Yukihiro Miyamoto,[262] Hajime Ootani,[263] and Kenjirou Okada.
Character designer and animator Kazuya Shiotsuki described his generation from the studio as the "Children of Shinbo" (新房チルドレン) due to the values and preferences that he brought that influenced the mindsets of those at the company.
