She was also one of the youngest people to be made a director with Kyoto Animation, getting her first directing opportunity around 4 years after finishing college and starting work for the studio.

[6] Yamada originally intended to work in film after graduating from university, but she decided to join Kyoto Animation after seeing an advertisement the company had posted at her school.

[6] From there she would work as the Key Animator on a number of other shows including The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Kanon, and Lucky Star.

[6] In 2013, she directed Tamako Market, an original work which focused on the main characters change from adolescence to adult hood.

The following year, she directed its sequel film, Tamako Love Story, in which she won the New Face Award at the Japan Media Arts Festival.

[17][18] On July 18, 2019, a man started a fire at the main studio of Kyoto Animation, killing 36 of Yamada's colleagues and wounding 33 others.

[6] In an interview about her career at the UK premiere of "Liz and Blue Bird", Yamada states, "It’s very important to me to treat the characters as individual people.

[4] Yamada's work often features low-angle shots on the legs, a stylistic choice that sets her apart from many other anime directors.

[21] Specifically, her use of low angle shots, shallow depth of field, and varying camera movement, allows Yamada's to pull in the audience stylistically just as any live action film would.

Yamada also focuses a lot on the color composition in each shot of her works, by using specific tones she can better portray the emotions the characters are going through.