After graduation, she entered Tohoku University as per her father's wishes, but she eventually dropped out and left her home town to work in Tokyo.
[4] In 1957 Okuyama applied for a position with Toei Doga, mistakenly believing that they were publishers of children's books.
Her first work was on the landmark feature-length anime Hakuja den (released in the US as The Tale of the White Serpent, 1958).
She was promoted to second key animator on 1959's Shonen Sarutobi Sasuke (released as Magic Boy in the US), in spite of some sexual discrimination on the part of the studio heads.
Her primary role was to even out the stylistic differences between the work of Toei Doga's two top animators, Yasuji Mori and Akira Daikuhara.