Her 1995 screenplay for Gakkō no kaidan was nominated for the Japan Academy Prize.
A graduate of the Literature Department of Tokai University in Tokyo, Okudera did not originally consider a career in screenwriting.
[1] After over a decade of work in live-action film and television, Okudera was offered her first animation project: adapting Yasutaka Tsutsui's novel Toki o Kakeru Shōjo for director Mamoru Hosoda.
The resulting film, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, received worldwide acclaim and gave her international recognition upon its release in 2006.
At the 2009 Anime Festival Asia in Singapore, Hosoda revealed Okudera would be writing the script for his next project, Wolf Children.