[2] He is best known for his character design and animation directing work on Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo, The Boy and the Heron, Millennium Actress and Den-noh Coil.
[9][10] He debuted as an animation director in 1990 with Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water at the tender age of 22, but then quit and moved to Studio AIC.
[9][10] After leaving Gainax, Honda began to work with other famous directors in the animation industry besides Anno, such as Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue, Tokyo Godfathers, Millennium Actress), Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, The Sky Crawlers), Hiroyuki Okiura (Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade) and Kōji Morimoto (The Animatrix: Beyond).
[9][b] Honda soon afterwards joined Khara, which was newly established by Anno after he left Gainax, and worked with him again on the Rebuild of Evangelion film series.
[10][13] Honda moved to Studio Ghibli in 2017 to accept the post of animation director for Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron.