Tomino was born on November 5, 1941, in Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, to an old family of regional landowners in Ōjima (in present-day Kōtō, Tokyo).

[3][4] His father Kihei Tomino was an employee at Japan Processed Fabrics, and his mother Sachiko was the daughter of town councillor and celluloid toy manufacturer Sakichi Tanaka.

Kihei worked as a chemical engineer at the Odawara Arsenal developing pressurized suits for the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter plane during the Pacific War.

Tomino is known for using numerous pseudonyms for miscellaneous staffing roles that he performs in his works, including Minami Asa (阿佐 みなみ, Asa Minami) and Minoru Yokitani (斧谷 稔, Yokitani Minoru), which are used to credit himself for screenplays and storyboards he creates, Rin Iogi (井荻 麟, Iogi Rin), which he uses to credit himself for theme song lyrics he writes.

Tomino is noted for directing several well-known anime series throughout his career, such as his most notable work, the Mobile Suit Gundam series, beginning in 1979, and which was later followed onto numerous sequels, spinoffs and merchandising franchises, Aura Battler Dunbine, Brave Raideen (in which he directed the first 26 episodes), and numerous others.

[12][14][15][16][17] In 1978, Tomino conceived, wrote and directed the successful Super Robot series Daitarn 3, which featured an unusual mix of spy adventure, drama, sci-fi and irony.

[19]Although the last quarter of the show's original script was canceled and it had to be completed in 43 episodes, its popularity grew after three compilation movies were released in 1981 and 1982.

Mobile Suit Gundam was followed by numerous sequels, spin-offs and merchandising franchises, becoming one of the longest-running and most influential, popular anime series in history, being chosen as No.

[20] In 1980, Tomino directed Space Runaway Ideon, a series which like Mobile Suit Gundam was cancelled on its initial run, but featured movie versions later on.

Tomino followed up with a more light-hearted series called Xabungle, but the darker nature of Ideon continued with 1983's Aura Battler Dunbine.

This movie, which took place 30 years after Char's Counterattack, re-launched the Gundam saga in a new direction by featuring a completely new cast.

His next major original work in the 2000s was the 6-episode OVA The Wings of Rean, which first premiered on the Internet across Bandai Channel, the broadcast beginning from December 12, 2005, with the final episode starting on August 18, 2006.

Also in 2006, Tomino made a special cameo appearance in Shinji Higuchi's tokusatsu film Japan Sinks.