As a member of Kyoto Animation, Yamamoto rose to prominence within the company after serving as an assistant director on Munto 2: Beyond the Walls of Time.

[1] He was to make his full directorial debut with Lucky Star, but was replaced after four episodes due to "performance issues".

[2] In a later radio interview, Yamamoto confirmed he was fired by Kyoto Animation and unsuccessfully attempted to win back his job.

[5] Production of the short came after the announcement that Kyoto Animation would be producing a Tonari no 801-chan television series.

[10] On February 25, 2017, he announced his next work would be an original anime film titled Hakubo, to be financed via crowdfunding.

[16] He has become notorious for his incendiary behavior on Twitter, including calling fans of anime "[mentally] disabled",[17] discriminatory remarks about Chinese and Korean anime fans,[18] and attacking his former cast members,[19] which has resulted in him being temporarily suspended from Twitter in 2018.