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Yoshitaka Amano is a renown illustrator that has worked on several anime titles as well as video games and novels. He was born during 1967 in the Shizuoka prefecture of Japan. He got his start working with Tatsunoko productions on the Speed Racer anime and later went on to create original characters such as Gatchaman, Tekkaman and Casshan all of which have had one or more reboots some even as recently as the second season of Gatchaman Crowds from the Summer 2015 season. As far as illustrations for novels he has illustrated covers and images for Guin Saga, which unfortunately never concluded due to the untimely death of the author Kaoru Kurimoto in 2009, as well as one of my personal favorites Vampire Hunter D. In an interview with the original author of Vampire Hunter D Hideyuki Kikuchi he praises Amano on his ability to capture the main character D's ethereal beauty after initial worries of not being able to convey and translate his words into images. Both have had anime adaptations, which just goes to show the quality and popularity of the works that Mr. Amano has been involved with.

He also has quite a prolific history of doing illustration work for video games. Most notable of which being the various games of the Final Fantasy series. Some of the other video game titles he has worked on include Child of Light, Lords of Arcana and First Queen. Amano has done several collaborations with western authors including Neil Gaiman's Sandman: The Dream Hunters and Wolverine and Elektra.

He has released several art books compiling his various illustrations, from original character designs and his work for anime, games and novels. He has even hosted several museum art exhibitions showcasing his art work. The most recent of them being "The World Beyond Your Imagination"



I've spoken a lot of about what he has worked on, but I haven't talked about why his art stands out to me and so many others as truly unique and striking. His use of flowing and swirling lines and vibrant colors. His incredible amount of detail that he packs into an image. His character design often using slim and angular characters as well as pale skin. His work often has a rough and unfinished texture to it, giving it a more human element. He says in an interview with Nihon NY that his style is a mix of Western and Japanese styles. Although he wanted to go against the Japanese style and do more western looking art, his Japanese influence still seems to filter through. Instead of simply trying to describe it I would do much better showing some of my favorite pieces that he has done.



Aside from his earlier works some of his more recognizable contributions to the anime industry include doing the original character designs for Mamoru Oshii's Angel's Egg, Amon Saga and 1001 Nights. In 2010 He created his own anime production Studio, Studio Devaloka, which planned to release a cgi movie called Deva Zan, but it was left incomplete due to lack of funds.

Amano is an extremely prolific illustrator that has a massive body of work and great diversity in what kind of projects he works on. Although you may have known of his contributions to anime, hopefully this article helped to encourage a more holistic appreciation of his art.