Yokota, Takumi

Twitter: @ohkowai

Takumi Yokota is an animator and character designer that is currently freelance, and that was formerly affiliated with ufotable, Anime International Company (AIC), and Shaft.

After graduating from University from the Faculty of Law department, he joined ufotable as a production assistant. He stated in an interview with Akiba Souken in 2019, that while watching movies and anime at the library in his third or fourth year of job hunting, he fell in love with the work Patlabor: The Mobile Police, directed by Mamoru Oshii. And while watching Oshii's interview, he decided that he wanted to become a director, and when he was researching on how to become a director, he found out that one of the paths of becoming a director is by starting out as a production assistant; and so he applied as a production assistant at ufotable. He later left ufotable due to various reasons and described himself as a NEET for almost half a year after departing from ufotable. After more than three months of being a NEET, he decided he needed to get a job, and then remembered his time as a production assistant at ufotable. While still working as a production assistant at ufotable, one conversation with an animator at ufotable really stuck with him, and he thought subsequently: "Let's go back to anime again!" And in 2007, he applied as an animator at Anime International Company (AIC) when he saw that the studio was hiring 20 new animators, and got the position. He made his debut as an animator with 2007's Tokyo Majin, co-animated by AIC Spirits and BeSTACK. He has stated that while at his time at the studio, AIC took care of its animators well so that they could live, and was occasionally treated by his seniors at the studio. He cites Ryuichi Makino as one of his mentors while at AIC. In 2011, he made his debut as an animation director in 2011, with AIC's adaptation of R-15 of the same name. In 2013, he made his character designer debut with Pupipo!, animated by AIC PLUS+. In 2014, he left AIC and became an animator at Shaft. As of December 2019, he has since become freelance.