For the Japanese TV presenter, see Mie Sadamoto.

is a Japanese character designer, manga artist

Mangaka

is the Japanese word for a comic artist or cartoonist. Outside of Japan, manga usually refers to a Japanese comic book and mangaka refers to the author of the manga, who is usually Japanese...

, and one of the founding members of the Gainax

Gainax

is a Japanese anime studio famous for productions such as Gunbuster, The Wings of Honneamise, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, Neon Genesis Evangelion, FLCL and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann which have gone on to critical acclaim and commercial success, as well as for their association with...

 anime studio. Before the studio was founded under the official name (it was originally called Daicon Film), he served as animator on the second animated project, the Daicon IV opening animation. His first assignment as character designer in Gainax was for Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise

Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise

is a 1987 Japanese animated science fiction film and the first film produced by Gainax and Bandai Visual. It was directed and written by Hiroyuki Yamaga with assistant director Takami Akai. The film would eventually be a critically acclaimed Gainax classic, but it was poorly received and sold only...

, released in 1987. He also worked as animator on Gunbuster

Gunbuster

Gunbuster, known in Japan as is a six episode anime OVA series created by Gainax in 1988. It was the directorial debut of Hideaki Anno, best known as the director of Neon Genesis Evangelion. The title is a combination of the titles of classic tennis anime Aim for the Ace!, whose plot inspired...

and Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water

Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water

is a Japanese animated television series inspired by the works of Jules Verne, particularly Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and the exploits of Captain Nemo...

, and he came back to this specialty for the first episode of Diebuster (also known as Gunbuster 2 or Top wo Nerae! 2). He is also the character designer of the best known Gainax anime series, Neon Genesis Evangelion, as well as the author of its manga adaptation

Neon Genesis Evangelion (manga)

is a long-running manga series by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto and published by Kadokawa Shoten. It began in the February issue of Shōnen Ace in December 1994. It consists of 13 volumes, each composed of several "stages" or chapters...

 (which is also Sadamoto's first full-length manga work).

In addition to his work on Evangelion, Sadamoto did character designs for Nadia, FLCL

FLCL

is an original video animation series written by Yōji Enokido, directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki and produced by the FLCL Production Committee, which included Gainax, Production I.G, and Starchild Records....

, .hack//Sign

.hack//SIGN

.hack//Sign is an anime television series directed by Kōichi Mashimo and produced by studio Bee Train and Bandai Visual, that makes up one of the four original storylines of the .hack franchise...

, Diebuster

Diebuster

Diebuster, known in Japan as is a six episode anime Original Video Animation series created by Gainax in 2004.The first episode was aired on October 3, 2004, while the final episode was released on August 14, 2005. A movie, officially titled retells and recaps the end of the first Gunbuster OVA...

, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, and Summer Wars

Summer Wars

is a 2009 Japanese animated science fiction romance film directed by Mamoru Hosoda, animated by Madhouse and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film's voice cast includes Ryunosuke Kamiki, Nanami Sakuraba, Mitsuki Tanimura, Sumiko Fuji and Ayumu Saitō...

. His first artbook is entitled Alpha, and presents a collection of illustrations by Sadamoto that were made before Evangelion (including Nadia and The Wings of Honneamise).

In 2003, Viz

VIZ Media

VIZ Media, LLC, headquartered in San Francisco, is an anime, manga, and Japanese entertainment company. It was founded in 1986 as VIZ LLC. In 2005, VIZ LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current VIZ Media LLC, which is jointly owned by Japanese publishers Shogakukan and Shueisha, and...

 published a collection of his works, entitled Der Mond (German for "The Moon"). Other artbooks that include some of Sadamoto's works are Die Sterne (German for "The Stars") and Groundwork of FLCL.

Sadamoto is also the author of a short manga named Route 20 that was derived from an aborted anime project. He was also author of two manga one-shots, Dirty Work and System of Romance. He is currently serving as co-creator and character designer for the .hack

.hack

.hack is a Japanese multimedia franchise that encompasses two projects; Project .hack and .hack Conglomerate. Both projects were primarily created/developed by CyberConnect2, and published by Bandai...

game franchise.

Sadamoto also worked as an artist for the cover of Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton

Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...

's album Pilgrim.

According to Yasuo Otsuka

Yasuo Otsuka

is a Japanese animator who worked with Toei Animation and Studio Ghibli.Prior to becoming an animator, Ōtsuka worked in the Kantō-Kōshin'etsu district drug enforcement office at the Ministry of Health and Welfare. As a member of the support staff , he was responsible for the seizure of drugs and...

, who guided Sadamoto as a newcomer, there are only three people whom he regarded as more skillful than himself that he has met during his career. One of them is Yoshiyuki Sadamoto. The other two are Sadao Tsukioka who became a visual creator, and award-winning director Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki

is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...

.

When Otsuka met the three men, he seems to have felt that he was taking off his hat to them at once. However, he thinks that only Miyazaki completely mastered a genuinely superior animation technique at present. He guesses, "A too excellent person might despair in the group work".

In recent years, Sadamoto has concentrated primarily on comics and on illustration work. Since the early 1990s, his animation work has consisted primarily of character design and supervision, although this may be changing with his involvement in 2007 as key animator on episode 27 of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and animation director and key animator on Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone

Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone

is a 2007 Japanese animated film written and chief directed by Hideaki Anno. It is the first of four films released in the Rebuild of Evangelion tetralogy based on the original anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion. It was produced and co-distributed by Anno's Studio Khara in partnership with Gainax...

.

External links

• An interview with Sadamoto, translated in Animerica
  Animerica
  Animerica is a quarterly digest published by Viz Media. It initially started as a monthly magazine featuring reviews of anime and manga titles, as well as related works. After a preview issue was released in November 1992, the magazine's first issue was released in February 1993 with a March 1993...
  
  in Vol. 6, issue No. 8
• Interview in Der Mond
• Sadamoto judges in a Twilight
  Twilight
  Twilight is the time between dawn and sunrise or between sunset and dusk, during which sunlight scattering in the upper atmosphere illuminates the lower atmosphere, and the surface of the earth is neither completely lit nor completely dark. The sun itself is not directly visible because it is below...
  
  contest
• The Rose review of Der Mond