Nizou Yamamoto

Birth : 1953-06-27, Nagasaki, Japan

History

Nizou Yamamoto (山本 二三, Yamamoto Nizō) was born on 27 June 1953 in Fukue-shi (a town within Gotou City [Gotou-shi]), in Nagasaki Prefecture, and is one of the most well-known anime art directors and background artists in Japan. He is especially famous for his work on several of the Studio Ghibli films directed or produced by Hayao Miyazaki or Isao Takahata including Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986), Grave of the Fireflies (1988), Only Yesterday (1991), Whisper of the Heart (1995), Princess Mononoke (1997), and Spirited Away (2001).

Movies

Weathering with You
Painter
The summer of his high school freshman year, Hodaka runs away from his remote island home to Tokyo, and quickly finds himself pushed to his financial and personal limits. The weather is unusually gloomy and rainy every day, as if taking its cue from his life. After many days of solitude, he finally finds work as a freelance writer for a mysterious occult magazine. Then, one day, Hodaka meets Hina on a busy street corner. This bright and strong-willed girl possesses a strange and wonderful ability: the power to stop the rain and clear the sky.
Rainbow Fireflies
Background Designer
One year ago, Yūta lost his father from a car accident. Now in the 6th grade, Yūta goes to catch a beetle at a dam on a deep mountain. Yūta often went there with his father. There, Yūta meets a strange old man. Due to heavy rain, Yūta slips and falls down a bridge. He becomes unconscious. When Yūta awakes, he sees a child, Saeko, in front of him. Saeko takes Yūta to a village that looks like something that existed 30 years ago. Yūta has the feeling that he went into the past. He also meets Kenzō, who is the same age as Yūta. They promise to go catch a bug the following day. Saeko then takes Yūta to an old house. An old woman there treats Yūta like a cousin. Yūta doesn't know what is going on. At night, the strange old man he met earlier appears and tells Yūta that he will belong to this time period for a month. A precious summer vacation for Yūta begins.
Welcome to the Space Show
Background Designer
Five children save the life of a dog-like alien while at a self-run summer camp. He attempts to reward them by taking them to an alien colony on the Moon. Events take a turn for the worse when his report on that attack that injured him causes passage from the Moon to the Earth to be banned, and children are stranded in space. The children need to find a way back home before camp ends and their parents discover that they are missing. They also have to avoid the poachers that injured their alien friend, and now seem to be stalking them all.
Miyori's Forest
Storyboard Artist
After being deserted by her parents, 11-year old Miyori shuts her heart from the rest of the world and denies any form of human relationships. She was entrusted in the care of her grandmother who lives near a forest. Miyori will take a walk in the forest where she felt a strong sense of loneliness in the forest which seems to have nothing. However, she soon encounters unbelievable things...
Miyori's Forest
Director
After being deserted by her parents, 11-year old Miyori shuts her heart from the rest of the world and denies any form of human relationships. She was entrusted in the care of her grandmother who lives near a forest. Miyori will take a walk in the forest where she felt a strong sense of loneliness in the forest which seems to have nothing. However, she soon encounters unbelievable things...
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
Art Direction
When 17-year-old Makoto Konno gains the ability to, quite literally, "leap" backwards through time, she immediately sets about improving her grades and preventing personal mishaps. However, she soon realises that changing the past isn't as simple as it seems, and eventually, will have to rely on her new powers to shape the future of herself and her friends.
Spirited Away
Background Designer
A young girl, Chihiro, becomes trapped in a strange new world of spirits. When her parents undergo a mysterious transformation, she must call upon the courage she never knew she had to free her family.
Perfect Blue
Background Designer
A retired pop singer turned actress' sense of reality is shaken when she is stalked by an obsessed fan and seemingly a ghost of her past.
Princess Mononoke
Art Direction
Ashitaka, a prince of the disappearing Emishi people, is cursed by a demonized boar god and must journey to the west to find a cure. Along the way, he encounters San, a young human woman fighting to protect the forest, and Lady Eboshi, who is trying to destroy it. Ashitaka must find a way to bring balance to this conflict.
Whisper of the Heart
Background Designer
Shizuku lives a simple life, dominated by her love for stories and writing. One day she notices that all the library books she has have been previously checked out by the same person: 'Seiji Amasawa'.
Open the Door
Art Direction
It's bedtime and Nonoko is about to go to sleep. But the play of light and shadow on those objects on the wall, look almost like - a person.
Lupin the Third: Greatest Capers
Art Direction
A double dose of fun and excitement unfolds as Lupin III, the world's most loveable thief, does his best to stay one step ahead of the law, as he presents his two most spectacular capers! Hayao Miyazaki directed both episodes under the pseudonym Teruki Tsutomu.
Coo of The Far Seas
Art Direction
After a storm hits their island, Yusuke (driving his jet-ski) finds a baby dinosaur. He show it to his dad, they keep it and call it Coo. But there are other parties interested in a 65 million year old creature...
Only Yesterday
Background Designer
It's 1982, and Taeko is 27 years old, unmarried, and has lived her whole life in Tokyo. She decides to visit her family in the countryside, where she begins to reconnect to forgotten longings. In lyrical switches between the present and the past, Taeko contemplates the arc of her life, and wonders if she has been true to the dreams of her childhood self.
Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland
Art Direction
A little boy whose dreams transcend reality is sucked into his own fantasy, which is everything he has dreamed of, until he unleashes an old secret that may not only destroy this perfect dream world but reality itself.
Grave of the Fireflies
Art Direction
In the final months of World War II, 14-year-old Seita and his sister Setsuko are orphaned when their mother is killed during an air raid in Kobe, Japan. After a falling out with their aunt, they move into an abandoned bomb shelter. With no surviving relatives and their emergency rations depleted, Seita and Setsuko struggle to survive.
The Story of Yanagawa's Canals
Art Direction
A partially-animated documentary about the preservation and restoration of the canal system in Yanagawa, Fukuoka
Robot Carnival
Background Designer
An anthology of various tales told in various styles with robots being the one common element among them.
Robot Carnival
Art Designer
An anthology of various tales told in various styles with robots being the one common element among them.
Castle in the Sky
Art Direction
A young boy and a girl with a magic crystal must race against pirates and foreign agents in a search for a legendary floating castle.
Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland Pilot 2
Art Direction
The second of three pilot shorts that eventually became the 1989 movie Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland.
Drifting Clouds
Background Designer
Retired samurai Kumosuke lives quietly, not to say idly, in Edo (old Tokyo) with his wife and two children, a young boy named Shinnosuke and an infant girl, Ohana. While he nominally runs a courier business to earn a living, he seems to spend most of his time smoking his pipe, drinking sake, and chasing women. The arrival of a Shinsengumi squad led by a young swordswman, Ichimonji Hyougo, disrupts this peaceful routine, forcing Kumosuke to defend himself.
Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro
Background Designer
After a successful robbery leaves famed thief Lupin the Third and his partner Jigen with nothing but a large amount of expertly crafted counterfeit bills, he decides to track down the forgers responsible—and steal any other treasures he may find in the Castle of Cagliostro, including the 'damsel in distress' he finds imprisoned there.