Michiyo Yasuda

Birth : 1939-04-28, Tokyo Prefecture, Japan

Death : 2016-10-05

History

Michiyo Yasuda was a color designer and chief of the ink and paint division of Studio Ghibli.

Movies

Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki
Self
A look at legendary Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki following his retirement in 2013.
Mr. Dough and the Egg Princess
Color Designer
The story of a tiny Egg-girl who is forced to serve the evil Boar-like witch Baba Yaga. But after a blob of Dough comes to life, she befriends him and both escape from the witch's home at a Water mill on a cliff and set off to see the world. The soundtrack is Joe Hisaishi's arrangement of Vivaldi's La Folia
Ponyo
Color Designer
When Sosuke, a young boy who lives on a clifftop overlooking the sea, rescues a stranded goldfish named Ponyo, he discovers more than he bargained for. Ponyo is a curious, energetic young creature who yearns to be human, but even as she causes chaos around the house, her father, a powerful sorcerer, schemes to return Ponyo to the sea.
Madaran's World
Color Designer
The universe of strange and colorful creatures that are born, eat, are eaten... and are reborn indefinitely on the screen.
Tales from Earthsea
Color Designer
Something bizarre has come over the land. The kingdom is deteriorating. People are beginning to act strange... What's even more strange is that people are beginning to see dragons, which shouldn't enter the world of humans. Due to all these bizarre events, Ged, a wandering wizard, is investigating the cause. During his journey, he meets Prince Arren, a young distraught teenage boy. While Arren may look like a shy young teen, he has a severe dark side, which grants him strength, hatred, ruthlessness and has no mercy, especially when it comes to protecting Teru. For the witch Kumo this is a perfect opportunity. She can use the boy's "fears" against the very one who would help him, Ged.
House Hunting
Color Designer
A girl goes exploring to find a new house. Along the way, she encounters many of Japan's guardian spirits.
The Day I Bought a Star
Color Designer
The short film is about a boy who lives and works on a farm. One day when going to sell vegetables at a market, his cart breaks down. Two strangers, a frog and a mole, offer him a strange seed in exchange for the vegetables. The boy accepts and finds that the seed grows into a miniature planet. It continues growing as he tends to it, forming an atmosphere, weather systems and life. After being taken back to the city, he meets the stranger who sold the seed to him, and they release the planet into a galaxy of similar planets, where it will grow for years until becoming a real planet.
Howl's Moving Castle
Color Designer
Sophie, a young milliner, is turned into an elderly woman by a witch who enters her shop and curses her. She encounters a wizard named Howl and gets caught up in his resistance to fighting for the king.
Piyopiyo Baba
Color Designer
Piyopiyo Baba features Yubaba from Spirited Away laughing, and Evolution is about two characters chasing each other around as they evolve through time and motion.
Ghiblies: Episode 2
Color Designer
Ghiblies (pronounced with a hard "g" as in "gallop") is a short film aired during a TV special about Ghibli. It's about a fictional animation studio named "Ghibli" and the people who work there. This rare Ghibli Comedy is a look into who the people making the films are. Plotlines run from office jokes to Nonaka's first love, bringing together a short feature of random events.
Spirited Away
Color 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.
Ghiblies
Color Designer
Ghiblies, a totally different look on the staff of Studio Ghibli as they go through life, work on new animation projects, office jokes, off the wall events, and deciding what to have for lunch.
My Neighbors the Yamadas
Color Designer
The Yamadas are a typical middle class Japanese family in urban Tokyo and this film shows us a variety of episodes of their lives. With tales that range from the humorous to the heartbreaking, we see this family cope with life's little conflicts, problems, and joys in their own way.
Princess Mononoke
Color Designer
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.
On Your Mark
Color Designer
This animated short by Miyazaki was created as a music video for the song "On Your Mark" by Japanese duo Chage & Aska. The narrative is non-linear with no dialog and loosely follows the song lyrics and chorus. The video feels like a very compressed version of an epic Miyazaki film. The story follows two police officers in a futuristic setting in their repeated attempts at rescuing a mysterious winged girl.
Whisper of the Heart
Color 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'.
Pom Poko
Color Designer
The Raccoons of the Tama Hills are being forced from their homes by the rapid development of houses and shopping malls. As it becomes harder to find food and shelter, they decide to band together and fight back. The Raccoons practice and perfect the ancient art of transformation until they are even able to appear as humans in hilarious circumstances.
Porco Rosso
Color Designer
In Italy in the 1930s, sky pirates in biplanes terrorize wealthy cruise ships as they sail the Adriatic Sea. The only pilot brave enough to stop the scourge is the mysterious Porco Rosso, a former World War I flying ace who was somehow turned into a pig during the war. As he prepares to battle the pirate crew's American ace, Porco Rosso enlists the help of spunky girl mechanic Fio Piccolo and his longtime friend Madame Gina.
The Sky-Colored Seed
Color Designer
A short TV advertisement based on a children's book about a fox who gives a boy a seed which grows into a giant house.
Only Yesterday
Color 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.
Kiki's Delivery Service
Color Designer
A young witch, on her mandatory year of independent life, finds fitting into a new community difficult while she supports herself by running an air courier service.
Riding Bean
Painter
Bean Bandit and his partner Rally Vincent are couriers for hire - transporting clients and delivering goods in his custom sports car "Roadbuster" for a hefty price. But when they are hired to escort a kidnapped girl named Chelsea to her home, they don't realize they're being framed for kidnapping as their former clients Semmerling and Carrie plan their escape with Chelsea's father and the ransom money.
My Neighbor Totoro
Painter
Two sisters move to the country with their father in order to be closer to their hospitalized mother, and discover the surrounding trees are inhabited by Totoros, magical spirits of the forest. When the youngest runs away from home, the older sister seeks help from the spirits to find her.
Grave of the Fireflies
Color Designer
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
Color Designer
A partially-animated documentary about the preservation and restoration of the canal system in Yanagawa, Fukuoka
Castle in the Sky
Color Designer
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.
Angel's Egg
Color Designer
In a desolate and dark world full of shadows, lives one little girl who seems to do nothing but collect water in jars and protect a large egg she carries everywhere. A mysterious man enters her life... and they discuss the world around them.
Panda! Go Panda!: Rainy Day Circus
Painter
The family consisting of two pandas and one girl lives happily when suddenly a little tiger appears at their home. It arrives that the circus had come to their town. All of a sudden starts the pouring rain but it can't stop them.
The Wonderful World of Puss 'n Boots
Animation
His goal is to help the weak and defenseless, but his saving a mouse makes him the most wanted in all the land. On the run from incessant, dim-witted mice, Perro befriends a young miller's boy, Pierre; together, they decide to seek fame and fortune. When they cross paths with the lovely Princess Rosa, Perro determines to get Pierre hitched to Her Royal Highness.