Sunao Katabuchi

is a Japanese animation director, screenwriter, and storyboard artist. He is director of Contrail Co. Ltd. He has been a part-time lecturer at Nihon University College of Art since 2006, and a Project Professor at the college of Art of at the same university since 2018. He has also served as a part-time lecturer at the Graduate School of Tokyo University of the Arts since 2013. In the same year, Hayao Miyazaki asked him to participate in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind as a scriptwriter, but he had to decline for various reasons. Then he started working at Mushi Production.

He was seconded to Studio Ghibli from Mushi Productions to work as an assistant director for Hayao Miyazaki on Kiki's Delivery Service in 1989.

Katabuchi joined Studio 4°C in 1992. Around this time, he was asked to train new directors and animators for Studio Ghibli, which had changed from a system of recruiting freelance staff for each production to a proper company structure and began hiring new employees. When he finished his work at Ghibli, they wanted him to stay on, but he refused.

He made his directorial debut with the Nippon Animation TV series Famous Dog Lassie in 1996.

Works Films Kiki's Delivery Service - Assistant Director, 1989 - Director, 1998 - Director, Writer, 2001 - Director, Writer, 2009 - Director, Writer, 2016 - Director, Writer, 2019 The Mourning Children: Nagiko and the Girls Wearing Tsurubami Black (TBA)

Television productions Sherlock Hound - Writer, 1984-1985 The Blinkins: The Bear And The Blizzard - Director, 1986 Famous Dog Lassie - Director, 1996 Black Lagoon - Director, Writer, 2006 Black Lagoon: The Second Barrage - Director, Writer, 2006

OVA Black Lagoon: Roberta's Blood Trail - Director, Writer, 2010

Video games Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies (2001) - Director/writer for side-story movie Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War (2004) - Story writer Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown (2019) - Story writer Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve (2026) - Story writer

Commercials Panasonic 3CCD lovery size - Animation Director, 2004 Toyota ITS Ha:mo Concept movie Road to promise - Director, 2012 NHK PV of animation version - Director, 2013

Awards Princess Arete – Tokyo International Anime Fair - Excellent works of the year in Domestic Feature Film Category (2002) Mai Mai Miracle - Ottawa International Animation Festival - Prize Winning in Feature Film Competition (2009) Mai Mai Miracle - the 14th Japan Media Arts Festival - The Excellence Award in the Animation Division (2010) Mai Mai Miracle - 29th Brussels International Animation Film Festival - Anima 2010 BETV/Audience Awards for Feature Film Competition (2010) Mai Mai Miracle - the 20th Cine Junior International Film Festival - the Audience Award In This Corner of the World - Hiroshima International Film Festival - Hiroshima Peace Film Award Winner (2016) In This Corner of the World - 90th Kinema Junpo Awards - Best Director / Best Japanese Film (2017) In This Corner of the World - 71st Mainichi Film Awards - Ōfuji Noburō Award (2017) In This Corner of the World - 59th Blue Ribbon Awards - Best Director (2017) In This Corner of the World - 26th Tokyo Sports Film Award -Best Film (2017) In This Corner of the World - 40th Japan Academy Prize - Best Animation of the Year (2017) In This Corner of the World - 59th Culture of Child Welfare Award - Film/Media category (2017) In This Corner of the World - 67th The Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's Art Encouragement Prize - Film category (2017)