Yasuhiro Takemoto

Yasuhiro Takemoto (武本 康弘 Takemoto Yasuhiro) was the director of High☆Speed！－Free! Starting Days－, the first full-length movie of the franchise, depicting the day-to-day life and issues of Haruka Nanase, Makoto Tachibana, Asahi Shiina and Ikuya Kirishima while they are in junior high school and first-time teammates. On July 26th, 2019, Takemoto was confirmed to be one of the victims of the July 18, 2019 Kyoto Animation arson attack.

Mr. Takemoto, 47, joined the studio in his 20s, holding every job in the book: junior animator, key animator, storyboard artist, writer, assistant director, episode director, series director, trainer of young talent. In the credits of the studio’s most beloved TV shows and films, his name is usually there — whether up front or at the end with a “special thanks.” Mr. Takemoto decided he wanted to study animation after watching the 1986 movie, "Castle in the Sky" by Hayao Miyazaki. After studying anime in Osaka, he joined Kyoto Animation in 1996 and steadily attracted many fans.