Portfolio. Chief Director

Katsuhito Akiyama 秋山勝仁 · あきやまかつひと

From a Hokkaido documentary unit to seven straight seasons of Beyblade

Pacific Animation Corporation's Season 1 chief director. The job opened the door to a directorial career that has not paused for forty years.

Born: 29 January 1950, Furano, Hokkaidō, Japan
Role on ThunderCats: Chief Director / Animation Staff (Season 1)
Season involvement: Chief director on Season 1 in Japan; animator credit across all 130 episodes.

Katsuhito Akiyama (left) with Beyblade X director Soujirou Terada at the Z&G Animelab school visit, 18 May 2024 — Akiyama (left) with Beyblade X director Soujirou Terada at the Z&G Animelab open day, 18 May 2024. The most recent press image of him, four decades after he was Chief Director on the Japan side of ThunderCats.

Z&G Animelab director Tetsuya Arao introducing the panel — Z&G Animelab director Tetsuya Arao introducing the session.

Akiyama in Q&A on layout technique for working animators — Akiyama in the Q&A, both directors talked through what they look for in layout technique from working animators.

Biography

Katsuhito Akiyama was born on 29 January 1950 in Furano, Hokkaidō, the inland farming town later made internationally famous by the NHK drama Kita no Kuni Kara. The Japan Directors Guild biography is the most authoritative trace of his pre-animation years: in 1973 he joined Star Eizō (スター映像), a Tokyo documentary production house that worked as a crew for Nippon TV, and spent six years on documentary shoots before leaving in 1979.

He pivoted to animation in 1980, joining Green Box (グリーンボックス) as an enshutsu (演出, episode director). In 1982 he went freelance, mainly taking direction work for Tatsunoko Production and Tokyo Movie. He is credited under both arrangements across mid-80s shows including Gordian the Fighter, Beast King GoLion and Macross: Do You Remember Love? (1984), where he took an enshutsu credit.

1984 is when Masaki Iizuka brought him into the newly-formed Pacific Animation Corporation as Chief Director on the Japan side of ThunderCats. The English-language credits list him simply as "animator: 130 episodes", the Directors Guild bio is more specific: he was the chief director on the show in Japan. He stayed at PAC through the Season 1 production wave.

In 1985 he made his theatrical directorial debut on Gall Force: Eternal Story, and in 1986 he signed an exclusive contract with AIC (Anime International Company), the studio that became the centre of the OVA boom. He held that exclusive until 2011, twenty-five years, directing the Bubblegum Crisis cycle, Bastard!!, El Hazard, Battle Athletes Victory, Dual!, Pumpkin Scissors, Magical Project S and most of the major AIC OVAs in between.

Post-2008 he has been the long-running showrunner of two of the biggest children's anime franchises in Japan: Inazuma Eleven (six years), then the Beyblade Burst run from 2016, then the current Beyblade X from 2023. He toured Anime Expo 2024 as the public face of Beyblade X and as recently as May 2024 attended a school visit at Z&G Animelab in Tokyo, the four photographs below are from that day, the most recent confirmed press images of him.

On ThunderCats

Chief director on the Japan-side production of Season 1. Animator credit across all four seasons. He was the senior creative voice on the set that established the visual vocabulary of the show.

Bubblegum Crisis OVA cover (1987) — Bubblegum Crisis (1987). Chief director credit, the year ThunderCats Season 2 wrapped.

Gall Force: Eternal Story (1986). Theatrical directorial debut, while ThunderCats was still in production.

El Hazard: The Wanderers title card — El Hazard: The Wanderers (1995). TV director credit.

Beyblade X manga volume 1 cover — Beyblade X (2023 onwards). Chief director and executive director of the current Beyblade era.

Selected works around and after ThunderCats

Gall Force: Eternal Story 1986
Theatrical directorial debut. The first of a five-OVA cycle Akiyama directed between 1986 and 1991.
Bubblegum Crisis 1987
Chief director. Defining late-80s cyberpunk OVA, his first writing credit.
Spirit Warrior 1988
OVA parts 1 and 3.
Sol Bianca 1990
Director of episode 1.
Ai no Kusabi 1992 / 2009
Twice-directed across two OVA productions seventeen years apart.
Bastard!! 1992
OVA director.
Elementalors 1995
First theatrical feature as director.
El Hazard: The Wanderers 1995
TV series.
Magical Project S 1996
TV series.
Battle Athletes Victory 1997
TV series.
Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure 1999
TV series.
Armitage III: Dual Matrix 2002
Theatrical feature.
Guyver: The Bioboosted Armor 2005
TV director.
Pumpkin Scissors 2006
TV director.
Inazuma Eleven 2008
Six-year run as director of the football-anime franchise. Listed on his Japanese profile as his representative work.
Beyblade Burst 2016-2023
Chief director across all seven Burst seasons.
Beyblade X 2023-present
Chief director and executive director of the current Beyblade era.

Why this credit matters

Akiyama's career is the cleanest example of the ThunderCats-as-launchpad pattern. He went into PAC in his mid-30s with TV directing experience but no major credits. He came out three years later positioned to direct the OVA boom of the late 80s as it was happening. He has not stopped directing since. Beyblade X is his eighth year at the head of that franchise and his fourth decade as a working director.

Sources

Cover artwork and portrait images here are reproduced under fair use for editorial commentary. Image sources: Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons (work cover art); Rick Goldschmidt, "Masaki Iizuka remembered" (2020) for the Iizuka portrait; Z&G Animelab (zganimelabo.co.jp) for the Akiyama 2024 photographs. Japanese-language biographical sources cited per page above.

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