Mamoru Hosoda

Mamoru Hosoda is a Japanese animator and film director widely recognized for his acclaimed animated feature films and shorts. He first gained industry attention with early projects such as short films for the Digimon franchise, which were included in Digimon: The Movie. He subsequently built a major reputation through feature productions including The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars, Wolf Children, The Boy and the Beast, Mirai, and Belle.

Born on September 19, 1967, in Kamiichi, Toyama Prefecture, Japan, Hosoda was raised by a father who worked as a railway engineer and a mother who was a tailor. His ambition to pursue animation was sparked in elementary school during 1979 after viewing several landmark anime productions, particularly Isao Takahata's Anne of Green Gables. He began creating paper animation in junior high school and briefly qualified for an animator open call while in high school. Hosoda later majored in oil painting at the Kanazawa College of Art, where he joined the film club and made nearly fifty video and live-action works.

Hosoda entered the animation industry in 1991 by joining Toei Animation, where he spent six years as an animator on television series and movies, including serving as assistant animation director for Tōi Umi kara Kita Coo. He made his directorial debut on GeGeGe no Kitarō and achieved critical notice for directing two Digimon Adventure short films in 1999 and 2000. In 2001, Studio Ghibli selected Hosoda to direct Howl's Moving Castle, but production was halted in 2002 following creative and organizational challenges.

After returning to Toei, Hosoda directed television episodes, including a notable 2002 episode of Ojamajo Doremi Dokkān!, and collaborated with artist Takashi Murakami on the 2003 Louis Vuitton promotional short Superflat Monogram. Following his direction of the 2005 feature One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island, Hosoda departed Toei to work independently. Partnering with animation studio Madhouse and producer Yuichiro Saito, he directed the 2006 film The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. Despite a limited initial release, the film grew into a major box-office success and earned the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year in 2007. His subsequent original feature, Summer Wars, was released in 2009 and won the same Japan Academy Award in 2010.

In 2011, Hosoda co-founded Studio Chizu with Saito to produce his independent projects. He wrote and directed Wolf Children in 2012, followed by the box-office success of The Boy and the Beast in 2015. His 2018 film Mirai received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature Film at the 91st Oscars, marking the first non-Studio Ghibli Japanese anime feature to achieve this nomination. Hosoda continued his successful streak with the 2021 release of Belle, which grossed 6.6 billion yen to become his highest-earning film.