Kitarou Kousaka

Kousaka began his career in 1979 at Oh! Production, debuting as an in-betweener on Moero Arthur: Hakuba no Ouji, and as a key animator on Minami no Niji no Lucy in 1982, and got instructed by animators like Toshitsugu Saida and Kouichi Murata.

Before having gone freelance in 1986, he had partaken in Nausicaä as an animator, working alongide famed director Hayao Miyazaki, whose work he himself is an admitted fan. He has since worked on numerous of Miyazaki's and Ghibli's films as both an animator and an animation director.

In 2003, he directed the cycling anime film, Nasu: Summer in Andalusia, set on the Vuelta a España road bicycle race, adapted from Iou Kuroda's manga Nasu, which Miyazaki, a fan of cycling, had recommended to Kousaka. The film soon went on to become the first Japanese anime film ever to be selected for the Cannes Film Festival.