Yoshiyuki Tomino  

Minami Asa, Minoru Yokitani, Rin Iogi, 井荻 麟, 富野 喜幸, 斧谷 稔, 阿佐 みなみ

Yoshiki Tomino is a renowned Japanese animator, writer, musician, and novelist who created the Gundam anime franchise. He began his career at Osamu Tezukas Mushi Productions in 1964 as part of the production department, where he worked as a production assistant and later drew storyboards and wrote screenplays for Astro Boy. He made his directorial debut with Triton of the Sea in 1972 and later became one of the most significant members of Sunrise (now Bandai Namco Filmworks), directing numerous anime throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. He transformed the "Super Robot" mecha anime genre into the "Real Robot" genre with Mobile Suit Gundam in 1979. Tomino uses various pseudonyms for different roles in his works, such as Minami Asa for screenplays and storyboards, Minoru Yokitani for animation direction, and Rin Iogi for theme song lyrics. In 2021, he was awarded the Person of Cultural Merit title for his outstanding cultural contributions.