Person: Oshii Mamoru

Oshii Mamoru was born August 8, 1951 in Tokyo. As a student, Mamoru Oshii was fascinated by the film La Jetée by Chris Marker as well as the films of Andrzej Wajda, Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Andrzej Munk and Ingmar Bergman.

In 1976, he graduated from The Fine Arts Education School of the Education Department of Tokyo Liberal Arts University. The following year, he entered Tatsunoko Productions and worked on his first anime as animation director on Ippatsu Kanta-kun. In 1980, he moved to Studio Pierrot under the supervision of his mentor, Hisayuki Toriumi. During production of the Nils no Fushigina Tabi and Kagaku Ninja-Tai Gatchaman II TV series, Oshii first met longtime collaborator, writer Kazunori Itou, and painter and character designer Yoshitaka Amano.

In the midst of his work with Studio Pierrot, Oshii took on independent work and directed the first direct-to-video OVA series, Dallos, in 1983. In 1984, he left Studio Pierrot and has remained independent ever since. He next wrote and directed Tenshi no Tamago (Angel's Egg) released in 1985, a surreal film with biblical themes featuring the character designs of Yoshitaka Amano.

In 1995, Mamoru Oshii released his landmark animated cyberpunk film, Ghost in the Shell, in Japan, the United States, and Europe. It hit the top of the US Billboard video charts in 1996, making it the first anime video ever to do so.

After a 5-year hiatus from directing to work on other projects, Oshii returned to live-action with the long-awaited Japanese-Polish feature Avalon, which was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 2001. His next animated feature film, Innocence (a sequel to Ghost in the Shell), was selected to compete at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival for the coveted Palme d'Or prize, making it the first anime in this top category and only the eighth animated film to be shown at Cannes. His most recent film, The Sky Crawlers, competed for the Golden Lion in the Venice Film Festival and won the Future Film Festival Digital Award.

In terms of directing, Oshii has stated his approach is directly opposite the Hollywood formula. For Mamoru Oshii, the visuals are the most important aspect, then the story and the characters come last.