Sanae Yamamoto

Biography

After working as animator for Seitarô Kitayama Animation Studio in the 20s, Yamamoto decided to leave the company after his debut as a director in "The Rabbit And the Turtle" (1924). After several short films directed and produced by him, including "Great Japanese Spirit" (1927) and "Momotaro is Japan Number 1" (1928), he decided to focus on production tasks from 1945 for the company Nippon Doga and from 1953 for Nichido. In 1957 Toei Doga absorbed Nichido and Yamamoto was appointed "Supervisor of animation" of several full length animation films, beginning with "Saiyuki" ("Journey to the West", 1960) and ending with "Gariba no Uchu Ryoko" ("Gulliver's Space Travels", 1965). He retired in 1967 when he was 69 years old.