Yūichirō Hayashi

Yūichirō Hayashi is a Japanese anime director closely associated with MAPPA’s adaptations of Dorohedoro and Attack on Titan during the 2020s. His work is especially notable because MAPPA inherited Attack on Titan after WIT Studio had animated its first three television seasons. Hayashi directed The Final Season, which moved the story beyond the Walls and into the conflict involving Marley and Eldia. The season introduced characters including Gabi Braun, Falco Grice, and Marleyan warrior candidates while continuing Eren Yeager’s central role in Hajime Isayama’s narrative. MAPPA’s first Final Season episode aired in December 2020, following the fourth and final season’s announcement. The television continuation, Final Season Part 2, began in January 2022. The conclusion was then released as two extended specials, The Final Chapters Special 1, in March 2023, and Special 2, in November 2023. Hayashi therefore oversaw the anime’s final screen adaptation across its last major broadcast phases. The project’s production moved from WIT Studio to MAPPA, a change watched closely by the series’ international audience. Before Attack on Titan, Hayashi directed Dorohedoro, MAPPA’s 2020 anime version of Q Hayashida’s manga. Dorohedoro is set in a brutal divided world where sorcerers visit a polluted place called the Hole. Its protagonist Caiman has a reptilian head and amnesia, and he searches for the sorcerer responsible for his transformation. Nikaido, his friend and restaurant partner, assists him. Hayashi’s Dorohedoro adaptation used CG character animation alongside textured backgrounds to realize Hayashida’s grotesque, comic world. The first season premiered on Japanese television in January 2020, before Netflix distributed it internationally. Its endings changed often, a conspicuous feature of the broadcast. Hayashi also directed Kakegurui and sequel Kakegurui ×× for MAPPA. These adaptations draw from the manga written by Homura Kawamoto and illustrated by Tōru Naomura. Their setting is Hyakkaou Private Academy, where students gamble for status and where Yumeko Jabami’s appetite for risk disrupts the school’s hierarchy. Kakegurui premiered in 2017, while Kakegurui ×× followed in 2019. The two series placed Hayashi at the center of MAPPA’s early television output. Another Hayashi directing credit is Garo: Vanishing Line, a 2017 original television series within the Garo franchise. It follows Sword, a Makai Knight, and Sophie Hennis as they investigate the shadowy organization called El Dorado in Russell City together. Across these works, Hayashi has directed adaptations with distinctive visual identities, while holding responsibility for the final animated installment of one of Japan’s most widely recognized modern manga franchises.