Tatsuya Yoshihara

Tatsuya Yoshihara is a Japanese anime director whose credits are closely associated with television series that combine comedy, fantasy, and elaborate action staging. He directed Monster Musume: Everyday Life with Monster Girls, the 2015 television adaptation produced by Lerche from Okayado’s manga. The series follows Kimihito Kurusu, a human host in Japan’s cultural-exchange program for “liminals,” and centers on the women from different nonhuman species who come to live in his home. Yoshihara’s work there placed romantic farce alongside the setting’s formal coexistence rules, including the prohibition on human–liminal relationships and the danger of accidental injury to visiting residents alike. His next series-directing credit included Long Riders!, a 2016 television anime made by Actas and based on Taishi Fujimoto’s manga. Rather than treating cycling as background decoration, the show follows college student Ami Kurata after a folding bicycle purchase leads her toward road cycling and the women’s team Fortuna. It depicts equipment, group rides, training, and longer events such as brevet rides. The production was delayed after episode ten, and its final two episodes aired in February 2017. That unusual broadcast history is part of the title’s documented release record, rather than an interchangeable detail about Yoshihara’s career as director. Yoshihara then became director of TV Tokyo’s Black Clover, the Pierrot-produced adaptation of Yūki Tabata’s manga. Its central character, Asta, was born without magic in a kingdom where magical power defines social status, yet aims to become the Wizard King alongside his rival Yuno. The television anime began in October 2017 and concluded with episode 170 in March 2021. Under Yoshihara, the adaptation progressed through major manga conflicts, including the Eye of the Midnight Sun storyline and the war against the Spade Kingdom’s Dark Triad. Its long run made him prominent among directors of weekly shōnen television anime in Japan. In 2022, Yoshihara directed Chainsaw Man for MAPPA, adapting Tatsuki Fujimoto’s manga. The twelve-episode television series follows Denji, a debt-ridden teenager who merges with his devil dog Pochita after being killed, becoming the chainsaw-headed Devil Hunter known as Chainsaw Man. Makima recruits him into Tokyo’s Public Safety Devil Hunters, where he works with Aki Hayakawa and Power. Yoshihara’s adaptation covers the manga’s opening Public Safety arcs, ending after the confrontation with Katana Man. Its twelve ending themes featured artists including Kenshi Yonezu, Maximum the Hormone, and Aimer, expanding the series’ musical identity beyond a conventional single closing song for its worldwide viewers.