Keiji Gotou

Website

Gotou began his career as an animator at Atorie. After the closing of Atorie, he worked for other studios such as Project Team Muu and Fenx before going freelancer. He serves as character designer, animation director and animator on countless anime series and contributes to a monthly comic strip to Newtype magazine.

He has been an animator since he graduated from high school at 18. Unlike most other animators Gotou had never gone to an art school. He became interested in animation after seeing an advertisement in an animation magazine saying that animators were needed. Without having any connections within the industry he went on and joined Atelier Giga and studied there for a year under Akihiko Yamashita before marking his debut as animator on Mister Ajikko.

In 1988 Studio Atelier declared bancrupcy and he went to Project Team Muu, which later became Phoenix Entertainment. His first work there was as animator on Anime Sanjushi. When working on the Yuusha Saga, he met Ishida Atsuko on Densetsu no Yuusha Da Garn, who influenced Gotou in his character design, particularly the design of the eyes. Together with the experience from training under Yamashita Akihiko this influence resulted in Gotou's so called "gocky picture" later.

He made his debut as character designer on Choujin Densetsu Urotsukidouji 4 and his debut as series director on Kiddy Grade.

Married to Megumi Kadonosono.