Kaizawa Yukio

Kaizawa Yukio (貝澤幸男) is a series and movie director, episode director and storyboard artist working for Toei Animation.

He was one of the series directors for KiraKira☆Pretty Cure A La Mode and directed the movie short Cure Flora and the Mischievous Mirror and the crossover movie Pretty Cure Miracle Universe.

History
Born July 7, 1960, Kaizawa is a veteran director, starting out as an episode director for Ai Shite Knight in 1983. Since then, he has been a profiling director and storyboard artist for Toei Animation. To his most notable works count working as a series director on Digimon Tamers, Gegege no Kitaro (2007), Marie & Gali, and the more obscure Fushigi Mahou Fun Fun Pharmacy.

He also did episode direction and storyboard for One Piece, Konjiki no Gash Bell!!, Dragon Ball Super and many more. Matsumoto Rie, fellow Toei Animation director and Pretty Cure director, is his friend and entrusted him to work on her heart project Kyousougiga as a storyboard artist and episode director.

During Marie & Gali, he worked as a series director alongside Kureta Kohei, who he would eventually direct KiraKira☆Pretty Cure A La Mode with.

He has only been working with the Pretty Cure franchise since 2015, where he directed the movie short Cure Flora and the Mischievous Mirror. To everyone's surprise, he was appointed main series director of KiraKira in 2017 together with Kureta, and did various episode direction and storyboard work for episodes as well. He also created storyboards for Cure Custard's, Cure Gelato's and Cure Chocolat's transformation sequences.

In 2019, he directed the movie Pretty Cure Miracle Universe.

Style
Kaizawa is known for an eccentric "pop" style in his Pretty Cure work. His storyboard and the way he plays with the backgrounds in relation to the characters is reminiscent of a theatre stage. He is also fond of clock imagery, using shadows in quirky ways and colourful screen borders, all elements reflected in KiraKira's opening sequence.

But he has also been called a "master of subtle horror" as surreal and eerie work is his other forte. Matsumoto Rie praised his storyboards as "a work of art".