Hideyo Yamamoto

Hideyo Yamamoto (山本 英夫) is the director of the Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka anime.

Career
Yamamoto started his career as an assistant to mangaka Kenshi Hirokane before becoming a mangaka in his own right. His first manga, SHEEP, released in 1989. His 1999 manga Ichi the Killer was adapted into a live-action film and OVA.

He has worked on the storyboards of popular anime such as Attack on Titan and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toradora! Toradora] and worked on production setup for the iconic anime film The End of Evangelion.

The first anime he worked on as a director was Strike the Blood in 2013, which continued as an OVA after it's first season.

Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka
When he first read the manga, Yamamoto thought it was unique because it depicted dark matter such as torture. When he was offered the directing job, he was told to think about the adaptation of the original manga.

Yamamoto personally directed episode 1. He directed episode 5 with Yoshitaka Fujimoto and was a storyboard artist on every episode except for episode 8.

Trivia

 * Yamamoto's nickname is "Bob-san".
 * In an interview with Manga Tokyo, Yamamoto claimed to have "pushed the limits" with episode 4's storyboards regarding violence that could air on TV.
 * He personally requested that the animators kept the funny faces Kurumi Mugen makes in the manga.
 * His favorite characters are Kurumi, Sachuu and Julia, though he also admires Asuka Ootorii's unique character archetype.