Masahiko Murata
Directing
Biography
Masahiko Murata (むらた 雅彦, Murata Masahiko, born August 8) is an animator, animation director, director and storyboard artist from Saitama Prefecture. His real name and former stage name are Masahiko Murata (村田 雅彦, Murata Masahiko). Masahiko joined Shaft in early 80's and left the company in late 90's to become a freelancer. He was the first director of OVA “Mazinkaiser”. His main works as anime film director include “Naruto Shippuden the Movie: The Will of Fire”, “Naruto Shippuden the Movie: The Lost Tower, and “Naruto Shippuden the Movie: Blood Prison”. As for anime TV series, he was the director in “Gilgamesh”, “Corpse Princess: Aka”, “Corpse Princess: Kuro”, “NARUTO Spin-Off: Rock Lee & His Ninja Pals”, and To Your Eternity (first season), among others.
Known For

Naruto Uzumaki, a mischievous adolescent ninja, struggles as he searches for recognition and dreams of becoming the Hokage, the village's leader and strongest ninja.
Naruto

After 2 and a half years Naruto finally returns to his village of Konoha, and sets about putting his ambitions to work. It will not be easy though as he has amassed a few more dangerous enemies, in the likes of the shinobi organization; Akatsuki.
Naruto Shippūden

An immortal being takes on the form of a human boy, wandering the earth and experiencing the pains and joys of life throughout his story without end.
To Your Eternity

A Russo-Japanese War veteran partners with an Ainu girl to find a treasure stolen from her people, but they’re not the only ones pursuing the gold.
Golden Kamuy

Reach the top, and everything will be yours. At the top of the tower exists everything in this world, and all of it can be yours. You can become a god. This is the story of the beginning and the end of Rachel, the girl who climbed the tower so she could see the stars, and Bam, the boy who needed nothing but her.
Tower of God

Many years ago, humans and demons lived in harmony. But that unity ended when demons started attacking humans and plotted a mission to unleash Gyumao - an evil demon imprisoned for thousands of years. Now, Genjo Sanzo, a rogue priest, must team up with three demons - Sha Gojyo, Son Goku, and Cho Hakkai - and embark on a perilous journey to the west to stop these demons from resurrecting Gyumao and restore the balance between humans and demons on Earth.
Saiyuki

The story takes place in a fantasy world consisting of humans, Dragonoids and Monsters. There is a relative harmony between the three races. There are also Drops, spherical objects that come out of the planet, which can power up the Monsters. Humans and Dragonoids can take on the role of Dragon Callers if they have the capability to see the Drops, wherein, they form bonds with monsters. Currently, the planet is facing Drop Impacts, occurrences where a large amount of Drops are suddenly generated in a single area (and can also spread), which affects the lands and makes the Monsters berserk. In fact, one of the main duties of Dragon Callers is to settle the Drop Impacts by stabilizing the Drop distribution.
Puzzle & Dragons X

Eiichirō Maruo (nicknamed "Ei-chan" for his grades being straight "A") is an honor student, bookworm, and is not interested in anything other than studying. In order to solve his problem of lacking physical strength, he enrolled a tennis school and soon found the fascinating side of tennis. Being a tennis newbie lacking physical strength, he supplement his shortcomings with his excellent observing and analyzing skills.
Baby Steps

Welcome to the Hidden Leaf Village. The village where Uzumaki Naruto, star of the TV show "Naruto" makes his home. Every day, countless powerful ninjas carry out missions and train to hone their skills. Our main character is one of these powerful ninjas... but it's not Naruto! It's the ninja who can't use ninjutsu, Rock Lee!
NARUTO Spin-Off: Rock Lee & His Ninja Pals

Spy-in-training Lily is desperate to score a passing grade. Eager to prove herself, she leaps at the chance to join the mysterious team Lamplight and beat the Impossible Mission. Too bad the task ahead is even more harrowing than she imagined…
Spy Classroom

Armed with dual machine guns, an undead school girl, Makina Hoshimura, must hunt down 108 other undeads with the help of specially trained Buddhist monks in order to gain entry into Heaven. Based on manga written by Yoshiichi Akahito.
Corpse Princess

Daigo Toake burns with remarkable talent and unparalleled determination. Shun Onoda struggles against the walls blocking his own path. Yuki Nakamura hopes to become one of the few female members of the special rescue corps known as "Orange." When these three young firefighters who share the goal of becoming members of Orange come together, the story of how Japan will one day be saved begins... and what looms before them is a crisis that endangers the entire country!
Firefighter Daigo: Rescuer in Orange

Lain—driven by the abrupt suicide of a classmate—logs on to the Wired and promptly loses herself in a twisted mass of hallucinations, memories, and interconnected-psyches.
Serial Experiments Lain

Martial Artist Junpei, actress Airi, and artillery-obsessed student Ritsuko all find themselves transported from Japan to a magical world. When the elven priestess Celcia casts the spell to send them home, she is interrupted, and the spell is broken into parts that scatter throughout the world. The spell fragments imprint themselves onto the bodies of various female elves so the trio must travel in search of them.
Those Who Hunt Elves

Twins Kazuya and Tatsuya, and their neighbor Minami have played together since they were children and built an unbreakable bond. But with puberty, the twins realized something: Minami is a girl, and three is a crowd. As the trio tries to preserve their relationship, Kazuya's pledge to make Minami's dream come true by taking her to Koshien with his baseball pitching skills makes the slackerish Tatsuya wonder about himself, and his own goals. But Minami has another dream she wants fulfilled, and as the twins continue to push themselves, with Minami in the middle, a life-changing tragedy leads one twin down a path he once never would've considered...
Touch

Across the ocean on the tiny island kingdom of Barou the ancient god Neo Ranga awakens from his slumber. He is mysteriously drawn to Tokyo, and the three beautiful sisters - Minami, Ushio, and Yuuhi - who are unwittingly linked to the monster. But instead of rolling out the red carpet, the military rolls out the weaponry, and things start to get nasty. The plot thickens: Why is Neo Ranga driven to Tokyo? Is he a messenger with a warning for humankind, or just a big boy out for a good time? And what's behind Ranga's mysterious eyes?
Neo Ranga

Tokyo Underground is a manga series by Akinobu Uraka and published by Enix. It became an anime series, produced by Studio Pierrot and shown on the TV Tokyo Network from April 2 until September 24, 2002. The TV series was released on DVD by Geneon Entertainment in the US and Canada, released as a boxset by Manga Entertainment in the UK and by Tokyo Night Train in Australia. It also aired in Canada on the digital channel G4techTV Canada, starting on July 22, 2007 at 8:30 pm ET/PT.
Tokyo Underground

Attacker You! is the story of ambitious and energetic 13-year-old junior high schoolgirl You Hazuki (variously known as "Mila," "Jeanne" or "Juana" in Western dubbed versions of the anime), who moves to Tokyo from Osaka to live with her father Toshihiko, a cameraman recently returned from Peru, and attend school. You's mother is not in the picture, having left when You was very young. Also living with You and her father is her younger brother Sunny, who is very attached to his older sister and tends to follow her everywhere she goes, including to school and to her volleyball matches. You is also curious about Kyushi Tajima, the pretty blonde woman whom she sees covering volleyball games on television, and about why her father becomes very angry whenever You mentions her.
Attacker You!

In 13-year-old Aoba Tsuzaki's world, everything seems normal. An over-the-top modeling fanatic, she spends her days locked in her room, happily building plastic robots. But rumbling beneath the surface, an evil enemy of mankind (the Ancient Jinki) threatens to destroy the Earth.
Jinki: Extend

Six months ago, Lord Hugh Disward (Huey), lost his eccentric grandfather, Wes. To inherit Wes's estate, Huey must take guardianship over the 'Mystic Archives of Dantalian' that contains forbidden knowledge and a mysterious girl called Dalian. Dalian and Huey begin an unlikely partnership as they solve mysteries caused by Phantom Books.