Narumi Kakinouchi

Narumi Kakinouchi (垣野内 成美, Kakinouchi Narumi, born March 21, 1962) is a Japanese manga artist, illustrator, animator, director, character designer, and an animation director. Kakinouchi was born in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. After graduating from high school, she began working at Studio Beebo under the direction of Tomonori Kogawa, then moving on to Studio Io, Artland, AIC and other studios where she was an animator, designer, and animation director on many TV series and OVAs. She made her manga and character designer debut with Vampire Princess Miyu.

Kakinouchi made her key animation debut with her work on the 1980 series Space Runaway Ideon. She then garnered great attention as the character designer, storyboard artist, and animation director for the Vampire Princess Miyu OVAs in 1988, and in March of that same year she co-authored the first Vampire Princess Miyu manga, serialized in the mystery/horror monthly manga magazine Susperia.

She made her directorial debut with Ryokunohara Labyrinth in 1990, in addition to being the character designer, scenario creator, storyboard artist, and animation director for the OVA.

In addition to her manga work, as an illustrator she has also done work for a number of books, album covers, a card game, and a cover of the adult manga magazine Lemon People.After a 16-year hiatus, in 2014 she returned to work as animator, serving as animation director of single episodes of The Pilot's Love Song, Date A Live II, Aldnoah.Zero, Psycho-Pass 2, Shirogane no Ishi Argevollen, Shinmai Maō no Testament, as well as TV episodes and a TV movie of Lupin the Third.Kakinouchi is married to anime director Toshiki Hirano, with whom she has frequently collaborated on manga and anime projects.