Junko Yamanaka

Junko Yamanaka
Profile
Gender:	Female
Place of birth:	Hyogo Prefecture, Japan
Position:	Character design Animation director Assistant animation director In-between director Design works Key animation
Years active:	1993-present

Junko Yamanaka (山中 純子 ,Yamanaka Junko) is a Japanese animator, and character designer from Hyogo Prefecture. She served as key animator, animation director, and animation supervisor in Detective Conan anime, movies and OVAs. Another thing worth mentioning, she did character designing for the anime from episode 505 to episode 576, working along with Masatomo Sudo.

Biography

After graduating from secondary school, Junko Yamanaka joined the Yumeta Company (梦太カンパニー), a Japanese animation studio. She then became freelance after quitting the studio.

Yamanaka joined the production of the Detective Conan anime in 1997, starting with Episode 55: The Train Trick Murder Case. Later on, she constantly served as the key animator for some anime episodes. Her first time as assistant animation director in Detective Conan was Episode 174: The Twenty Year Old Murderous Intent: The Symphony Serial Murder Case. After that, she began to work with Masatomo Sudo more often. In 2002, she served as the animation director of openings and endings, alongside Sudo. Until 2004, Yamanaka temporarily quit the production of the Detective Conan anime and focused more on the movies.

After Masato Sato stepped down from the director role, Yamanaka returned to the anime and was in charge of the character design of the anime starting episode 505, working with Sudo once again. She then quit the anime production in 2010, after finishing the animation directing work of Episode 561: The Mansion of Death and the Red Wall (Empty Fort Strategy) and stepped down from the character designer role some months later. Thereafter, she has only done key animation for two anime episodes: Episode 783: The Scarlet Truth in 2015 and Episode 964: Kogoro Mouri's Grand Lecture (Part 3) in 2019.

Ending credits of The Scarlet Alibi.

For the Detective Conan movies, her participation can be even dated back to movie 3, when she began to do animation directing regularly, eventually until movie 14; she quit the movie production after movie 20. Yet ever since the compilation recap movies have been promoted from 2021 onwards, Yamanka became the main animator responsible for them: in 2021, she returned to the series as key animator for the new scenes of The Scarlet Alibi; and in 2023, she did character design and key animation for the new scenes of The Story of Ai Haibara ~Black Iron Mystery Train~.

Interestingly, she was involved in some of the anime episodes during the director Koujin Ochi era, and served as the animation supervisor, but she was not credited back then. This was only revealed later in the ending credits of the compilation movie The Scarlet Alibi.

Works in Detective Conan

• See Animation directed by Junko Yamanaka

Anime

Participation in: 19 cases (20 episodes)

Jpn#	Int#	Episode title	Original broadcast	Role	Note
55	57	The Train Trick Murder Case	April 21, 1997	Key animation
61	63	A Ghost Ship Murder Case (Part 1)	June 2, 1997	Key animation
110	116	Cooking Classroom Murder Case (Part 1)	July 27, 1998	Key animation
115	121	Scuba Diving Murder Case (Part 2)	August 31, 1998	Key animation
121	128	The Locked Bathroom Murder Case (Part 1)	October 26, 1998	Key animation
125	132	A Mysterious Sniper Murder Case (Part 2)	November 23, 1998	Key animation
154	164	Sonoko's Dangerous Summer Story (Part 2)	July 26, 1999	Key animation
174	185-188	The Twenty Year Old Murderous Intent: The Symphony Serial Murder Case	January 3, 2000	Assistant animation director, Key animation	2 hours
195	210	The Significant Music Box (Part 2)	June 19, 2000	Key animation
218	234	Megure's Sealed Secret (Part 2)	December 18, 2000	Key animation
239	258	The 3 "K"s of Osaka Case (Part 2)	June 25, 2001	Key animation
286	308	Shinichi Kudo's New York Case (The Case)	July 15, 2002	Animation director
536	587	The Secret of the Vanished Masterpiece	May 30, 2009	Animation director
539	590	A Fool's Inheritance	July 4, 2009	Animation director
546	597	The Witch Enshrouded by Fog (Part 2)	September 12, 2009	Animation director
554	605	Stork Mystery Tour (Ran's Search Chapter)	November 7, 2009	Animation director
555	606	Stork Mystery Tour (Haruna's Pursuit Chapter)	November 14, 2009	Animation director
561	612	The Mansion of Death and the Red Wall (Empty Fort Strategy)	December 26, 2009	Animation director
783	836	The Scarlet Truth	June 27, 2015	Key animation
964	1021	Kogoro Mouri's Grand Lecture (Part 3)	December 21, 2019	Key animation

Note: Junko Yamanaka served as design works role in episodes 172-173, 176-187, 194-218, 220-262, and 264-344; which is not listed in the table above.

Openings and Endings

Participation in: 9 openings and 9 endings

#	Song name	Original title	Role	Note
OP
OP11	I can't stop my love for you♥	I can't stop my love for you♥	Animation director
OP12	Kaze no Lalala	風のららら	Animation director
OP23	Ichibyōgoto ni Love for you	一秒ごとに Love for you	Animation director
OP24	Mysterious	Mysterious	Animation director
OP25	Revive	Revive	Animation director
OP26	Everlasting Luv	Everlasting Luv	Animation director
OP27	MAGIC	MAGIC	Animation director
OP28	As the Dew	As the Dew	Animation director
OP37	Butterfly Core	Butterfly Core	Key animation
ED
ED15	Mushoku	無色	Key animation
ED17	Ashita o Yume Mite	明日を夢見て	Animation director
ED18	Kimi to Iu Hikari	君という光	Animation director
ED30	Summer Memories	Summer Memories	Animation director
ED31	GO YOUR OWN WAY	GO YOUR OWN WAY	Animation director
ED32	Koigokoro Kagayaki Nagara	恋心 輝きながら	Animation director
ED33	Doing all right	Doing all right	Animation director
ED34	Hikari	光	Animation director
ED35	Hello Mr. my yesterday	Hello Mr. my yesterday	Animation director

Movies

Participation in: 18 movies + 3 recap movies

Movie	Title	Original airdate	Role	Note
3	The Last Wizard of the Century	April 17, 1999	Animation director, Key animation, In-between director, Design works
4	Captured in Her Eyes	April 22, 2000	Animation director, Design works
5	Countdown to Heaven	April 21, 2001	Key animation
6	The Phantom of Baker Street	April 20, 2002	Animation director
7	Crossroad in the Ancient Capital	April 19, 2003	Animation director
8	Magician of the Silver Sky	April 17, 2004	Animation director, Design works
9	Strategy Above the Depths	April 9, 2005	Animation director, Design works
10	The Private Eyes' Requiem	April 15, 2006	Animation director, Design works
11	Jolly Roger in the Deep Azure	April 21, 2007	Animation director, Design works
12	Full Score of Fear	April 19, 2008	Animation director, Key animation, Design works
13	The Raven Chaser	April 18, 2009	Animation director, Key animation, Design works
14	The Lost Ship in the Sky	April 17, 2010	Animation director, Key animation, Design works
15	Quarter of Silence	April 16, 2011	Key animation
16	The Eleventh Striker	April 14, 2012	Key animation
17	Private Eye in the Distant Sea	April 20, 2013	Key animation
18	Dimensional Sniper	April 19, 2014	Assistant animation director, Key animation
19	Sunflowers of Inferno	April 18, 2015	Assistant animation director
20	The Darkest Nightmare	April 16, 2016	Key animation
R1	The Scarlet Alibi	February 11, 2021	Key animation
R2	The Story of Ai Haibara ~Black Iron Mystery Train~	January 6, 2023	Character design, Key animation
R3	Detective Conan vs. Kid the Phantom Thief	January 5, 2024	Character design, Animation director, Key animation

OVAs

Participation in: 6 OVAs

OVA	Title	Original airdate	Role	Note
3	Conan, Heiji, and the Vanished Boy	March 12, 2003	Character design
7	A Challenge from Agasa! Agasa vs. Conan and the Detective Boys	March 14, 2007	Character design
8	The Casebook of Female High-School Detective Sonoko Suzuki	March 12, 2008	Character design
9	The Stranger from Ten Years Later	April 15, 2009	Character design
Magic File 2	Shinichi Kudo, The Case of the Mysterious Wall and the Black Lab	April 19, 2008	Character design
Magic File 3	Shinichi and Ran, Memories of Mahjong Tiles and Tanabata	April 18, 2009	Character design

Specials

Participation in: 1 special

Special	Title	Original airdate	Role	Note
3	Lupin III vs. Detective Conan	March 27, 2009	Animation director, Design works

Works in Magic Kaito

Magic Kaito: Kid the Phantom Thief

Participation in: 5 episodes

Special	Episode title	Original broadcast	Role	Note
4	A Witch Sheds No Tears	September 24, 2011	Key animation
5	The Fated Blue Birthday	October 29, 2011	Key animation
6	Love on the Ski Slope on Christmas Eve	December 24, 2011	Key animation
7	The Splendid Rivals	August 4, 2012	Key animation
10	The Reminiscent Golden Eye	November 3, 2012	Key animation

Other notable works

Anime

• Aishiteruze Baby: Character Design, Animation Director
• Angel Heart: Animation Director, Design, Key Animation
• Aoharu x Machinegun: Character Design, Chief Animation Director
• Diabolik Lovers: Animation Director, 2nd Key Animation, Key Animation
• Dr. Stone: Chief Animation Director, Animation Director, Assistant Animation Director, Key Animation
• Kamisama Kiss: Character Design, Animation Director
• Kono Oto Tomare!: Sounds of Life: Character Design, Chief Animation Director, Animation Director, Assistant Animation Director
• Scarlet Nexus: Chief Animation Director, Animation Director, Assistant Animation Director, Design Assistant, Key Animation
• The World Is Still Beautiful: Chief Animation Director, Animation Director, Key Animation

Movies

• Gekijōban Servamp: Alice in the Garden: Character Design
• Lupin III vs. Cat's Eye: Character Design
• Slam Dunk: Zenkoku Seiha da! Sakuragi Hanamichi: In-Between Animation

See also

• Masatomo Sudo

References

1. Page partially or completely translated from the Chinese version of June 22nd, 2023.
2. 山中純子 - Wikipedia
3. 山中純子 - Atwiki
4. Junko Yamanaka - Anime News Network
5. Detective Conan Staff Listing