Junko Yamanaka

Junko Yamanaka
Profile
Gender:	Female
Date of birth:	unknown
Place of birth:	Hyogo, Japan
Location:	Japan

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.

Works in Detective Conan

• See Animation directed by Junko Yamanaka

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

Yamanaka joined the production of Detective Conan anime in 1997, starting with The Train Trick Murder Case. Later on, she constantly served as the key animator for some anime episodes. She first worked as assistant animation director in 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, with 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 did character design from episode 505 onwards, working with Sudo once again. She then quit the anime production in 2010, after finishing the animation directing work in the empty fort strategy arc of The Mansion of Death and the Red Wall and stepped down from character designer role some months later. She only did key animation for two anime episodes afterwards: The Scarlet Truth in 2015 and the 3rd part of Kogoro Mouri's Grand Lecture in 2019.

For the Detective Conan movies, her participation can even be dated back to movie 3, when she began to do animation directing regularly until movie 14. She quit the movie production after movie 20.

In 2021, she returned to the series as key animator for the new scene in recap movie The Scarlet Alibi. In 2023, she did character design and key animation for the new scenes in recap movie The Story of Ai Haibara ~Black Iron Mystery Train~.

Ending credits of The Scarlet Alibi.

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.

Movies

Participation in: 18 movies + 2 recap movies

• The Last Wizard of the Century (Movie 3): Animation director, Key animation, In-between director, Design works
• Captured in Her Eyes (Movie 4): Animation director, Design works
• Countdown to Heaven (Movie 5): Key animation
• The Phantom of Baker Street (Movie 6): Animation director
• Crossroad in the Ancient Capital (Movie 7): Animation director
• Magician of the Silver Sky (Movie 8): Animation director, Design works
• Strategy Above the Depths (Movie 9): Animation director, Design works
• The Private Eyes' Requiem (Movie 10): Animation director, Design works
• Jolly Roger in the Deep Azure (Movie 11): Animation director, Design works
• Full Score of Fear (Movie 12): Animation director, Key animation, Design works
• The Raven Chaser (Movie 13): Animation director, Key animation, Design works
• The Lost Ship in the Sky (Movie 14): Animation director, Key animation, Design works
• Quarter of Silence (Movie 15): Key animation
• The Eleventh Striker (Movie 16): Key animation
• Private Eye in the Distant Sea (Movie 17): Key animation
• Dimensional Sniper (Movie 18): Assistant animation director, Key animation
• Sunflowers of Inferno (Movie 19): Assistant animation director
• The Darkest Nightmare (Movie 20): Key animation
• The Scarlet Alibi: Key animation
• The Story of Ai Haibara ~Black Iron Mystery Train~: Character design, Key Animation

Note: Also served as animation director and design works in Lupin III vs. Detective Conan.

OVAs

Participation in: 6 OVAs

• Conan, Heiji, and the Vanished Boy (OVA 3): Character design
• A Challenge from Agasa! Agasa vs. Conan and the Detective Boys (OVA 7): Character design
• The Casebook of Female High-School Detective Sonoko Suzuki (OVA 8): Character design
• The Stranger from Ten Years Later (OVA 9): Character design
• Shinichi Kudo, The Case of the Mysterious Wall and the Black Lab (Magic File 2): Character design
• Shinichi and Ran, Memories of Mahjong Tiles and Tanabata (Magic File 3): Character design

Note: Yamanka worked along with Masatomo Sudo in all the OVAs listed above

Other notable works

Anime

• Magic Kaito: Kid the Phantom Thief: Key Animation
• 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 (Japanese)
3. 山中純子 - Atwiki (Japanese)
4. Anime News Network