Shinichirō Watanabe

Shinichirō Watanabe
Watanabe at the 2009 Japan Expo
Native name	渡辺 信一郎
Born	(1965-05-24) May 24, 1965 (age 51) Kyoto, Japan
Occupation	Film director, screenwriter, animator, producer, actor
Years active	1990–present

Shinichirō Watanabe (渡辺 信一郎, Watanabe Shin'ichirō^?, born May 24, 1965 in Kyoto) is a Japanese anime filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known for directing the critically acclaimed and commercially successful anime series Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo.

Watanabe is known for incorporating multiple genres into his anime creations. In Cowboy Bebop, for example, Watanabe blends classic cowboy western with 1960s/1970s New York City film noir, jazz/blues music, Hong Kong action movies, and sets the entire series in space. In his later work, Samurai Champloo, Watanabe unites the cultures of Okinawa, hip hop, modern-day Japan, and chanbara.

Born in Kyoto, Watanabe, after joining the Japanese animation studio Sunrise, supervised the episode direction and storyboards of numerous Sunrise anime, and soon made his directorial debut as co-director of the well-received Macross update, Macross Plus. His next effort, and first full directorial venture, was the 1998 series Cowboy Bebop, which received universal praise and is considered by many to be one of the greatest anime series of all time. It was followed by the 2001 film Knockin' on Heaven's Door. In 2003, Watanabe directed his first American-produced anime, the short films Kid's Story and A Detective Story, both part of The Wachowskis' The Animatrix, an anthology of animated short stories from The Matrix. His next directorial effort was the critically acclaimed 2004 anime series Samurai Champloo which began broadcasting on Fuji Television in Japan on May 19, 2004.