Legendary Anime Director Masaaki Yuasa has announced today that on March 25th he retired from his position as President and Representative Director at anime studio Science SARU.

Yuasa-san took to Twitter to announce that, after working non-stop for seven years since he co-founded the studio with Eunyoung Choi, he wanted to take a step back and rest before his next work. He also confirmed that although he will stepping down from this major role at the company, he will still supervise the studio’s upcoming Anime film Inu-Oh, which premieres next year in 2021 and his last (for the foreseeable future) directing credit will be for the film Japan Sinks 2020, which has already wrapped production and is scheduled to be released on Netflix later in 2020.

His latest work as a director on a series was the critically acclaimed show, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, which we here at STARBURST absolutely adored.

The reasoning behind the announcement on today is that in Japan the new financial year begins on April 1st and a lot of business announce major changes and re-building whilst also new laws come into effect.

Whatever comes next for Yuasa-san, he will always be remembered for co-founding Science SARU and being a genius of the medium, creating such incredible and inspiring films and shows such as Lu Over The Wall, Ping Pong: The Animation, DEVILMAN Crybaby amongst many, many others.

We here at STARBURST wish Yuasa-san a wonderfully refreshing rest that he utterly deserves and we patiently await his triumphant return, whenever that may be.

Thank you Masaaki Yuasa.