Biography
Kazuto Nakazawa is a Japanese director, character designer, and animator who trained at the Tokyo Animator Academy and has worked in anime since the mid-1990s [1]. Early in his career he sometimes credited work under the pseudonym Takeshi Tsuji [1]. He built a reputation as a character designer on titles including the El-Hazard franchise, Tenchi in Tokyo, and Samurai Champloo, and he directed the 2003 cyberpunk series Parasite Dolls [1][2]. Outside Japan he is probably best known for directing the animated O-Ren Ishii backstory sequence in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Volume 1, produced by Production I.G [1]. He returned to anthology work with the "Moondrive" segment of Genius Party Beyond in 2008, then took on the director's chair for the original series B: The Beginning (2018) and the pirate adventure Fena: Pirate Princess (2021) [1]. Alongside his anime work, Nakazawa co-directed the animated music video for Linkin Park's "Breaking the Habit" and directed a video for Asian Kung-Fu Generation, carrying his sharp, graphic character style into music video work [1][2]. His animation credits as a key or character animator span Steamboy, Ergo Proxy, Blood+, House of Five Leaves, Kuroko's Basketball, and Zankyo no Terror [2].