Yasuda joined
Toei Doga in April 1958, immediately after her graduation from high school. Yasuda has said that she applied not knowing what the job entailed but that she had submitted her application because she did not fancy employment in any of the other jobs available for most women at the time, such as bank teller or store clerk. Instead she took the opportunity to work in a creative field. She started out in the Toei finishing department, in the ink and paint section, where she worked on TV series and commercials as a tracer. In
traditional animation a tracer is a person whose job involves transferring cleaned up line drawings onto the
cels. Through her work and union activities at the company she made the acquaintance of
Isao Takahata and
Hayao Miyazaki whose careers also began at Toei, joining in 1959 and 1963 respectively. Yasuda also worked as a tracer on
Hols: Prince of the Sun, directed by Takahata, for which
Yasuo Ōtsuka was animation director and Miyazaki was one of the key animators. They built lasting working relationships that endured for over 40 years. After leaving Toei Yasuda next joined
A Production followed by
Nippon Animation where she worked in the finishing department on productions such as
3000 Leagues in Search of Mother. In 1983 she worked for Top Craft in charge of colour design on the adaptation of Miyazaki's
manga Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind into the animated feature film
of the same title. In their book
Anime Classics Zettai!, Brian Camp and Julie Davis made note of Yasuda as a "mainstay of Studio Ghibli’s extraordinary design and production team". Yasuda died on October 5, 2016, at the age of 77.
Awards and recognition In 2011, Yasuda received an Animation Lifetime Achievement Award from the
Japanese Movie Critics Awards. ==Filmography==