The Rise and Rise of Mari Okada

By Zoe Crombie.

As far as creators of anime go, Mari Okada has experienced one of the strangest rises to power from her humble origins to her current position as one of the most well-known writers and directors of the mode. There are only a handful of prominent female directors in anime, with Okada and K-On’s Naoko Yamada likely being the most famous, but it isn’t just her gender that sets her apart from peers – her entry into anime and her productive career are fascinating to read about, and knowing her story certainly enriches and deepens her work.

Even if you’ve never heard the name Mari Okada before, if you’re an anime fan, you’ve likely enjoyed the work of this highly prolific artist. In her long run before ever directing her own work, she was a lead writer on many beloved series, building up a diverse portfolio that includes cutesy classics like Hamtaro and Toradora! as well as darker shows like Black Butler and Vampire Knight. Undeniably, her breakout was Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day, which lead to many future collaborations with what would be dubbed the Super Peace Busters collective after the group of friends in the show, consisting of Okada, character designer Masayuki Tanaka, and director Tatsuyuki Nagai.

Rather than beginning as a manga creator or an in-between artist or animator at a studio like Hayao Miyazaki or Satoshi Kon each did, Okada had a more unusual path into filmmaking – she began by writing scenarios to be used in direct-to-video pornography, and cites this job as a valuable exercise in writing situations that she hadn’t directly experienced. From here, she began transcribing interviews for a magazine where she came across director Tetsuro Amino, who invited her to work on ideas and scripts for the sci-fi series DT Eightron. Though in some ways her way into the industry was based on a chance meeting, her experience and willingness to work on all kinds of media has surely contributed to her becoming one of the most prolific workers in the industry.

Another unusual element of Okada’s biography is her troubled childhood, which she details in her memoir From Truant to Anime Screenwriter: My Path to ‘Anohana’ and ‘Anthem of the Heart’ and which frequently feeds into her work and artistic perspective. She was raised in Chichibu (later the setting of her series Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day) by a single mother who was physically and emotionally abusive, once even threatening to kill her with a knife when she was a teenager. Okada also experienced intense anxiety, leading her to skip school regularly and ultimately become a shut-inwho rarely, if ever, left her apartment.

Eventually, she was able to overcome these issues, leading to the successful career she now possesses, but themes of mental illness and being an outcast are easy to find in her work, notably the previously mentioned Anohana and Anthem of the Heart, both of which she wrote. In the former, the protagonist Jintan withdraws from high school and lives as a recluse as a result of past trauma; in the latter, the central character Jun is unable to speak due to anxiety stemming from trouble in her family life. Though some have critiqued Okada’s work as melodramatic, she draws upon real experiences and feelings, channelling these intense memories into a medium that seems tailor made for emotional excess and sincerity.

In 2018, Okada was able to branch out into directing movies with her brilliant feature film debut Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms, an ambitious fantasy epic with interesting lore that draws upon Tolkien style imagery to tell an emotionally intense tale. Following Maquia, a young member of the immortal Iorph race, as she escapes her war torn home for the land of humans, discovering a baby in the process. As she raises her child, who eventually out ages her in appearance, she learns more about herself and the world around her, ultimately coming of age across the course of her son’s lifetime. This reflection on motherhood feels like an extension of Anohana, which she partially made as an attempt to understand her own mother, and her newfound directorial freedom stretches the glorious melodrama of the film almost to breaking point, culminating in a heartbreakingly memorable ending.

As both a rare female director in a male dominated field and a respected artist who has taken a less trodden path to her current position, Mari Okada is a fascinating figure in the world of anime. Refusing to be a faceless cog in an often-unforgiving industry, Okada makes her presence known by mining her feelings and experiences to great effect in her work, crafting some of the most stirring animated melodramas of the 21st century.

Zoe Crombie is an associate lecturer and PhD candidate at Lancaster University working on Studio Ghibli.