Kenji Yoshida (吉田 健二, Yoshida Kenji, born January 1, 1935) is a former Japanese anime producer and illustrator associated with Tatsunoko Production, being the second-oldest of the three Yoshida brothers. He was the second president of Tatsunoko, taking over after Tatsuo Yoshida's death from 1977 and lasting in the role until 1987, when he stepped down to found Yu Entertainment.
He would return to the company in 1995, only for he and Ippei Kuri to both leave and retire with the buy-out by Takara-Tomy in 2005. He is not to be confused with the animator Kenji Yoshida, or the novelist Kenji Maruyama.
Bio[]
Kenji Yoshida was born in Kyoto City. At the age of 16, he began assisting his older brother Tatsuo, who had already started working as an illustrator. Later, when Tatsuo became a manga artist and moved to Tokyo, he and his younger brother Toyoharu (later known as Ippei Kuri) moved along with him. While working as a manager for for his brothers' careers, he drew cover art for rental manga under the pen name of Kenji Maruyama and helped craft the original stories for Tatsunoko Production's earliest manga works.
After their company went into producing anime, he stopped creating his own works and instead took on the heavy responsibilities of producer and planning, while also handling all of Tatsunoko's financial management. After his older brother's death, he took over as president and was now responsible for most of Tatsunoko's anime productions during his tenure, appearing in their credits as Producer where Tatsuo's name once was. He also wrote scripts, using his Maruyama pen name.
In the period after he left Tatsunoko to form Yu Entertainment, Yoshida was involved in the production of the Sunrise TV anime Mitsuteru Yokoyama: Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Among the titles he would have involvement in upon his return to Tatsunoko, the Mach Go Go Go 1997 remake wound up most notable but unfortunately was doomed to an early cancellation by TV Tokyo when its ratings slipped.