Artist Spotlight: Yoneyama Mai

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Yoneyama Mai is a Japanese illustrator and animator. She is well-known for her independent illustrations and animation work, which includes Kill la Kill (2013), Promare (2019), and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (2022).

Mai’s illustrations are vibrant, dynamic, and stylized, almost as if they come from an animated film. You can easily imagine her drawings continuing and flowing into something larger. To give her work a more cinematic feel, she uses atmospheric lighting along with gaussian blurs to create depth. Though features like the nose and mouth are simple, she puts an extraordinary amount of detail into the characters’ eyes. This, along with her illustrations’ dynamic movements, truly brings her artwork to life.

I keep thinking about how to make something new that feels like it’s never been seen before.
– Yoneyama Mai

Art Journey

Art has always been a part of Mai’s life, starting drawing when she was three years old. In high school, animated films such as “Ghost in the Shell” and “Akira” would eventually influence her journey into animation.

While working at animation studios, Mai was offered to illustration work. She took that as a challenge and was curious about what she could express. However, she wasn’t looking to quit animation; Mai simply wanted to keep doing animation while trying out illustration work on the side.

Illustration Work

Mai creates illustrations like frames from an animation, leveraging her past as a key animator to capture the frame with the most impact. It’s as if her drawings are part of a larger flow, isolating one moment with energy and life. Her illustrations transcend genres, blending animation and illustration with beauty and dynamism.