Hiroki Hayashi

Hiroki Hayashi (林 宏樹, Hayashi Hiroki) is a Japanese animation director associated with AIC Studios. He was a creator for the El-Hazard anime series and the co-creator for the Tenchi Muyo! series in the 1990s.

Biography

Hayashi got started in animation on ThunderCats and Silverhawks. He joined AIC when he was 21 years old. His first anime was Gall Force in 1987. In 1988 he worked on the storyboard for the fourth OAV episode of Bubblegum Crisis, along with Masaki Kajishima. His first directed title was Sol Bianca of which he would also be credited for the original concept in the second OVA. In his interview with AIC, he said that Sol Bianca was originally a game production proposal when it was brought to AIC; he thought it would make a good OVA, and created the story base for the series.

His breakout title was with Kajishima as co-creator and co-producer of the Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki OAV series, which he also served as the director. They wanted to create a series much like Gall Force and Bubblegum Crisis where there were many guys with one girl and vice versa, but with more comedy than Bubblegum Crisis since the latter was rather serious. Bubblegum's Mackey was the prototype for Tenchi but he would become the main character in contrast to the girls in Bubblegum. He and Kajishima also created Ryoko as an inspiration from I Dream of Jeannie. Following the first OVA series, he left the second series to the producers.