by Death and ethics transformed into leaves: A discussion of “The Ninja and the Hitman’s Life Together.”
The TV anime “Ninja and Hitman’s Two-Life” (hereafter “Ninkoro”), which has been airing since April 2025, is based on Hamburger’s manga of the same name. It is produced by Shaft, an animation production company known for the “Monogatari” series and “Puella Magi Madoka Magica.”
It has been highly praised for its unique style, which skillfully combines extremely flat screen composition, geometric layout, text direction using typography, and even live-action collages to intersect visual direction and emotional expression. Director Akiyuki Shinbo has long been at the center of that directing style.
Since Shinbo’s first time as director at Shaft, “Tsukuyomi -MOON PHASE-” aired in 2004, Shinbo has consistently supported the direction of Shaft’s works and has made a significant contribution to the formation of the studio’s identity. However, in “Ninkoro,” Shinbo is not involved as a prominent staff member.
The director of this work is Miyamoto Yukihiro, who has worked under Shinbo for many years. Miyamoto has served as series director and director on such works as Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Fate/EXTRA Last Encore. Shinbo was involved in both works as general director.
The division of roles between the general director and the director differs for each work. Still, generally, the basic production structure at Shaft was that Shinbo was in charge of upstream processes such as script meetings and storyboard revisions, and Miyamoto took over the production after that.
Miyamoto was also the central figure who created the “Shaft Directing Manual,” which is said to be used within the studio. In a sense, Miyamoto could be said to be a director who embodies “Shinbo Shaft” more than Shinbo, in that he has inherited its aesthetic while trying to reconstruct it in his way within the unique directing style known as “Shinbo Shaft.”
