Yoshiyuki Sadamoto (貞本 義行 Sadamoto Yoshiyuki, born January 29, 1962, in Tokuyama (now Shunan), Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese character designer, manga artist, and one of the founding members of the Gainax anime studio. Before the studio was founded under the official name (it was originally called Daicon Film), he served as animator on the second animated project, the Daicon IV opening animation. His first assignment as character designer in Gainax was for Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise, released in 1987. He also worked as animator on Gunbuster and Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, and he came back to this specialty for the first episode of Diebuster (also known as Gunbuster 2 or Top wo Nerae! 2). He is also the character designer of the best known Gainax anime series, Neon Genesis Evangelion, as well as the author of its manga adaptation (which is also Sadamoto's first full-length manga work).