Born in Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture in 1964, Takashi Yamazaki is a Japanese filmmaker and visual effects supervisor, counted as one of Japan's leading film directors. He credits childhood viewings of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind with influencing his pursuit of a career in special effects. After graduating from Asagaya College of Art and Design, he joined Shirogumi Inc. in 1986. 

Through working on SFX and digital compositing in films directed by Juzo Itami, such as The Last Dance (1993) and A Quiet Life (1995), he made his debut as a film director in 2000 with Juvenile and became a leading figure in visual expression and VFX using computer graphics in Japan.

Always: Sunset on Third Street (2005), using VFX to depict the streets of Tokyo in the late 1950s, won 12 awards, including Best Picture and Best Director at the 29th Japan Academy Film Prize. His films The Eternal Zero (2013) and Stand by Me Doraemon (2014) won Best Picture and 8 other awards at the 38th Japan Academy Film Prize, as
well as the Best Animation Film in the same year.