Gotou Keiji was born November 4, 1968 and is a Japanese anime director and character designer. He is currently member of the three man production teamgímik, together with his wifeKadonosono Megumi andKimura Hidefumi, which was behindKiddy Grade andUta Kata.

He began his career as an animator at Atorie. After the closing of Atorie, Gotou worked for other studios such as Project Team Muu and Fenx before going freelancer. He serves as character designer, animation director and animator on countless anime series and contributes to a monthly comic strip to Newtype magazine.

Gotou Keiji has been an animator since he graduated from high school at 18. Unlike most other animators Gotou had never gone to an art school. He became interested in animation after seeing an advertisement in an animation magazine saying that animators were needed. Without having any connections within the industry he went on and joined Atelier Giga and studied there for a year underYamashita Akihiko before marking his debut as animator onMister Ajikko.

In 1988 Studio Atelier declared bancrupcy and he went to Project Team Muu, which later becamePhoenix Entertainment. His first work there was as animator onAnime Sanjushi. When working on the Yuusha Saga, he metIshida Atsuko onDensetsu no Yuusha Da Garn, who influenced Gotou in his character design, particularly the design of the eyes. Together with the experience from training under Yamashita Akihiko this influence resulted in Gotou's so called "gocky picture" later.

Gotou resigned at Phoenix Entertainment after the end of Blue Seed and went on to become freelancer. In the following years he did a lot of work forXebec productions, starting with character design for theBakuretsu Hunters TV series. Most famously was his work onNadesico, particularly the character ofHoshino Ruri he designed for that series became instantly a fan favourite amongst Japanese and oversea fans.

He made his debut as character designer onChoujin Densetsu Urotsukidouji 4 and his debut as series director onKiddy Grade.

Shortly before his work on Kiddy Grade he married character designerKadonosono Megumi and established together with her andKimura Hidefumi the production teamgímik, which developed the concept behind Kiddy Grade.

Occasionally he does enter the Comiket under the name of doujin group Gocky Club. (http://www.gockyclub.com)