Narumi Kakinouchi is a Japanese manga artist, animator, character designer, and animation director born on March 21, 1962, in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. She is best known as the original creator of the gothic horror series Vampire Princess Miyu, a franchise that spans both manga and anime. Her career is defined by a seamless movement between the roles of illustrator, writer, and animation professional, and she is noted for her delicate, atmospheric art style that often explores themes of supernatural melancholy.

Kakinouchi began her professional life in the anime industry after graduating from high school. She first worked at Studio Beebo under the direction of Tomonori Kogawa before moving to other notable studios such as Artland and AIC. Her debut as a key animator came in 1980 with the series Space Runaway Ideon. Over the course of the 1980s, she established herself as a talented animator and designer, contributing original designs and animation direction to major television series, including episodes of The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Urusei Yatsura, and Kimagure Orange Road.

Kakinouchi made her dual debut as a manga artist and character designer in 1988 with the release of the Vampire Princess Miyu original video animation and the simultaneous launch of the manga in the mystery and horror magazine Susperia. The series follows a young vampire princess tasked with hunting rogue demons known as shinma, and its blend of horror, pathos, and ethereal imagery became her signature. The OVA was a significant success and brought her widespread attention for her haunting character designs and storyboard work.

Following the success of Miyu, Kakinouchi expanded her creative range. In 1990, she made her directorial debut with the OVA Ryokunohara Labyrinth, taking on the exceptionally rare role of director, character designer, scriptwriter, storyboard artist, and animation director for a single project. This period solidified her reputation as a versatile creator capable of managing multiple facets of production.

Her artistic identity is characterized by what critics and fans describe as a refined, elegant, and atmospheric style. Rather than focusing on detailed backgrounds or hyper-realistic settings, Kakinouchi emphasizes character expression and mood to convey the internal emotions of her protagonists, often creating a sense of quiet sorrow or isolation. This approach has made her popular not only within manga and anime fandom but also as an illustrator for book covers, album art, and character designs for video games.

Kakinouchi has frequently collaborated with her husband, anime director Toshiki Hirano (also known as Toshihiro Hirano), who has co-authored or provided the stories for many of her manga series, including New Vampire Princess Miyu, Mermaid Trip, and Shaolin Sisters. Beyond the Vampire Princess Miyu universe, her body of work as an original manga creator includes the martial arts series Juline, the fantasy trilogy Shaolin Sisters, the romance series Moon Princess, and the mystery series The Strange Case Files of Ryoko Yakushiji, based on novels by Yoshiki Tanaka.

After a notable hiatus from animation production, Kakinouchi returned to the industry in 2014 as an animation director for single episodes of several high-profile television series, including Aldnoah.Zero, Psycho-Pass 2, and Date A Live II, as well as entries in the Lupin the Third franchise. This return demonstrated her enduring skill as an animator decades after her debut. Her significance in the industry lies in her rare ability to succeed as an independent creator across both manga and animation, her influence on the aesthetic of gothic horror in anime, and her reputation as a pioneering female figure in the animation direction and character design fields of the 1980s and 1990s.