Inomata jumped into the anime industry right after high school, starting as an animator at Toei Animation before moving to Ashi Productions in 1978, where she worked as an animator, key animator, and character designer across multiple TV series.

She's best known for her work on anime like Windaria, Plawres Sanshirō, Future GPX Cyber Formula, and Brain Powerd, where she handled animation, character design, and direction. But her talents went way beyond TV animation. Inomata became a prolific novel illustrator with a distinctive style—vivid watercolor paintings featuring young women with striking, jewel-like eyes. Her illustration work for Keisuke Fujikawa's Utsunomiko series and Sei Takegawa's Weathering Continent is particularly celebrated, and fans often note the dreamlike quality of her art. She collected much of this work in artbooks like Voice of the Stars, Dreams of the Moon, Eccelente, and SAI.

Later in her career, she also served as the main character designer for several entries in Namco's Tales video game series.

Date of death: March 10, 2024 (aged 63)