I think now – while ‘Mawaru Penguindrum’ is getting a lot of attention – is a good time to do a post on how Kunihiko Ikuhara and his previous anime (‘Shoujo Kakumei Utena’) have left a mark on the industry. When I saw this blog post from ghostlightning a while ago, I thought I might do something similar, but focus on the directors and the way they were influenced by Ikuhara‘s approach to directing/staging instead. Ikuhara‘s style might not be everyone’s cup of tea due to the shoujo (manga) aesthetics, but those who can get over that are in for a real treat. His directing is tricky, fun, original, and he also knows well how to capture the audience’s attention and interest. Ikuhara‘s usual stylistic & narrative devices include pretense and bluffs as well as metafiction and, above all, metaphors. His enthusiasm for theatre led to one of the most apparent stylistic traits of his work, namely a stage play-like presentation with a mise-en-scène policy of showing only what really needs to be shown, maintaining a tight control over the screen at any time. So in other words, he doesn’t aim to make a ‘live-action’-like anime that orients itself more or less by reality, but one where the images themselves become a strong narrative tool (which is especially true for Utena).

Once you grow accustomed to Ikuhara‘s staging, the direction of many other anime might look pretty superficial all of a sudden. His way of presentation has still a rather unconsumed aura even to this day, even though many of his ideas were adapted by his disciples and other directors. Of course, Ikuhara didn’t establish his style out of nothing, but he obviously took Osamu Dezaki‘s anime as a reference point for his own work, just have a look at anime like ‘Oniisama e…’ or ‘The Rose of Versailles’. Ikuhara himself has mentioned that he had gotten stimulated/influenced by Dezaki, even as recently as April this year, when Dezaki died. Most anime directors were influenced by Dezaki in some way, but in Ikuhara‘s work the influence is especially strong, and that’s certainly not just due to the surface resemblance. Their directing is similar in a more profound way, like how they bring about feelings and emotions in the viewer. One common instrument of both is ‘obliqueness’, something that’s quite uncomfortable for humans, just think of a picture hanging on the wall at an oblique angle, there’s a visceral feeling that something’s wrong. Similarly, the use of obliqueness in the scene/layout direction leads to a feeling that something is not right and consequently to an odd atmosphere:

Even if the influence from Dezaki is still very obvious in Ikuhara‘s work (in fact on the narrative side of things as well), he took this foundation and added his own traits and sensibility to it. And Dezaki wasn’t the only one who shaped his style, he started out working under Junichi Sato at Toei Animation after all. The way Ikuhara handles comedy, in particular, has a very Sato-ish feeling. And considering what Mamoru Hosoda points out in this interview, Sato wasn’t the only mentor of Ikuhara. I was kind of surprised when I first read this, but apparently Shigeyasu Yamauchi (Casshern Sins, Yumekui Merry) was Ikuhara‘s mentor (as well), which makes sense once you think about it. In the same interview, Hosoda declares that Ikuhara was his own mentor – which is pretty obvious once you compare their styles. Overall, I feel Yamauchi vibes much more strongly in Hosoda‘s anime (his One Piece movie being the first example that comes to mind) than in Ikuhara‘s. Well, back when Hosoda was an animator at Toei Animation, Yamauchi was still a big shot and an influential figure there, and Hosoda said himself that he had been influenced by Yamauchi. As Yamauchi directed ‘Penguindrum’ #18, the connection to Ikuhara seems still to be there even if they haven’t worked on anything together for a long, long time (since 1991 when Ikuhara was assistant director on Yamauchi‘s ‘Magical Taruruuto-kun’ movie if I’m not mistaken).

To come back to Utena and its legacy, I’ll list below the directors whose works were most influenced by Utena/Ikuhara and who could be more or less described as Ikuhara‘s disciples or followers. Utena was a hotbed for talent due to Ikuhara giving most major staff members the freedom to incorporate their own ideas, which gave many of those young directors the chance to try out new things and shape their style in an environment of (relative) creative freedom. Many of them turned out to be great directors, with some even becoming real stars of the anime industry. Ikuhara‘s influence has reached even far beyond his co-staff members on Utena, he has always had a good eye for talent and has openend the path into the anime industry for many gifted creators, such as his friend from high school days and scriptwriter of Utena, Yoji Enokido, or Ichiro Okouchi, who is most famous for writing Sunrise shows like ‘Planetes’ and ‘Code Geass’. Just like on ‘Penguindrum’ with young talents such as Shouko Nakamura, Mitsue Yamazaki and Katsunori Shibata, Ikuhara put many up-and-coming creators in charge of crucial positions on Utena as well. I’m aware that some of the directors listed below had been influenced by Ikuhara even before Utena (such as Takuya Igarashi), but I’ll still concentrate on their roles on Utena since it was the first anime where Ikuhara really went all out; he left Toei Animation due to the insufficient creative freedom there after all.

Utena TV: Assistant Director, Storyboard, Episode Director
Utena Movie: Storyboard, Unit Director
Notable work: Alice SOS (TV, 1998, J.C.STAFF), Spiral (TV, 2002, J.C.STAFF)

After working primarily as teaching assistant at Toei Animation, he assumed the position of ‘assistant director’ on Utena due to Ikuhara. Kaneko didn’t have that much practical experience as director at that time, so his work on Utena certainly shaped his style a lot. Once you go through his work, Ikuhara‘s influence on him is easily noticable, particularly in his visual language. Compared to Ikuhara, he’s much more of a comedy director, though. There’s a lot in his directorial style that reminds me of the typical (romantic) comedy direction of the 1990s (along the lines of Hiroaki Sakurai), and naturally there are also Utena vibes. The other staff members on Utena apparently called him ‘ChuChu Director’ since he was supervising the scenes with ChuChu on all episodes, so the more light-hearted ones. After Utena (TV), he went on to direct two TV Series for J.C.STAFF, namely ‘Alice SOS’ and ‘Spiral’, both of which had openings directed by Mamoru Hosoda (the connection should be obvious). From 2004 onwards he’s been mainly involved in Bones productions, including the series of his former Utena co-staff member Takuya Igarashi (Ouran High School Host Club, Soul Eater, Star Driver), of course. This year, he reunited with Ikuhara to help him out on his new show ‘Mawaru Penguindrum’, where Kaneko directed/storyboarded the comedy-centric #4 & #16 and did some storyboarding for #11. In latter episode he obviously was in charge of storyboarding Ringo’s fantasy world, since that kind of sequence is a typical stylistic trait of his and episode 4 was full of it.

His usual way of directing comedy scenes includes deformed characters, on-screen elements (such as writing or bubbles with the characters’ faces), visualized thoughts (often in glorious shoujo manga aesthetics) and letting the characters delve into in their own fantasy worlds. Some examples from his ‘Darker than Black’, ‘Ouran High School Host Club’ and ‘Fullmetal Alchemist’ episodes:

Utena TV: Assistant Director, Storyboard, Episode Director
Utena Movie: Storyboard, Unit Director
Notable work: Orphen – The Revenge (TV, 1999-2000, J.C.STAFF)

Another newcomer at Utena’s time – even more so than Shingo Kaneko – yet Ikuhara appointed him as assistant director. According to an Animage interview (Animage 06/97 supplement about Utena), Takahashi was originally invited by Shinya Hasegawa (whom he had known from vocational school) to participate as key animator, but when Ikuhara asked him what he wanted to do, he said he would like to direct in future. That was enough for Ikuhara to entrust him with the position of assistant director and director of crucial episodes like the first and last one. Just like Kaneko, he remained at J.C.STAFF after Utena and directed his first TV series there (Orphen: The Revenge). Later on, he left J.C.STAFF and joined Madhouse, where he’s been involved in many of their TV series as a rotation episode director ever since. Like nearly all of the ‘Ikuhara school‘ directors, he’s very good at framing the going-ons on the screen in an interesting way and puts considerable emphasis on the envirmonment/backgrounds as well. Especially episode 22 of ‘Orphen: The Revenge’ (directed/storyboarded by Takahashi himself) is a good place to check out his style, the wide horizontal compositions embellished with Shichiro Kobayashi‘s backgrounds of surreal architecture make it feel a lot like Utena:

Utena TV: Script, Storyboard, Episode Director
Utena Movie: Storyboard
Notable Work: Ojamajo Doremi, Ashita no Nadja, Ouran High School Host Club, Soul Eater, Star Driver

Takuya Igarashi, being one of the three major ‘Sailor Moon’ directors, had been a close associate of Ikuhara since their time together at Toei Animation. As Igarashi was still a member of Toei Animation back then, he used an alias (Jūgo Kazayama) for his work on Utena. Both Ikuhara & Igarashi started out in the same environment, which is certainly one of the reasons for their similar styles, but especially when you have a look at Igarashi‘s post-Utena work, it’s impossible to miss how much stimulation he received from Ikuhara. Igarashi‘s directing is very close in spirit to Ikuhara‘s, his reunion work with Sailor Moon & Utena screenwriter Enokido (‘Ouran High School Host Club’) is probably the best example. Particularly the episodes directed by Igarashi himself are framed in a typical Ikuhara kind of way with classic Utena shots all over the place:

Igarashi is certainly a shoujo anime director through and through, but he’s a bit less metaphorical in his approach than Ikuhara. So in a sense, he is ‘Ikuhara light’ with a somewhat more approachable style of directing for people who aren’t into shoujo stuff (Ikuhara went further into that direction with Penguindrum, though).

Utena TV: Script, Storyboard, Key Animation
Utena Movie: Storyboard
Notable Work: Digimon Movie 1 & 2, One Piece Movie 6, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars

I think Mamoru Hosoda needs no big introduction, most anime fans probably know him for movies like ‘The Girl Who Leapt Through Time’ and ‘Summer Wars’. He began his career in the anime industry as animator at Toei Animation with the intention of becoming director later on. He made his early steps into directing on Utena and working under Ikuhara, whom Hosoda considers as his mentor. The stylistic similarities between these two directors are quite obvious, even though Hosoda‘s directing is less expressionistic than Ikuhara‘s. Hosoda depicts the worlds in his anime more naturalistically, somewhat reminiscent of another anime director who had a lot of influence on him, namely Kazuhiro Furuhashi. Still, his directorial devices and cinematic technique scream ‘Ikuhara‘, beginning from horizontal screen compositions to the rhythm of his storyboarding and also the way he uses metaphors.

‘Ashita no Nadja’ #26 is probably the episode where Hosoda‘s directing is closest to Ikuhara‘s. It’s one of my favorite Hosoda episodes, emotionally powerful and beautifully crafted from beginning to end. Many of the elaborate layouts in this episode were corrected by Hosoda‘s own hand, which led to some of the most memorable scenes of the entire series and beyond.

Utena TV: Concept Design, Animation Director, Key Animation
Utena Movie: Mechanic Design, Storyboard
Notable Work: Mushi-Shi (TV, 2005-2006, Artland), Detroit Metal City (OAV, 2008, Studio 4°C)

Despite doing no actual directing on the series, Nagahama was deeply involved even in the pre-production of Utena. He was the one who gave concrete form to Utena’s world based on Ikuhara‘s mental images and ideas. Things like the dueling forest, the school building, Anthy’s garden, the student council room and most of the other architecture and environments were designed by Nagahama. In addition, he was animation director on several episodes and did some key animation as well. In the process he had certainly absorbed Ikuhara‘s approach to staging and layouts as became obvious later on. Much of Nagahama‘s post-Utena work reflects Ikuhara‘s directorial style in one way or another, although it’s often not as obvious as with, say, Hosoda and Igarashi. Apparently, Nagahama himself said in a Newtype interview (issue 05/2005) that Ikuhara had had profound influence on him, which doesn’t come as a surprise if you know his work on ‘Fruits Basket’. The two episodes he directed (#18 & #25) stand out for their Utena-like direction and the theatrical elocution, and particularly his ‘Fruits Basket’ opening is ‘Ikuhara school‘ through and through.

Utena TV: Animation Director, Key Animation
Utena Movie: Animation Director, Key Animation
Notable Work: MoonPhase (Visual Director, TV, 2004-2005, SHAFT), Bakemonogatari (Visual Director, TV, 2009, SHAFT)

Nobuyuki Takeuchi is probably not as well-known as some of the above-mentioned directors since he’s more of an animator, but he’s still a very interesting artist. He’s generally associated with SHAFT, being involved in many of their projects since the mid-90s. His debut as animation director was on SHAFT‘s very first anime series (as prime contractor), namely ‘Juuni Senshi Bakuretsu Eto Rangers’ in 1995. Interestingly, Shingo Kaneko and Mamoru Hosoda (storyboard debut) also worked on that series, so SHAFT handling several episodes of Utena isn’t that surprising if you know about this link (Takeuchi was the animation director of the Utena SHAFT episodes). I think Takeuchi‘s exposure to Ikuhara is one of the reasons why SHAFT moved towards stylistically offbeat anime somewhat in Utena’s spirit. He has certainly been influential enough over the last decade to bring about such a change. Sure, Akiyuki Shinbo plays a huge role in this, too, since he apparently got stimulated a lot by Osamu Dezaki as well, so Ikuhara and Shinbo are more or less in the same tradition (Shinbo ripping off Ikuhara – like some people claim – is certainly not the case in my book). Both Shinbo‘s and Ikuhara‘s style have their roots in Dezaki‘s work and consequently in the philosophy of Tezuka Productions, which is the school of pursuing maximum effect with limited animation. Still, if you have a look at Nobuyuki Takeuchi‘s work at SHAFT, it’s apparent that his approach is much more in the fashion of Ikuhara than in anybody else’s. The stylistic devices that Ikuhara brought to anime are deeply rooted in Takeuchi‘s work, just have a look at MoonPhase or Bakemonogatari. It’s also very evident in ‘Maria Holic’, where he was in charge of concept design, storyboard (#1) and key animation. The planar screen compositions reminiscent of stage plays, the use of silhouettes and black faces, the design of the sky, the metaphorical images and empty backgrounds make it feel a lot like Ikuhara‘s work:

So here’s the result of what I’ve been working on for quite a while now, with a long break inbetween, though. A recent tweet by washi gave me the decisive nudge to finish what I had begun. I’ve always been very interested in this meta aspect of anime and animation in general, since art is a cumulative process and you can always see the legacy of the past in every animation you watch. And with a meta perspective on the industry, many things suddenly begin to make sense. Very little in this sphere happens by chance, you just have to look a bit closer to find the connection. It was a lot of work to research all the relations especially between the older studios in anime’s early days, but it certainly was worth the effort since I had several ‘aha experiences’ while delving into this subject matter.

The above chart shows the origins of most anime studios, but keep in mind that I didn’t bother to distinguish between investments in subsidiaries (like I.G=>XEBEC) and producers/directors/etc. going independent (like Satelight=>GoHands). There might be some mistakes as I haven’t carefully looked over it a second time, so tell me if you notice anything. I’m aware that some minor studios aren’t on this chart, and I included some important production companies (such as Aniplex and ADK) which aren’t anime studios, but they play a crucial role in understanding the structure of this industry. If you have any questions, feel free to comment below.

One of the most promising young anime directors that has come on the scene during the last decade is Takayuki Hirao [平尾隆之], who first came into my awareness with his work as episode director on certain Madhouse shows. As the picture on top of this entry (Animage 11/2008) indicates, he can be considered as part of the influential generation of directors in their 30s. That Animage article/discussion also featured two other talents of the same generation, namely Tetsuro Araki and Ryousuke Nakamura, and that not by accident. All three started their careers at Madhouse with Hirao and Araki even working on the same projects (such as ‘Jubei-chan’ and ‘Card Captor Sakura’ movie) as production assistants, so it’s not surprising that they became good friends in private life as well.

Originally – and like many other people in the anime industry as well – Hirao wanted to become a mangaka, but he eventually decided to pursue a career in the anime industry and entered Osaka designer vocational school. He spent about 2 years in Osaka and then went to Tokyo where he found employment at Madhouse when he was 20 years old. After acting as production assistant for many Madhouse anime in the early 2000s – including big ones such as ‘Millenium Actress’ – Hirao got the chance for his directorial debut on ‘TEXHNOLYZE’, where he directed the OP and storyboarded episode 8 and 14 as well as co-directed #21. In his early days as assistant director at Madhouse he studied the craft of directing under no one less than Satoshi Kon, who entrusted Hirao even with the important task of directing episode 1 of his first and only TV series, ‘Paranoia Agent’, besides letting him act as assistant director on a bunch of other episodes. After his work on ‘Paranoia Agent’, Hirao left Madhouse and joined the up-and-coming anime studio ufotable. His first task at ufotable was already a rather major one, namely acting as ‘chief director’ for the TV series ‘Futakoi Alternative’, which leaves no doubt that ufotable‘s company president Hikaru Kondo was quite aware of Hirao‘s talent. While Kondo himself acted as the general director and handled the organizational aspects of the show, he left most technical and many creative aspects of the production to Hirao (since Kondo himself isn’t that proficient with that kind of things). The first episode already featured most stylistic traits that have sort of become Hirao‘s trademark style over the last few years, namely very active and sometimes even crazy camerawork, using space very effectively and messing with the passage of time by using slow motions and such. He seems to be more conscious than most other anime directors about what you can do in animation by tightly controlling the flow of time and space to draw out the best of each scene. Although Hirao himself thinks that the main influence on his work has been Tetsuro Araki, I believe he owes his clever way of screen organization to Satoshi Kon as well. He brought his style to maturity with what I consider as one of the pinnacles of otaku anime, namely the fifth movie in the ‘Kara no Kyoukai’ movie series.

This movie is still one of the most gripping anime films I’ve watched to date. By changing the order of events of the novel and rearranging them in a clever way, the movie never lets you loose and the tension builds throughout the film until the spectacular climax. That movie had a lot of outstanding action as well, even apart from the scenes done by Tetsuya Takeuchi (he animated and storyboarded the part where Shiki is fighting the zombie horde in the tower). Probably most people remember the unusually intense and almost crazy camerawork in the final fight scene between Shiki and Araya, I liked how Hirao used the camera to add energy and excitement to the scene. Here’s the corresponding part of the storyboard book, which probably looks pretty confusing if you haven’t watched that scene before (click to enlarge):

ufotable used CG cameraworks and models to animate this scene, i.e. the animators used the CG models as reference for their frames (like KyoAni did for the crazy 360° camera rotation in the first K-ON!! OP). Two other rather memorable scenes with some typical Hirao storyboarding are below. The one on the left side is from ‘High School of the Dead’ #8 and the column of pictures on the right is from ‘Kurozuka’ #9, so both are from shows directed by Tetsuro Araki. Araki told the storyboarders on HSotD to do interesting things with breasts in their respective episodes, but the only one who really did something funny was clearly Hirao with his ‘Matrix breasts’. And Araki‘s order to ‘totally overdo’ the truck action in Kurozuka #9 was fulfilled by Hirao pretty well, too…

Besides his work on the fifth ‘Kara no Kyoukai’ movie, he was also involved in the seventh film. The director of that movie, Shinsuke Takizawa (瀧沢進介), is actually a joint pen name for Ei Aoki (chapter 1), Takuya Nonaka (chapter 2), Mitsuru Obunai (chapter 3), Takayuki Hirao (chapter 5) and ufotable company president Kondo, so Hirao did parts of the storyboard and processing of some scenes, my guess is that he was responsible for the fight between Shiki and Lio in the warehouse (among other things). After Hirao‘s involvement in the ‘Kara no Kyoukai’ series, ufotable put him in charge of the ‘God Eater’ anime pilot movie and opening. Here’s the OP:

Director / Storyboard: Takayuki Hirao
Character Design / Animation Director: Tetsuya Takeuchi
Key Animation: Tetsuya Takeuchi, Shinpei Tomooka, Dai Fukuyama, Takeyoshi Omagari, Shinsuke Yasuda, Saburou Mochizuki, Toshiyuki Shirai, Hiroshi Yakou, Masato Morinaga, Masashi Sugita, Takashi Suhara

The promotion video itself was written, directed and storyboarded by Hirao, so it’s a good place to start if you want to check out his style. There’s some rather well directed action in the PV with his typical camerawork and manipulation of the flow of time. It’s interesting to complement the viewing with the storyboard to get a better understanding of what he intented with which shot, so here’s the storyboard for the action parts (uploaded in very high resolution so zooming in very closely is no problem):

As for upcoming work: Hirao is directing the OVA ‘Gyo’ as well as ufotable’s latest original project, ‘Sakura no Ondo’. Hirao himself mentioned that he’s a fan of the author of ‘Gyo’, so maybe that’s why the running time was stretched from 30 minutes to over an hour. He did such a good job with the atmosphere in ‘Kara no Kyoukai’ so I have little doubt that this will be a worthwhile OVA. The screenshots look promising at any rate. I’m a bit less confident about his other upcoming project, instead of a romance I’d rather like him to do something with action. Since Tetsuya Takeuchi is probably the character designer (judging by the looks of it), I’m still looking forward to it, if only to see what they can do with this genre. Apart from that, I’m pretty sure that he’ll either help out Tetsuro Araki on his upcoming noitaminA series ‘Guilty Crown’ (at least as storyboarder) or that he’s in charge of one or more ‘Fate/Zero’ episodes as director (hopefully teamed up with Takeuchi to do some stunning action once again).

List of work:

So after neglecting this blog for two months due to being incredibly busy, I guess it’s already time for a next season preview again, even though I’m a bit late this time. Anyway, below you can find my expectations and preliminary thoughts on the upcoming series. As usual, stuff I’m not interested in and sequels are excluded.

♦ Fractale

So this is it, director Yutaka Yamamoto‘s new show which is based on an original scenario and general story outline by literary/cultural critic and writer Hiroki Azuma. Mari Okada organizes and supervises the original scenario’s adaptation into anime series format and Masako Tashiro designs the characters. This is roughly the fundamental constellation of people in charge of this upcoming noitaminA series, and it’s indeed a promising one. Although I’m sometimes of the impression that Yamamoto gets more attention for the controversial things he keeps saying than for his actual work, he’s still one of the more talented active directors in the anime industry these days. Yet even to this day he draws his fame rather from his involvement with the ‘Haruhi’ franchise than from anything he’s done afterwards, so I hope he makes use of the chance he gets with ‘Fractale’ to become known for a project that is actually all his. Yamakan seems to shape the project according to his own ideas rather than just being faithful to Azuma‘s scenario, his intention is apparently to make an action adventure intended for the healthy youth. Or in other words, the kind of ‘Laputa’-like adventure anime that isn’t made anymore these days and that is sorely missed by many (including myself). From the few material I’ve seen so far I certainly get the Ghibli/WMT kind of vibe from it, but that was also the case with one of A-1 Pictures previous series – ‘So-ra-no-wo-to’ – which obviously aimed for a similar atmosphere and even succeeded surprisingly well in this regard. I guess most of the staff of aforementioned series will also be involved in ‘Fractale’, the animation is produced by A-1 Pictures after all with cooperation by Yamamoto‘s studio Ordet, just like it was with his previous anime series ‘Kannagi’. Azuma tweeted that it would neither be a moe anime nor an atmosphere-centric ‘kuuki-kei’ anime (in the vein of ‘So-ra-no-wo-to’), so I have my hopes high that it will actually tell a decent story. On the technical side of things, I am full of confidence that it will have the same level of quality as ‘Kannagi’. Character designer Masako Tashiro is not someone I’ve paid much attention to up until now, but she’s worked on some big projects in the past and the designs aren’t much different from what I would have expected from the likes of Satoshi Kadowaki anyway. I’m glad that Emi Kesamaru, who is the head of Ordet‘s art department and whose involvement with Yamakan goes back as far as KyoAni‘s OVA ‘Munto 2′, is in charge of art direction and image design again, just like with ‘Black Rock Shooter’. Overall, I’m sure that ‘Fractale’ is gonna be more than worthy of A-1 Pictures‘ and Yamakan‘s noitaminA debut and clearly my most anticipated upcoming anime series, I can’t imagine that Yamamoto will let me down when he invests so much effort.

♦ Hourou Musuko

Despite getting it recommended countless times I’ve never read the manga this anime is based on, but I liked the adaptation of one of mangaka Takako Shimura‘s other works, namely ‘Aoi Hana’. The premise of ‘Hourou Musuko’ sounds interesting and from what I have heard the manga doesn’t potray its sensitive themes (such as crossdressing and puberty) in the same immature way as most anime do. I think while director Ei Aoki hasn’t adapted similar subject material before, he certainly knows how to convincingly depict characters and how to stage powerful drama, I still fondly remember his great ‘Shuffle’ episode. And apparently he’s a huge fan of the manga himself. Judging by the PVs, the animation seems to have an unusually high level for an AIC show, too, and the rich texture of the screen is simply stunning as expected of a director with origin in photographing. It has that rare feeling of seamless-ness I’ve hardly come across in anime of the post-cel era, apparently Aoki has learned a lot from the masters of digital photographing such as Makoto Shinkai. Ryuichi Makino, who has collaborated with Aoki several times before (on ‘Girls Bravo’ and aforementioned ‘Shuffle’ episode among others), designed the characters and is in charge of overall animation supervision while Michio Sato has the rare position of a ‘main animator’. As with the other noitaminA show of this season, Mari Okada handles the series composition, so I guess there can’t go much wrong with this series all in all.

♦ Yumekui Merry

Toei veteran director Shigeyasu Yamauchi (of ‘Casshern Sins’ fame) is directing this project with character designs by Masahiro Fujii at J.C. Staff. At first I somehow felt that Yamauchi doesn’t really fit in here, but that feeling vanished relatively fast as I’ve become curious what he can do with this kind of material. Yamauchi said that the manga had been handed over to him immediately after work on ‘Casshern Sins’ finished and he thought that there was more to the manga than just action with pretty girls as it also firmly depicted the characters’ emotions and thoughts. I’m still not entirely sold on the material Yamauchi‘s adapting here, thus I doubt that the plot premise alone would have enticed me to check this out. But with Yamauchi putting his spin on it I think the outcome could be something worthwhile after all. You can clearly see Yamauchi‘s hand and directing skills in the PVs, from the above average processing (compared to J.C. standards) to the elaborate compositions and artistic backgrounds, with latter being a welcome change from J.C.‘s usual boring water-color background art. For Yamauchi, backgrounds are an integral part of establishing atmosphere (as they should be), if you’ve watched his previous series ‘Casshern Sins’ you should know what I’m talking about. Kenji Matsumoto, who created the beautiful background art of ‘Casshern Sins’ #9, #18 and most of #19, #22, #23 and #24 on his own, is the art director of ‘Yumekui Merry’, so it’s not like Yamauchi is the sole reason for the high quality backgrounds. With Masahiro Fujii being chief animation director I’m somewhat positive that the animation quality will uphold rather well, even though you never know for sure due to J.C.‘s typical severe schedule. At least there should be a lot of freelancers involved considering both Yamauchi‘s and Fujii‘s involvement. Incidentally, the official twitter account of ‘Yumekui Merry’ noted a few days ago that a famous creator was involved and that one should pay attention to the ED credits. I think I spotted Hironori Tanaka in one of the trailers, but I’m not sure if he counts as famous… maybe Yoshihiko Umakoshi would be a safer bet.

♦ Mahō Shōjo Madoka Magica

For once a Akiyuki Shinbo/SHAFT anime that is pretty high on my anticipated list. With Aniplex, enthusiastic producer Iwakami and many talented people behind it I can see this becoming one of the best SHAFT series since a good while. Can’t say that I’m a devotee of Gen Urobuchi‘s work, yet I’m curious to see what he’s up to with a magical girl series like ‘Madoka Magica’. It’s different in tone from all of his previous works after all, at least at first sight. I’ve never been particularly fond of Ume Aoki‘s style – but since Takahiro Kishida was the one who adapted them for animation it’s not something that’s bothering me anymore. As expected, Kishida isn’t chief animation director, he’s not someone who likes doing that kind of work. He rather likes taking control over layouts (i.e. drawing them on his own), so we might see him doing this kind of work, at least if he decided to keep working on it after the initial stages. ‘First Squad’ director Yoshiharu Ashino storyboarded episode 1 while Ryouma Ebata supervises the animation, so I suppose we’ll see a lot of other Aniplex-related freelancers on this episode, too. Overall, there are unusually many people on this project that I wouldn’t associate with SHAFT (and thus have been brought on board by Aniplex), from the two chief animation directors Junichiro Taniguchi and Mika Takahashi to layout designer Takao Maki and the ‘action directors’ Nozomu Abe and Tomohiro Kamitani. Hopefully, this will cause a fresh breeze to blow through this project. And I’m glad that Gekidan Inu Curry got for once a main position in the staff list (production design), maybe this show will turn out more flamboyant at times than one might expect.

♦ Dragon Crisis!

Hideki Tachibana‘s second job as a director of a TV series after the disastrous ‘H2O’ from three years ago, this time he better delivers. Admittedly, I’m not one of those who have a high opinion of him as I’ve yet to see work of his that could be considered above average. That is regarding his directorial work, I know well enough that he’s a very talented animator. He made himself quite a name with his (animation) work on Pierrot shows and he was also considered as the best animator of the so-called ‘Takeuchi school‘. That reputation hasn’t really worn off up until now, so many think he’s a bigger shot than he actually is. If you want to have a quick sample of his directing and animation style, I suggest that you check out the ‘Summon Night 4‘ opening (director/storyboard/character design/animation director/key animation), which comes closest to what I would call his ‘masterpiece’. One thing he’s known for are his good connections within the industry, hence some sakuga otaku are expecting a huge gathering of talents considering that Masashi Ishihama (character design) and Aniplex (production) are involved as well. But as the saying goes, one shouldn’t count ones chickens before they’re hatched… The first disappointment is that Ishihama isn’t animation director of the first episode as Mariko Emori is in charge of it, maybe I should have expected that from the beginning. On the script side of things, I guess things are in good hands with Hideyuki Kurata handling the series composition, though I doubt that he can do much about the triteness of the source material.

♦ Gosick

It’s produced by studio Bones, so quality should be good, but honestly, I’m neither really taken by its premise nor do I consider director Hitoshi Nanba as one of Bones’ top people. For all that, Takashi Tomioka‘s involvement as designer and chief animation director and ‘Eureka Seven’ director Tomoki Kyoda being visual coordinator could entice me to check it out anyway. If you like stories set in this period, then it should certainly be worth watching.

♦ Infinite Stratos

Officially, it’s produced by studio 8-Bit, but as you can easily guess from the overall look of the show, it’s actually Satelight people who are working on this, above all ‘Macross Frontier’ director Yasuhito Kikuchi. The plot and story setup seems to be pretty standard so I don’t expect this to be more than an average show with overall slightly better animation (and CG).

♦ Level E

Based on a manga by ‘Hunter x Hunter’ creator Yoshihiro Togashi and produced by David Production & Studio Pierrot. I’m not expecting anything great, yet I’m somewhat interested in how this collaboration will turn out in the end.

I guess it’s time for some words on Hiroyuki Kitakubo considering how much buzz he created recently. Ever since he opened his twitter account he and his tweets have become a regular topic on 2channel’s sakuga thread as he sure talks about interesting stuff. However, as person he strikes me as a bit arrogant and self-aggrandizing, at least judging by his tweets and messages I’ve exchanged with him. Since he’s following me on twitter and he doesn’t want me to make ‘advertisement’ for this Malaysian ‘shit anime’, I refrained from posting a direct link to here. Yeah, you read correctly, he’s hardly enthusiastic about this TV anime, but it’s somewhat understandable. He’s a director that always tries to gather the best people and who values talented staff above all, and now he has to work on a series for Malaysian kids which is produced in Malaysia, Philippines and China. I mean, he’s a high-profile director who won awards at Animation Kobe and Japan Media Arts Festival and now he has to work on this. As opposed to some news on the web he said he didn’t direct this anime, but had just an adviser role and he would protest at GONZO for this incorrect information. It’s obviously a job he doesn’t want to be associated with and also a job he doesn’t want to do but has to due to his financial situation or whatever, so it’s better to expect nothing of this. Yet what really bugs me is that ‘Satria – The Warriors of the 7 Elements’ is slated for Fall 2012 – that’s almost two years away. I hope this is not the only thing he works on in this period. However, I somehow suspect this could be the case since finding other work might also be pretty tough for him. Ever since he directed ‘BLOOD’, he hasn’t done much other notable work. There has been much speculation about the reasons, for example that he was fired from Production I.G. some time after ‘BLOOD’ (which makes sense since he’s never worked again there ever since). And he seems to have blown it with many other studios as well probably due to his slightly bad character. And there’s also a rumor that he was involved with the drugs scene back in 2006 and thus has now a hard time to find a job, but take this with a big grain of salt.

‘Satria – The Warriors of the 7 Elements’ is a collaboration between the Japanese anime studio GONZO, Malaysia’s National Film Development Corporation and Malaysian animation studio Funcel. However, Kitakubo tweeted that 22 out of 26 episodes are outsourced to China for a budget of only 2 million yen per 30 minute episode, that’s about as much as ‘Astro Boy’ had back in 1962. So as I said above, it’s better to not have high hopes for this.

Despite directing a renowned anime movie like ‘BLOOD’ and being a very talented director and animator, Kitakubo is not very well-known among anime fans, so let me do a short introduction. First of all, it’s notable how young he was when he debuted as inbetweener on the very first ‘Gundam’ series in 1979, namely only 15 years (right after middle school). And with 21 years he already directed his first anime, the ero-OVA Cream Lemon 4: Pop Chaser. He was attached to a variety of studios during his career, early on he worked for Nakamura Pro and then Neo Media before he established the free animator group Studio MIN with four others in 1982 (MIN derived from minimum). Other famous animators in that group were Yuji Moriyama, Hideki Tamura and Nobuteru Yuki. Studio MIN eventually dissolved in 1991, around the time Kitakubo worked on the movie ‘Roujin Z’. What’s remarkable with all of the anime he directed is the incredible staff he gathered – be it ‘Pop Chaser’, ‘Roujin Z’, ‘Golden Boy’, ‘JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure’ or ‘BLOOD’. He seems to know very well that he can’t successfully realize his vision as director without talented people. The 80s and 90s were the period where Kitakubo was at the height of his fame – all of his work from that era is highly recommended – but during the last 10 years he more or less vanished from the scene as I’ve already pointed out above. He reportedly said on an event of the previous year that he worked on a TV series (probably ‘Occult Academy’) and a ‘Lone Wolf and Cub’ movie adaptation. We know that he was kicked out of ‘Occult Academy’ at the planning stage, but what happened with ‘Lone Wolf and Cub’ isn’t really clear.

One thing that is also often talked about but not really important is how he extremely changes his appearance (esp. hairdo) from time to time. Around the time he made that guest appearance on the BS Anime Yawa show some years ago many thought he was a different person. The rightmost picture was taken last year at the ‘Anime no Chikara‘ introduction event.
What is often overlooked is the fact that Kitakubo is an amazing animator as well, but understandably so since most of his great animation work lies buried in otherwise boring 80s and 90s series and OVAs. His key animation on ‘End of Evangelion’ might be the most famous, he was one of the animators responsible for the awesome action in that movie alongside Mitsuo Iso, You Yoshinari, Tensai Okamura, Masahiro Andou, Takeshi Honda and others. This was his part:

As for some topics raised by Kitakubo on his twitter account:

♦ he criticized Hayao Miyazaki for copying from Fleischer. Kitakubo thinks that it is okay that this robot was used as an homage in ‘Lupin’, but not that Miyazaki used the same design without permission in ‘Laputa’, called it an ‘original work by Hayao Miyazaki‘ and now displays a monument of the robot at Ghibli museum and charges an entrance fee as well.

♦ he told the real story behind the ‘Chobits’ OP. He wasn’t credited for storyboarding it and mentioned how CLAMP wasn’t okay with showing Hideki and Chi nude while the director, publisher and TV station approved. I got the storyboard via mail so that I could convince myself:

♦ he tweeted about the troubles he had with ‘Toward the Terra’ OP2. In short, there were only three weeks time for this OP and he had considerable problems since he didn’t get a spotting sheet (which is used to synchronize animation and music), so he had to use his ear and a stopwatch to do it without and even got everything right in the end! Also received the OP storyboard for this one, very nice work considering the pressure of time.

♦ he talked about his work on the ‘Sakura Taisen: Atsuki Chishio Ni’ OP. To make a long story short: Director Susumu Kudo wanted to do an entirely new OP that is different from the previous ones, and Kitakubo confirmed with the director that this time there shouldn’t be this typical cut where the characters are lined up with their faces seen from the side. However, in the end the director corrected Kitakubo‘s storyboard with his own hands and put in such a cut…

♦ this PV of Maaya Sakamoto‘s song ‘Feel Myself’ was directed by Kitakubo.

Just wanted to post these two image compilations I’ve recently come across on 2ch. Credit goes to the anonymous 2channelers who created them, I just translated the names. Above one shows some of Japan’s most important animators at a glance, the image below a compilation of illustrations and drawings by notable animators. Comes in handy if you want some information on a certain animator’s style. And by the way, while I usually write Japanese names with given name first and surname second, I used the customary Japanese manner (surname first, given name second) in these images so that they match the characters.

Since there’s no illustration by Yutaka Nakamura in above picture, how about this one:

The new anime fall season is nearly upon us so I guess it’s time for my preview. As usual, it’s not about just mentioning each and every upcoming series, but about those I’ve some expectations for. Therefore, I’ll ignore most of those unwatchable cookie-cutter anime that make up a significant part of each season’s line-up. Sequels are excluded as well.

♦ Star Driver: Kagayaki no Takuto

I can’t deny that I’m pretty excited about this series. First off, Takuya Igarashi is helming it, who is certainly one of the best directors working in Japanese TV animation these days. Secondly, we have Yoji Enokido doing the series composition and Yoshiyuki Ito as character designer and chief animation director, who make up the solid foundation of this original project by studio Bones. The rest of the involved staff is also nothing less than promising, from Yasushi Muraki role as FX animation supervisor to art director Takeshi Waki, which shows that Bones wants to make this project a success at all costs (if it isn’t obvious from the extensive promotion alone). Igarashi‘s previous projects at Bones – ‘Ouran High School Host Club’ and ‘Soul Eater’ – were based on pretty average manga, but are prime examples of how a good director can make any kind of material interesting. I’m admittedly very fond of Igarashi‘s directing style, like how he cares for details and manages to uphold interest at any time. And the episodes he storyboards on his own always feel so perfectly balanced and well thought out with every shot framed in the right way and all sorts of fun ideas spread throughout, so I’m sure that episode 1 will get a lot of people interested in this show who originally thought it wouldn’t be their thing (just like he got me into watching ‘Ojamajo Doremi’ despite not being a fan of magical girl stuff). ‘Star Driver’ is Igarashi‘s first robot anime, but as Enokido pointed out in the interview over at the official website, it’s not a disadvantage. Judging by the interview, Igarashi doesn’t know much about the usual tropes that rule almost all robot anime and isn’t really influenced by any existing works, which certainly is an advantage as Enokido firmly believes. I’m sure this duo of creative talent will show us a fresh vision of this somewhat antiquated genre, at least both seem to have lots of fun with trying out new things and challenging robot anime stereotypes. Just have a look at the comments on the trailer where some said that the magical girl-ish transformations didn’t fit in or the mecha looked weird and such, which proves how deeply ingrained the tropes about how a robot anime is supposed to look are into the fans’ consciousness. Enokido said that he won’t hold back while Igarashi wants to try a bit more adult approach this time around (Enokido joked that he’ll be considered as a rather rascal director from now on), therefore I can’t wait to see what they’re up to with this anime.

♦ Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt

With ‘Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann’ being one of my favorite anime, how couldn’t I be thrilled by the prospect of another series by almost the same staff? Sure, it’s different from the epic mecha action of Hiroyuki Imaishi‘s previous endeavor, but the crazy energy of his directing seems to be just as present in ‘Pansuto’ as it was in ‘Gurren Lagann’. ‘Pansuto’ feels like it’s way closer to his directorial debut ‘DEAD LEAVES’ with its extremely cartoony designs and the same sense of grotesque humour. There is going to be lots of ‘dirty’ comedy both in the sense of sexual innuendoes and poop humour, and Imaishi seems to be aware that this doesn’t go well with some of the audience. At the ‘REDLINE’ Anime Style Event last weekend he reportedly said that he expected to lose the female audience he had won over with ‘Gurren Lagann’ and he was very sorry to disappoint the enthusiastic female fans who had promised him with sparkling eyes at Comiket to also support his next work. Reading the reactions on the PV on forums and blogs, it seems to be indeed a ‘love or hate’ thing and difficult to appreciate for many anime fans, and certainly not only due to the risque humour. ‘Pansuto’ doesn’t embody the narrow image many fans have of anime as it’s strongly inspired by Western cartoons and thus for some of no interest right from the beginning, but there was still a lot of positive feedback, too. As far as the staff is concerned, the only major difference to ‘Gurren Lagann’ is that Kazuki Nakashima isn’t doing the series composition, yet I suspect that he might be involved as episode scriptwriter. The scripts seem to be written by all sorts of people, from Imaishi himself to the producer, so expect some fun ideas and a good deal of variety throughout the series. On the animation side of things, I think it goes without saying that ‘Pansuto’ has a lot to offer with people like Hiroyuki Imaishi, You Yoshinari, Sushio, Tadashi Hiramatsu and Akira Amemiya involved.

♦ Kuragehime

An adaptation of the same-named manga by director Takahiro Omori, writer Jukki Hanada and studio Brains Base, it airs in Fuji TV‘s famous ‘noitaminA‘ programming block at that. Due to the hilarious premise and ever-relieable Takahiro Omori directing, I can’t imagine how this show couldn’t be entertaining. Furthermore, Kenji Hayama‘s character designs certainly appeal to me and go well with the assumedly light-hearted tone of the series.

♦ Bakuman.

I read the first volume of the manga a while ago and thought it was enjoyable yet nothing really outstanding. I’m willing to give the anime a chance since I have faith in Kenichi Kasai‘s skills as director, but as with the manga, I don’t expect it to become a masterpiece. It’s produced by J.C. Staff after all, which means a ‘by the book’ production without anything particularly new or imaginative. For all that, Takeshi Obata‘s design style strikes a chord with me (as usual), so maybe I can look over some of the shortcomings this way.

♦ Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru

This season’s new Shinbo/Shaft series based on a manga by Masakazu Ishiguro. I’m not as enthusiastic about Shinbo anymore as I used to be back in the day (i.e. at the time of ‘Petite Cossette’) since he just churns out one new show after another these days. Shaft‘s latest series were mostly let-downs (with the exception of ‘Bakemonogatari’) and I usually couldn’t summon enough motivation to watch more than the first two episodes. The trailer somewhat gets my hopes up as it seems to be livelier than your average Shaft show thanks to the good animation, but whether the finished product will feature this quality is another question. Studio Pastoral‘s Hiroki Yamamura is in charge of character design (for the first time) and overall animation direction, so I guess said studio will be heavily involved in this. There’s some hope that Shinbo brings his connections into action for once, at least the opening is storyboarded by Yasuomi Umetsu who said that some Ex-Ghibli animators worked on it. Maybe they’ll be involved in the actual show, too?

♦ Shinryaku! Ika Musume

I only found out recently that Tsutomu Mizushima is directing this anime, which entices me to check out the first episode at the very least. Also, this seems to be the kind of material that goes well with Mizushima‘s style, could be a fun watch even it looks pretty standard at first sight.

♦ Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai

I’m not totally sold on the plot premise, but I’ve enjoyed Hideyuki Kurata‘s writing in a good number of anime so I’m going to give it a shot. I’m not too familiar with neither the director nor character designer Hiroyuki Oda (alias Hiro Kanzaki, hence both original character design and animation character design are from the same person), but I know that producer Atsuhiro Iwakami has good connections to all sort of industry people, thus it wouldn’t be surprising if some renowned directors and animators helped out. Production values seem to be above usual AIC standards, too.

♦ Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai

Another series with Hideyuki Kurata in charge of series composition, but this one is produced by studio Manglobe. Yeah, even Manglobe does anime like this these days. As with ‘OreImo’, I’m inclined to think that it could be decently interesting due to Kurata‘s writing. However, since they have Shigehito Takayanagi as director on board, it’s probably better to expect not too much.

♦ Iron Man

This sure isn’t the ‘Iron Man’ anymore that everyone looked forward to after Takeshi Koike‘s mind-blowing pilot, but that was to be expected. Nonetheless, I didn’t think that the actual series would look that disappointing. The new trailers make it look like a typical cheap outsourced Madhouse show, just look at that bad CG animation and boring character designs. At least they got Yuzo Sato of ‘Kaiji’ fame as director who probably prevents it from being a total let-down, but it’s still nothing I look forward to.

♦ Super Robot Taisen OG: The Inspector

Director Masami Obari and his staff seem to be pretty enthusiastic about this series. Nevertheless, I think one shouldn’t expect anything more than some nice action from it, otherwise it seems to be a rather bland mecha show.

♦ Tantei Opera Milky Holmes

Actually, I wouldn’t even mention it here if it wasn’t for the fact that no one less than Seiya Numata is the character designer. I don’t think that Makoto Morikawa‘s directing will do much for me, let alone the story or characters who are obviously just pandering to ‘moe’ otaku taste. Since Numata isn’t even animation director on the first episode, I suppose he won’t be much involved in most of the other episodes either. And without any decent animation to uphold my interest, this might be utterly unwatchable in view of J.C. Staff‘s typical trite art direction and bad photography.

These two K-ON! key animation collections sure are obligatory purchases if you’re interested in KyoAni‘s animation and want to find out how they breath life into the characters. They cover the most interesting cuts from episode 1 to 13 of the first season, with the only downside that they don’t name any animators and don’t display any time sheets. Of course, these books feature no extravagant action cuts but mostly KyoAni‘s low-key ‘everyday life’ character animation which happens to be the studio’s greatest strength. Among all of KyoAni‘s impressive work on TV series over the last six years, ‘K-ON!’ still stands out as the most interesting in terms of animation thanks to Yukiko Horiguchi‘s designs and her talent in directing the animation. With ‘K-ON! she found a nice balance between cartoony ‘Lucky Star’ aesthetics and the more realistically toned Kazumi/Shoko Ikeda designs. The animation style is somewhere between Shin-Ei Doga, Satoru Utsunomiya and the soft movement popularized by Tetsuya Takeuchi, which makes perfect sense, though. She started out working on a Shin-Ei Doga show after all, and she likes ‘Kamichu!’ (on which Takeuchi did quite some work) and like almost everyone else at KyoAni, she has been influenced by Yoshiji Kigami whose style can best be described as a cross between Shin-Ei Doga‘s philosophy and Utsunomiya. Anyway, I’ll write a follow-up post on KyoAni‘s animation directors and limit myself to just highlighting some of the most interesting shots from the book here, beginning with this one from the opening (bottom left shows the corresponding part of the storyboard):

OP Cut 15: Yui’s guitar solo in the beginning of the opening and the part of Yui’s character introduction cut where she’s embarrassed and tries to flee from the camera are confirmed to be Yuuichi Itou‘s work, a relatively new face at KyoAni and somebody to keep an eye on. He drew all the key frames of above cut without any need for inbetweens. Characteristic for his style are the loose and chubby way he draws clothes and rendering everything quite flexibly, i.e. no stiff clothes or hair in the vein of, say, Mariko Takahashi. He also animated the music store part in the first half of ‘K-ON!’ #2 if you want to check out a more extensive scene by him. I hope we will eventually see Itou doing animation supervision work, but that depends on which career path he takes. Since KyoAni is pretty inflexible with these things, he’ll have to decide between directing or supervising animation.

#1 Cut 44: Yui hitting her head. Granted, it’s hardly an impressive cut, but interesting from another point of view. On the audio commentary of ‘K-ON!!’ #2, Tatsuya Ishihara (director of ‘Haruhi’, ‘Clannad’, ‘Kanon’ and ‘Air’) said that this scene had been animated by the same person as the clubroom scene in ‘K-ON!!’ #2 (after the girls get the 500,000¥ for the guitar until Sawako-sensei finds out). Latter scene really moved a lot and the animation was incredibly fun to watch plus Ishihara added that the animator behind this scene was his favorite, so I’m curious who did it. The staff overlap between these two episodes isn’t too big with only three key animators being in both credits, namely Mariko Takahashi, Eisaku Kawanami and Hitoshi? Kashiwagi. Takahashi can be left aside as she has a different style and Ishihara would probably have called her by name if it was her, hence it comes down to Kawanami and Kashiwagi. All in all, I think it’s rather Kawanami as he’s been much longer at KyoAni and has worked on Shin-Ei Doga projects in the past which goes well with the vibes I get from that scene. However, I’m not entirely sure so don’t take my word for granted.

#4 Cut 197: Moe moe kyun~! A very famous sequence, isn’t it. I’m pretty sure that Taichi Ishidate was in charge of this shot, who was also the director and storyboarder of that episode. Effects and linework leave little doubt. Ishidate is KyoAni‘s specialist for FX and action animation, which somewhat shines through here. He hasn’t many opportunities to show his talent with these things at KyoAni, but he sure takes every chance he gets – however small it might be – even if it’s just an exploding fan like in episode 11 of ‘K-ON!!’.

#4 Cut 214: Not confirmed, but it’s probably Nao Naitou‘s work. She’s easily one of the most talented animators at KyoAni, also proved by the fact that they often entrust her with the more complicated and/or important cuts. Naitou attracted attention with the nuanced expressions and acting in the final scene of episode 12 of ‘Clannad: After Story’ where Tomoya and Nagisa are jostling with each other. Their embrace in the climactic scene in episode 22 is also Naitou‘s work. She seems to prefer remaining animator for now as many others who entered KyoAni in the same year or even much later have already advanced to directing or animation supervision.

#12 Cut 320: I guess some frames from Yoshiji Kigami shouldn’t be missing. Above scan shows some key frames from the concert scene in episode 12, which was of course a matter for KyoAni‘s ‘ace’ animator. The ‘U&I’ performance from ‘K-ON!!’ #20 is also Kigami‘s work, for the more important episodes KyoAni still relies on his skills. If they really work on another season of ‘Full Metal Panic!’, probably even more so since he’s one of KyoAni‘s few really good action animators. He’s a real veteran, after all, with experience from many big feature film projects, most notably ‘Akira’ where he animated the action in the sewer tunnel.

The recent NHK special created quite some buzz about Yoshinori Kanada‘s succession and by which standard his ‘successors’ should be determined, i.e. if it’s sufficient to just copy Kanada‘s style or if they have to be ‘men of revolutionary talent’ themselves and expand Kanada‘s style to a whole new level. Many weren’t satisfied with NHK choosing Seiya Numata as an example of a young animator who inherited Kanada‘s blood, even some professional animators mentioned on twitter that Hiroyuki Imaishi would have been a more appropriate choice. However, while I’m an avid fan of Hiroyuki Imaishi, I can also understand why NHK chose Numata for this feature. He’s a bit younger, hasn’t directed any anime yet (as series/chief director) and thus is still more of an ‘animator’, so he’s closer to the image most people might have of Yoshinori Kanada (who never directed any anime). And of course, Numata is also a very talented animator with an unmistakeable aura on the screen and much presence in TV anime in recent years. Following some words on Seiya Numata and his work for those who want to find more about him.

Seiya Numata [沼田誠也] began working as inbetween animator at Studio Hibari around 10 years ago, at the same studio he also made his debut as key animator and animation director. After he had left Studio Hibari, he continued working as freelancer on various projects and quickly made himself a name with his flamboyant style, in particular his work on ‘Zoids Genesis’ raised his popularity among fans (especially the ending animation of the second season). Besides aforementioned series, he was also heavily involved in ‘Higurashi no Naku Koro ni’ (animation director of many episodes), ‘Futakoi Alternative’ (director/animation supervisor/key animator/inbetween checker and even inbetweener on #11) and of course his character design debut ‘Shion no Oh’. While Numata is known for often working on anime which aren’t particularly outstanding from a technical point of view, he’s really good at spicing things up with his unique style. One of the best examples is ‘Higurashi’, where he used those heavily distorted faces, warped perspective and characteristic timing to depict the characters’ madness in a powerful way. Incidentally, the NHK feature showed his rooftop fight from ‘Higurashi no Naku Koro ni’ #26 to demonstrate his Kanada-like style:

Including abovementioned ‘Higurashi’ and ‘Zoids Genesis’, Numata has always been a regular on anime with character designs by Kyuuta Sakai (female / real name: Kumiko Sakai). And even apart from those it’s quite conspicuous how often they work together (most recently ‘Shiki’ ED and ‘Needless’ #13), which has nurtured rumors that they might be a couple or something like that. At the very least, it seems like two kindred spirits found each other since both are idol otaku and both have a proclivity for drawing lolita stuff – so-called ‘Lolimators’. Maybe you’ve heard of Numata‘s obsession with Shion’s short skirt in ‘Shion no Oh’ where he even corrected drawings in order to make the belly button visible – so his reputation as ‘Lolita-kei’ animator has certainly not come about by chance. His second character design job – J.C. Staff‘s upcoming ‘Tantei Opera Milky Holmes’ – also involves rather his skills regarding drawing cute girls than displaying Kanada-esque animation.

Still, some fans fear that the usual stable J.C. quality might suffer from Numata‘s temper since he tends to go too far with deformation and individual drawing style as seen in ‘Ichiban Ushiro no Dai Maō’ #7 (which wasn’t received all too well), just to name a recent example. When Numata is in charge of animation direction, everything sure moves a lot more than in other episodes, one of the most ‘extreme’ cases is certainly the super-smooth movement and lip-synch in ‘Kannagi’ #2. However, Yutaka Yamamoto wasn’t really happy with it as way too many drawings were used. Episode 1 had 6000 animation frames while episode 2 had 12000 (!) animation frames, that’s a jump of 100% (the other episodes had 4000-5000 as far as I know). On the DVD audio commentary he put the blame on Numata, but I can’t imagine that he’s the only one at fault. I mean, it’s not like Numata worked alone on that episode, there was still the episode director after all. And as director, Yamamoto himself was supposed to keep track of budgetary issues like the number of animation frames used. Apparently, he found out way too late about it since the episode was corrected for a later broadcast & DVD (some of the lip-synch was removed and such). As I said, Numata is definitely someone who loves to make everything move a lot, but I’m not sure if he would ignore instructions from the director(s) like some people accused him of. Either way, Yamakan probably prefers not to work with him anymore…

Numata‘s animation is best described as being based on Yoshinori Kanada‘s style with some significant influence from Takamitsu Kondou (who was close to Studio Hibari when Numata was still attached to it). He takes Kondou‘s style to a more extreme level with stronger distortions, more intense movement plus varying thickness of lines and doesn’t shy away from using extreme angles and warped perspective either. I scanned in the raw key animation of a cut from Osamu Kobayashi‘s notorious ‘Gurren Lagann’ #4, where Numata‘s drawings weren’t completely toned down by the animation director for once:

Below a shot from ‘Toradora!’ #16 where Numata was both in charge of animation direction and key animation, a scene which got a good deal of attention since J.C. Staff‘s anime usually don’t display that much individuality.

If you have a look at the time sheet (bottom left) you might notice that very few inbetweens were used, from C1 down to C8 the displayed C-layer key frames move well enough even without any additional frames. The drawings are far bolder and more angular than Masayoshi Tanaka‘s character models, though they perfectly match the dramatic and violent tone of the scene.
Numata has also a preference of putting homages into the scenes he is in charge of, here’s an especially good one which NHK included into their Kanada feature:

On the left side is Numata‘s animation from ‘Ninin ga Shinobuden’ – an obvious tribute to his ‘hero’ Kanada, or rather to the legendary fire dragon from ‘Genma Taisen’ which you can see on the right. If you want to see Numata‘s fire dragon (and some of the other work I’ve highlighted in this post) in motion, check out following MAD:

Notable work:
♦ Ultimate Girls (2005): Ep. Director #5 / Ani. Director #5 / Key Animation #5
♦ Futakoi Alternative (2005): Ep. Director #11 / Ani. Director #11 / Key Ani. #1 #7 #11 #12 #13
♦ Zoids Genesis (2005): ED animation S2 & S3 / Ep. Director #28 / Ani. Director #28 #37 #50 / Chief Ani. Director #37-#50 / Key Ani. #21 #28 #50
♦ Strawberry Panic! (2006): Ani. Director #7 #9 #16
♦ Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (2006): Chief Ani. Director Assistant #12 / Ani. Director #7 #9 #12 #13 #15 #19 #21 #23 #26 / Ass. Ani. Director #17 / Key Ani. #13 #19 #23 #26
♦ Buso Renkin (2006-2007): Ani. Director #9 #13 / Key Ani. #9 #13
♦ Kodomo no Jikan OVA (2007): Director/Storyboard/Key Ani. OP (solo)
♦ Code-E (2007): Ani. Director #2 #7 / Key Ani. #2 #7
♦ Shion no Oh (2007-2008): Character Design / Ani. Director #1 #20 #22 OP ED / Key Ani. #1 #21 #22 OP ED
♦ Mission-E (2008): Director/Ani. Director/Storyboard/Key Animation ED
♦ Kannagi (2008): Ani. Director #2 / Key Ani. #2
♦ Toradora! (2008-2009): Ani. Director #16 (coop.) #21 (coop.) / Key Ani. #16 #24
♦ NEEDLESS (2009): Technical Director / Design Works (coop.) / ED animation (coop.) / Ep. Director #13 / Storyboard #13 / Key Ani. OP #1? #13
♦ Ichiban Ushiro no Dai Maō (2010): Director/Storyboard ED / Ani. Director #7 / Key Ani. ED (solo) #7
♦ Tantei Opera Milky Holmes (2010): Character Design

Studio Ordet‘s long-awaited first project as main animation studio is finally here and it turned out pretty much as I’d expected. It’s a well produced OVA with nothing particularly new regarding content, but an enjoyable watch nevertheless. I was mildly impressed with Shinobu Yoshioka‘s directing skills, he did a pretty good job with setting the overall atmosphere. He depicted the characters rather low-key and not as forced as in your average bishoujo anime, which adds a lot to the believability and mood. I would like to see more bishoujo anime going into this direction, so more human-like characters without any disturbing, unbelievable traits. I can live with overly exaggerated characters in comedy series like ‘K-ON!!’ where they aim for a different kind of atmosphere, but in anime with a more serious tone they usually feel quite misplaced. It should go without saying that especially heartfelt and dramatic moments feel all the more stronger if the characters act in a way that the audience can relate to, and not just in the manner which the character category demands.

On the technical side of things, it’s certainly an impressive piece of animation with more than 20000 drawings used for 50 minutes of film. ‘BLACK★ROCK SHOOTER’ and its circumstances remind me of KyoAni’s first solo effort, namely Yoshiji Kigami‘s ‘Munto’ OVA from 2003. Just as Ordet, KyoAni had also been famous for doing high quality subcontract work before they eventually got the chance to produce a technically outstanding 50 minutes original OVA. However, I can hardly imagine that Ordet will go on producing TV series in the near future, it’s a fairly small studio after all. I guess their next project – most likely the upcoming Yutaka Yamamoto x Hiroki Azuma x Mari Okada noitaminA TV series – is a co-production with another studio (probably A-1 Pictures).

In accordance with KyoAni tradition, everything moved a lot, though the drawings and movement weren’t quite as polished. It had more of a raw feeling to it compared to most KyoAni stuff, and the animation direction wasn’t as strict either. Animation director Yuusuke Matsuo didn’t meticulously erase most individual traits from the drawings as KyoAni’s sakkans do, but apparently he only corrected the faces and tried to keep most of the movement in its original form. I love the rough yet energetic feeling of the animation, but judging by some fan reactions and blogs it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Even mebae‘s part (the basketball/volleyball match and the bit afterwards, around 21 minutes in) looked like it was hardly corrected and thus is easy to spot. Hironori Tanaka did the great action scene shortly before mebae’s part, but those were hardly the only shots that impressed me a lot. The action sequences were generally well-directed and wonderfully animated, not surprisingly so considering director Yoshioka‘s skills as action animator. He probably did the right thing when he left KyoAni, I don’t think that he would have had many chances to demonstrate his aptitude with action scenes there. Of course, if KyoAni ever decides to produce another ‘Full Metal Panic’ series, he (and the other Ordet expatriates) will be extremely missed. You can count KyoAni‘s action/effect animators on one hand, after all.

It was quite interesting to see who is involved in Ordet‘s first solo project, particularly since I expected that they request some help from outside. As Yutaka Yamamoto pointed out in this recent ‘Business Media Makoto’ interview, that was indeed the case since otherwise they weren’t able to complete it in a reasonable time. They even requested help from Hokkaido-based illustrator/animator mebae – a net acquaintance Yamamoto has never met in person – who is able to be active in the anime business thanks to the internet. mebae‘s real name is Yuusuke Hiroshima [広島裕介] and he’s already worked on some other commercial anime (‘Shugo Chara!’, ‘Jigoku Shoujo’, ‘Higurashi no naku koro ni kai’, etc.), though his core occupation is still illustrating. French blogger Manuloz wrote a nice post on mebae a while ago, you can also watch some of mebae‘s animation works there.

As for the other involved staff, there are some animators from A-1 Pictures in the credits (Toshifumi Akai‘s mates?) who apparently returned the favor of Ordet helping out on ‘So-ra-no-wo-to’, the staff exchange in more detail (yellow = Ordet-associated animator / green = A-1 Pictures animator):

BRS animator list divided in origin/affiliation:

♦ Satoshi Kadowaki [門脇聡]: Chief Animation Director of ‘Kannagi’
♦ Shinobu Yoshioka [吉岡忍]: Ep. Director on ‘Suzumiya Haruhi no Yūutsu’, etc.
♦ Yuusuke Matsuo [松尾祐輔]: Animation Director on ‘Kannagi’
♦ Atsushi Saitou [斎藤敦史]: Key Animator on ‘K-ON!’, ‘Lucky Star’ OVA, etc.
♦ Yoko Takada [高田謡子]: Key Animator on ‘Air’, ‘Kanon 2006′, ‘Kannagi’, etc.
♦ Ryouichi Nakano [中野良一]: Animation Director on ‘So-Ra-No-Wo-To’, etc.
♦ Asami Komatsu [小松麻美]: Key Animator on ‘Air’, ‘Kanon 2006′, ‘Kannagi’, etc.
♦ Yuugo Mizutani [水谷有吾]: Key Animator on ‘K-ON!’, ‘So-Ra-No-Wo-To’, etc.
♦ Jun Nakagawa [中川淳]: Key Animator on ‘K-ON!’, ‘Lucky Star’ OVA, etc.
♦ Mitsuru Kakuda [角田充]: Storyboarder on ‘Kannagi’, pseudonym of Ex-KyoAni person?

♦ Toshifumi Akai [赤井俊文]: Character Designer of ‘So-Ra-No-Wo-To’
♦ Shingo Adachi [足立慎吾]: Character Designer of ‘Working!!’
♦ Isao Hayashi [林勇雄]: Animation Director on ‘Birdy the Mighty Decode:02′

♦ Hideki Nagamachi [長町英樹]: Character Designer of ‘Innocent Venus’
♦ Nao Chikaoka [近岡直]: Character Designer of ‘Today in Class 5-2′
♦ Hironori Tanaka [田中宏紀]: Ani. Director on ‘Ōkami-san’, ‘Naruto Shippūden’
♦ mebae: Key Animator on ‘Shugo Chara!’, ‘Jigoku Shoujo’, etc.
♦ Daisuke Hiramaki [平牧大輔]: Key Animator on ‘So-Ra-No-Wo-To’, ‘Working!!’
♦ Asaka Kazuyuki [浅賀和行]: Ass. Animation Director on ‘Ga-Rei -Zero-’, etc.
♦ Yuusuke Tanaka [田中裕介]: Animation Director on ‘Birdy the Mighty Decode:02′
♦ Saishi Suzuki [鈴木彩史]: Ass. Animation Director on ‘Toaru Kagaku no Railgun’
♦ Jun Mori [森淳]: Key Animator on ‘Bamboo Blade’, ‘Darker than Black 2′
♦ Yutaka Takahashi [高橋豊]: pseudonym? Different person from the same-named producer?
♦ [小田鴨瞳]: pseudonym