♦ Samurai Girl Real Bout High School #7

Storyboard: Shinichi Watanabe
Episode Director: Noriyuki Kitanohara
Assistant Ep. Director: Yutaka Yamamoto
Animation Director: Ichirou Miyoshi (Yoshiji Kigami)
Key Animation: Ichirou Miyoshi, Noriyuki Kitanohara, Hiroyuki Takahashi, Tomoe Aratani, Kazumi Ikeda, Shigeki Satou

KyoAni was in charge of episode 7 of this Gonzo series and they did almost everything from the key animation down to the photography work. The storyboard was done by Shinichi Watanabe (Nabeshin), though. Nabeshin’s involvement is pretty much obvious once you see the over-the-top gags, but I guess there are a lot of them in the other episodes, too. KyoAni certainly chose the perfect duo for this episode since Yoshiji Kigami (animation director) and Noriyuki Kitanohara (episode director) are great when it comes to overdone comedy. They even animated many parts on their own. You rarely see the kind of daring layout and animation work they displayed here in KyoAni’s more recent work, but now and then it shimmers through even in their newer anime. Like the ‘top down layout’ or those warped-perspective shots from the ground.

Particularly Taichi Ishidate’s directorial style inherited some of the wildness shown in this episode (like the posing of the characters), he’s a pupil of Kigami after all. Chiyoko Ueno, who was inbetweener on this episode, seems to have absorbed the bold approach of this episode as well. Her style today certainly shares some traits with the one Kigami displayed here in this episode. Speaking of Kigami, he probably animated the parts around the cooking contest (some cuts might be Kitanohara’s work, though). The shots of the audience are pure Kigami, this is pretty much his style once he has no character designs as basis:

One striking thing in the hallway scene at the beginning is that the characters’ hands and fingers are quite active which isn’t the case in the rest of the episode, so it’s certainly the animator who brought this about. It’s probably Tomoe Aratani’s part, who kind of passed this consciousness of hands and fingers in the acting on to Yukiko Horiguchi. Besides this scene, most of the animation is nothing to speak of even though some nice cuts are spread throughout the episode. It’s rather the framing/layout work that stands out in this episode. Once you watch this episode, it’s pretty much obvious that KyoAni didn’t have much time to work on it. There are a lot of stills and such so don’t expect anything outstanding animation-wise, but if you’re curious about KyoAni’s development as anime studio and how their approach changed over time, this is a good point to start.

♦ Haré+Guu

If I had to name the anime out of KyoAni’s subcontract era which had most impact on their current style, I would doubtlessly say Haré+Guu. The influence of Tsutomu Mizushima and Shin-Ei Doga runs very deep throughout all of KyoAni’s newer work, particularly in the more comedy-oriented ones. Just pay attention to the staging, the acting and the compositions in KyoAni’s anime, these things still display a lot of traits that you would usually expect from Mizushima or Shin-Ei Doga. KyoAni did a lot of work on all of the three Haré+Guu series (TV series, Deluxe and Final) so it’s not really surprising. While Yasuhiro Takemoto and Yutaka Yamamoto (Yamakan) directed the KyoAni episodes on all three series, Kazumi Ikeda and Mitsuyoshi Yoneda supervised the animation. Here’s a list of KyoAni’s episodes and the corresponding staff (ED = Episode Director / SB: Storyboard / AD: Animation Director):

 

Haré+Guu (TV)
Episode 8 (ED/SB: Yutaka Yamamoto, AD: Kazumi Ikeda)
Episode 14 (ED/SB: Yasuhiro Takemoto, AD: Mitsuyoshi Yoneda)
Episode 20 (ED/SB: Yutaka Yamamoto, AD: Kazumi Ikeda)
Episode 24 (ED/SB: Yasuhiro Takemoto, AD: Mitsuyoshi Yoneda)

 

Haré+Guu Deluxe (OVA)
Episode 2 (ED/SB: Yasuhiro Takemoto, AD: Kazumi Ikeda)
Episode 3 (ED/SB: Yutaka Yamamoto, AD: Kazumi Ikeda)
Episode 5 (ED/SB: Yasuhiro Takemoto, AD: Kazumi Ikeda)
Episode 9 (ED/SB: Yutaka Yamamoto, AD: Kazumi Ikeda)
Episode 10 (ED/SB: Yutaka Yamamoto, AD: Kazumi Ikeda)

 

Haré+Guu FINAL (OVA)
Episode 7 (ED/SB: Yutaka Yamamoto, AD: Kazumi Ikeda)
Episode 8 (ED/SB: Yutaka Yamamoto, AD: Kazumi Ikeda)
Episode 13 (ED/SB: Yasuhiro Takemoto, AD: Mitsuyoshi Yoneda)
Episode 14 (ED/SB: Yasuhiro Takemoto, AD: Mitsuyoshi Yoneda)

KyoAni’s episodes on these shows are usually among the best, right up there with Mizushima’s. In particular, check out episode 5 (“illusion V”) and episode 9 (“illusion IX”) of Haré+Guu Deluxe. There are few animators on each episode but it still moves a lot, just like you are used to from KyoAni. These collaborations with Shin-Ei Doga and Mizushima certainly played an important role in shaping their own style into what it is today, i.e. making the characters move a lot and putting emphasis on the animated acting. Many of the typical compositions you can find in Haré+Guu (and in other Tsutomu Mizushima and Shin-Ei Doga works as well) have become an integral part of KyoAni’s very own approach to staging. Some examples of where you can notice the influence can be seen below (it’s not about the content itself, but about the technique):

And by the way, there has been speculation that the idea of doing an ending dance for Haruhi (Hare Hare Yukai) goes back to the ending of Haré+Guu Deluxe. Tsutomu Mizushima seems to like endings with silly dancing, he did a similar ending for Kemeko Deluxe as well after all.

I’ve been watching ‘Sasuga no Sarutobi’ (also called ‘The Academy of Ninjas’) up to episode 20 over the last few weeks, an 80s ninja/martial arts comedy that feels a lot like Ranma 1/2 if you ask me. It’s been quite a fun show so far (despite somewhat clichéd story and characters), which stems from the fact that the show really delivers on the animation side of things. It’s not a coincidence that this anime is frequently treated as a classic example of an 80s TV ‘sakuga anime’ after all. Besides the fact that they used an extraordinary number of drawings for each episode (6000-8000 animation frames per episode, so more than twice of a typical TV anime at the time), it’s particularly the animators and directors who used that luxury to do all kinds of interesting things. Studios like Kaname Production (best known for producing ‘Birth’), Anime R and Animaruya worked on the series as subcontractors, and those studios were usually the ones which did the most interesting episodes from an animation perspective. As for individual animators, the two people who renownedly stood out here were Masayuki and Yoshiji Kigami. In Kigami’s case, his animation on ‘Sasuga no Sarutobi’ is probably the work he’s best known for in the anime industry even to this day. When Kigami is mentioned by people within the industry, it’s usually in relation to ‘Sasuga no Sarutobi’, like in this Toshiyuki Inoue x Hiroyuki Imaishi x Yuichiro Oguro discussion. And Hiroyuki Kitakubo seems to associate Kigami primarily with ‘Sasuga no Sarutobi’, too.

Animaruya Episodes:
Episode 2
Script: Takeshi Shudo
Storyboard: Hiroyoshi Mitsunobu
Episode Director: Yuzo Yamada
Animation Director: Hiroshi Kanazawa
Key Animation: Animaruya

Episode 8
Script: Tokio Tsuchiya
Storyboard: Hiroyoshi Mitsunobu
Episode Director: Yuzo Yamada
Animation Director: Hiroshi Kanazawa
Key Animation: Animaruya

Episode 15
Script: Shigeru Yanagawa
Storyboard: Hiroshi Fukutomi
Episode Director: Yuzo Yamada
Animation Director: Hiroshi Kanazawa
Key Animation: Animaruya

Episode 16
Script: Shigeru Yanagawa
Storyboard: Hiroshi Fukutomi
Episode Director: Yuzo Yamada
Animation Director: Hiroshi Kanazawa
Key Animation: Moriyasu Taniguchi, Kazuaki Mouri, Animaruya

Episode 21
Script: Keiko Maruo
Storyboard: Hiroshi Fukutomi
Episode Director: Yuzo Yamada
Animation Director: Hiroshi Kanazawa
Key Animation: Animaruya

Episode 28
Script: Shigeru Yanagawa
Storyboard: Hiroshi Fukutomi
Episode Director: Yuzo Yamada
Animation Director: Shin’ichi Suzuki
Key Animation: Animaruya

Still being a member of Animaruya (a studio founded by 7 Shin-Ei Doga people such as Hiroshi Fukutomi and Toshiyuki Honda) at the time, Kigami was involved in the episodes outsourced to said studio. That is, episode 2, 8, 15, 16, 21 and 28. While the animation in episode 2 and 8 is very nice, I think the best ones to check out Kigami’s work on this series are 15 and 16 (haven’t watched 21 and 28 yet, though). Episode 15 and 16 were storyboarded by Hiroshi Fukutomi, and boy, the directing is really fun and playful here. I especially liked the scene on the veranda at the beginning of episode 15 where Fukutomi’s storyboarding and Kigami’s rich animation complement each other amazingly well. Fukutomi’s storyboarding includes a lot of rather difficult shots, so he certainly depended on skillful animators like Kigami who could animate such challenging cuts. One characteristic trait of Fukutomi’s directing is moving the camera a lot, and he particularly likes camera rotations. In this interview Fukutomi said that this tendency possibly came from the influence of live-action movie director Daisuke Ito, who is known for a very mobile camera style. Here are two openings directed by Fukutomi which demonstrate his approach pretty well:

The first one, the ‘Kaibutsu-kun’ opening, has the kind of storyboard that might be fun to draw for a director, but which is certainly something like hell for animators. The second one, the ‘Highschool! Kimengumi’ opening, is more reserved regarding background animation and camera moves, but I think it’s pretty well done. There’s no credit for opening animation so it’s not clear who animated it, but it’s been rumored that Yoshiji Kigami might have done the key animation. Kigami also worked on the show itself (he storyboarded episode 20), which was at the very beginning of his career as director. Interestingly, Yamakan recently mentioned that ‘Highschool! Kimengumi’ was his mentor’s (i.e. Kigami’s) directorial (or rather storyboarding) debut work, but I think (if the information on Sakuga@wiki isn’t wrong) Kigami had already done the storyboard of Galactic Patrol Lensman #5 some time before that. Either way, Kigami was very close to Fukutomi during his time at Animaruya. The peak was certainly the OVA ‘Shin Dosei Jidai: Hawaiian Breeze‘ where Fukutomi directed and Kigami was the animation director (there’s no character designer credited, so I guess Kigami did the designs, too). Unfortunately, I’ve never had the chance to watch it since the OVA is pretty rare.

His period at Animaruya and working under Fukutomi certainly shaped Kigami’s own style a lot, and consequently it’s also visible in KyoAni’s work up to today. It’s especially apparent in the episodes directed by Kigami himself, of course. And I think it’s no coincidence that Kigami handled Nichijou #6, which includes the chapter where the principal is wrestling with a deer. In the past, Animaruya was a studio of pro wrestling fans and they even had a training area within the studio with all kinds of body-building equipment back in the day. So I can imagine that Kigami specifically wanted to direct this episode. And in Nichijou #6, you can also find this shot:

If you’re familiar with most of KyoAni’s works, you might notice that they like to use camera rotations or at least more demanding camera work now and then, which I think could be a remnant of Kigami’s long interaction with Hiroshi Fukutomi in the past. I mean, Kigami was the one who animated a lot of Fukutomi’s challenging camera work, so it certainly left a mark on him. Some examples from KyoAni’s anime:

Other examples can be found in Kanon 2006 #19 or in the Jikkyō Powerful Pro Yakyū game openings.

Lupin III – The Woman Called Fujiko Mine #1 staff:
Script: Mari Okada
Storyboard: Sayo Yamamoto
Episode Director: Toru Takahashi
Animation Director: Takeshi Koike

Occult Academy #11 – Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine #1

Lupin III: Fujiko #1 – Occult Academy #11 – High School of the Dead #6

Lupin III – The Woman Called Fujiko Mine #1 staff:
Script: Mari Okada
Storyboard: Sayo Yamamoto
Episode Director: Toru Takahashi (Utena Ass. Director => Details)
Animation Director: Takeshi Koike

Lupin III: Fujiko – Utena – Penguindrum

After watching 7 episodes of ‘Ano Natsu de Matteru’ I’m bound to say that this is a damn fine show considering its genre and the studio. I can’t say that I’m an avid fan of romantic comedies or that I like J.C. STAFF‘s usual output. Actually, the last J.C. STAFF series I’ve watched in its fullness was ‘Toaru Kagaku no Railgun’, which happens to be one of the previous works of Tatsuyuki Nagai, the director of ‘Ano Natsu’. He is one of the few directors who do decent work at J.C. STAFF these days. J.C. STAFF‘s glorious days where Kunihiko Ikuhara, Fumihiko Takayama and Akiyuki Shinbo were active there are long gone, nowadays it’s just the embodiment of the copy-and-paste approach and stagnation in the industry. While ‘Ano Natsu’ doesn’t deviate from the usual J.C. STAFF formula, it’s a surprisingly well-executed and fun show for the most part. Director Tatsuyuki Nagai and character designer Masayoshi Tanaka have already proved several times that they are a good team that knows how to make enjoyable anime, and ‘Ano Natsu’ is no exception. Once again Masayoshi Tanaka‘s excellent animation backs up Nagai‘s skillful directing, and fortunately their work isn’t dragged down by Mari Okada‘s writing this time.

What I particularly enjoy about Nagai‘s directing is his clever visual language. He’s good at getting something across to the viewers with inconspicuous means and at telling the story on a visual level. Sometimes he conveys a lot with just one cut/image or the way he connects different cuts. He pays a lot of attention to the character acting as well by laying the foundation for the characters’ liveliness and the amusing character interplay in his detailed storyboards. One thing I’ve repeatedly found quite conspicuous is Nagai sharing some characteristics regarding his visual language with Mamoru Hosoda or the ‘Ikuhara school‘ as a whole. I think there has definitely been influence on Nagai coming from this direction, with some of his work featuring (visual) traits I usually associate with the ‘Ikuhara school’. By way of illustration, some examples:

♦ Scene composition/Windows

♦ Scene composition/Sky

♦ Window Frame Shadow

♦ Shading

♦ White background/colored outlines

♦ Hands

♦ Vapor Trails

♦ Bonus

I guess it’s time for a new post on Studio Ordet since their first TV anime ‘Black Rock Shooter’ is currently airing. Let me say right from the start that I think the TV version of BRS is worse than the OVA in almost every respect, which has mostly to do with some unfortunate changes regarding the main staff. However, since my last write-up on Studio Ordet in 2009, there have been some serious changes within the studio, and unfortunately for the worse. I liked Studio Ordet in its early days for bringing KyoAni‘s vivid animation to non-KyoAni shows and for Yutaka Yamamoto‘s fun directing, too. Just have a look at early Studio Ordet episodes such as Kemeko Deluxe! #2 or Sketchbook ~full color’S~ #11 which you could essentially call subcontract work by Kyoto Animation due ot the high ratio of Ex-KyoAni staff involved. Back then, Studio Ordet‘s usual line-up of animators was fantastic with Shinobu Yoshioka, Satoshi Kadowaki, Yuusuke Matsuo and Gorou Sessha (among some other former KyoAni animators credited with pseudonyms) collaborating.

It’s difficult to figure out who is behind each and every pseudonym used in early Ordet work, but due to the fact that most Ordet-associated people were also close to Yamakan in their KyoAni period, it’s not an impossible undertaking. It isn’t too hard to keep track of the people who leave KyoAni either, or at least of those who did some kind of meaningful work at KyoAni (key animators, background artists, production runners, etc.). For instance, I’m pretty sure that the character designer of ‘Kannagi’ – credited with the pseudonym Mima Kakeru – is Satoshi Kadowaki. Yamakan once said that ‘Mima Kakeru‘ was a joint-pen name for several spirited artists, so it probably depends on the work. In the case of ‘Kannagi’, I’m sure that Satoshi Kadowaki is at least one of the persons behind the pseudonym. And that not only due to the nature of the designs, but for the simple reason that one of Kadowaki‘s art books was even promoted with ‘by the character designer of Kannagi’, so this one is actually a no-brainer. As far as the animation director of Sketchbook #11 is concerned (similarly credited with Mima Kakeru), I’m pretty sure that this one stands for Kadowaki, too. The way the faces are drawn in that episode (with a slightly three-dimensional feel to it) leaves little doubt for me.

The other interesting person who uses an obvious pen name and who frequently participated in Ordet‘s early work is Gorou Sessha. In the past few years he has gotten quite some attention for his nice work on Naruto. I’ve always suspected that Seiji Watanabe might be behind this pen name, who kind of disappeared after leaving KyoAni. He was credited on Kannagi and even on Yutaka Yamamoto‘s live action movie, though. Interesting enough, according to an event report from Yamakan‘s lecture at Kyoto University festival last November, Yamakan apparently mentioned that Gorou Sessha was his junior back in his Kyoto Animation period. In the case of Seiji Watanabe, this would make perfect sense since Watanabe often worked on Yamakan‘s episodes and even helped out as assistant director on episodes like Haruhi #00 and #12. For me, Seiji Watanabe was always one of the most recognizable KyoAni animators due to his vaguely Kanada-like style (extreme poses and exaggerated movement). The best example for this is the ‘anime within anime’ that he animated for AIR #5. He drew 130 sheets of key animation and no inbetweens were used as he mentioned in a comment. And it’s rumored that he not only helped Yamakan processing the concert scene in Haruhi #12, but also animated the most difficult cuts on his own.

Anyway, before I stray too far from the topic indicated by the heading of this post, let’s return to the current state of Studio Ordet. As I said above, Ordet has very much changed during the past two years. It has never been an ordinary anime studio in the first place (at least until now), but more of a free union of artists. Yamakan said so himself in the recent discussion with SANZIGENs Hiroaki Matsuura and Trigger‘s Masahiko Otsuka featured in Newtype 03/2012 (supposing that the transcripts on 2ch are correct). According to what Yamakan said, Ordet is now in middle of the transformation from a free artist group to a full-fledged anime studio. Unfortunately, this goes hand in hand with some serious changes within the studio. Meanwhile, most of the people who made Ordet‘s early work shine have left the studio. Satoshi Kadowaki seems to have moved on to Production I.G. with working on Guilty Crown and the Sengoku Basara Movie. The likes of Gorou Sessha and Yuusuke Matsuo have always had quite a loose connection to Ordet to begin with. Even BRS director Shinobu Yoshioka is apparently not a Ordet member (anymore?), or at least he distanced himself from Ordet when somebody asked him on Twitter last year whether Touko Takao was a member of Studio Ordet. From the early Ordet regulars, only Emi Kesamaru, Ryouichi Nakano and former KyoAni production runner Ryouko Tomii seem to remain for now. To compensate for the persons leaving and probably to set a foundation for further growth as well, Ordet has hired some freelancers in the recent past. Judging by recent Ordet work ([C] #6, Idolmaster #11 and Working!! #7), current regulars are as follows:

♦ Yosuke Yamamoto [山本陽介] – Production Runner
♦ Kazuya Sako [佐古一哉] – Key Animator
♦ Ryouichi Nakano [中野良一] – Key Animator
♦ Maimu Matsushima [松嶌舞夢] – Key Animator, Inbetweener
♦ Sachika Choumei [長命幸佳] – Inbetweener, Inbetween Check
♦ Mamiko Sekiya [関谷麻美子] – Inbetweener, Inbetween Check
♦ Ritsuko Shiina [椎名律子] – Inbetweener
♦ Arina Inaba [稲葉麻莉奈] – Inbetweener
♦ Masayo Tamaki [玉置雅代] – Inbetweener

Their current core staff is nothing to speak of if you ask me. And I’m still wondering why Ordet is credited for Black Rock Shooter’s ‘(2D) animation production’ instead of Trigger. If you have a look at the credits of BRS TV, you might notice that Trigger was credited in the first three episodes with ‘production cooperation’ and that many key animators are (former) Gainax regulars (so probably now with Trigger). The other studio credited for cooperation is ‘Raiden Film‘, which apparently was also brought up in afore-mentioned Newtype feature as a new studio joining ‘Ultra Super Pictures‘. Ryouichi Nakano and Kazuya Sako are the only key animators in the first three episodes that I would associate with Ordet. So why didn’t they credit ‘Ultra Super Pictures‘ to begin with? Sure, not all ‘members’ of USP are involved in BRS, but still…

Post-’Fractale’ Ordet work:
♦ [C] – The Money and Soul of Possibility [TV]: Production Cooperation #6
♦ Doraemon (2011) [TV]: Inbetween Animation #429
♦ Dantalian no Shoka [TV]: Inbetween Animation #9 #10 #11
♦ THE IDOLM@STER [TV]: Production Cooperation #11
♦ Working!! [TV]: Production Cooperation #7
♦ Black Rock Shooter [TV]: Animation Production

♦ The Soul Taker #3

Storyboard/Episode Director: Yasuhiro Takemoto
Animation Director: Mitsuyoshi Yoneda
Mecha Animation Director: Noriyuki Kitanohara
Key Animation: Noriyuki Kitanohara, Hiroyuki Takahashi, Tatsuo Kamiuto, Yoshiaki Urata, Masashi Tsuji, Tomoe Aratani, Mitsuyoshi Yoneda, Shouko Ikeda, Yasuhiro Takemoto, Mariko Ueno, Shinobu Yoshioka

Two episodes of ‘The Soul Taker’ were subcontracted to Kyoto Animation (#3 and #6), and ‘subcontracted’ means in this case that KyoAni was in charge of storyboard, episode direction, key animation, inbetweens, finishing/coloring, backgrounds and photographing, i.e. they did almost everything. It’s KyoAni‘s first and only collaboration with Akiyuki Shinbo, and as such it sure is different in style compared with their other work. I have the feeling that particularly the episode director, Yasuhiro Takemoto, has been influenced by working on this Shinbo show. Takemoto usually stands out in KyoAni shows for his tricky directing as can be seen especially well in his AIR and Nichijou episodes. And Takemoto was also the one who storyboarded a certain scene with Kyon near the end of KyoAni‘s ‘The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya’ movie that stood out for the unusual approach (at least for KyoAni).

I’m not sure to what extent Takemoto‘s storyboard was corrected as this episode is marked by Shinbo‘s characteristic directing, but there are certainly some scenes where Takemoto‘s good sense for depth and layout organization shimmers through. In any case, the directing is quite impressive, particularly the daring Kanada-inspired colour coordination makes for a very unique look. Shinbo‘s bold direction is certainly the main reason why ‘The Soul Taker’ doesn’t feel dated at all for a show that originally aired more than 10 years ago.
KyoAni‘s involvement in episode 3 is especially apparent in the nice character animation, even though the storyboarding doesn’t leave that much room for extensive character acting. The key animation list of this episode includes many of KyoAni‘s most important staff members at that time (and even today). Most of them went on to become directors or animation directors, with two of them (Noriyuki Kitanohara and Hiroyuki Takahashi) even playing a pivotal role in shaping the newcomers at the studio by serving as lecturers at KyoAni‘s animation school. What’s interesting is how KyoAni handled the action scenes – they are known for their detailed depiction of everyday life and not for action stuff after all. While the action is definitely worth watching, I have to say that it’s rather thanks to the good directing than anything else (there are some nice bits of action animation, though). ‘The Soul Taker’ #3 is also one of the few instances where KyoAni had to animate mechas, which were probably handled – for the most part – by Noriyuki Kitanohara (who was the mecha animation director). In this sense, it was somewhat a warm-up for Full Metal Panic.

♦ Tenshi ni Narumon #20

Storyboard: Katsuyo Hashimoto (Mamoru Hosoda)
Episode Director: Yoshiko Shima
Assistant Ep. Director: Yutaka Yamamoto
Animation Director: Kazumi Ikeda
Key Animation: Tatsuo Kamiuto, Noriyuki Kitanohara, Masaharu Sasai, Hiroyuki Takahashi, Yasuhiro Takemoto, Shouko Ikeda, Mariko Ueno, Masatsugu Morimoto, Yoshiaki Urata, Masaya Makita, Shinobu Yoshioka, Tomoka Morisuna, Tomoe Aratani

This one is quite an interesting combination with Mamoru Hosoda storyboarding and Kyoto Animation in charge of processing/animating. ‘Tenshi ni Narumon’ (1999) was kind of a reunion of ‘Utena’ staff, so it’s not surprising that Mamoru Hosoda is involved in this Studio Pierrot show. Yoshiko Shima – who had directed many of KyoAni‘s subcontract episodes during this period but resigned later – was the episode director, and she was assisted by no one less than Yutaka Yamamoto aka Yamakan. Besides Yoshiji Kigami, Shima was probably the biggest influence on Yamakan early on in his career. Heck, she definitely had also quite a lot of influence on the other directors at KyoAni, seeing how some typical stylistic traits of KyoAni emerged around this time in her episodes (e.g. ‘Fancy Lala’ #23 B Part: the way conversations are staged, close-ups of mouthes and legs and so on).

There’s a strong Utena feel to Hosoda‘s storyboarding in this episode due to the frequent use of same-perspective shots and characteristic horizontal compositions. The layouts are reused to a degree that is almost bothersome, though. Hosoda usually uses same-perspective shots very effectively as can be seen in ‘The Girl Who Leapt Through Time’ where he fused the narrative structure with the visuals really well by using that technique to establish a connection between key scenes. There’s also a sequence in ‘Tenshi ni Narumon’ #20 that could be straight out of an episode directed/storyboarded by Shigeyasu Yamauchi. As for the animation, it’s nothing out of the ordinary, but quite okay for that time. About half of the key animators credited have already left KyoAni, such as ‘Black Rock Shooter’ director Shinobu Yoshioka or Tomoe Aratani. That said, KyoAni‘s style sure had been different back then before the change to the soft movement of today that came with the rise of Yukiko Horiguchi.

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.