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
Ani no Miyako 
> 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.
Hmm, unfortunately the image was so powerful it really distorted the original work into horror away from its doujin-mystery elements. Though I suspect that did make the show more popular, it didn’t help DEEN’s reputation any.
I heard from Oban Star Racers’ making-of that japanese animators are individualists and most of them want to work with their own style and own way, that’s why they refuse to work on non-japanese animation projects if they can’t do what they want.
Maybe that’s what Numata did on Kannagi and director Yamakan wasn’t very pleased to have his directives ignored.
That’s only a hypothesis though.
@astrange
I can’t imagine what the Higurashi anime would be like without these overdone moments of madness, they have become more or less the show’s trademark. I mean, whenever a show features extremely distorted faces and exaggerated laughter, the reaction of most fans is basically: ‘That’s just like Higurashi!’. However, I concede that – overall – Deen didn’t really do justice to the source material. It could have been so much more in the hands of a capable director…
@vinhnyu
The problem Yamakan had with Kannagi #2 was rather excessive use of animation frames and not really the style. Of course, you could say that using many drawings is part of Numata’s style (as animation director), but I think that he is professional enough to follow and adapt to the director’s instructions. Who knows what happened behind the curtain…
Hmm… great write-up as always. Definitely some interesting stuff, but that’s to be expected whenever Kanada is part of the discussion.
I’ll start off by saying that in my very humble personal opinion, I feel it’s kind of ‘wrong’ to try and name a “successor” to Kanada. I mean, the guy’s impact on the industry was so great that it seems impossible to me to name someone that has succeeded him. And like you pointed out, the criteria is very vague. Would the person have had to been as influential as he was (good luck finding that guy), or would it be the person who best animates in his style and uses his various techniques and ‘Kanada effects’?
Anyway, if I did have to choose someone who I think has “inherited Kanada‘s blood”, it would be Imaishi without a doubt. Not a knock on Numata, but Imaishi’s work just screams “Kanada” to me, and apparently it does to alot of other people as well.
As for Numata himself, well, there’s not much I can add that you haven’t said yourself. He’s obviously a great animator, as anyone who takes a look at any of his work can tell. As you said, he loves to make things move, and his unusual timing really ups the impact of his action scenes. I’m a bit surprised to learn that he hasn’t had his own series yet, but I probably shouldn’t be. I think it’s pretty clear that his passion lies with animating more so than any other part of the production process.
If I was going to nit-pick and look for something to fault him for, I would say that at times I think his animation can be a bit too lively. What I mean is that there are times when I feel that there’s some unnecessary movement in his work that seem don’t seem to serve much purpose. This is of course fine during his action scenes because, well, they’re action scenes, and lots of movement is to be expected. But during non-action scenes, and more subtle moments, I think that it can make his character acting look a bit jittery. It’s by no means a big deal though, and really, I can only vaguely recall a few moments where I felt that way when watching something his. Of course, that’s just my personal opinion, and I’m sure people may disagree.
Very interesting tidbit on the Kannagi episode. I agree that Numata isn’t very likely to disobey direct orders, so the case was probably that no one ever told him when to stop. I guess that’s just what happens when you give an ambitious animator like Numata free reign. If Yamakan was gonna react the way he did, he should have had a tighter grip on things. Maybe kyoani was onto something when they claimed “he hasn’t reached the level of a director yet”, haha. Or maybe Yamakan just doesn’t like attending the endless meetings required of the series director position. Well, if Fractale flops and he does retire, he can always go back to his conducting gig. He looked like he was enjoying himself in that video that was making the rounds.
Oh ya, I’ll say that Numata has most definitely earned the tile of ‘Lolimator’. It’s pretty apparent that he had the time of his life animating that KnJ OP, haha. The detail it contains speaks for itself.
@bloo
Thanks for your great comment, always interesting to hear your thoughts.
I agree, Kanada is certainly in a class of his own when it comes to the influence on Japanese animation, so trying to find a ‘real’ successor is near to impossible. However, if I had to name someone who carries Kanada’s spirit over to a new generation of anime, it would definitely be Hiroyuki Imaishi. His animation is so energetic and vigorous, the poses incredibly stylish and every single frame a thrill of its own. That’s what Kanada-esque animation is all about, at least for me.
Regarding the ‘unnecessary movement’ in some of Numata’s scenes, I think I know what you mean. As I said above, it’s one of his tendencies to make everything move a lot, so the constant and shaky movement even in ordinary acting scenes is a consequence of this. I can’t say that I dislike this particularity of his since it makes the acting and posing feel much more versatile and less static.
As far as I remember, some others also mentioned Yamakan’s ejection from KyoAni in this context (i.e. trouble with Kannagi #2). Maybe his control of budgetary issues on ‘Lucky Star’ was also too loose or he didn’t handle the schedule well, who knows…
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