Itano would work on two movies in 1984: Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer and Macross: Do You Remember Love. Both films display Itano still leveling in up in his sakuga, and him also have a keen level of detail for background animation. His cuts in Urusei are especially evident of this.

The next year, Itano would take a big leap into not only animating but directing on Megazone 23. On part one of the OVA Itano would work as storyboard artist, unit director, chief animation director, animation director, action director, lyric writer for the show’s insert song, and even as a voice actor as a navigator. Part 2 he would serve as director. Itano’s influence is far and wide here inspiring an array of younger animators under his supervision, for both parts respectively. sakugabooru.com/post/show/216882 in this cut from part 2 of the OVA, Morifumi Naka gives Master Itano a run for his money. This anime also had a bunch of younger animators like Kite series creator Yasuomi Umetsu and future expressionist warlock Shinya Ohira but i’m getting ahead of myself. Check it out when you have the chance.

FULL MOVIE!!!

Itano would spread out his workload a bit working a few years later down the line on Gunbuster now working under his Macross alumni Hideaki Anno. Not anything groundbreaking for Itano in the brief animation he does, but I’m positive his presence was reassuring to the others assigned to the scene sakugabooru.com/post/show/32418\. You can really distinguish Itano’s more Kanada late 70s early 80s lava lamp explosions opposed to Shoichi Masuo’s Anno like realistic explosions.

Macross Plus** was a sequel series 12 years after the original, and while Itano wouldn’t be participating as heavily as he did in the first installment he would go above and beyond to providing some of the finest Itano circus cuts in his entire career. The Macross Plus Movie* is especially evident of this. sakugabooru.com/post/show/38228 There is so much speed in the circus portions of the dogfight. With most cuts entirely on 1s Itano has reached Himalayan levels of animation peaks.

After Macross Plus, Itano would animate less and less. Doing minor animation cuts here and there. He would do some nice work on Medabots in 2000, and the following year Macross Plus director now turned Cowboy Bebop series director Shinichiro Watanabe would have him animate the latter half of the dogfight in Cowboy Bebop The Movie

Itano appears at 5:11 to 5:49
Though he would kind of be overshadowed by Masami Goto in the earlier portion of the fight.

Itano would later go on to direct series like Gantz and Blassreiter. He wouldn’t do barely any animation for over a decade until he did some keys on Mobile Suit Gundam The Origin where he was rejoined with his instructor Yoshikazu Yasuhiko who was the original character designer and animation director of Mobile Suit Gundam (also a super prodigious mangaka).

When following in the footsteps of your idols it’s always good to find something that is solely you, stick to your guns, and not try to be too much of a one for one copy, Itano epitomizes this perfectly. After capturing the creative spirit of his idol Ichiro Itano he solidified himself early on into creating one of the most copied anime action staples in the game. His influence is unrivaled, and his determination was and is still so resolute.

Itano recently served as creature designer on SSSS Gridman and SSSS Dynaezenon

A compilation of insane Itano Circus scenes by Itano and others

Also a quick now belated birthday shoutout to Marie Yasui born the same day as Itano.

A speed demon, Yasui has proved herself to be one of the promising up and coming indie animators. Her super zany and fun graduation work linked above is all done by her. Compositing, backgrounds, animation, you name it she can do it.
She's been a pretty pivotal animator on Eve music videos as of recently, solo KA'ing one video she's been in. An incredibly difficult feat for anyone especially 5 minutes, but Yasui makes it seem easy.

Yasui is pure insanity, and I hope to see her stay around for more solo'd cuts. Recently she did some animation for Bokurano another Eve song

finished nana

S3 OF TO YOUR ETERNITY CONFIRMED

Holy s*** the frieza arc is so good. I loved the battle royale searching for the dragon balls was a great plot. Happy im watching kai so i didnt have to wait like 50000 episodes for goku to arrive

it's time.... Chihayafuru 2

Hello World movie was tight

I think the problem is Boruto tried to do both. You either need to be a different take on Naruto (a more slice of life type series due to the world finally being peaceful) or hone in on being a direct Shounen continuation with the next big bad. Boruto does neither right.

my second favorite part of the series.

Animator Spotlight: Takeshi Honda Part 1

All gifs in order
Nadia: The Secret of The Blue Water (1990)
Otaku No Video (1991)
Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture (1994)
Neon Genesis Evangelion: (1995)
Memories (1995)
End of Evangelion (1997)
Perfect Blue (1997)
Blue Submarine No. 6 (1998)
Jin-Roh (1999)
Hajime No Ippo (2001)

Happy Birthday Takeshi Honda he turned 55 today. As an animator Honda is solely revered for the insane amount of character he can put into cut, and also walking a fine line between anime exaggeration and lifelike realism. Honda is not only an insanely good animator, but a pure master at animation direction delivering some of the highest tier of anime action. Honda has been crucial in the best animated cuts of several studios, from Gainax, to Production IG, to Khara, to Trigger. Let’s explore how he got here, and cemented his legacy as one of Japan’s best modern animators.

Since Honda has such a sizable body of work this will be split into two parts. First I will cover his work from the late 80s to the turn of the century. Then cover everything from the 00s to the early 2020s.

Takeshi Honda loved drawing pictures from a start. Like many animators growing up in the late 70s Honda took influence from the usual suspects like; Mobile Suit Gundam, Space Battleship Yamato, and Lupin The Third. Early on Honda would work at Atlier Giga a studio subcontracted under Sunrise and Toei. Honda did some some brief in between animations during that time, then would move over to AIC to work on the hilariously titled s***anime Cream Lemon. Following another similar sounding series titled Angel Lemon Honda would see a job advertisement in Animage magazine. He wouldn’t hear back for six months until he received a letter from Gainax for an interview.

Honda’s first work would be on Gunbuster where he would do inbetweening on the first episode, and one hundred shots for the fifth episode. This would be the start of the long lasting friendship of Hideaki Anno and other animators within the Gainax circles. Though this would be the start of one journey, Honda wouldn’t get recognition until episode 8 of Bubblegum Crisis. According to the story, animation director Takahiro Kishida told Honda that he wasn’t following the correct animation practices he could be. Hidenori Matsubara, in Honda’s words was “kind of a big scary figure, but I totally ignored his style and just did it my way.” Ishida, amazed at Honda’s sheer cockiness found his decision very brave and called him “the master”. (The specificities of the scene wanted bishoujo “pretty girl animation, but Honda opted for a more comical approach).
sakugabooru.com/post/show/8388
It’s a great scene on its own, the crying expression and exaggerated movements are amazing and seem to be uninhibited by any character sheets or even be on model.