eng dub for run w wind not bad

watched like 4 eps dubbed cause i was too lazy to switch language and subtitles on vlc lol

Carol & Tuesday is even more important now then when it aired
Watanabe never misses

Bro...wait a damn min

this mf in Heavenly Delusion got the hots for his own sis|| :dahell: Im finna drop this s\*\*\*. Why do so many authors insert ||this gross incest s\*\*\* into their stories wtf

Attack on Titan dub fans really lost glad I switched S4

you will love run with the wind then

Oh yeah imma not start that . We got enough of that in American s*** for a lifetime

pls use spoilers when you're talking about currently airing shows my guy

zozo.jp/shop/zozospot/goods/73437686/?did=120566027

hard or not hard

Animator Spotlight: Satoru Utsunomiya

All gifs in order
Neo Heroic Fantasy Arion (1986)
Akira (1988)
Yu Yu Haskusho (1993)
Ninku: Tomb of Knives (1994)
Memories: Magnetic Rose (1995)
Ghiblies (2002)
Animatrix: Beyond (2003)
Paranoia Agent (2004)
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004)
Noein (2005)
Kemonozume (2006)
Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos (2011)
Giovanni’s Island (2014)
Three Fallen Witnesses (2015)
Persona 5 (2016)
Lu Over The Wall (2017)

Happy Birthday to Satoru Utsunomiya. In terms of the realist school of animation emerging from the late 80s, Utsunomiya was at the forefront of the movement. Along with Takashi Nakamura, the two both were very hands on with approaching their life like character animation, although later down the line started to take incredibly different approaches. The history becomes more varied when Utsunomiya would inadvertently inspire a lot of techniques utilized in modern animation and webgen digital animation to this day both through his AD work and KA overall. His character designs have been a serious source of contention, garnering praise on shows like Long Live the Ancestors, but outright hatred on projects like Aquarion Evol. Let’s go down the strange rabbit hole of Utsunomiya and how his unusual characteristics changed current Japanese animation in a subtle way.

Utsunomiya was born in 1959 in Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture. As a young child, he had an interest in watching old rebroadcasted Toei Doga and Disney films on TV that made him want to get into animation. It wasn’t until he was shown an art book by Sadao Tsukioka (best known for animating titles like Peace and Resistance and other titles in the late 60s early 70s) that he wanted to fully pursue animating as a career. In 1982, Utsunomiya would join Telecom Animation primarily due to Yasuo Otsuka working at the company. This was shortly after he graduated Nishinoda Technical High School in Osaka.

Utsunomiya got a few brief parts working on smaller roles, he quickly rose up in ranks to key animation around the mid 80s and was able to work on bigger titles Urusei Yatsura and Galactic Patrol Lensman. The Dagger of Kamui from studio Madhouse is an especially important title as it marks the first of many collaborations with director Shigeyuki Hayashi better known as Rintaro director of Galaxy Express 999 and Genma Taisen at the time. This would also unite Utsunomiya with many contemporaries that would go on to shape his animation style permanently. Of course Takashi Nakamura would be present as he had started a shift on Genma Taisen but also animators like Koji Morimoto who would become another advent of the new realist phase. The last significant one would be animator Yasuomi Umetsu who would take early realist animation to extremes in a few years. These peers helped renewed Utsunomiya’s motivation to animate as around the time he considered quitting. This meeting of minds is so important due to the impact that films like Genma Taisen had on anime. While animator Yoshinori Kanada would spearhead the most epic scenes of the film, it was Nakamura that harbored in a new style of more realistic character animation that would garner the film as being “proto-Akira”.

Utsunomiya had to recognize a lot of the subtleties of these animators and would start to find his own way around adapting to the new climate of animation. After working freelance on a few Lupin III projects, he would finally find his way to 1986’s Neo Heroic Fantasia Arion where he would animate a long sequence at 1 minute and 52 seconds.

Utsunomiya shows up around 1:33:13 to 1:35:09 (feel free to watch the whole movie its okay)
One thing that’s noticeable about this sequence is the small character gestures and fluctuating movements between expressions. It’s subtle but it would create a standard for Utsunomiya’s scenes in the future; tight spacing.

Following Arion Utsunomiya would go to work on Megazone 23 Part II and Windaria. The former, directed by sakuga revolutionary Ichiro Itano would also feature character designs by Utsunomiya’s contemporary Yasuomi Umetsu. While being very detailed characters they’d also be very difficult to animate, as Umetsu’s highly stringent emphasis on realism would not benefit many on the project, Utsunomiya included. This movie would also be his first time working with a very young Shinya Ohira would go on later to help Utsunomiya’s biggest titles. Utsunomiya would further get some parts on Love City and Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ, though 1987’s Dirty Pair would have him actively showcase his talents as an action buff sakugabooru.com/post/show/164961\. This scene is not in any way emblematic of Utsunomiya’s present style though a lot of features here throughly place him as a solid animator for the time. There is very slight and exaggerated motion’s that help highlight the personality of the character Carson here through interesting spacing and cool posing.

There is an interesting series of flashing still frames utilized, a very late 80s early 90s thing, highlighted by speed lines and smears. The scene then becomes incredibly abstract with a bunch of speed line backgrounds and effects shapes with impact and liquid effects for some reason.

That same year Utsunomiya would work on Black Magic M-66 directed by Hiroyuki Kitakubo and Masamune Shirow. On animation direction, an also very young but rising talent Hiroyuki Okiura breathed life into the animation, and though it wasn’t the one to one realism he later directed like Jin Roh it would be a start. Shinya Ohira would also return to work alongside him. Though Utsunomiya wouldn’t participate, Robot Carnival released in July that year, and was a test bed for the style of all the animation directors. Umetsu, Nakamura, and Morimoto all would relay their talents into the shorts they directed, and all of them would come to a head on Rintaro’s mangaka student Katsuhiro Otomo’s very own Akira

A lot can be said about the animation of Akira , and how beautiful and breathtaking it is. The KA list is something to gawk at, as it was a collaboration of the young and the old minds meeting at a head and marked a bigger turning point than Genma Taisen five years earlier. Otomo was accompanied of course by Nakamura on animation direction with Morimoto assisting. Yasuomi Umetsu and Yoshinori Kanada would return, but the film also marked the arrival of Masaki Endo, Makiko Futaki, and Shinji Otsuka who were all in branch departments of TMS but would later become the most important studio Ghibli key animators. It’s important to note that several different schools of thought animated on this movie one being the Nakamura branch that of Kanada style realists Okiura and Ohira. The second would be the other realists Shinji Hashimoto, Toshiyuki Inoue, and of course Utsunomiya himself. Yoshiji Kigami would be another coming from Shin-Ei animation. Kigami would later help realize Kyoto Animation as a talent powerhouse and would become the saint of the studio until his death.

If I’m getting off track from Utsunomiya I don’t really apologize, mainly due to the amazing talent on display here as its important to mention most of them. Utsunomiya earlier in Akira would be delegated to character acting scenes. With the scenes solo’d by him, its easy to recognize some pretty heavy AD correction by Nakamura with more frames being instilled, though in wider shots Utsunomiya mostly sticks to 2s and 3s and utilizes way more irregular spacing. In the preceding scene animated by both Utsunomiya and Nakamura the animation shift is pretty massive as Nakamura’s animation comes off a lot more smooth right after Utsunomiya. I’m sure matching the pre-recorded dialogue on the timing sheets must have been difficult.
sakugabooru.com/post/show/14226 sakugabooru.com/post/show/152680
The following scene that was Utsunomiya is when Tetsuo escapes the institute and flys out of the building. This may not be the first, but one the earliest examples where you can begin to see Utsunomiya’s way in which he draws body proportions. More mannequin like having very squared off and segmented separations between the arms and legs. Tetsuo looks very puppet like here.

Akira of course would be a major project for Utsunomiya to handle, though he didn’t do the very iconic effects or character laden scenes handled by people like Inoue or Ohira, he still was one the pillars in making his mark on Japanese animation along with the others, HOWEVER, the next project helmed by Mamoru Oshii would send shockwaves through the industry, Gosenzo-sama Banbanzai! or Long Life to the Ancestors!. A six episode OVA ran from 89-90 where Utsunomiya would debut and handle his animation direction and character designs entirely by himself, along with Shinji Hashimoto’s older brother Kouichi Hashimoto on Episode 3 and 5 assisting on AD. The OVA was produced to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of Studio Pierrot, Oshii would reunite with the voice actors from Urusei Yatsura. Oshii did not give any directions to Utsunomiya allowing him complete freedom.




The designs here became a staple for Utsunomiya highlighting his idiosyncrasies as a master of puppeteering. Some cues would be taken from Takashi Nakamura’s character designs on Peter Pan (a Nippon production made between Akira and Banbanzai) with “the long limbs, round hands , and head” he differentiated himself by being way more absurdist giving them puppet like square heads, and made heavy separation between limbs. The result is a marionette like character that does not conform to realism at all. Though it was pushing the boundaries of what could be done with designs giving an almost heightened sense of theater or live action film. Utsunomiya would be joined by the younger usuals on the animation department. Future expressionist duo Shinji Hashimoto and Shinya Ohira would make appearances, but also surprisingly rising Gainax animator Takeshi Honda would appear too. Two young animators Kazuchika Kise and Tatsuyuki Tanaka would appear, along with Norio Matsumoto and a rare KA credit to Osamu Tanabe who would rarely show up on anything outside of Isao Takahata projects for Ghibli later on. But of course the most important animator to highlight here is Mitsuo Iso considered by Utsunomiya as a “genius”. Toshiyuki Inoue once recounted a story where several animators were invited over to Utsunomiya’s house to watch the first episode of Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket where Mitsuo Iso animated a majority of the opening scene of episode 1. “Once Iso’s sequence was done, they were all awestruck, realizing that ‘this was the birth of a new genius’.” Iso of course would famously implement his use of full limited animation first on Episode 4 of Banbanzai. This meant every frame was key frame for Iso eliminating the need for an in-betweener and animating on 2s and 3s without the smoothness to get from pose to pose. Though this technique is interesting it must have been difficult for Iso as the process for drawing every frame is time consuming, not to even mention Utsunomiya’s particular use of shadows which he wanted to be drawn in the styles of the characters. The mentorship of Utsunomiya would greatly foster Iso’s talents as he’d go on to pursue his full limited approach more and more. The process of the show with Iso or not was still super difficult as Utsunomiya mentioned the first episode took 6 months to finish.

Not only did Gosennzo-sama Banbanzai! change the language of Japanese animation at the time in terms of timing and movement, but the visual nature of Utsunomiya’s character designs shaped the distinguishing features of Pierrot as a whole too as we will later come to see with flow animation from Norio Matsumoto. I haven’t begun to mention Utsunomiya’s own KA work on the show as he animated a pretty lengthy song segment on Episode 4, just minutes apart from Iso’s cut sakugabooru.com/post/show/138438.

Needless to say, Banbanzai! was a huge success for Utsunomiya. It changed the way the industry would approach animation for years to come, and also Utsunomiya as well as his own KA and designs would default to anything similar to Banbanzai! for years to come. This would be true of the next project Fly! Peek the Whale.


I love the boomerang shaped eyebrows

After doing KA, on Hashire Melos Utsunomiya came on to Yu Yu Hakusho in 1993 working on Episode 19, and 26. Episode 26 has pretty interesting animation as Utsunomiya drew cubic like debris with Toguro destroying a building. This scene would evidently inspire Yutaka Nakamura to later create his famous Yutapon Cubes.

The same year Utsunomiya would work on The Hakkenden providing character designs and even episode direction on Episode 3, in stark contrast to the character designs prior. This would kind of be a usual thing to happen on The Hakkenden as Takashi Nakamura would overhaul an entire episode to better fit his style.

Yuugen Kaisha in 1994 would see him animating some pretty heavy action. Episode 4 shows some especially smooth fight choreography all animated on 2s with Utsunomiya once again defaulting to his usual character proportions sakugabooru.com/post/show/8189 One thing impressive about Utsunomiya is he does not use reference footage to animate a scene. He instead just goes by memory and/or improvises on the spot. So seeing him be able to get good results out is surprising.

For the next few years Utsunomiya would work on a number of projects 1995 working on Otomo’s Akira follow up Memories animating on the Magnetic Rose sequence directed by Koji Morimoto. Even here Utsunomiya would still default to his character proportions even when on model in the face sakugabooru.com/post/show/160144 notice the mitten like feet and hands. The following year he’d work on Popolocrois providing key animation and character designs. He’d follow that up with X reuniting him with Rintaro for the first time in 11 years. He’d provide brief KA on Legend of Crystania working on the OP and ED

From 1999-2001 Utsunomiya would disappear for a short while from animating only to show his face again on Episode 2 of Ghiblies in 2002. sakugabooru.com/post/show/70912/satoru_utsunomiya-ghiblies-animated-background_ani. This sequence is amazing, not only is Utsunomiya displaying character acting in frame, but the reflections from the characters in the scene play out as well, a rigorous task to keep up especially at almost 2 minutes.

The image boards for this scene look very nice