The next year after some KA Macross Utsunomiya would join Koji Morimoto once again for the Beyond segment on The Animatrix. With character designs by Takeshi Honda, Utsunomiya was able to adapt snuggly in the pocket world Morimoto had envisioned he’d even use rotoscoping which is a huge no-no in anime, but he did anyways to emphasize the realism sakugabooru.com/post/show/201274

In 2004, we’d see two major titles have Utsunomiya’s stamp on it. The first would be Paranoia Agent Episode 8, a one shot self-contained story that featured Utsunomiya’s direction, AD, KA, and storyboarding with freedom granted by Satoshi Kon. These characters would never be seen again but its one of the most depressing and disturbing episodes concept wise overall. The episode spurred the big four of realism animation with Toshiyuki Inoue, Hiroyuki Okiura, Takeshi Honda, and Tetsuya Nishio all making appearances. Norio Matsumoto was brought on as well as freelance. The very shrewd image boards highlight Utsunomiya’s attention to detail even with simple designs

My favorite scene of the episode is when the three photo bomb a group of friends, that somehow seem oblivious that they were photobombed , suggesting some creepy things going on.

The second project would be Mamoru Oshii’s sequel to his 95 masterpiece, Ghost in The Shell 2: Innocence. Again joined by the realists Okiura, Inoue, and Honda. Being the puppeteer like animator Utsunomiya is, he’d animate a quick action scene between the robots. Utsunomiya’s action prowess hadn’t change as he’d stay fairly limited on 2s and 3s, and you can see it in the movement of the dolls sakugabooru.com/post/show/160609\. Even the slow motion is mainly on 2s.

Utsunomiya’s animation on the 2005 anime Aquarion Evol would be a heavy source of contention. When he’d be on model for the show he’d do a decent job though the designs wouldn’t necessarily suit his style sakugabooru.com/post/show/14868\. He would then go to direct AD and storyboard the dreamworld segments of episode 19, and his designs got a lot of flack from fans of the show. So much so that director Shoji Kawamori had to defend the episode. Though this episode was heavily flacked it would begin the use of using 3d layouts by Utsunomiya “which are now commonplace in anime production”. This episode also marked the inclusion of animator Ryousuke Sawa better known as Ryo-Timo who is considered one of the first webgen animators ever, pushing himself to animate scenes digitally in the scenes he’s placed on.

The next major project slated for Satoru Utsunomiya would be Noein, and this is the show where I think the term “grandfather of webgen animation” comes into play. At the time digital animation was in its infancy in 2005-06, and Utsunomiya needed to push technology further. He recruited animators such as Timo to train others like Kenichi Kutsuna and his contemporaries to animate digitally primarily for the show. Utsunomiya would make heavy use of digital, and helped delegate cgi into scenes with traditional animation sakugabooru.com/post/show/171645

Utsunomiya worked briefly at Bones around the time doing key animation for Fullmetal Alchmemist and then Eureka Seven both of which he did OP animation for.

running cut with Ed and Al dodging Wrath is Utsunomiya

hand holding scene

He’d also do sweeping luscious animation for Eureka Seven Episode 43 sakugabooru.com/post/show/8256

In 2006, on Kemonozume Utsunomiya would pen a pretty terrifying scene sakugabooru.com/post/show/185625 the odd animation doesn’t help, and makes you realize just how creepy Utsunomiya can make his designs

Also notice in a lot of Utsunomiya's storyboards he likes using washed out gray tones

Down the line, Utsunomiya would collaborate with Yasuomi Umetsu for the first time a while on Kite Liberator doing some animation, and samely just decent KA on Oshii’s Sky Crawlers. It would not be until 2011 Fullmetal Alchemist: Sacred Star of Milos we’re reminded why Utsunomiya is a great animator. Working alongside his student Kutsuna, he even had adopted Kutsuna’s sakuga hallmark Kutsuna Lightning first pioneered in the movie. It’s an amazing scene in a pretty bad movie.
sakugabooru.com/post/show/185754 he’d even use brush stroke speed lines which were a quality of Timo’s animation. It’s so nice to see a teacher adopting the techniques of his students to make their craft better and newer.
Other webgeners like Shingo Yamashita and Kenichi Fujisawa would take note of Kutsuna’s technique becoming the standard for the film and a webgen staple for times to come.

In the 2010’s Utsunomiya would still remain surprisingly active. He began experimenting doing cg animating on video games, and trying to use more digital tools to his advantage. He’d do some brief commercial work here and there and occasionally would step up to key animate on certain films. Giovanni’s Island is a standout particularly due to the wonderful personality of all characters being brought to life even by someone as limited and straightforward as Utsunomiya.

Utsunomiya from 0:08 to 1:02, Toshiyuki Inoue handles the final seconds

In 2015, the Nihon Animator Expo was being held and Satoru Utsunomiya would become production team working on his personal directorial debut Three Fallen Witnesses. He drafted, directed, teleplay’d, storyboarded, layout’d, character designed, AD, and KA’d the short mostly by himself with a handful of unknown artists.

The next couple of years had Utsunomiya showing up sporadically, he’d work on a number of movies and shows, particularly Terra Formers and Lupin III. He would famously animate the Persona 5 opening along with Production I.G. regulars Kouichi Arai and Tetsuya Nishio

Utsunomiya 0:22 to 0:45

Utsunomiya since has been pretty quiet mostly just doing KA, most recently on Masaaki Yuasa’s Lu Over the Wall, and the bizarre project Batman NInja.

Within the walls of Japan’s new wave of realism animation there has to be some kind of school of thought placed under Satoru Utsunomiya. I am really surprised there isn’t considering all of the successful talent he has mentored, directly and even indirectly in the case of animators like Yutaka Nakamura. While like the more revered realists such as Hiroyuki Okiura or Toshiyuki Inoue, Utsunomiya has nowhere the sizable filmography that they do, however, like his students Iso and Timo they aren’t dead set on that level of dedication to their animation either. Not to say they aren’t good enough but the Utsunomiya-school has been more set on limiting yourself to get the most pleasing result, and in his case it has paid off in spades. From his early days to present animation, Utsunomiya always has had a limit to the way his animation flows, this can also be said same with his character designs. Nothing is exactly pretty to look at with Utsunomiya, but to the detractors you can at least call it unique. Is it unique in the sense that his vision for his scenes are challenging? or is there something “kabuki” about it? realizing that animation isn’t real life it’s more so theater and conveys that sense? Maybe we will never know, all I know is Utsunomiya is an innovator and has pushed anime animation in small ways that he will never get a large sum of credit for, but I am sure he has nothing to complain about cause what he has built is perfect.

anime was a mistake

YYH>>>>

I forgot to mentioned that Utsunomiya also worked on the storyboards for the Popolocrois video games.

qcmsj439.wixsite.com/utsunomiya/imageboard Utsunomiya's website, here you can see his actual artstyle on full display

Every Episode of Gosensozama Banbanzai

You're right, fam. My bad. I'll edit it.

Lmao Ik you're playin, but Imma check this one out fr.

Only after I finish Hajime no Ippo tho

just finished s1 of Vinland Saga. this one has a lot of Kingdom influence, i f*** with it. only 2 episodes into s2 but it’s starting off really well.

LMFAO