Animator Spotlight: Ken Yamamoto/Leaf

All gifs in order
Flip Flappers (2016)
Welcome to the Ballroom (2017)
Fate/Apocrypha (2017)
Devilman Crybaby (2018)
Darling in the Franxx (2018)
The Promised Neverland (2019)
Psycho-Pass 3: Sinners of the System (2019) Presumed
Children of the Sea (2019)
Fate/Grand Order Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia Episode 5 (2019)
Fate Grand/Order: Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia Episode 11 (2019)
Promise - Eve MV (2020)
Jujutsu Kaisen (2021)
SSSS.DYNAZENON (2021)
Princess Connect Re:Dive (2022)
One Piece: Film Red (2022) Layout Only
Mob Psycho 100 (2022)

Happy Birthday to Ken Yamamoto or as I will be referring to him by his fan name Leaf. Leaf has been a serious threat within the new generation of animators coming out of Japan. Not only has he done a majority of cuts solo, but he has also displayed a very high diversity in types of animation. Whether it is fighting, effects, debris, hair, character acting, liquid, creatures, and even food Leaf has it down to a T.

Leaf was born in Ontario, Canada in 1992. He’d shortly move to Japan as a kid, and would begin to grow having an interest in animation. For a short while he’d move to work at Production I.G. being an in-between animator though between slowly became a rising freelance animator. He’d done in-between animations for a short while in his early 20s on shows like Space Dandy, Plastic Memories, Attack on Titan, and Joker Game.

Leaf’s first big step into Key animation was on Kiyotaka Oshiyama’s Flip Flappers in 2016. At just 24 years old, Leaf was showing an incredible array of animation techniques and styles. He is almost unidentifiable in the episodes he’s placed on, due to him showing so many idiosyncrasies and is elusive within the KA staff. Though he may seem a little undefined as an animator at this point one influence his obvious in the way he draws hair, and it may be subtle but it’s for sure Hironori Tanaka. The unexacting frame rate, and catawampus effects are very reminiscent of his animation style.

Leaf’s debut on Episode 2, show’s an incredible Yuasa style weirdness, even doing a full morph animation at the end sakugabooru.com/post/show/218656\. In Episode 5, and 8 he’s able to nice running cuts, and also balance it with character acting and background animation. Episode 10 we get some very creepy Yasunori Miyazawa type of dreamy hallucination weirdness, and is one of the first instances we see Leaf’s noticeable spark effects sakugabooru.com/post/show/28193\. On Episode 13 we get to see a very smooth cut animated by Leaf (one above in the gif compilation).

Leaf had proved himself on Flip Flappers though it wasn’t anything to get him super noticed. The show wasn’t a huge hit but showed promise for him. He’d return to I.G. to work on Haikyuu, the same year. The next year he’d work on the long awaited Season 2 of Attack on Titan now a key animator, though didn’t do anything super standout. He leaped over on one episode of Fate Apocrypha, and then would have a larger role on Welcome to The Ballroom. This is where we begin to see Leaf’s more realistic character acting, though it is more macabre compared to his later works. He’d work on the OP, Episode 12, 19, 22.

His Yuasa love would come full circle working the next year on Devilman Crybaby doing some very effective perspective shots sakugabooru.com/post/show/119116 . The same year Leaf would work a majority of cuts on several shows. Marchen Madchen, Caligula, Legend of The Galactic Heroes, Darling in the Franxx, Major 2nd, Encouragement of The Climb, FLCL Prologue, Run With the Wind, and SSSS.GRIDMAN all would benefit from Leaf’s pen, where he’d go into a great deal of character acting and effects cuts. It’s a massive workload all though most cuts were fairly limited.

2019 had Leaf not only working on tv shows but movies. Psycho-Pass: Sinners of the System, Promare, Children of The Sea, and Ride your Wave were the four. On Sinners of The System there is a fairly brutal animated presumedly by him though it is not confirmed. Promare had some brief animation by Leaf, but it was Children and Wave where he truly shined. In Children Leaf animated a 1 minute scene with some fantastic running animation, although the scene was carried by some incredible storyboarding and artwork rather than the drawings itself sakugabooru.com/post/show/111772\. Conversely on Ride we get to see Leaf’s first attempt at food animation and he does a really good job. sakugabooru.com/post/show/111772

At the same time Leaf would be a primary KA on two shows (yes two) super surprising to see considering the volume he’s gotten despite being so young. At this rate he’ll become the next Hironori Tanaka. Promised Neverland and Fate/Grand Order Babylonia. First Promised Neverland Episode 1 has some fantastic character acting with Yamamoto handling a 1 minute thirty second cut. Its a reveal scene and the amount of fear distilled into the characters is so well drawn and thought out. Great direction from Hidekazu Hara sakugabooru.com/post/show/125798\. He’d show up on the OP

and continue to animate through Episode 3, 6, 7, and 11. Where all scenes were an excuse to flex his character acting muscles. sakugabooru.com/post?tags=the_promised_neverland+ken_yamamoto+

While Promised Neverland is Leaf’s early opus into dramatic character acting, Babylonia feels like his masterpiece of action and effects. There are so many highlights to mention, and I can’t believe he was able to juggle that along with the movies he worked on. Going into 2019 to 2020 he’d work on 6 episodes. He’d make one hell of a debut on Episode 5, having part in the fight between Gilgamesh and Enkidu
sakugabooru.com/post/show/105258
With storyboards and direction from Yuta Yamazaki, and animation direction by Maiko Kobayashi, Leaf’s animation is put through the ringer, and he delivers a hell of a scene. The effects animation is fantastic, and the electricity effects all ring as very “web_genny”. Though Leaf is pretty liberal with his frame-rates in his scenes, even using stills on the chains in one shot, he’s still able to convey the sense of large scale magical action, and not being overbearingly showy.

Leaf’s layout for the scene

Leaf would continue with home-runs moving on to Episode 10 doing some nice bird animation? sakugabooru.com/post/show/107307 If Episode 10 is a base run, then Episode 11 is a Grand-Slam. Not only would Leaf animate a majority of the fight scenes in this Episode he would finally get his first taste of being an animation director. He does KA, on the flashback scene with Enkidu and Gilgamesh. In some running cuts in the following scenes you can see heavy corrections from Leaf. Notice how he draws the noses fairly short? sakugabooru.com/post/show/107805 A trait probably carried over from Promised Neverland. The following cuts are a fight scene between Quetzalcoatl and Ritsuka and his friends. This whole scene is in coordination with Leaf’s other key animators, them being Akihito Sudou, Yushi Hori, and Hayato Nishimaki with his corrections of course.

(side note CloverWorks sound effects are so weird)
Leaf handles mostly all of the longer cuts, with the sliding blow exchange between Quetzalcoatl and Mash feeling like an homage to Yutaka Nakamura’s scene in the Star Driver movie sakugabooru.com/post/show/59875 (at 16 seconds in). It’s a fantastic episode, and wonderful first go at animation direction for Leaf. He’d continue to work on Episodes 17, and 20. Both episodes bolstered some pretty nice effects work and shot selection, but not much to report outside of that.

Babylonia was an absolute cinema tier feat for Leaf, and with 2020 around the corner what would happen? A pandemic. Yeah Leaf has less credits in the year I imagine being cooped up at home most of the time wasn’t helping any animation studios at the time. Though he would appear on the Eve music video for “Promise” in October of that year.

Leaf with the crowd disappearances at 2:32, and the falling screaming cut from 3:39 to 3:51
Cloverworks would handle the animation and characters (characters likely drawn by Tomoaki Takase) and Studio Orange did the limited CG portions.

Though Leaf had a considerably smaller workload in 2020, he would be one of the primary animation directors for Fate Grand Order Camelot Wandering; Agateram. This film would not be handled by CloverWorks, instead Production I.G. and Signal M.D.. Leaf would be one of the only outliers of the Cloverworks Babylonia department assisting with AD alongside Satoshi Hattori, Shinichi Wada, Yuta Araki, and Production I.G. wolf Kazuchika Kise. Leaf likely handled the very effect heavy scenes (probably not Kou Yoshinari’s scenes though), likely correcting smoke and spark effects to be a more in line continuation of Babylonia action sakuga.

The next year, Leaf would make a quick appearance on Jujustu Kaisen, animating part of the fight scene between Maki and Miwa.

0:23-54 Leaf

He’d also shortly appear on another Eve music video for “The Gift” around the same time

Leaf 3:29-3:57

In May that year, Leaf was credited for the Dracula’s resurrection scene in Castlevania Season 4 Episode 9, along with the shows main KA staff like Tam Lu and Kamille Areopagita among others

Transformation scene animated by a majority of animators, unsure which cut Leaf partook in

The ending famous (<- this is a joke) Wonder Egg Priority would be Leaf’s next stop where’d he do OP animation

Leaf with the birds and walking cut from 0:50-57

and he’d do justice to some majestic storyboards on Episode 3 sakugabooru.com/post/show/143407

SSSS.DYNAZENON Episode 10 features some fantastic animation from Leaf under the guidance of young Trigger key animator turned pro animation director Kai Ikarashi, Leaf penned an emotionally heavy scene featuring the main cast trapped in their memories sakugabooru.com/post/show/156627

The next big showing from Leaf would be last year on Princess Connect Re:Dive.

he’d be animation director for the OP, (did the first couple of still art shots of a ton characters, and animated the house scenes) and also work on Episode 4, and 11. 4 had some insane sakuga by Leaf sakugabooru.com/post/show/178963 and Episode 11 featured storyboards, KA, AD, and even for the first time ever episode direction by Leaf. sakugabooru.com/post/show/191637

Another direction outing by Leaf would be on the children’s anime Pokemon on the Hisuian Snow shorts. This would feature 3 shorts all directed by Leaf making him series director, even has his storyboarding on Episode 1.

The KA list is stacked for this series, likely thanks to Leaf’s connections in the industry. First paint like animator Yutaro Kubo makes an appearance in the first minutes of the shorts, along with colleague Satomi Maiya. Then afterwards a legion of “web-gen” and/or “web-gen” adjacent animators including; duo Takahito Sakazume and Shun Enokido, Moaang, Yen BM, Myoun, Kerorira, Nogya, Miyaso, Shotarou Ban, Mise, Jiseo, and the Austrian legend himself Bahi JD. Shinya Ohira disciple Takuji Miyamoto made a noticeable KA presence, and Toshiyuki Sato while busy with a bajillion animes all the time somehow showed up. It’s truly a testament to Leaf’s goodwill towards the animators giving them all a bunch little parts to shine in. Though it isn’t a sakuga festival all the time, there is still a lot to enjoy in the very wistful compositing and capturing the magical atmosphere Pokemon so often leads us into.

On One Piece: Film Red (a moive that features 20 ADs for no reason) Leaf provided layouts for the first half of Uta’s “Backlight” performance. The key animation was likely handled by others, but one thing I love particularly about this scene is how synced it is to the music. Not an unexacting task whatsoever.

Leaf layouts from 0:16-0:53

After a quick stop on Made in Abyss in August, Leaf returned to Mob Psycho 100 before working on a brief scene in Episode 4 of Season 2 in 2019. Leaf had a hilarious running cut on Episode 4 of Season 3 sakugabooru.com/post/show/208735, but Episode 8 displays insane array of effects. Under the guidance of Taiwanese director prodigy Hakuyu Go, who served as the episode’s director, storyboard artist, and animation director, Leaf would draw a flurry of effects ranging across our very solar system. Any Go directed episode is bound to have fantastic animation with this entire scene only being an extended portion of a joke panel from the manga.

Leaf 3:08 to 3:23

Leaf, or Ken Yamamoto is wildly gifted. Not only is he one of the most exciting new talents, that will likely become a successful series director one day, but also is a great animator. While his animation isn’t the most craziest stuff you’ll ever see, he manages to breathe life into a scene he covers in a practical and mindful way. Even in basic character acting scenes there is such a large array of expressions, dramatic gravitas, and acting and Leaf changes up his style every single time. From Promised Neverland to Fate/Grand Order to Princess Connect you never know what he will hop on next. He is consistently unpredictable making him a force to be reckoned with in the industry for years to come.

Btw this is the first animator I’ve done a spotlight on that has no work from the 00s 90s or 80s. All 10s and 20s