Tomonaga was scouted by Yasuo Otsuka, who at the time was a part of A Productions, and Kazuo Komatsubara hailing from Oh Productions. In 1975, Tomonaga joined Oh, which funnily made ‘Kanada say that if he didn’t join it in the 70s (probably after he left studio N°1, in 1977) it was precisely because Tomonaga was there and he felt he couldn’t compare’. On shows like UFO Robot Grendizer Komatsubara and Tomonaga showed an affinity for 3d like movement on machinery sakugabooru.com/post/show/156992\. Even though Kanada said he could not compare to Tomonaga this sequence is clearly inspired by him, considering how he was innovating on the fly. In scenes like the 1976 short UFO Robot Grendizer vs Great Mazinger there is an insane display of mechanical prowess and pinpoint frame modulation. sakugabooru.com/post/show/157472, sakugabooru.com/post/show/157551\. The second clip in particular has some of the most insane mecha animation for the era. Around the time he’d then join Otsuka to work on Lupin The III, and was convinced to join the new place he had been stationed at Telecom Entertainment, just after finishing Future Boy Conan (a show that heavily displayed Tomonaga’s character acting). He’d also work on the very first Lupin III film Secret of Mamo in the same year.

In 1979, Tomonaga joined Isao Takahata (future Studio Ghibli co-founder) and Nippon Animation** to work on Anne of Green Gables*. One of his first time working along inspiration, Hayao Miyazaki, Tomonaga was out for blood animating an insane psychedelic flower scene with some cuts of moving flowers covering the entire screen sakugabooru.com/data/d2000f7f54182f867545ddfac74033e2.mp4.

79 would also lead Tomonaga into the classic Rintaro directed Galaxy Express 999 based off of the success of Leiji Matsumoto’s Space Pirate Captain Harlock.
In this movie the combined efforts of Kanada and Tomonaga lead to some of the most phenomenal space battles and effects animation of the 70s. It absolutely makes the catalogue of the two animators careers up to this point look like caveman paintings. While Kanada is the obvious MVP here doing mind boggling effects for the era, Tomonaga does join in as well but takes more a backseat to character acting. For example most of the bar scenes are animated by him where he does a great job conveying the personality of everyone sakugabooru.com/post/show/141796 an especially good job at making Harlock seem like the crazy rogue he is. Although the more, and most iconic scene Tomonaga pens is the realistic walk cycle of Harlock sakugabooru.com/post/show/20025\. At the time doing a 1 for 1 realistic walk cycle was unheard of in anime, and attempting a shot like this must have been risky as hell. The final result is a shot that is so ahead of its time it even proceeds the most realistic parts of Akira.

The next and final film of the year would be Miyazaki’s Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro. The scenes drawn by Tomonaga in the movie are career defining. Miyazaki’s high demand of animators usually results in a supremely high quality of animation, and at the time it was unknown if he could pull it off, but thanks to amazing storyboarding by Miyazaki and a perfect score by composer Yuji Ohno all the pieces were falling in place for a classic.

The car chase scene is an absolute feast of animation with Tomonaga getting to animate side by side with Otsuka and Miyazaki themselves, truly a dream come true. The cars in the scene are modeled directly after Miyazaki’s own Citroen 2CV for Clarisse, and Otsuka owned a Fiat 500 like Lupin. This scene was so iconic it even inspired Toei veteran Naotoshi Shida to become an animator after seeing it in the theater, who still cites Tomonaga as his favorite animator.

Tomonaga handles several cuts here, the iconic car start sequence at 0:13-20 is him, along with a majority of the car chase cuts between him and Miyazaki and Otsuka.

Tomonaga also handles the thwarting of the Count, sharing cuts between other animators as well. Though this is mostly presumption.

Tomonaga animating the final encounter with the Count, he goes from 0:00 to 1:03, animating with someone else.

After the joyride fanfare of Cagliostro things would wind down for Tomonaga for several years. He’d do a ton of corporate work at Telecom and TMS to provide animation direction, and key animation. Jarinko Chie was one of the first standouts. Another Takahata affair, the film also sported character designs by Otsuka. Tomonaga does a majority of character acting sakugabooru.com/post/show/182428 with this scene being my favorite. Some of his best character acting cuts are all over the movie.

A few years down the line, Tomonaga joined Miyazaki to work on the joint Italian-Japanese animation Sherlock Hound.

poster by Tomonaga
Instead of exploring a real life classic of the Arthur Conan-Doyle novels, Miyazaki and writers Marco Pagot and Gi Pagot decided to go with humanoid dogs. Originally the six episodes were produced in 1981 though due to issues with the Conan-Doyle’s estate production ceased for a bit. Eventually it would release in 1984, and would even coincide with the release of Nausicaa of The Valley of The Wind with two episodes merely attached before the screening. Tomonaga worked on Episode 3, 4, and 9. In fact here they are in order, thanks Telecom (edited and exacted to the original order)

Tomonaga does the rescue of Polly around 21:11 -21:58, also does the laughing cut proceeding

Tomonaga in charge of the door break in and escape sequence from 19:29 to 20:12

Tomonaga does the ship battle sequences, and crew scrambling during the middle of the episode.

All of these scenes are fantastic and display Tomonaga’s ineptitude for flawlessly adapting to Miyazaki’s storyboards. Speaking of designs the character of George/Todd, one of Moriarty’s henchmen is modeled after Tomonaga himself.

Todd is the brown dog

a cel of Moriarty and Todd

Another Miyazaki feature would be right around the corner Laputa or Castle in The Sky, and marked the reuniting of Kanada and Tomonaga (unfortunately would be their last). Kanada spent a lot of time gnawing and gnashing at some pretty intense crowd scenes early in the movie, while Tomonaga would handle a brunt of effects animation later on particularly with these cuts here sakugabooru.com/post/show/38827\. Tomonaga exceeds at character acting, particularly running and he does a great job with that too.

Tomonaga returned back to Telecom after Laputa, and with it he’d cover a majority of films. He’d work on another Lupin III film The Fuma Conspiracy, be AD on the Little Nemo film originally commissioned in 1984 from a pilot film that Tomonaga worked on, and following that a slew of outsourced productions. Now around this time from roughy 1986-2011, TMS had Telecom as a holding company and they were contracted overseas to work on American animations. This explains why Tomonaga has credits around this time on several American shows including, DuckTales, Inspector Gadget, a Winnie: The Pooh special, Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, and of course Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series which I will focus on primarily.

Let’s start with Batman. Tomonaga would be brought on early from the start. Though he doesn’t take on the brunt of the original series vs The New Batman Adventures he is presumed to have animated the original opening sequence by himself. As one of the top animators at Telecom it wouldn’t have been surprising.

In the original series he’d be AD on “Demon Quest Part 1 and 2”, and served as KA on two episodes.

When moving on to Superman TMS would commission both Telecom, and add further assistance from Ghibli (<- the legitimacy of the original source of the Ghibli info is in question, though some traits they point out are Ghibli like). On the three part “World’s Finest” (eventually condensed into a movie) Tomonaga would partially storyboard Part 1 and 2 and work on KA and prop/character designs. In fact for Superman Tomonaga would direct 2 episodes “Fun and Games” and “Solar Power”

“Solar Power” is especially interesting considering how it plays into the red sun weakness of the character.

Back on Batman, we would actually see Tomonaga’s presumed key animation on the Episode “Over The Edge” one of the most tragic entries in the show.

Tomonaga handles most of the fighting between Batman and Bane, though the opening fighting is not him

Tomonaga would be nearly unidentifiable for a good decade following his work on Batman. He’d do some brief cuts on The Cat Returns but became super hard to tell where was due to the retake system and him being able to adapt well to outsourced or local Japanese projects. In the 2000s go to work on Cybersix, Return of the Joker, Kingdom Hearts, Sonix X, and even direct Green Lantern: First Flight and Episode 18 of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. One particular highlight is Mujin wakusei Survive where he storyboarded 16 episodes.

In 2013, Tomonaga would make his first appearance on a Miyazaki movie in 26 years following with The Wind Rises. Though he would only animate one scene, it proved he could be capable of animating a super complex crowd scene. The amount characters in frame stunning at some points, and Tomonaga is still somehow able to maintain volume and consistency throughout. sakugabooru.com/post/show/11966

In the 2010s, Tomonaga somehow became more active than he ever had in his career. Despite turning 59 in 2011, this wouldn’t stop him from working on a high number of Lupin III films for a remainder of the decade. After working on two less than stellar films earlier, Lupin III: The Gravestone of Daisuke Jigen. With direction and character designs by Takeshi Koike the movie reinvigorated the franchise into a more serious and lifelike direction.

In 2015, Tomonaga was the director for Lupin III Part IV, directing two episodes and doing character designs. The following year, Tomonaga would direct his first tv full length feature at 63 years old. Along with legendary Lupin writer and creator Monkey Punch and co-director Yuichiro Yano Italian Game would be a more raucous return to the franchise.

The darkness would lurk back on Takeshi Koike’s, Goemon’s Bloodspray where some of the most vicious fighting in the franchise was carried out by Koike and Tomonaga.

the key scenes in which Goemon fights is some of the most insane fighting in the franchise with Kazuhide tackling Hawk’s takedown of the temple sakugabooru.com/post/show/31340 with Koike shortly after delivering an insane exchange of blows sakugabooru.com/post/show/31343 sakugabooru.com/post/show/31341\

Here’s a cool illustration Tomonaga did for Bloodspray

Following the Koike madness, Tomonaga would serve as a storyboard artist for Lupin III Part V, doing KA on 6 episodes taking a backseat from direction. He’d return after on Fujiko Mine’s Lie the most recent Lupin film directed by Koike.

a very fan service heavy movie

Most recently Tomonaga has worked on Tower of God a joint Japanese-Korean effort with Tomonaga mostly doing KA.

Tomonaga at 8:06 to 8:28

Kazuhide Tomonaga may not seem like a cornerstone figure in 70s animation as much as Kanada, he may not be super prolific due to his involvement at Telecom, but he is an unsung hero of innovation. Its hard to put finger on what makes him so great, because he predates so many animation conventions that are so prevalent in anime. In a way his early stuff is like a key animator’s Citizen Kane it may not look like much at first glance, but it fostered in things that became commonplace for the rest of anime. Like I said few animators have worked alongside Kanada, and Miyazaki and its still sad Tomonaga has outlived Kanada. I can’t wait to see what he does next.

Ridiculous point, bc "punching & kicking" (tbh just say shounen) does not automatically invalidate other positive aspects said work may offer the audience. Astronomical leap of logic.

What actually turns a lot of people off anime is the disgusting sexualization of underage characters, which occurs abundantly.

Obv shows that predominantly feature that stuff do not (and should not) represent the medium as a whole, and those who follow that reasoning will ultimately be depriving themselves of discovering some incredible works of fiction.

In short - discern, don't generalize.

Mashle

day 103173 of no dungeon meshi anime announcement trailer

is skip and loafer actually good or is it the usual romcom/SoL s***