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Crazy to think we getting new Rent a Gf and Girlfriend Girlfriend back to back summer and fall season

Fr fr, some scenes are executed so well.

"Without you.. this world is full of darkness"

Animator Spotlight: Yoh Yoshinari

All gifs in order
Neon Genesis Evangelion Episode 1 (1995)
Neon Genesis Evangelion Episode 22 (1996)
The End of Evangelion (1997)
FLCL (2000)
Mahoromatic (2001)
One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island(2005)
Diebuster (2006)
Gurren Lagann Episode 27 (2007)
Gurren Lagann The Movie: The Lights In The Sky Are Stars (2008)
Gurren Lagann Parallel Works (2008)
Panty and Stocking (2010)
Kill La Kill (2013)
Little Witch Academia (2017)
Promare (2019)
BNA (2020) Presumed
Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 Thrice Upon a Time (2021) Presumed

Happy Birthday Yoh Yoshinari. The GOAT…what more can I say? Emerging as a freelancer alongside his older brother Kou Yoshinari, Yoh after Evangelion became the astounding animator he is to this day. Best known for his one shot cuts, Yoshinari’s style exudes the coolness of several animators, and always manage to pack a burst of energy, a sheer symphony of animation which is made very identifiable by his spiraling effects, bouncy character acting, and blooming explosions. A giant of peak Gainax and later on Studio Trigger wherein which he began to grow as a director and teacher for other animators. Time to take a voyage on the story of a person who never imagined they’d be an animator, and then suddenly becoming one of the greatest to ever do it.

Unlike Yoh, older sibling Kou was keen on being an animator from the very start. Though Yoh had no choice in being an animator as his brother looped him into being an assistant he still took on the challenge, and ventured into an uncompromising field. The gap between the two wasn’t wide and once they went to animation school they had already learned enough that they were just messing around. They’d draw influence from paint on glass, sand animation, and other techniques just to get a better sense of how everything works.

The first work that the two were credited for was working on a 1991 OVA called Bousou Sangokushi: Specter Tanjou. Several rough cuts animated by Kou, and Yoh doing second key animation. This collaborative effort between the two would go on for several years as the Yoshinari brothers would be two promising animators making sakuga their playground. The two brothers during this time until Yoh would make his definitive debut on Evangelion were very skilled. sakugabooru.com/post/show/166669 doing some pretty
profound action sakuga here on Fatal Fury: New Battle, and both also would animate scenes solo on the Fatal Fury Movie sakugabooru.com/post/show/121341\. Another mentor would assist with Yoh, and that was of course Gainax star key animator and animation director Takeshi Honda.

Around the end of Nadia of The Blue Water, Kou Yoshinari convinced his brother Yoh to submit an application for Gainax, and after submitting to several other studios Yoh got Madhouse. Yoh would eventually get into Gainax due to an error of them missing his application in the mail. He would reason to Madhouse that we was quitting animation just because he didn’t want to say “I got a better offer at Gainax”.

On October 4th, 1995 Hideaki Anno’s Neon Genesis Evangelion would debut its first episode. While Yoshinari’s initial animation on the first episode would be a bit of a stumble, both literally and figuratively, Episode 2 finally showed what he was truly capable of. After studying and animating mecha on Mobile Suit Victory Gundam, and admiring the works of legendary mecha animators like Masami Obari and Masahito Yamashita Yoshinari made the impossible possible alongside Honda animating dangerously difficult to draw Evas designed by Ikuto Yamashita. Honda had to modify the designs so they could move better.

Yoshinari comes after Honda, right when Eva Unit 01 grabs Sachiel’s hands and breaks them.

The sheer detail of Yoshinari’s cuts is staggering, especially when some scenes are animated on 1s. The bubbly smoke, and springy action all are the earliest most defined hallmarks of Yoshinari 90s action. Even the cut of Sachiel before it’s about to self destruct is incredibly pleasing to look at, with obtuse line work and gothic shading.

Another element to note is the spiraling inner layer of the cross shaped explosion in the end that would become something very prevalent in Yoshinari’s later animation.

From here Yoshinari would animate on 8 more episodes of the show absolutely dazzling everyone. Every time he’d show up it was a moment. I could go through all the highlights: Episode 3 we see some cool energy tendril animation, Episode 8 had an iconic intro shot of Asuka, an Episode 12 we get an insane sequence of the three Evas taking on Sahaquiel or the 10th Angel. sakugabooru.com/post/show/145670
As the sakugabooru posts suggest, it’s crazy to think Yoshinari thought he was a “noob” compared to Honda. Though his mecha didn’t have the definition Honda did, there is a lot to appreciate in his drawings. We even get a good look at I believe Yoshinari’s uncorrected Rei and Shinji.

As the series gets incrementally more depressing, Yoshinari’s animation begins to showcase more on the imagery side of things rather than action. The first example we get of this is on Episode 16 where we get an insane burst of Eva Unit 01 emerging from the angel Leliel. sakugabooru.com/data/8faef8e37567c83bd7cde7ede7e8c863.mp4\.


Blood spilling, everywhere incredibly gore heavy, all the work of storyboards by Anno’s co-director Kazuya Tsurumaki. Yoshinari for this scene was also joined alongside legendary Kanada student animator Shinsaku Kozuma, I’m sure benefiting and increasing Yoshinari’s morale. Yoshinari even was assigned as mechanical animation director and did a great job.

We’d get a quick dive into character acting on Episode 17, then on 18 with assistance from animator Masahiro Ando and AD work by Kazuchika Kise Yoshinari stepped up to animating the final scene of Eva Unit 01 killing Zereul. Noticing a trend here? sakugabooru.com/post/show/60888

Yoshinari would disappear for a good while until Episode 22. One of Rei’s most and only triumphant sequences was left in the hands of Yoshinari. The scale of the task at hand is immense and is made all the more exciting by the penmanship of Yoshinari.

Yoshinari at 0:54-1:07 with Eva 00 releasing The Lance of Longinus, and he comes back from 1:40 to 2:14
One thing that’s interesting to notice is the cut of Lilith at 1:03. This is the type of bouncy release type animation super prevalent in Yoshinari’s timing moving forward.

As triumphant as Rei’s best moment is, she’d sadly meet her fate the next episode encountering Armisael. Some of the more surrealist body horror captured by Yoshinari in these frames perfectly encapsulates Anno and Tsurumaki’s intentions by making very disturbing scenes. Yoshinari’s first endeavor into morphing animation.

After a brief pause, Evangelion would get the infamous budget cuts in the latter episodes. We’d get a quick scene from Yoshinari animating alongside future Bones trump card Yutaka Nakamura sakugabooru.com/post/show/66680\. And then the budget cuts hit, though thanks to an unruly staff and Takeshi Honda trying to get all the animators to the finish line Yoshinari luckily didn’t get much of the short end of the stick.

He’d animate a long sequence from earlier in Episode 26 sakugabooru.com/post/show/23389 and of course this sakugabooru.com/data/2e98fa60f47a40ab2c72f847b109e594.mp4
probably one of the most impressive things he’s ever done, a valiant showcase in effects, morphing, and gets across the series lore events in twelve seconds in a rather avant-garde way.

In-between Evangelion’s ending and the announced end of the series aptly titled The End of Evangelion Yoshinari would detour on several projects. Voltage Fighters Gowcaizer*would be the first having one of the earliest instances of his art style sakugabooru.com/post/show/201295\. A picture for reference.

(hard contrasting two tone drawings using a silhouette to make up the initial figure, and brighter colors to fill in facial or bodily details, heavily inspired by Mike Mignola of Hellboy fame).
And on this project he’d also be working under his idol Masami Obari. Yoshinari also made an appearance
briefly on Shin Hurricane Polymar sakugabooru.com/post/show/200035 and more importantly the 1997 Ghost In The Shell* video game OST, working freelance alongside his brother Kou.

For the End of Evangelion. Yoshinari surprisingly wouldn’t have a lot of cuts compared to others, but he had to make his mark in the scenes he did do, by combining his imaginativeness and combining it with imagery. The first time Yoshinari appears is a brief cut during the Asuka fight then a surprisingly weighty throw, and lead in to a punch.

Yoshinari at 3:18 to 3:33

Though Yoshinari was completely out animated by Mitsuo Iso’s insane sequence from earlier, that became totally fine as the following cuts resulted in one of the greatest most sour moments in the franchise, and that is of course Shinji’s blood-curdling scream.

Insane genga from Yoshinari

End of Evangelion would be Yoshinari’s formal departure from the franchise for a long time.

From 97-98 Yoshinari worked on countless projects, Kare Kano was the next Gainax project after Evangelion ended. Though the show had more of a slice of life vibe there was still a ton vibrancy in the animation. Yoshinari only showed up three times as this would be more of a highlight for a young Evangelion in-betweener turned pro key animator Hiroyuki Imaishi. A long standing Kanada admirer, he’d finally show off why he had potential to be a natural successor to the legend himself sakugabooru.com/post/show/67316\. Another animator that would make his proper Gainax debut would be
Toshio Ishizaki better known as Sushio. He’d also make a quick splash but not as significant as a show a few years later.

Yoshinari along with his Gainax mentors Tadashi Hiramatsu, and Takeshi Honda all trekked on to Production I.G. joining Hiroyuki Okiura on Jin-Roh. This introduced Yoshinari to the wide ranging world of photo realistic animation. While Honda and Hiramatsu were already pretty use to it, Yoshinari had to adapt somewhat. Though he’s only credited for a few cuts the scene he animated demonstrated his new pluming-like explosion in an effort to deviate from the more cartoonish and Kanada elements present in his work. Here there would be less of a separation between his energy effects work and his smoke, so what Yoshinari did is made his explosion effects fire be identical to the smoke, and smooth out as the burst dissipated.

The same year Yoshinari, would be asked by his brother Kou to help provide character designs to the Valkyrie Profile showcasing both brothers skills as artists. Making use of traditional paint, and digital software the two drew together some gorgeous illustrations. Here are Yoh’s solo drawings