Animator Spotlight: Takashi Kojima

All gifs in order
Mawara Penguindrum (2011)
Shinsekai Yori (2013)
Magi Kingdom of Magic Episode 2 (2013)
Nanana’s Buried Treasure (2014)
Your Lie in April (2014)
Death Parade (2015)
Fate/Grand Order (2015)
Sailor Moon Crystal (2016)
Flip Flappers (2016)
Devilman Crybaby (2018)
Ride Your Wave (2019)
One Piece Episode 892 (2019)
Attack on Titan OP 7 (2022)
Attack on Titan Episode 86 (2022)
One Piece Episode Episode 1015 (2022)

Happy Birthday to Takashi Kojima. Some animators aren’t fantastic right out the gate. Getting a Norio Matsumoto or Yutaka Nakamura tier animator appear out of nowhere is a once in a blue moon event (unless ur a lucky webgenner), and most animators have to spend years to actually get good. Most of the animators I’ve covered get fairly good after a few years, but it took Kojima a good while to improve. Ever since he’s seriously improved around the early 10s, he has solo key animated two whole episodes of tv anime, and soloed Openings, became a peak animation director, and also proved to be one of the most valued and skilled animators on the Wano Arc portion of One Piece. Let’s dive into how this unassuming animator became such a talent.

So from the start, Kojima got one of his first cuts on Bleach and ever since has been a freelancer working on a number of titles. From around 2007 to 2009 he worked on a lot of scenes on several big shows but never stood out. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood he would get some decent scenes but with pretty boring boards he was lightyears away from animators such as Hironori Tanaka and Yoshimichi Kameda on the show but you could see he was taking influence from them sakugabooru.com/post/show/216660\. Kojima is doing a decent job of excelling the emotion and build up here, but there is a lot of unexciting anticipation in the animation that could benefit the story better.

Kojima for the next few years would become a sponge, observing the styles of star key animators on series and would adapt to take in what made them special. The first example of this is Mawaru Penguindrum. In this series Kojima is credited on 15 episodes making himself chief animator. I feel like Takahiro Kagami and Kenji Gotoh must have given Kojima a ton of guidance cause considering the twos work go back to the 90s that experience must have been invaluable. The dramatic running scene in Episode 20 shows off a hint of Kojima’s promise sakugabooru.com/post/show/75934\.
The same year he’d also do some fairly decent character acting on the bizarre sakuga fest of Sacred Star of Milos sakugabooru.com/post/show/185715 there is a lot of bounciness when the imposters get out of the seats. Dunno how much is due to AD corrections as the film is stacked to the brim, but it looks good.

The next year we get to see Kojima come a bit into his own on Sengoku Collection showing promise as a OP animator sakugabooru.com/post/show/188573, and throughout the show excels at dance and montage cuts.
And finally on Shinsekai Yori we begin to see Kojima be a super efficient animator. With original simple character designs, Kojima is allowed to showcase his great running animation in several episodes and not be economical with his cuts. This is evidenced on Episode 25 with Chikashi Kubota assisting on AD sakugabooru.com/post/show/19592\. There is a massive Hironori Tanaka influence on here, the wispy hair, and minimalist Yuasa-esque nearly zero shading is very prominent, and from this point on Kojima becomes similar to Tanaka.

Kojima got a ton of credits in 2013 one highlight being a hilarious yet dramatic scene in Kill La Kill sakugabooru.com/post/show/214731\. And then we get to Magi: The Magic Kingdom where we see some career defining hand to hand fight choreography. It isn’t the most groundbreaking choreography but it was enough to get more eyes on Kojima as the following years he’d begin to thrive.

In 2014, Kojima gets more credits just burning his way through the industry. On Nana’s Buried Treasure a very acrobatic and quick fight scene breaks out reminiscent of Takeshi Honda’s hand to hand combat. sakugabooru.com/post/show/4884\. He has a fair bit of credits on Space Dandy and also did a few OP animations working on Persona 4 The Golden Animation and Psycho Pass 2

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However, his biggest achievement that year was undoubtedly Episode 5 of Your Lie In April where he solo key animated the entire episode just under 4000 key frames. An inhuman and impossible task, Kojima pours his whole personality into the animation of the episode and to think he had time to do it is baffling, befuddling, bewildering.

This bridge scene is the most incredible example of Kojima putting his all into the episode. There is some nice foamy water animation meshed together with dramatic and charming character acting. This is all done by one person??? I love the laughing cuts at the end

All of a sudden Kojima had become this higher tier animator, and he’d keep peddling on and climbing the latter of animation. On Death Parade’s opening episode Kojima excels at nailing the dramatic and intense precedent set by director Yuzuru Tachikawa.
sakugabooru.com/post/show/115959\. Super “formidable character acting” in this scene and Kojima would recur in several other episodes having a good understanding of Tachikawa’s sick sensibilities for the show sakugabooru.com/post/show/113463 Episode 5 having great sakuga. 2015 would also see him on One Piece, Kuroko No Basket, and a Fate/Grand Order promo trailer.

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Next year we open on Kiyotaka Oshiyama’s Flip Flappers. While I’ve described my mixed feelings on this show, it has fantastic animation and is cute. There is a high standard set by Oshiyama and he does a good job getting a performance out of his animators especially Kojima who now seems like he has excelled at hitting a happy medium of every style in the sakuga playbook.

we see some impressive Dragon Ball Z style fighting animation from Kojima alongside Oshiyama and others assisting with impact frames 1:25-1:43

genga compilation

Kojima became General Animation Director for the show setting example with Oshiyama, and not only that became a character designer for the first time.

After a quiet 2017, Kojima makes a splash on Masaaki Yuasa’s Devilman Crybaby. Joined by a lot of the Flip Flappers crew he’d do KA and AD on Episode 2, but makes up all of Episode 9 which he SOLO KEY ANIMATED AGAIN. I have no idea how this man does it, but he did it. The last two episodes were storyboarded by Yuasa and thanks to Oshiyama’s limited character designs this episode must have been somewhat easier than the April episode, but still a solo KA is still impossibly difficult and somehow he made it work. The episode is packed to the brim with explosions, action, and effects. Though unfortunately due to super dark compositing it is only possible to watch most of it at night.

Undoubtedly the most heartbreaking sequence Kojima penned here is the head stakes reveal scene. The music, emotion, everything is phenomenal.

A year later Kojima would return again with Yuasa on Ride Your Wave. Yuasa assigned Kojima as character designer and chief animation director, and a lot of the more kick back moments of Devilman carry over to this movie. And in terms of designs...well long necks are certainly a staple.

Around the same time he solo animated the Persona Q2’ opening

And also made a prominent debut on to One Piece’s Wano Arc with the Zoro and Killer fight. I’m in awe of the acrobatics and Yutapon esque slide in the scene.

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During 2020, a year of working on one Princess Connect Episode, and being character designer on a Doraemon movie, he’d also contribute more animation to the Wano Arc again animating on OP23

and the Sanji vs Drake fight

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Another of course would be the Oden Paradise Waterfall! scene the next year. Kojima does a kanji impact frame which I have never seen before

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He does the same thing here solo KAing Oden’s encounter with Kaido

After a year of primarily focusing on One Piece, Kojima returned in 2022 to solo KA, direct, and storyboard OP 7, of Attack on Titan: The Final Season. He even did his own in-between animation, what a monster!

he’d also provide sakuga on Episode 87

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Kojima made his most significant mark on Wano in 2022, animating on Megumi Ishitani’s Episode 1015. One of the most breathtaking episodes of the entire series, that already at the time felt like an Ishitani swan song, Kojima animates the brutal beat down of Kaido by Luffy’s Gum-Gum Red Roc

0:59-1:51 a seismic impact greater illustrated by Ishitani’s fantastic boarding, and Kojima’s ridiculously over detailed effects. I love the dragon-esque Chinese curl shapes on the fire

Though Kojima didn’t do much after that, one of his more significant contributions of last year was animating the final shot of Mob Psycho 100 with the heartwarming shot of Mob finally laughing sakugabooru.com/post/show/213474.

Kojima is a saint. While he isn’t a super standout animator, he does have a high level of efficiency and quality in his work making him feel more deeply rooted in the source material and having an understanding on what makes a scene work. Thats his greatest strength, its solidifying directors, and ADs vision. Through his solo KA works we can see this guy does not f*** around, and can handle a workload. I wouldn’t be shocked if we see him solo KA an Episode of Wano and not being afraid of taking many years of his life by doing so. A lovely animator and I hope he gets to directing soon.

Kojima Art