dont quote me until you have 400 completions

New threads been up for a year today

Shoutout @op

real

Oh s***. I've seriously been updating this s*** for over a year that's cool.

Animator Spotlight: Hiroyuki Aoyama

All gifs in order
Akira (1988)
Lupin III: Farewell to Nostradamus (1995)
Batman Beyond: Return of The Joker (2000)
The Cat Returns (2002)
One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island (2005)
Kemonozume (2006)
Dennou Coil (2007)
Sword of the Stranger (2008) Presumed
Michiko and Hatchin (2008)
Redline (2009)
Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos (2011)
Space Dandy (2014)
Eiyuu Kaitai (2016)
Mob Psycho 100 (2019)
Boogiepop Wa Wanarai (2019)
Children of the Sea (2019)

Happy Birthday to Hiroyuki Aoyama. One of the higher class freelancers of this era. Having a long standing career at TMS, he would then leave the company around 2002 since then becoming a pick up animator for projects across the industry. Growing a relationship with Gainax and Madhouse staff around the mid 2000s, then Bones in the 2010s, Aoyama has bunny hopped everywhere. Best known for his volumetric explosions, Aoyama is also a super capable character animator and has more range than he puts on. He has been an integral part of Mamoru Hosoda films serving as an animation director on several of his movies.

Aoyama joined Telecom Animation Film in 1983 when he was 19, and his first credited work was on Miyazaki’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind in 1984 where he did in-between work. He’d then join and do minor KA on the Lupin III: The Fuma Conspiracy, and after Im assuming a few years of doing uncredited work on other shows at Telecom, he goes on to Katsuhiro Otomo’s magnum opus Akira. Now in term of department branches for the film, Telecom is one of the most heavily credited. Aoyama is joined by many younger animators with several that would go on to foster a working relationship with him and all would have successful careers including: Teiichi Takiguchi, Toshihiko Matsuda, Hiroaki Noguchi, and Kenji Hachizaki.

Aoyama primarily specializes in effects and he was responsible for a section of the SOL (Satellite Orbital Laser) sequence. The first half of the sequence is done with the coordination of several animators. The initial character acting before the first blast is handled by Telecom Animation (another branch of TMS) animator Makiko Futaki, and the oncoming beam effects are by of the era realist animator and future Kite director Yasuomi Umetsu, then Aoyama comes in with the explosion.

Aoyama 3:11, Toguchi and Toshiyuki Inoue handle the bits afterwards.
sakugabooru.com/post/show/74123 the ensuing blasts targeting civilians by Tetsuo is mostly Aoyama along with another Telecom animator. One thing I love about Aoyama’s explosions is the solidity to them. Most other animators wouldn’t opt to add very definitive lines to smoke is especially in that first cut, then the lines smooth out and match better. The other cuts show a lot of expressivity in the characters though it’s unclear how much is him.

The next year Aoyama did an impressive volume of effects on the long developing Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland sakugabooru.com/post/show/52567

Now for the next 13 years, Aoyama would do a lot of outsourcing work at TMS mainly for American cartoons, but would also be local in Japan as well. On the Japanese side Aoyama would do animation on Hashire Melos, and later in 1995 on Whisper of The Heart doing the most modest Ghibli character acting sakugabooru.com/post/show/46200\. The same year on Lupin III: Farewell to Nostradamus Aoyama animates building destruction, which is not something you see especially with skyscrapers. sakugabooru.com/post/show/152385

On the American side of things Aoyama would be working on Tiny Toons and other various shows like Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. The obvious standouts from this era are of course are Superman: The Animated Series, and The New Batman Adventures (technically the fourth season of Batman The Animated Series) spanning from 1996 to 1998. On Superman Aoyama was brought on to direct several episodes. While he has KA credits his animation is impossible to find due to corrections and retakes. The most notable of the three episodes credited is “Ghost in The Machine” where Braniac highjacks Lexcorp computers.

With Batman, he directed “Mean Seasons” a kind of contentious episode, tackling the fashion and acting industry head on. An interesting idea for a villain though I have no idea how well it has aged conceptually. Probably not well

After all of this Aoyama was a co-recipient for a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Class Animated Program at the 25th Daytime Emmy Awards in 1997 for his work on both shows. His friends at TMS who also directed Kenji Hachizaki , Toshihiko Matsuda, Yuichiro Yano were co recipients as well

Afterwards, Aoyama would do brief KA on Cybersix, and then in 2000, Batman Beyond Return of The Joker. According to the commentary from Batman Animated Series creators Bruce Timm, said Aoyama told them he wanted to top the SOL sequence in Akira. This scene introduces Aoyama’s new way of drawing explosions. He starts to implement much more solid and rugged shapes in the interior shading.

Aoyama with most explosion cuts, likely another animator with him who’s animation was cleaned up by Aoyama himself

He’d begin to practice these smoke effects for the next two projects in 2002. The first is
The Cat Returns where we get a very high degree of explosions and pluming smoke sakugabooru.com/post/show/16597\. On Inuyasha Movie 2 where Aoyama shows he is a very capable action animator sakugabooru.com/post/show/190945\. Great morphing on the demon, and great usage of 2s

Aoyama left TMS earlier that year, and from now on was on his own. Aoyama went over to Steamboy reuniting with Otomo doing brief KA, then on Gainax’s Re: Cutey Honey we get great fight animation from Aoyama with I’m assuming heavy guidance from Episode 1 director Hiroyuki Imaishi and animation director Tadashi Hiramatsu.

After doing some minor KA on Gunbuster: Diebuster, Aoyama would leap over with the same Gainax staff onto Mamoru Hosoda’s One Piece Baron Omatsuri and The Secret Island. A very interesting film in the One Piece franchise having totally overhauled designs by Sushio, and fitting Hosoda’s minimal aesthetics. The scene Aoyama is placed on is Luffy’s final encounter with the Baron, where Aoyama is working alongside another explosion animator (one of the best in the industry still to this day) Takashi Hashimoto. In this scene you can actually see the difference between the two’s smoke effects.
sakugabooru.com/post/show/180806
Hashimoto favors more rounder shapes whereas Aoyama is more spindly and jagged.


This was Aoyama’s first time meeting Hosoda too, and would start a long friendship with him.

The same year, Aoyama signed on for a long run doing AD work on the Naoki Urasawa adapted Monster. Produced at Madhouse, under the supervision of director Masayuki Kojima, and legendary producer and studio founder Masao Maruyama the show is a very faithful adaptation to Urasawa’s work. Aoyama essentially did AD work for most of the middle and latter half of the show from Episode 39-57. Aoyama made his KA debut on Episode 37 working alongside Ghibli associated effects artist Masaaki Endo sakugabooru.com/post/show/137927\. On Aoyama’s episodes there is a slew of super rich character acting, this is especially made apparent in Episode 44 where Aoyama shows off some of his best character animation sakugabooru.com/post/show/87383.

Mamoru Hosoda saw something in Aoyama, and entrusted him to do animation direction on Hosoda’s first non Toei associated release on The Girl Who Leapt Through Time in 2006.

Based loosely as a sequel from the novel of the same name, the film gorgeously sticks to Hosoda’s very bare bones aesthetics and with simple character designs is able to exude life into the most wonderful scenes. Despite being a Madhouse production many Toei veterans were brought on over from Baron such as Keisuke Masunaga and Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, both of which worked with Hosoda all the way back on Dragon Ball Z as well as Masashi Ishihama (second AD). Gainax affiliates Shinya Hasegawa, Chakashi Kubota (Kubota as third AD), and Yoshiyuki Sadamoto (character designer) were brought on, along with a slew of Production IG animators with too many to name. It’s a gorgeous first time effort as cinematic AD, and thanks to the vision of Hosoda it makes something that looks very simple very big. Legendary ween figure Ryo Timo’s scene in the movie is easily the best sakugabooru.com/post/show/117179

The same year Aoyama did brief KA on Kemonozume directed by Masaaki Yuasa with some animation on the OP sakugabooru.com/post/show/42123 and a bizarre fight scene on Episode 11 sakugabooru.com/post/show/185790.

After doing animation direction on Piano Forest, Aoyama would debut his first bit of animation at Studio Bones on Masahiro Ando’s Sword of The Stranger. sakugabooru.com/post/show/78678\. I like to refer to the mid 2000s as Aoyama’s Grey Era as a lot of the scenes he’s on contain a lot of grey and dull colors being worked in from compositing. This would ring more true on Mitsuo Iso’s Dennou Coil where he animated on six episodes of the show and was animation director for Episode 23. Aoyama plays around with the animation somewhat loosely thanks to some of the weird innerworkings of the world as well as Toshiyuki Inoue’s AD aiding in every animator he ever works with sakugabooru.com/post/show/73851 great animation in this episode.

After doing brief KA on Mamoru Oshii’s Sky Crawlers and perfecting his new way of drawing explosions on Michiko and Hatchin sakugabooru.com/post/show/108801, Aoyama returned with the other Mamoru, Mamoru Hosoda on Summer Wars.

This would unknowingly be Hosoda’s last film at Madhouse and a few new techniques are strung together here and there in the movie, one being his use of cgi background characters. Aoyama would not be joined on the AD front with his Gainax affiliates this time instead working alongside mostly Madhouse staff members. Tatsuzou Nishida was the action AD for the moving and its a strong tell due to it’s very grounded yet simple execution. Toei staff such as Naoki Tate, Ken Otsuka and relative newcomer Yuki Hayashi were both brought on as well as several legends from across the industry including mythical Ghibli animator Atsuko Tanaka, and Yuasa character designer Nobutake Ito. Aoyama himself was in charge of character acting scenes as many radiate an irresistible rhythm, probably picked up on Dennou Coil

The same year he’d work on Redline, directed by Madhouse trump card Takeshi Koike. With such an overzealous and dynamically oriented director, Aoyama seems like a wrong call to animate on something seemingly so strongly different from Summer Wars. Turned out that Aoyama was a snug fit for the film doing impressive sakuga on the part of the attack where Sonoshee’s vehicle is totaled sakugabooru.com/post/show/222092.

After no animation in 2010, Aoyama committed himself to the perplexing sakuga fest of Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos sakugabooru.com/post/show/185742\. Aoyama’s explosions here seem to take on a bizarre effect with the initial heat shades of the explosions then fading into smoke plumes. Previously those two elements were separate in his animation, but now they’re one and one. The same year Aoyama did a fair bit of character acting on Goro Miyazaki’s From Up on Poppy Hill. Aoyama’s animation in the Latin Quarter cleaning is fantastic sakugabooru.com/post/show/110677\. The same year he’d also participate on the other Hiroyuki, Hiroyuki Okiura’s A Letter to Momo. A super stacked affair bringing together the greatest animators from Production IG and abroad, Aoyama was able to work in really great character acting, though all of his idiosyncrasies seem essentially gone due to heavy correction from Okiura and likely AD’s Masashi Ando and Ei Inoue sakugabooru.com/post/show/33600.