In 2013, Aoyama made his debut on Hayao Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises. Though Aoyama doesn’t do anything substantial per say, working along godlike Ghibli staff, his brief scene on the reveal of Nahoko’s tuberculosis looks painful and terrifying sakugabooru.com/post/show/14127.

The next year Aoyama did a heavy load of work, serving as KA and AD on several episodes of Shinichiro Watanabe’s intergalactic comedy series epic Space Dandy. With a show with as inconsistent of an AD roster as this one, Aoyama was somehow able to standout on Episode 2 and 10. 10 especially

Aoyama favors very simple straight art direction, with soft lines, and you can see how the simplicity of Hosoda has rubbed off on him. He also really captures the domestic bliss of Meow’s home. Aoyama was even able to bring on Tatsuzou Nishida on for the episode, same with show’s writer Michio Mihara.

The second episode he’d work on would be one of the most memorable of the entire show on Episode 17 with the sing-off section.

The scene features some fantastic animation from Bones staff like Gosei Oda, freelancer Hironori Tanaka, but the obvious standout is the “Viva All” section with the first half animated by legendary Bones action animator Yutaka Nakamura. I have no idea how much guidance Aoyama gave Nakamura, but considering how amazing he is its probably close to zero.

On Episode 19 we’d see some of Aoyama’s rudimentary explosions as he’d appear sporadically throughout the show sakugabooru.com/post/show/71947\. On Episode 21, Aoyama did some great character acting under the supervision of Angel’s Egg AD Yasuhiro Nakura sakugabooru.com/post/show/8305.

The following year, Aoyama handled a ton of character acting on Hosoda’s The Boy and the Beast although was seemingly away from animation direction, that role instead being passed on to Takaaki Yamashita, and Tatsuzou Nishida. There is a lot of great and more fluid animation from Aoyama this time around, with him animated some super dense crowd animation, though I’m not sure if at least some of it is CG sakugabooru.com/post/show/209339\. I also love some of the more subtle moments sakugabooru.com/post/show/209332

On One-Punch Man, Aoyama still proves he can do fight animation doing a very fast scene with great background animation, and speedy sword swipes. Though it doesn’t have an amazing storyboard Aoyama elevates the material given sakugabooru.com/post/show/194913.

The next year on Eiyuu Kaitai a short 27 minute anime film, Aoyama does some great character acting on beach, with some of his best character acting to date sakugabooru.com/post/show/28872.

In 2018, Aoyama would take his first shot at character designs on The Great Passage

A really modest story about a boy in editorial department, the show explores the knowledge of bookworms and their love of words, adapted from Shion Miura’s novel of the same name.



You can really see Aoyama taking influence from Hosoda, doing really modest character designs with a lot of wiggle room for expression and character acting. Aoyama was chief animation director for Episodes 1 and 2, and did supervision for the opening.

Aoyama returned back to the AD department with Hosoda to work on Mirai. Another time traveling adventure this time with a more fantastical twist.

Aoyama would handle the character designs albeit within Hosoda’s constraints, and was primary AD along with Ayako Hata a former Telecom animator. A lot of familiar faces return to the KA staff from past Hosoda projects. Atsuko Tanaka is the obvious standout of the film, her character acting is some of the best in the film, and shows off her decades long length of experience sakugabooru.com/post/show/69705.

2019 is a bewildering year for Aoyama. For no reason whatsoever he’s credited on two shows and two movies in the same year all with completely different forms of animation. The first is on Mob Psycho 100

full scene is Aoyama. This is honestly one of the sweetest moments in the show, and Aoyama is so great at capturing the heartfelt understanding between the characters even just through drawings, not just movement.

The second would come on Boogiepop Wa-Waranarai sakugabooru.com/post/show/205825, this contains some fantastic drawings, but its the falling bit at the end that is the cherry on top of the scene.

With an unidentified scene in Ride Your Wave, that leaves Children of The Sea with the insane visuals of the finale of the movie that even rival 2001, A Space Odyssey, just brutally dense cosmic haze catapulted with maximal animation sakugabooru.com/post/show/111863

After doing a brief video game credit on Sackboy we’re fast forwarded into 2021 with Aoyama doing AD and CD on Mamoru Hosoda's Belle

Mamoru Hosoda continues venturing into 3d animation, and this film is easily one of his best yet. Thanks to Aoyama and a spirited collaboration with the cgi staff and AD Takaaki Yamashita, many of the 3D portions look just as good, if not better than the 2D portions.

It’s a fantastic marriage of the two and Belle’s design is in large part due to legendary Disney animator Jin Kim. Though he has largely worked with Disney’s 3D departments for a good 19 years he provided absolutely gorgeous hand drawn concept art of her, going full Disney and giving the CG team a wonderful reference sheet.

Aoyama’s most recent credit is on Mitsuo Iso’s The Orbital Children where did some character acting and a minor action scene.

With as longstanding of a career as Aoyama, it is safe to separate his career into several parts. While not as well documented, his Telecom era seemed to have him put in a more overseer position later on, and allowed him to grow a flexibility working on American cartoons as well as Japanese animation. Then when he went solo Aoyama was able to develop a maximum flexibility. The 2000s allowed him to develop a knack to be malleable and adapt to certain scenes the directors of series desired, and from there on he has grown a resilient portfolio, proving he’s capable of anything. Sure he’s not the best character animator in the world, or is the most imposing AD when apparent on a movie or tv episode, but his approach does warrant an easygoing aesthetic that instills pure bliss and nonchalant awe (this is very apparent in his work with Hosoda). A casual legend in every right, and a very very underrated personnel in the anime industry.

TASTE

wow we are getting so close to modena posting run w the wind so ducking close

these so good

Do not quote me until you stop using subtitles. Acktually you do not get your favorite show because I said so.

Happy Pride Month @Art

could have used any less traumatic series to start the month, but no lol

Man....

I haven’t watched any yaoi series except this one though and they mentioned it