The same year he’d bounce on to Blood: The Last Vampire where he mainly did subtle character cuts though this scene is pretty good sakugabooru.com/post/show/174806\.

2001, would reunite him with Hiroyuki Okiura as the two animated the opening sequence on Cowboy Bebop: The Movie by the newly formed Studio Bones. An insane exercise in realistic moments set across the many faces of a city, almost solo’d by Okiura if Nishio didn’t come in clutch for a few cuts.

Nishio at 1:03-1:10, he does the short basketball bit in the following montage, the rest is Okiura.

2001, Nishio worked on an underrated cut on Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress sakugabooru.com/post/show/195052\. Animators from FLCL* like Otsuka and Arai also were on the film too.

2002 is an incredibly important year as Nishio would debut his character designs on Naruto.

The designs of the show felt like an accumulation of all of Pierrot’s visual identity dating back from Gosensozama_Banbanzai from Utsunomiya, to Nishio’s own on Ninku coming together to adapt one of the biggest shonens. Personally asked by Kishimoto himself to design characters, it felt like Nishio would have already been inevitably asked by Pierrot even if Kishimoto didn’t approach him, like he was made to do it.


On the KA side, it was a massive return for Norio Matsumoto and Atsushi Wakabayashi, with Matsumoto especially making the most compelling sakuga of the 2000s. It’s crazy to see Matsumoto (someone who Nishio looked up to) bringing his designs to life. Nishio himself did no KA on the original 2002-07 series and instead focused his animation to the movies.
He did however contribute KA to OP 5 of the series

Nishio 0:58-1:05

One of my favorite OPs like top 5

The same year he’d work on several projects, one was the bizarre Patlabor chibi show called MiniPato where he did character designs. His designs were so funny that even Mamoru Oshii himself loved them.

The next was on the *Cat Returns, marking Nishio’s debut for Studio Ghibli, I’m assuming Nishio was brought on by Shinji Otsuka. Nishio works on the opening moments with the protagonist featuring amazing character animation and crowd scenes sakugabooru.com/post/show/163332 all for 1 minute.

The same year after sticking around at Pierrot for Naruto, Nishio would return to IG. He’d be on Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex where he revamped the character designs from Hiroyuki Okiura’s 1995 film designs, and and again Masamune Shirow’s original designs. The characters feel more fresher and modern, with the darker look emboldening the mid 2000s post-Matrix aesthetics. While he has no identifiable KA yet, he was an animation director on two episodes.

2004 would feature Nishio on two big projects on Paranoia Agent by Satoshi Kon, working alongside the other masters of realism animation; Toshiyuki Inoue, Hiroyuki Okiura, and Takeshi Honda all under the direction of Nishio’s idol Satoru Utsunomiya with his one time character designs on Episode 8 sakugabooru.com/post/show/155699\. He also did a short bit on Katsuhiro Otomo’s Steamboy, and while it sucks he didn’t contribute much his childhood friend Hidetsugu Ito began to show off as a very prominent effects animator on the movie sakugabooru.com/post/show/193344\. He also debuted KA on the the first Naruto movie making for one crazy ending sakugabooru.com/post/show/139567.

The crown jewel of the year was definitely Nishio’s work on Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence directed by Mamoru Oshii.

The Three Wolves were in charge of animation direction and all did KA. Okiura was in charge of character animating, same with Kise who did more subtler scenes, and Nishio (the youngest of three) was in charge of corrections and did the designs of the dolls, I believe he supervised the action too.

Here is a tidbit of Nishio explaining that making the dolls have irregular movement has thrown out all of the studying he has done on realistic human movements.

Everyone was on this movie were the best in the game at the time, The Wolves, Toshiyuki Inoue, Satoru Utsunomiya, Ei Inoue, duo Shinji Hashimoto and Shinya Ohira (who were completely uncorrected), Takeshi Honda and Tadashi Hiramatsu, Nishio’s friend Hidetsugu Ito, mecha animator Masahito Yamashita, and Oshii regulars like Atsushi Takeuchi and Toyoaki Emura. This would unfortunately be Emura’s last work presumedly ever from animation, as the only cut he’s credited on took 10 weeks plus four extra retakes and he was hospitalized from stress and overwork.

Nishio’s earliest work in the movie comes on the store scene where he likely corrected much on it, and some cuts could be his KA. This scene has a very interesting use of 3d integration, with exploding cans and bags fully cgi.

Nishio sakkan 0:32-2:54
He did some cuts towards the middle portion of the film mainly allotting corrections, and even did an action scene alongside Ito sakugabooru.com/post/show/106483\. His later cuts featured less action but his experience in realism had led him to be nearly as good as Inoue or Okiura in regards to weight sakugabooru.com/post/show/106496\.

Fantastic volume control

Nishio also did a complete solo KA and storyboard on another IG project released around the same time on OP 2 of Otogizoshi

2005 would see Nishio working on more fringe anime even him journeying over to Bones working on OP3 for Eureka Seven alongside Utsunomiya. Outside of that he did not do much, yet he did contribute to the second Naruto movie with Ito sakugabooru.com/post/show/13608\. The next year however had some of the most underrated sakuga in Nishio’s filmography on Goro Miyazaki’s Tales from Earthsea sakugabooru.com/post/show/147640 a not good movie, but a great scene here. And then on Naruto Movie 3: Guardian of The Crescent Kingdom we get Nishio’s second longest scene sakugabooru.com/post/show/167524\. A ridiculous scene from a story point, although the emotion and wholesome desperation makes it work.

Naruto Shipuuden in 2007 marked new character designs from Nishio, and the arrival of the most popular iteration of the series. For Nishio he only did key animation on one episode in the decade long run of the show sakugabooru.com/post/show/225014, and did some animation to the OPs, and much like on the original show delegated himself to just the movies.

The next year Mamoru Oshii brought Nishio back onto an original movie called The Sky Crawlers where he did character designs, and was the main animation direction.





While I think these designs are very good, some of them don’t distinguish themselves from Naruto or Innocence that much, as the main heroine looks similar to to the dolls from Innocence and some tertiary characters look similar to others from Naruto. As a result this becomes Nishio’s signature look, and is incredibly distinctive. The film’s aerial combat scenes were done in CGI , so the ground based 2D cuts tone down everything. The usuals appear with Ei Inoue, and Takeshi Honda taking up the brunt of animation. Kazuchika Kise does some very slow paced scenes, legendary freelancer Hiroyuki Aoyama makes an appearance, and Mitsuo Iso did some uncredited work. Honda executes the best scene with the bowling alley cuts.

Nishio also did a cut on Michiko and Hatchin’s opening that year.

Nishio first eleven seconds

It’s 2009 and Nishio makes a splash of a debut onto the second installment of the Rebuild franchise on Evangelion 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance. Likely brought on by Takeshi Honda the roles are reversed and its time for Nishio to shine again bringing to life Mari’s Unit 02 berserk mode activation and attack.

Nishio 0:00-0:37, 0:52-1:49

The same year he worked on animation on the Naruto Shippuuden: The Will of Fire where he did the final rasengan by Naruto sakugabooru.com/post/show/223771\. Some bizarre animation here as once the rasengan makes impact the antagonist and everything in frame explodes into heavy drawn lines, giving a sharp acupuncture like feel? Nishio was going for something there. He’d also do a gritty fight scene on Tales of Vesperia sakugabooru.com/post/show/210765.

2010, wouldn’t have much in store for Nishio aside from his longest scene on You’re Being Summoned Azazel sakugabooru.com/post/show/157321 (nearly 4 minutes of character acting), but 2011 had him credited on 8 projects. He did some OP animation briefly on Sengoku Basara, and shortly after was on Legend of the Millennium Dragon where he provided his character designs.

A strange forgotten movie, with animation direction by Shinji Hashimoto and Tatsuru Tomaru. The film had a pretty wide abundance of animation for a not super engaging story and characters, Nishio provided none, but of course Hidetsugu Ito made some of the best work in his career on these cuts sakugabooru.com/post/show/104934, sakugabooru.com/post/show/104937, sakugabooru.com/post/show/104971\. Too bad it could’ve been in something better.

The next would be on Blood-C where he did a great fight scene reminiscent of his fight back on Vesperia, which both scenes feel like a subtle homage to Satoru Utsunomiya’s fight scene on Yuugen Kaisha sakugabooru.com/post/show/8189\.

Nishio 0:36-0:47, animator Tomohiro Shinoda proceeds him.

After Penguindrum, Usagi Drop, and another Naruto film, he would provide animation onto Hiroyuki Okiura’s second film A Letter to Momo which debuted at TIFF in September of 2011.

Although Masashi Ando is credited as animation director, a lot of Okiura’s one to one realistic cuts hold true in this film, with the exception of Shinya Ohira’s scenes and the more fantastical sequences towards the end. Many of the more known I.G. regulars returned who don’t need naming, several newcomers to Okiura’s pool like Hideki Takahashi, Shingo Takenaka and a younger Arifumi Imai (unidentified cut) all took part on the KA. Toshiyuki Inoue per usual did a staggering amount of work with Shunji Suetomi, Akira Homna, and Takeshi Honda coming right behind him. Kise only did one cut, and Nishio did an elaborate two minute scene of the yokais teaching Momo how to do a ritualistic dance sakugabooru.com/post/show/116963 sakugabooru.com/post/show/116964.

After doing a brief scene on Blood-C: The Last Dark and designing characters on the time travel shenanigan ridden Road to Ninja: Naruto film Nishio returned back on to Hideaki Anno’s Rebuild franchise on Evangelion 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo

Since Momo, and 3.0 were in such close proximity much of the staff on Momo also worked on 3.0 with the big four of realism all making a splash. Takeshi Honda’s animation direction and supplementally his revamped character designs is pure cinematic eye-candy, serviced by Sistine Chapel tier storyboards by Anno’s core team of directors, Takashi Hashimoto, Shoichi Masuo and Hidetsugu Ito handled much of the explosions in action. Ito especially being a highlight doing an insane nearly two minute action scene sakugabooru.com/post/show/117779\. This film really helps highlights the four animators insane skills. Okiura being an incredible character animator, Honda’s uncompromising direction, Inoue’s insane sense of three dimensionality in the Eva’s, and Nishio’s innate action prowess sakugabooru.com/post/show/217046 sakugabooru.com/post/show/217047 once again handling the berserk scenes.

2013, featured Nishio on Kazuchika Kise’s Ghost in the Shell: Arise series where he animated on the first two halves of the 40 minute specials. 2014, Nishio went on to Giovanni’s Island coming on with Kise, Inoue, Ohira, and Utsunomiya. His most notable work is on Haikyuu Season 2’s Fourth Ending, where we get a captivating solo KA that captures the energy of the manga panels

The same year, on The Last: Naruto The Movie Nishio made brand new designs for the main cast.

As such an important figure on the franchise it was only right for Nishio to step up as AD here. The staff is many carry overs from Shippuuden with essentials like Hiroyuki Yamashita, Hirofumi Masuda and Naoki Kobayashi doing great work per usual, joined alongside webgen king Kenichi Fujisawa. Legendary freelance and Ghibli animator Masaaki Endo handled many of the explosion cuts along with Hidetsugu Ito. One surprise to the cast would be the inclusion of Sword Art Online animator Yoshihiro Kanno who would become valuable in later Pierrot projects. Another bizarre inclusion is the return of Shinji Hashimoto and Shinya Ohira, with their disciple Hokuto Sakiyama piggybacking on their animation style. Nishio himself presumedly did some KA here sakugabooru.com/post/show/202549.

After working on Miss Hokusai with Inoue and Matsumoto, Nishio worked on the third iteration of Naruto with Boruto beginning with Boruto: Naruto The Movie (who picked the name?). Since it was a new series Kishimoto provided the designs himself, while they’d be slightly modified on the actual show.

Much of the primary staff from The Last return on Boruto with Norio Matsumoto storyboarding a large chunk of the film’s action. Newcomers like Tatsoru Kawano and Tokyo Ghoul’s Atsuki Shimizu hop on too. The highlight of sakuga additions is Arifumi Imai, who since Momo had become one of the best action animators in the industry stemming from his work on Attack on Titan sakugabooru.com/post/show/161772\. An insane sequence done on ones with overwhelming debris detail, and a jaw dropping sense of scale. Nishio also does his best bit of character acting sakugabooru.com/post/show/113298

The same year Nishio went unnecessarily hard on an Attack on Titan chibi show opening

Nishio 0:36-0:52, 0:54-1:04, Eren cuts shortly after

For 2016 Nishio did one cut on Doukyuusei sakugabooru.com/post/show/109648 joined by Takeshi Honda. Also that year he worked on the famous Persona 5 opening with Satoru Utsunomiya and Kouichi Arai

Nishio presumedly 0:45-52, 1:16-1:30