Finished Dr. Stone S3

I think it's cute and I like the science explanations. If I were a kid I would've loved this anime.

The plot/writing is tame but lighthearted so I'll stay tapped in.

It's misleading it's like HxH starts like a kid show but goes darker

Started Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. Loving the style and animation

Lmao my girlfriend was f***ed about this cause she wanted to see a fun magic girl show

Damn ✍🏾

Anything else you'd recommend from her?

Animator Spotlight: Toshiyuki Inoue (Part 1)

All gifs in order
Akira (1988)
Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989)
Fly! Peek The Whale (1991)
Ghost in the Shell (1995)
Memories (Magnetic Rose) (1995) Redraw
Jin-Roh (1999)
Blue Submarine No. 6 (2000)
Blood: The Last Vampire (2000)
Millenium Actress (2001)
A Tree of Palme (2002)
Tokyo Godfathers (2003)
Paranoia Agent (2004)
Steamboy (2004)
Gankutsou: The Count of Monte Cristo (2004)
Paprika (2006)
Dennou Coil (2007)

Happy Birthday to Toshiyuki Inoue. There are few artists in the industry with such a predisposed talent for their craft, that have also been consistently dominant for over four decades. Toshiyuki Inoue is without a doubt the most important Japanese animator currently living. Ever since Wings of Honnenaise and Akira Inoue has gained a reputation for being a distinguished VIP figure in the field. He has an incomparable drawing speed doing a ton of KA when brought on to a project, and despite being limited in approach can still maintain a sense of character and verisimilitude in his works. Inoue is lumped in the same league as Hiroyuki Okiura, Tetsuya Nishio, Mitsuo Iso, and Takeshi Honda in regards to realism animation and is the eldest of the five (resembles Okiura’s style the closest). Due to his incomparable work ethic and high quality penmanship, Inoue has been frequently recruited on the top films, among the likes of directors such as Katsuhiro Otomo, Satoshi Kon, Mamoru Hosoda, and Mamoru Oshii the latter calling him “the perfect animator”. Even with such a profound level of technical skill and years of experience, Inoue has avoided ever directing a series instead only focusing on animation and animation direction, and on rare occasion character design. The work of this man is astonishing, so without further ado let’s dive into the cinematic wonderment of a master.

Inoue first became interested in animation at a young age watching Future Boy Conan and wanted to be an animator after that exposure. After failing the entrance exam for Telecom he instead joined Studio Junio the same studio that spurred Takashi Nakamura and Satoru Utsunomiya.

Inoue’s first touch on anime was doing in-betweens from Tonde Mon Pe, Rokushin Gattai GodMars, and Dr. Slump from 1982-83 with his genga debut being on Igano Kabamaru. Around this time Inoue made an acquaintance with an industry legend Yoshiji Kigami on Romance of the Two Kingdoms 2 in 1985. Inoue said in an interview he was astounded by Kigami’s lively animation at the time. “I took him on as my lifetime one-sided rival or I should rather say, I made him the goal to which I’d aspire.”

After being incredibly efficient on many series, Inoue was brought on to Gu-Gu Ganmo around 1984 (I go back a bit because the Kigami encounter is important). This is where Inoue cut loose being a series character designer, AD, and KA. This is some of the first standout animation from Inoue sakugabooru.com/post/show/21369\. Now around this point, Inoue was very much a Kanada animator, as his style was incredibly common during the time and fit the mold of a lot of Toei’s productions around the time. Inoue was pretty remarkable on the show due to being able to achieve some outstanding background animation, and charismatic character acting.

After doing 9 episodes on the series he’d move on the next year to work on more OVAs and movies, and nothing substantial would come until Wings of Honneamise in 1987 produced by a very early Gainax and directed by founder Hiroyuki Yamaga

This is Inoue’s first exposure to some of the heavy hitters of the era, with a young Hideaki Anno and Yoshiyuki Sadamoto in charge of animation direction opting for a visceral approach, and the most mind blowing realism animation ever done. Inoue would also get first hand experience of witnessing many freelance Ghibli animators including Kitaro Kousaka, Masaaki Endo, Shinji Otsuka, Makiko Futaki, and Toshio Kawaguchi. Though Inoue wouldn’t work alongside them in their scenes his cut was a long bit of animation, all of the background characters were animated by Inoue sakugabooru.com/post/show/212117 in an inhuman 1 month of work. The second scene would be the most controversial in the film where the main character sexually assaults the other female lead sakugabooru.com/post/show/110673 Inoue was only on 2nd KA duty, meaning he did finishing animation.

After much deliberation and pieces falling into place by some of the 80s greatest animators, Akira was released in 1988, Inoue’s first work with Katsuhiro Otomo

This was a momentous occasion for Inoue as he got to work under his Junio idol Takashi Nakamura and realist lab rat Koji Morimoto both coming off the heels of successful works with Ghibli and also Rintaro’s Genma Taisen a few years back. Produced by Tokyo Movie Shinsha it would be an Avengers level assembling of some of the greatest talents of the era most being in their 20s and early 30s. This would mark a myriad of many longtime friendships with Inoue including several realists in the same vein as him such as; Hiroyuki Okiura, future duo Shinya Ohira and Shinji Hashimoto, Satoru Utsunomiya, other Toei offspring Kouichi Arai and Hideki Hamasu, director Hiroyuki Kitakubo, and another important recurring animator in future Mamoru Hosoda projects with Inoue Hiroyuki Aoyama. Inoue also reunited with Yoshiji Kigami on the film. Now all of these animators are great, but how does Inoue standout amongst them?

At the time the obvious Yoshinori Kanada and Masahito Yamashita influence in Inoue’s animation was obvious although under guidance from Nakamura and Morimoto it felt more so 1 to 1 and less exaggerated. This all comes to full-fruition in the film’s biker gang chase to Tetsuo’s crash into Takashi.

3:06 to 3:43, co-KA with Kitakubo, and Hitoshi Ueda

Inoue at 1:21-1:56, Nakamura animates the explosion, Inoue picks back up 2:11–5:16

Even this early in his career Inoue is doing a remarkable amount of work on this scene animating about 4 minutes of the opening in total. The sequence with the window crash is a co-animated sequence so it’s difficult to determine his cuts, but the movement and slightly cartoonish timing has a lot of Nakamura and Morimoto’s touch ups. Although down the line when we get to the bridge scene with Tetsuo attacking the rival biker there is a heavy Nakamura influence especially with the background animation reminiscent of Bobby’s in Deep sakugabooru.com/post/show/8783\. Inoue brings such a heavy amount of clerical detail that it’s difficult to see where he starts and Nakamura begins, until we get to the bike crash where Inoue shows off an incredibly complex understanding of depth

The subsequent character acting scenes afterwards while being rife with Nakamura facial corrections, show a lot of subtle 3d-esque volume in a few cuts that was not exactly common for the era. This applies only to the some of the singular character shots, and Inoue’s mastery of animating multiple subjects in frame is impressive. As for effects, one thing that stands out is the fire animation around the 2:18 mark is more Kanada-esque and Inoue would modify this approach heavily over the years. As for the rest of the movie, Inoue did some assistant AD correction in later scenes, where he became more enamored with the sense of volume and weight he could achieve through the character designs.

Akira was a resounding success for Inoue and company, and I guess more of a big budget debut then Honneamise despite that movie being just as hard to make. With such attention drawn to so many of the animators on the project, many would be brought on to some of the biggest movies for the next few decades. Much of the Ghibli-related staff would return from Akira and immediately begin to work on Kiki’s Delivery Service of which Inoue, and Morimoto were brought on as freelancers.

Inoue’s opening scene of Kiki flying into Koriko, is one of his greatest cuts ever sakugabooru.com/data/afc13130e573e38f06ca597af6c027c0.mp4\. While the scene could be attributed to helpful animation direction by Katsuya Kondo and Shinji Otsuka there is a resounding amount of Inoue here with several of his markers present. One thing abundantly made clear is Inoue’s seamless and clean cuts on 1s and 2s. While most Ghibli animators are more pragmatic in their timing and pacing, trying to be liberal with what they convey, Inoue focuses on economical realism not going to far with it, which is why even he considers himself a “conservative animator”. The rotation at the start is an incredibly hard shot to execute slowly, and he dissuades this notion by dealing with a tricky layout of seagulls and water making the next cuts feel more lively. The result is flawless. sakugabooru.com/post/show/203746 Later in a scene with Tombo and Kiki, Inoue delves into the mechanical wonderment highly aspired to in a Miyazaki film. Not a lot going on with the faces, but there is minute bike gear details, and by this point Inoue had become extremely good at his signature hair and fabric animation. sakugabooru.com/post/show/16239 The resultant scene with Masako Shinohara is energetic, brisk, and works in doses of Inoue’s road animation back from Akira. This would crazily enough be Inoue’s only work on Ghibli for a long time, he wouldn’t return to the studio until only recently on Miyazaki’s final film How Do You Live? in 2023.

Now for the next 6 years, Inoue would invest time into many shows, OVAs, and films. He’d help with some AD assistance on two Utsunomiya projects one being Gosenzo-sama Banbanzai!, and Fly!Peek the Whale. On Peek, Inoue animates the opening 2 minutes with the opening cuts feeling like an extension of his seaside work on Kiki sakugabooru.com/post/show/86464\. Inoue is a bit more jaunty with his timing, as Utsunomiya favors more limited animation to get maximum results, Inoue even implements some speed lines, which he doesn’t do often. sakugabooru.com/post/show/86455 the second half of this scene has a heavy Kanada influence in effects although seems more strip backed. On Record of Lodoss War Episode 1 Inoue shows how well he can animate creatures doing an epic dragon fight sakugabooru.com/post/show/118854

The same year came Roujin Z directed by Hiroyuki Kitakubo

With a script written by Otomo, art design by Satoshi Kon, character designs by Toei’s Hisashi Eguchi, and mechanical designs by newcomer Mitsuo Iso the film stands as an underrated gem within the Otomo lineup. This film is also proceeded by a new batch of animators Inoue would make acquaintances with in years to come including; Production IG wolf Kazuchika Kise, Michio Mihara, Michiyo Suzuki, many at the time Gainax regulars including Takeshi Honda, Tadashi Hiramatsu, and Kazuya Tsurumaki, but the most important out of them all would be Norio Matsumoto who in the coming decades will become incredibly important. Inoue’s scenes in this movie display some of the comical attitude captured in Banbanzai!, as he draws the characters in similar proportions with an Utsunomiya-esque touch sakugabooru.com/post/show/17021 (notice the giant hands).

After working on Ninja Ryuukenden, Inoue hopped on to Hashire Melos!.

Based on a short by Ozamu Dazai from 1940, the film unfortunately is not in great quality at all despite being produced by Toei. Okiura, and Kon were in charge of the character direction, and Okiura was AD. Inoue on this film did over 4 minutes of animation on this project, and to his credit we can see him and similarly Okiura perfecting more naturalistic character acting even if there is a lingering Takashi Nakamura influence (likely due to Okiura recently working on The Hakkenden at the time) sakugabooru.com/post/show/24618 another thing made clear is Inoue’s attention to creature animation, especially horses (which he would become godly at in the future).

1994 saw Inoue working on a myriad of different shows, with nothin especially of note except for the Macross 7 opening which had Inoue’s first Itano Circus sakugabooru.com/data/ba2f08b0d3b56297cf60384dc9c569aa.mp4\. A remarkable quick cut on 1s.

After the incredible success and dark storytelling on Patlabor 2 in 1993 with some stellar scenes carried by Hiroyuki Okiura and Kazuchika Kise’s AD, Oshii’s next project would be a legendary adaptation of Masumune Shirow’s manga Ghost in the Shell produced by Production I.G.

Many of the greats from Akira and Oshii’s last projects would return. Now much has been said about the amazing animation of this film, but the biggest reason why the movie looks the way it does is in part to Okiura, and Kise’s supervision. Sure Toshihiko NIshikubo was the animation director, but it was the Two Wolves (Okiura and Kise) that set aside the most time for the look of the film. Hell one of the most famous scenes in the movie animated by Hirotsugu Kawasaki would not look the way it does without them sakugabooru.com/data/f9172277c86082fb5e797d5e63e59714.mp4.

Inoue masterfully opens the film with the iconic rooftop jump sequence.

Inoue 0:47-1:05, 1:28-3:24
Here Inoue makes a name for himself not only delivering, an iconic scene but doing so seemingly with little corrections from Kise or Okiura as the trust the crew had in him at this point seemed to be undoubtable. Inoue’s genga for the sequence is a mere master at the height of his craft.

There is so much vivid detail in the body movement here, not feeling limited by that pressure as him and Okiura have seemingly mastered it. He shortly after helped with Makoto waking up, animating with Okiura sakugabooru.com/post/show/228329\. Later on Inoue animated the gorgeous dive sequence sakugabooru.com/post/show/120944 displaying his knowledgeability of water animation and fore-shortening likely helped by Okiura.

He’d later assist on animation direction at the request of Kise correcting much of Masayuki Yoshihara’s scene when the shell of a Megatech Body is stolen sakugabooru.com/post/show/228345\. Inoue applies impressive two-toned volumetric smoke when the explosions go off.


All Inoue smoke, very simple yet three dimensional. This was a skill picked up by him learning from Mitsuo Iso who Inoue was inspired by to draw it in this way without overcomplicating the effects.

Speaking of whom, Inoue helped Iso with the Spider Tank sequence.

Most of the scene is Iso layouts and genga with finishing KA assistance by Inoue, Okiura, Toyoaki Emura, and Kouji Komurakata. The scene is rife with Iso’s full-limited animation style using limited movement on 2s and 3s to get motion across. Iso’s handling of the weapons designs of the film is also achieved effortlessly with Makoto prepping her machine gun, he even simplifies her design in a wide shot to better execute the cut. In regards to the tank, Iso allegedly trapped a spider in a glass and studied its movement to get that robotic and jerky movement it has. Okiura helped with an explosion, and Inoue finished the barrel falling when the Major ran out of ammunition. Yasushi Muraki, Hideki Hamasu and Kouichi Arai handle the following cuts.