2016, Inoue worked on some minor projects the first being a preview for P.A. Works’s Uma Musume Pretty Derby

Inoue 0:28-0:32, 1:18-1:21, 1:23-1:25
Very energetic cuts here, I love the shot at 0:31 where the girl falls and her eyes are left behind in another more cartoonishly executed scene from Inoue

Inoue would then do some work on Kuromokuro doing some lewd bits sakugabooru.com/post/show/21770\. Then he did one amazing cut on Episode 1 of Flip Flappers directed by Kiyotaka Oshiyama, once again Inoue working with a younger animator who studied under him sakugabooru.com/post/show/211856 Inoue is perfect here, I got nothing. The liquid in the final cut is spectacular.

In 2017, Inoue only worked on one film, being Napping Princess

Directed by Kenji Kamiyama (Blood: The Last Vampire, Stand Alone Complex, Eden of the East). An original by Kamiyama, and produced at the recently formed Signal.MD. Two Chief ADs Atsuko Sasaki, and Kazuchika Kise with 15 other main ADs sigh. While there is a lot of Japanese key animators on the staff, the film was also produced in tandem with Yapiko Animation a French studio, Cedric Herole being the best supervisor on their staff. Lots of great staff, Nishio handles the ending of the film, Bahi JD does some nice running cuts, Mitsuo Iso does a few cuts, Masashi Ando does a climatic scene, and Herole is the best. But of course Inoue is the hero of the staff doing great running, and rotation cuts sakugabooru.com/post/show/227689 sakugabooru.com/post/show/227687

try full metal panic instead it’s better

2018, after a two year stint of doing less and less key animation Inoue manages to bounce back with one of his most seminal and inhuman works ever, Maquia: When The Promised Flower Blooms

Directed by verteran anime writer Mari Okada in her directorial debut (best known for writing on Iron Blooded Orphans) , and produced at PA Works its a gorgeous outing for the studio, and only the 5th movie for the studio. This film was massive, going from huge action set pieces, to very intimate character acting scenes. So of course a skilled group of animators was needed. For the chief AD there is Yuriko Ishii who is also the character designer for the film. Her designs seem so delicate that they feel almost to light for the film, but its that soft touch that gives the film its optimism. Once again like Oshiyama and Itazu, Ishii is another student of Inoue as she worked under him back on Dennou Coil. As for sub ADs its Kousuke Kawamura Noriko Ito, and former Gainax, by this point Mappa animator Tadashi Hiramatsu. There were a few relevant story boarders on the project one big name being Masahiro Ando, a staple 90s action animator and helped boards some nice action scenes in the film. For the goat KA staff we have Takaaki Yamashita, Hidetsugu Ito, Sato, Hiroyuki Horiuchi, Ei Inoue, Hisashi Eguchi, Akemi Hayashi, Hiramatsu, and a spotlight appearance from Takeshi Honda. As for highlighted younger staff some particular standouts are Nana Miura, Yumi Ikeda, and of course Kazuki Hoshino who animates the Ghibli esque crowd cuts in the ironworks bar scenes sakugabooru.com/post/show/60777 sakugabooru.com/post/show/60778

Now what about Inoue? Inoue animated nearly 1/3 of the entire movie!. Just an exhaustive, and incomprehensible task by an absolute madman. Why did Inoue do things like this? Based on his speed, and heavily impassioned skills, I imagine he took no breaks and did nearly sleepless nights. From his age at the time (being 57) you think he would slow down at this point, but no he just keeps getting better. Inoue does some initial opening scenes sakugabooru.com/post/show/60760 , in the second half before the Iorphs are attacked does some great character acting sakugabooru.com/post/show/60766
he then animates scenes of the Renato (dragons) attacking sakugabooru.com/post/show/60768 sakugabooru.com/post/show/60762

It’s when one of the Renato freaks out from contracting a deadly “red eye” disease we see some unbelievable animation from Inoue. Potentially his greatest scene ever





Nearly 2 minutes of full movement dragon animation. Dragons not being real makes them incredibly difficult to animate so going off reference footage from other films is important. This is without a doubt the best a 2D animated dragon has ever looked probably next to Takeshi Honda’s dragon scene in Tales from Earthsea, and Eric Cleworth’s Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty. The sense of scale and weight reflected in the impact, and weight of the wings is so well realized, parring that with perfect effects and destructive debris, it is Inoue’s most daring hour as an animator.

Later in the film he does some pivotal character acting with Hiramatsu sakugabooru.com/post/show/60821, and handles the most important character scenes in the middle portion with others sakugabooru.com/post/show/61481\. Inoue and Ito co-animated the final action scenes, brutish fighting, and effects.



Inoue’s final moments are re-animating the dragons sakugabooru.com/post/show/62066 as they cap off his final contributions to the film.

After an inhuman performance on Maquia, Inoue would not be credited for two years working on projects, reappearing onto anime in 2021 first on Evangelion 3.0+1.01 Thrice Upon A Time

Takeshi Honda sadly couldn’t appear as a KA on the final film, instead duties were split between Kouichi Arai, Masayoshi Tanaka, and Atsushi Nishigori who was the tertiary AD on the film resulting in a mixed look. Inoue did not have enough time to animate the more lengthy portions of the films, but the ones he did do feature Mari and Shinji after saving the world.
sakugabooru.com/post/show/162070 sakugabooru.com/post/show/162071 so beautiful.

This would be a similar case on Belle, Inoue’s third Hosoda film in the middle of that year sakugabooru.com/post/show/183516

Inoue being expected to do another lead animation role seemed pretty daunting after the high risk of Maquia, but he decided to do just that on Masashi Ando’s directorial debut The Deer King

Despite the Ghibli-esque appearance the movie was produced at Production I.G, and was a big feature film venture for Ando. The animation lineup is stacked with Ando on Chief AD, and Ei Inoue, Hiroyuki Okiura, Kazuchika Kise, Yoshimi Itazu, and Inoue himself as key supervisors. Also newcomers like Naoya Wada, Naoko Kawahara, Izumi Seguchi, and Ai Takashi. For animators, Tetsuya Nishio and Hidetsugu Ito come into the fold (Ito particularly doing an awe-inspiring scene sakugabooru.com/post/show/206294), Akira Honma, Ghibli associated animators like Kenichi Konishi and Ponoc founder Hiromasa Yonebayashi, Shinji Hashimoto, Takashi Hashimoto, Takashi Mukouda, Masami Mori, Naoki Kobayashi, Yuki Igarashi, Takafumi Hori, Osamu Murata and many many more. There is potentially an uncredited Takeshi Honda in one scene with Okiura AD making the four realists appear together in the film sakugabooru.com/post/show/206296.

Inoue of course is the lead animator, and he instills his touch all over the movie. Whereas Maquia was focused heavily on dragon scenes here it’s primarily with horses, and character animation. He handled roughly 400 layouts, and 200 frames of key animation. Inoue made the opening moments of the film, and animated the first 15 minutes though most is layouts. In the middle half sakugabooru.com/post/show/206180 Inoue spends a lot of time on “pyuika “ animation, the antelope deer that is present throughout, and does a few action scenes sakugabooru.com/post/show/206230 sakugabooru.com/post/show/206261\. It isn’t until the final act Inoue begins to show out with his horse animation


He caps the film out sakugabooru.com/post/show/206320 with Van saving Yuna.

Inoue had pummeled his way through two high fantasy films, and in 2022 he went to space on Mitsuo Iso’s The Orbital Children

Made at Signal.MD the series focuses on two groups of children who come from Earth and the Moon meeting together at a Japanese space station called Anshin. Character designs and chief AD by Kenichi Yoshida, and art design by Yusuke Ikeda. This is once again another great blend of CGI and 2D animation in the most practical sense of both styles. Everything from the robots to the kids, and the lore blend very smoothly. For KA staff its an interesting lineup. After an observation of the staff there is a prevalent list of wegenners like Bahi JD, Daniel Kim, Chris (Yen BM), Vercreek and veteran Tatsurou Kawano. Legendary staff includes Satoshi Furuhashi, Akira Honma, Kiyotaka Oshiyama, Hiroyuki Aoyama, and Inoue himself. Kou Yoshinari is probably the most interesting animator as his style, and background paintings dominate whatever scenes he’s on sakugabooru.com/post/show/180526 sakugabooru.com/post/show/180531\. With Iso and Yoshida (both who new each other all the way back on Porco Rosso) at the forefront, this show turned out into cute little story of survival and world building. Toshiyuki Inoue goes into a tidbit about the aesthetics of Yoshida’s designs

"Yoshida is probably trying to become something like what Yoshikazu Yasuhiko 17 and Akio Sugino 18 were in the 70s: people who were both animators and genuine “artists” in their own right. In terms of technology, Japanese animation evolved between 1980 and 2000, when the members of our generation became animators. But in that process, I feel that the unique and awe-inspiring style of the 70s declined into something not well suited for animation. Maybe Yoshida felt the same way, which is why he dared to make such unique designs on Eureka Seven and Mobile Suit Gundam: Reconguista in G. For that reason, his character designs are a bit difficult to move and animate. But this tendency was restrained for The Orbital Children…”

Once again Inoue, is the main animator, and was AD on Episode 1,2 and 5. sakugabooru.com/post/show/180532 Inoue does many layouts so the distinction of where he is can be difficult, but a lot of scenes are credited to sakugabooru.com/post/show/180598 sakugabooru.com/post/show/180551 sakugabooru.com/post/show/180589

lot of great little moments peppered throughout the show

short interview with Iso

In late 2022, Inoue worked on Lonely Castle in the Mirror

Reuniting with Miss Hokusai director Keiichi Hara its an interesting venture. Takashi Nakamura helped with the art setting here, Chief AD by Keigo Sasaki and primary direction was done all by in-house A-1 Pictures staff. Inoue was joined by several other friends like Kouichi Arai, Norio Matsumoto, and Michiyo Suzuki. Inoue is in few cuts throughout, but at the end does a total 4 minutes of animation sakugabooru.com/post/show/233031\. Gorgeous run cycles, and emotionally vulnerable character acting

Ever since 2020, Inoue has spent time working on Hayao Miyazaki’s final film How Do You Live

Little is known about how much animation Inoue actually did, but what we do know is this will be amazing. Takeshi Honda is one of the greatest animation directors of our time, and the film will be an epic outing. Honda was on character design, and who knows what other staff he brought on from outside of Ghibli (the confirmed staff so far is Shinya Ohira, Kitaro Kousaka, and Yoshimichi Kameda.) I cannot wait to see this

When all is said and done, Inoue is an inhuman god of animation. Some people might say, Okiura comes close, but unlike Okiura Inoue isn’t nearly as stingy with being that realistic in conveying movement. He is so diverse with his catalogue, and most of his work contains some the greatest animated sequences in anime. I can’t even begin to imagine what the world of anime in general would be without such an amazing, and undisputed talent of the medium. The grouping of Okiura, Honda, Inoue, Nishio, and Iso are such important voices to great sakuga you see, and their influence is so far reaching. Inoue being the oldest has the most experience, but no one from that group have ever foreseen him getting better as the years went on. He continues to push the envelope of what he is capable of even at 62, drawing the most perfectly beautiful scenes, and is the greatest Japanese animator of all time.

When ya homie take the fall for the two man so you could hit

FGO commercials continue to be the best thing being made in this industry

Mizushima dropping cinema in 2024

Still my favourite action director. His ability to convey what his happening in large scale battles is second to none. The Girls Und Panzer movie battles still live rent-free in my head.

Don't need an hour video to come to this conclusion

real

Baki Hanma s2 going crazy

Whats ur anilist