Later in that year Yama got a wonderful opportunity to work on Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos

This is one of those instances where an anime movie has a terrible story, but incredible animation. With revamped designs by Kenichi Konishi and assistant chief AD by Toshiyuki Inoue this was an impressive outing. Rarely do you see Kiyotaka Oshiyama action AD, with Ayako Hata, Tomohisa Shimoyama, Masaru Oshiro, and Shinpei Kamata as well. The film is stacked to the brim with some of the highest tier animators of the time like Bones vet Gosei Oda and FMA sakuga god Yoshimichi Kameda. Regular Naruto movie animators like Hidetsugu Ito and Hirofumi Masuda Production I.G. adjunct Yasunori Miyazawa, Hironori Tanaka, Kenichi Fujisawa a disciple of Matsumoto, even Ghibli animator Toshio Kawaguchi makes an appearance. The most surprising of the bunch is Satoru Utsunomiya one of the oldest members of the staff that does a spectacular fight scene proceeding Yama and others.

This movie is best known for founding a sakuga staple, known as Kutsuna Lightning invented by Kenichi Kutsuna. It feels only right for a webgenner to create the most recent addition to the sakuga lineage of key effects next to Yutapon Cubes and Umakoshi Eyes. Kutsuna lightning is essentially digitally animated lightning that resembles scribbles. Given the look of it it is incredibly freeing to animators for use and many veterans like Yutaka Nakamura and Chikashi Kubota have used it. In the movie it initially appears in the scene Oshiyama tackled sakugabooru.com/post/show/185713\. But it then comes later in full swing with the aforementioned Utsunomiya -> Yama -> and others scene. Yama’s scene sakugabooru.com/post/show/185755 pretty much resembles none of Utsunomiya’s work but does show a good affinity for how to properly use Kutsuna lightning and is way more limited in regards to effect details. The proceeding scene actually has Kutsuna animate Kutsuna Lightning with Yamashita doing a wide cut, and wegenner Majiro ending the scene. Some heavy AD was done by Shimoyama. sakugabooru.com/post/show/185756

Yama returned to Naruto on ED20, where we get a full display of Matsumoto lack of outlines, and minimal background designs.

Yama solo KA

After doing great scenes on Sacred Seven Yama was brought on the next year to work on a music video for IA a fun vocaloid romp

Yama does a small cut near the middle
This was one of Yama’s first times taking on executive advisor role, as a lot of talent was recruited with many webgenners all over the video. Rapparu, Noriyuki Imaoka, Nobuyuki Matsuo, Naoki Yoshibe, Ryosuke Nishii, and Yuuki Watanabe among the most talented. But of course the most aspiring talent in the video of course was Bahi JD who would become a monstrously talented freelancer, debuting on Kids on the Slope that year.

The same year on Shinsekai Yori Yamashita did a a near total solo KA of an ending

Yama 0:00-1:20
The plain simple backgrounds and layouts were super handy to Yama’s style and while he wasn’t in charge of direction the use of photography cross-dissolves were a sign of what was to come. Great use of flash effects, and an epic sign of minimal design. This same aesthetic would apply to Episode 1 sakugabooru.com/post/show/176384, Yama was in charge of photography here and you can see him taking liberty over the lighting.

He also did work on a short video animation for Hoka Hoka Oden no Uta vimeo.com/55600681\. Great storyboard by Rapparu, and an exercise in food animation.

On OP13, Yamashita was assigned as the director, where he was in charge of photography, in-betweens, storyboards, and digital production.

Yama does a few cuts here and there, but its the talent brought on that seriously makes the cuts great. Kutsuna and Gosei Oda were both brought on off the heels of Milos, and the new talent on display is impressive. New webgenners like Tatsurou Kawano, and Ran Kamezawa are interesting but its the inclusion of Shingo Fujii, Ryu Nakayama and Keiichiro Watanabe that are among the biggest names. Fujii would go on to be an incredible talent on Precure, Nakayama became a successful director most recently on Chainsaw Man, and Watanabe is the most peculiar of the bunch. Though this is one of Watanabe’s earliest works he feels like the natural second coming of Yama and Norio inspired sakuga as he’d become a god in morphing effects, and limited character acting on 3s and 4s. There are some interesting visual metaphors here in the OP. One of them being Madara having a drawing of siege cannon before he shoots a ball of fire, nailing home the point further.

After doing cuts on Gatchaman Crowds, and Iron Man: Rise of Technovore Yama returned to Timo on Yozakura Quartet Hana No Uta

Timo of course brought on regulars like Norio (who does way more animation here then on Hoshi No Umi), Kutsuna, and Yama himself (who does less fight sakuga). Its the new animators that are most important, guys like Kenichi Fujisawa, Shingo Fujii, Ryu Nakayama, Ran Kamezawa, up and coming duo Shun Enokido and Takahito Sakazume, Tomoaki Takase, Shin Ogasawara, Ikou Geso, Misao Abe, Hiromitsu Seki, Kengo Saito, and Ryosuke Nishii. We even get some unusual freelancers like Toshiyuki Sato and Yuki Hayashi both associated with other studios simply joining because of their skill sets and familiarity with webgen animation.

Yama’s first effort was making his debut as episode director on Episode 1, and 10. Instead of being placed on an action heavy episode Timo left him responsible for doing more character centric stories. Episode 10 has a ton of animation and storyboarding by Yama himself and its really cute sakugabooru.com/post/show/167039, everything is consistently solid and bouncy sakugabooru.com/post/show/78633.

Its 2014 and Yama was assigned to work on a video game trailer which I believe translates to “Ancient Goddess and Gem Archer”

Yama was in charge of direction and you can see him starting to get better with the interesting cuts as his touches are all over this. Despite being mostly animated by Kawano, new faces like Itsuki Tsuchigami, Toshi Sada and Niki Izumoto all contribute.

Around that time he did another promo for a game called Senjo no Enbukyoku

Yama Solo KA
This is where I feel Yama begins to really excel at the timing and editing of his trailers. His cross-dissolves are way more prominent, and he begins to vary the shading and coloring between each scene. Also his use of lenses helps to better give a cinematic feel, and despite all of the drawn still frame characters this is all clearly Yama. This would also be one of the last times he solo animated an OP or trailer as I feel beyond this point he would need support making these, and would get that in droves with the years to come

For the next few years Yama did some side work on Psycho Pass, The Animator Expo, Hori-san to Miyamamura-kun, and Kurage no Shokudou. He returned to doing OP direction on Twin Star Exorcist second OP in 2016.

Lot of familiar faces here: Enokido and Sakazume, Tsuchigami, Seki, Ogasawara, Izumoto, but also new faces like Yuki Sato. Once 0:55 kicks in we really get to see some of Yama’s best directing with him taking advantage of 3D backgrounds, cross-dissolves, focused lens photography, and extreme scale action.

After doing some minor work here and there like on Flip Flappers, he joined on Atom The Beginning with Bahi JD on animation direction, and storyboards.

Yama shares a cut with Toshi Sada from 0:48-0:56
Its amazing to see Yama have no ego towards working with others that have taken him as inspiration. Even the legendary Mitsuo Iso was on this OP, among the many other talented animators here. The same year he did work on Fate/Apocrypha with Toru Iwazawa sakugabooru.com/post?tags=toru_iwazawa. Not as iconic as his other sakuga moments but fairly strong

2018-2019, would be pretty uneventful with Yama doing some freelance directing here and there He was a series director on Fastening Days doing a great scene on one episode sakugabooru.com/post/show/39185 and the Blade Smash video game opening also being the one of the most astonishing piece of work in-between that period

We get a fleet of talent from Yama’s backlog, including; Hiromitsu Seki, Kenichi Kutsuna, Naoki Yoshibe, Niki Izumoto, Keiichiro Watanabe, and Itsuki Tsuchigami. The new animators all have been up and coming for years and this is their first time with Yama; Myoun, Moaang, Miki Shinha, Hokuto Sadamoto, Hitomi Kariya, China, Mise, Nakaya Onsen, and Tetsuya Akutsu. There is even a minute part from Takashi Kojima who up to this point was one of the most impressive young action animators putting in serious work to be the best. This trailer has some impressive quick cuts where I feel like Yama is trying to showcase as much action possible. There is a series of cuts displaying characters which I feel like is an homage to his own work on OP13 of Shippuuden sakugabooru.com/post/show/175542

Along with that would be Yama’s work on the 4 year Anniversary PV of Fate/Grand Order

Yama 0:18-0:23
This is one of Yama’s most visually interesting OP’s as the wide aspect ratio adds to the epic scale, and 3D effects lend then rather take away from the action. Lots of new talent accompany Yama such as Hidekazu Ebina, Kai Shibata, Tomato, and others. Shun Enokido was in charge of the CG cuts as well. Yama does a heavy emphasis into making every single cut feel like an epic boss battle at the end of a video game.

In 2020 Yama was also brought on as series director of Pokemon: Twilight Wings. Yama personally directed Episode 1, 4, 6, and 7.

His touch is so present throughout every episode and there are so many standout moments. Bahi’s scene from Episode 4 sakugabooru.com/post/show/117959, Keiichiro Watanabe and Weilin Zhang’s scene on Episode 7 sakugabooru.com/post/show/217828 and the gorgeous KA throughout every single episode. Yama isn’t the only one to think for the high production value of these shorts, Masato Takahashi seamlessly integrates cgi into most of the shorts, and Katsuto Ogawa excels at translating Yama’s camerawork into a net original. The ADs are also of great talent, most notably Sunie Chikaoka, Moaang, Takaomi Shinoda, and Tomohiro Takano. Not to mention the animators, a lot went uncredited but notable names include Yuta Kiso, ras, Paul Williams, Kenta Yokoya, Koudai Watanabe, and Hitomi Kariya.

Yama here feels as cinematic as ever bringing his signature touch to the project, and making the Galar region feel alive and bustling. The simplified designs to the original characters help the animation move more, and is supported by his dramatic lighting

2020-2021, we get some of Yama’s most popular work on Jujutsu Kaisen OP-1 and 2

By this point Yama has pretty much perfected his style down to a T. The realistic lighting, dramatic camera angles, epic tracking shots, contrasting colors, soft lighting, and everything in-between. His animators also feel so familiar with his work, and are perfectly adept at handling the workflow. Not only that, but I feel like he has such a good understanding of the source material, and taking liberty over what he can show. Yama even implements usage of cgi that he animated by himself sakugabooru.com/post/show/164035\. Yama attested that manga author Gege Akutami even asked him to do the openings if an anime was ever green-lit, so you know just how good he is by now. The use of darker colors is super prominent, but the photography feels like its turned up to extremes with clever and creative executions of it.

2021, Yama participated in an amazing fight scene on Mushoku Tensei Episode 11 working alongside goats like: Ken Otsuka, Naoya Takahashi, Q Kawa, Shho, Soichiro Matsuda, and Kanada-animation boundary pusher Yoshimichi Kameda

Yama does an unconfirmed cut from 0:19-0:24

Studio Wit’s incredible Ranking of Kings was dying for an incredible OP, to which Yama proudly provided.

This second OP comes at such a critical point in the story, where the emotional highs are high. The uses of day and night cycles in this opening feel just as profound as the character acting scenes in-between. All of the rotating shots here are typical Yama but he contrasts them with day and night, and also applies this to his cross-dissolves and soft lighting. This also contains Yama’s best uses of visual storytelling, conveying so many themes of heroism, leadership, friendship, family, nature, discovery, and betrayal. As for animators we got usuals like Myoun, Ikariya, Shin Ogasawara, and Hiromitsu Seki, Toshiyuki Sato but this OP was filled to the brim with new talent. Claire Launay, future JJK director Shota Goshozono, Julian Bentley, and JJK prodigy Vercreek. Everyone stands out as all the cuts are crafted and carefully assembled to work in harmony with each other.

In early 2022 on Princess Connect Re:Dive Episode 4 Takahito Sakazume’s AD carried the episode helming an impressive sequence where the girls fight a giant.

Yama 1:37-1:42
This entire sequence has one of the most stacked lineups with Yuukei Yamada, Arifumi Imai, Hironori Tanaka, Itsuki Tsuchigami, Toru Iwazawa, and Toshiya Kouno handling the first portion of the fight, and Eri Irei, Harumi Yamazaki, Yukina Kosaka, and Yama doing the middle, with Ryu Nakayama, Shun Enokido, Sakazume, Tatsuya Yoshihara and Ken Yamamoto handling the final portion. One of the most phenomenal sakuga cuts of that year.

Then later in 2022, we of course get Yama’s iconic opening for Ryu Nakayama’s directorial debut on Chainsaw Man

An opening that takes references to a whole new level, Yamashita offers that and more with this opening as it doesn’t only reflect the nature of the show, but the thesis statement of the author Tatsuki Fujimoto. Fujimoto has a love for film, and Yama made sure to add as many as possible. There are so many, but some of the standouts are as follows: for one I love these scenes by Kouki Fujimoto and co animated with many subjects in frame paying homage to The Big Lebowski sakugabooru.com/post/show/217098, Castlevania master Tam Lu Evangelion scene is completely devoid of linework and is badass sakugabooru.com/post/show/217103, and the quick cut references at the start doing frame for frame remakes of shots is wildly spontaneous from time periods and eras sakugabooru.com/post/show/217097\. The compositing in Yama’s work has always been good, but never this good. The blurs are more prominent here than ever. The oscillating cuts with the gang are using techniques like rack focuses, and the scene with Denji sleeping on Makima uses a shallow focus. That scene has bizarre visual imagery, as you see Makima feed Denji a parasitic slug, emphasizing the twisted dynamic between the two. The atmosphere of the cuts is also incredibly well captured, with all the details going from light coloring to darker coloring giving more extreme contrast than ever. Yama even expertly uses edge control to help put a deceptively comprehensive focus on the lighting, and ambient lighting to get Nakayama’s quest for realism out of every shot. The animators are all firing on all cylinders too with a stacked lineup of new talent; Osumin Ligton, 10+10, Shouichi, Taiwei Lu, Sumin Oh, Naoki Miyajima, Hayato Kurosaki, Shinya Ito, Kaito Tomioka, Chris (Yen BM), Benjamin Faure, and Aya Yamamoto*. So many of these people did great cuts.

About a week later Yama was also in charge of the Urusei Yatsura 2022 OP

This OP stands in stark contrast of Chainsaw Man being bombarded with bright neon colors, and paying respect to the original 80s anime. Aside from Kazunori Ozawa Hitomi Kariya, and Kei Masaki, Yama once again brings along a ton of new talent: Kenjiro Asaki, Kanako Sakaguchi, Satomi Tanigaki, Yuki Masuda, Fumi Kato, and Yoshifumi Hagano all provide striking and bouncy character acting cuts. I love Sakaguchi’s dance scene with Yatsura, and Hagano’s animation seems to harken back to original 80s OP.

In 2023 Yama helped on the first directed OP by Weilin Zhang on Heavenly Delusion

Yama one cut
Zhang seems to take a lot of elements from Yama in this OP particularly the photography department doing many techniques to make everything feel real and warm. The only difference is Zhang’s heavy influence from Shinji Hashimoto, going for rounded abstract exaggerations of the characters, and giving the animation a formidability and youthful instability. Masami Mori, Curie Lu, Kay, Ren Onodera, Hiroki Uchiyama, and high tier action director Hakuyu Go all contribute cuts to the OP. I feel like Yama only worked on a quick cut, due to time but he’s also in the know that Zhang is immensely talented and his support is to boost the young sakuga god’s confidence. Yama was also presumed to do one cut on the first episode, making 3D backgrounds worthwhile in anime sakugabooru.com/post/show/224331.

Shingo Yamashita is such an eye-catching creative in anime. His OPs are so distinguishable from nearly everyone else and his talent is immeasurable. In the future he could become a serious threat if he got to direct a proper tv series. The measure of his skills has broken the scale as he’s seriously pushed the boundaries of the digital era of anime animation. Long gone are the days of boringly colored scenes, and uninteresting photography as Yama finally ushered in a new millennium of saying “yes its okay to use the camera to your full ability” and “yes lighting can be actually pleasing to look at”. Sure while many can consider his early days of sakuga to be more impressive, I will argue that this era now is just as impressive if not more due to all of the prestige and attraction of young animators onto his OPs and other projects. Yama is a god of the OP, and I don’t see anyone taking that title from him anytime soon.

same birthday as this GOAT

This actually looks fire I've never seen a Pokémon show look like this

Just watched JJK 0 and the latest episode

I think this was good timing because of how the episode and the movie relate

My thoughts about the movie is that it's fine, mostly carried by being part of Jujutsu Kaisen but definitely not its strongest arc

The episode though, really interesting