Animator Spotlight: Yoshihiko Umakoshi

All gifs in order
Berserk (1997) Presumed
Project Arms (2001)
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001)
One Piece Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island (2005)
Death Note (2007)
Yes! Pretty Cure 5 The Movie: The Mirror Kingdom’s Miraculous Adventure! (2007) Presumed
Casshern Sins (2008) Presumed
One Piece: Strong World (2009)
Highschool of the Dead (2010)
Heartcatch Precure! (2011) Presumed
One Piece: Film Z (2012)
Saint Seiya Omega (2013) Presumed
Tiger Mask W (2016)
Dragon Ball Super: Broly (2018)
One Piece: Film Red (2022)
My Hero Academia (2022)

Happy Belated Birthday Yoshihiko Umakoshi born on 7/30. One of the most charismatic animators and character designers in the industry, Umakoshi has become a household name amongst two studios; Toei and later Bones. Starting his career at Studio Cockpit a subcontractor for Toei where Masaaki Iwane (who became the auteur animator of Pokemon), Takahiro Kagami (who became the auteur animator of Yu-Gi-Oh!), and of course the legendary Junichi Hayama who’s work on Fist of the North Star moved Umakoshi away from nearly working on mecha at Sunrise. With his time at Toei he developed a strong and noticeable KA presence drawing thick speedlines, and maintaining jumpy timing. During his early tenure, he participated on Episode 179 of Dragon Ball Z where Keisuke Masunaga’s AD resulted in one of the most energetic action sequences in the entire series. Umakoshi began to foster character designs over the mid to late 90s notably on Berserk, and then in the 2000s begin to grow a relationship with Bones working on the first Cowboy Bebop movie. Post Ojajamo Doremi he developed his unique touch on Casshern Sins, Heartcatch! Precure and Saint Seiya Omega noted by his swoop noses, slender designs, and alien like faces. The most notable aspect of the era was of course the Umakoshi Eye, a now sakuga staple highlighted as a stretched out deformed eye to emphasize dynamic facial motion. In 2016, he returned to Bones working full-time on My Hero Academia where his comic like sensibilities have defined the visual identity of the show for 7-years. This guy is an unsung hero of super-powered action scenes and is one of the most clean cut designers in the industry.

So when researching Umakoshi, he has a very long and winding history as a freelancer and at Toei so I’m going to cut out as much fat as I can and leave in the most essential parts of his career, as some shows just are not much to note due to the limited nature of his involvement.

Umakoshi’s earliest animation positions was in-betweening work initially starting in the late 80s on shows like Saint Seiya, Shin Bikuriman, and Crying Freeman. He made his debut KA on Mahoutsukai Sally. For years Umakoshi had been an exceptionally underrated talent in the Studio Cockpit pool, and the vast majority of work in this period was thanks to Hayama’s mentorship inspiring him and the likes of former Toei animators such as Kouichi Arai and Hideki Hamasu. This entire era of Umakoshi is unfortunately not well documented up until the Cell and Goku fight on Episode 179 of Dragon Ball Z with AD by Keisuke Masunaga sakugabooru.com/post/show/31501\. This is only a small portion of a much bigger fight scene. While Umakoshi does a great job here though much of this scene is heavily indebted to Masunaga’s spectacular direction. The grinning teeth and more angular and aggressive approach to characters heightens the speed of the fight. The smears and heavy speed lines also imbue a sense of weight, drama, and fear into the action as well.

After gaining an impressive resume on a diverse array of shows like Ranma, Zettai Muteki, Giant Robo, Miracle Girls, and the well known 1994 Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure OVA, Umakoshi finally got his first shot at character designs that same year on Marmalade Boy

While certainly no stranger to complex designs (this is the 90s after all) this show feels like a through line of houjo romantic drama, and Umakoshi carries here. Director Akinori Yabe left Takahiro Kigami and Umakoshi chiefly in charge of important AD throughout the series even extending onto the movies. Umakoshi’s first credit would be on the two OPs and later on 4 episodes of the tv series.

Though this isn’t anything ground breaking for the era a lot of these more beautiful designs would be stretched and simplified as the years went on.

After Marmalade came a spur of three shows where Umakoshi was placed on CD duty due to his wonderful work on it, the three being Grappler Baki, Neighborhood Story, and Boys over Flowers. All of three of these shows seriously highlight the diversity of Umakoshi’s design nature and how well he’s able to adapt source material. On Baki Umakoshi proves he really well adept for the shonen medium, and his AD work on the OVA made him a winning candidate for future fight scene material.

On Neighborhood Story Ai Yamada’s despondent and free-willing characters have an unmistakable crassness that’s hard to get so instead Umakoshi took the more cuter route going for that, while also paying a decent amount of respect to the material. This would begin the trend of Umakoshi implementing thicker linework into his drawings giving characters distinctive outlines. His head drawings got larger with lanky paddle like bodies.

For Boys Over Flowers Umakoshi started to simplify his romantic designs, while also adding a lot of the quirks from his works on shonens and *Neighborhood Story. There is more of a maturity to his work here, that manages not to betray his style but enhance it. One trait Umakoshi began to implement here was carefully practical eye drawings.

The undeniable highlight of Umakoshi design prowess came in the form of the OLM adaptation of Kentaro Miura’s seminal manga Berserk

Despite having not as good animation as the manga deserved Umakoshi and company did the best of their ability to bring Miura’s seinen to life, and did a solid job. Much of the brunty and ragged posturing of Hayama, and Masunaga’s influence comes to a head here in this series with Umakoshi seriously bringing some of his best drawings in his career.

Umakoshi 0:44-0:50
For the three episodes he supervised his impact felt like a drop in the pond. Umakoshi’s AD work standouts out the most as the advantageousness of being series main character designer means not only control over the look of the episode but also elasticity with designs per episode. Umakoshi’s did some KA on the show though not much stood out. His design sheets on the show is wonderful, as he tries to really capture Miura’s sensibilities.


the genga is also highly reflective of this

The few years after Berserk Umakoshi took on a f*** load of work, so much so that its hard to document. Everything would come to a head in early February 1999 where the first episode of Ojamajo Doremi aired

The series (different iterations included) ran from 1999 to 2004. This marked Umakoshi real big entrance into shoujo magical girl territory and he does not disappoint at all. While he would perfect this style down the road this about as great shoujo you’ll ever get. With guidance from Sailor Moon director Junichi Sato, and creation by Izumi Todo this fostered a new era for Umakoshi that he would improve on for years later. Umakoshi’s contributions to the series was more prevalent than any one before it, managing KA, CD, AD, storyboarder and had an overwhelming series presence being the heart and soul of the show.

His first effort was doing some hilarious character acting in Episode 1 sakugabooru.com/post/show/70256, and there on out did several episodes throughout the years. One major moment throughout the series would be the baseball episode on Doremi Naisho, where Umakoshi began to implement incredibly thick blacked out line work sakugabooru.com/post/show/114441 that feels like a runoff of inspiration from Kigami’s work on Yu-Gi-Oh! sakugabooru.com/post/show/144609\. Some of the genga sheets showcase just how bold the lines are

In fact over the course of the series Umakoshi became more sharp with line work mixing some of his shonen traits in with shoujo traits and striking a gentle balance.

Here is a great resource from a Newtype Magazine interview from 2001, filled with character notes, and differing designs

During the time of Doremi and the following years after, Umakoshi was working as a freelancer doing some incredible work on a myriad of different series. The first would be a great fight on Project Arms sakugabooru.com/post/show/206793 but the most notable is his scene on Cowboy Bebop: The Movie

Umakoshi 0:33-1:26
Despite the heavy action AD throughout the film by Yutaka Nakamura, Masahiro Ando, and Norimitsu Suzuki Umakoshi seems relatively untouched by any of their timing configurations, or corrections. In fact this is the most angular and tight the characters get. There is an incredible amount of swagger emanating from Spike in this scene, with the broom spin being the best part of the scene.

He’d later continue work with Bones on Wolf’s Rain animating on three episodes and the OP, and Fullmetal Alchemist’s 4th OP, as he was also branching out to several studios during this time even working on Otogizoshi with Production IG sakugabooru.com/post/show/153518 and Gunbuster 2 with Gainax sakugabooru.com/post/show/224483.

In 2005 one very distinctive fight scene would come about in the final act of Mamoru Hosoda’s One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island

This entire final encounter was anime Avengers tier level of animation with Hosoda bringing so many animators from across the industry. The inclusion of several Gainax animators is interesting with Hiroyuki Imaishi, Yoh Yoshinari, Sushio, and Takeshi Honda taking up major portions, but also many freelancers with Hideki Hamasu, Kouichi Arai, Tatsuzou Nishita, Hiroyuki Aoyama, and Takashi Hashimoto as well. Among the list of actual Toei animators, ones like Takahiro Kigami, and Hisashi Mori are present as well as the legendary Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru. Hosoda freely lets all of these animators show off their idiosyncrasies, and Umakoshi stands out (at least next to Yoshinari and Mori)
sakugabooru.com/post/show/180808 this scene has great character acting, effects and everything in-between but also started a trend of Umakoshi drawing absurdly large eyes for character exaggeration.

The same year he’d also animate an amazing fight on Conqueror of Shamballa albeit due to perfectionistic AD from Yutaka Nakamura the scene ends up resembling his work rather than Umakoshi’s sakugabooru.com/post/show/217677

This year marked the beginning of Umakoshi’s more dreary side on Artland’s adaptation of Yuri Ureshiba’s famed manga Mushishi

A story somewhere in the 19th century of Japan, the plot follows a man named Ginko a mysterious man that is regarded as a “mushi-master” an expert in the mystical mushi creatures that inhabit a realm that people cannot comprehend but some can. Umakoshi had never embarked on a show like this before. There is a calm longing to the show, but also a sense of rumination in the designs.


As a first time effort for more realistic character designs its impressive, but there is also a levity of perhaps being too realistic with the them that Umakoshi’s touch isn’t lost. This show does have Umakoshi away from the spotlight for much of the show as he would primarily assist as an AD, and come back for Mushishi: Zoku Shou about 10 years later.

For some reason in 2007, many Toei animators were involved on Death Note’s final episode with Takahiro Kagami being an AD bringing on friends. Naotoshi Shida, Terumi Nishii, and Umakoshi were among the list of credited Toei animators.

Umakoshi presumedly at 1:05-2:15 with heavy Kigami AD, there is possibly another animator involved but its unknown for now

After doing an astounding amount of work on shows like Gurren Lagann, Serei Moribito, Sword of the Stranger, and countless Precure movies Umakoshi was brought on as primary character designer on Casshern Sins released in 2008

Produced by Tatsunoko Productions and animated at Madhouse this felt like a changing of the guard from the original series. The show had gone through several iterations, with its original 70s anime, a 90s OVA, and even a live action 2004 tokusatsu movie. Umakoshi’s take feels completely unique and fresh with new angular warped take on the original designs.



Umakoshi’s designs ooze style. There is a serious sense of aerodynamics to the big swooping shapes that are exuding this sense of speed and ferocity, and given the more darker take on the series it works incredibly well. Directer Yamauchi Shigeyasu helped bring the series to life with his storyboards, and Umakoshi was involved with the AD process. For this show Umakoshi’s action directed scenes opted for a heavy use of speed lines, and of course his renowned Umakoshi Eye, with it here being more prominent than ever.



The scenes have a stylistic influence of 70s action rife with his flare. The show featured a few Toei vets, such as Kigami, Tatsufomi Ito (who solo animated Episode 8), Madhouse animators Hidehiko Sawada and Kanako Maru but also an appearance from the illustrious Norio Matsumoto who’s arrival on Episode 6 was seemingly untouched by any of Umakoshi’s corrections sakugabooru.com/post/show/161288 marking a huge animation shift in the middle of the action. Umakoshi himself was not credited for any KA, though it is widely noted that his corrections might have been complete redraws in some instances on several episodes making it his own animation sakugabooru.com/post/show/64981 sakugabooru.com/post/show/201410\. Umakoshi during this time let his line work define the action. Instead of taking more safer approaches and having the brunt of the action be seen in camera, Umakoshi goes for incredibly close up and intimate shots of the action with anticipated shots of kicks or punches being followed through by just a one quarter shot of the body and not an entire bodily reaction. It’s different, and feels heavily influenced by past 80s works truly showing he is a disciple of Junichi Hayama.

In the climactic scene of One Piece: Strong World Umakoshi was in charge of handling the finale. A resounding amount this scene looked untouched by any AD’s being full on Umakoshi epic-ness. Heavy hatching, defined speed lines, and Umakoshi eyes. sakugabooru.com/post/show/219137

Finally in 2010, after years of animating on Precure Umakoshi was finally granted chief character designer on Heartcatch Precure!

A triumphant return to shoujo and one of Umakoshi’s greatest achievements (IMO). I feel like Umakoshi finally could get a good result out of mixing his cute shoujo designs while being able to flex the dexterity and alien like proportions of his action ones after coming off of Casshern. Being the seventh installment of the Precure series Umakoshi spiced things up resulting in the most unique and unusual take on designs. Umakoshi highlights in this design sheet he wanted character silhouettes to be as simple as possible so the viewer could make out the character instantly upon first glance.

Much of the show’s very spirited and fresh approach can be thanked to Tatsuya Nagimine possibly the best and profound voice in ushering in a new age of Toei in the 2010s. Thanks to his help the show had a resounding energy in it needed off the heels of several more middling installments in the franchise.

With a Precure show transformations or henshin is one of the most essential parts for reusable bank shots. Umakoshi adds a lot to these sequences making each one more complicated than the next. Umakoshi himself handled Blossom’s transformation, an unknown artist did Marine’s, and Ken Otsuka was in charge of Moonlight’s.

However the best transformation has to go to Naotoshi Shida, who possibly does one of the best magical girl transformations of all time with Sunshine.

As for actual Umakoshi sakuga, once again all his actual quirks are present but the boards he worked with gave him more room to show the action, and be more fast paced rather than the much slower action he had been presenting on Casshern. sakugabooru.com/post/show/46725 sakugabooru.com/post/show/46283 sakugabooru.com/post/show/20082

After working on shows with character designs inspired by him like Yumeki Merry, Highschool of the Dead, and Mawaru Penguindrum Umakoshi returned to his own on Saint Seiya Omega in 2012.

Despite not having backing from Yagamine, Hatana Morio’s direction was more than welcome into lifting up Umakoshi’s designs. This was also Umakoshi returning to AD position, a pretty big position considering this show was a 25th anniversary commemoration of the show and manga. While not as brisk as Casshern or as cute as Precure, the show opts for a careful balance of Umakoshi’s sensibilities. Some of his sickest design sheets



some of the impressive foreshortening seems reminiscent of Shida
Throughout the show Umakoshi’s action is few and far between, the final episodes being his best sakugabooru.com/post/show/204548.

The next couple years had Umakoshi doing a myriad of several animes. His guest appearances are incredibly notable as it seems he’s barely corrected in the scenes he was in charge of.

After doing tremendous work on Mushishi: Zoku Shou, Umakoshi was brought on to one of the most defining projects of his entire career with Studio Bones adaptation of My Hero Academia

One of the most popular animes currently around, Umakoshi after becoming the verteran he was up until this point felt like he didn’t need to prove anything else up to this point yet bravely took on Kohei Horikoshi’s well loved designs. Rarely do you see an animator take on Chief Series Animation Director and Character Designer, as usually in anime studios it can be a revolving door of CDs that leave per season, not with Umakoshi. His decision to stay for the next seven years on the shows and movies felt emblematic of fostering the quality of the show, to which to be honest can come and go.

First the designs



Umakoshi had a lot of material to work with. Early on Umakoshi had stated his ethos was to basically smooth out what had already worked in the manga

“My first impression was that they (the designs) were very suited for animation. In terms of making them living, moving characters, all we did was basically simplify his lines. That's all we needed to do, because the manga already had a lot of movement.”

Throughout the years of the show it was important for Umakoshi and co really get the most out of the animation even in the most limited scenes, which resultantly has never had a dull drawing in it. Through this process Umakoshi has helped raise up some incredibly talented ADs such as: Koichi Horikawa, Takafumi Mitani, Takahiro Komori and many more. Also thanks to the Toei to Bones pipeline another animator has come from there that being Yuki Hayashi, a veteran staff member who has done some of the most underrated moments of the show and movies. Studio A director Kazuhiro Miwa and few other regulars have also been involved with the series. Umakoshi’s role essentially was to oversee animation directors and advise them what to do over time, although he would be an AD on episodes in a season, notably the first and last episodes of a season usually or key episodes. This has also extended heavily to blu-ray corrections


Fun fact: Umakoshi’s favorite character is All Might