Kubota later that year helmed a part of the final battle on Dragon Ball Super: Broly. This final fight’s first portion is comprised of Naotoshi Shida a Toei legend who’s been present since the original 86 Dragon Ball, Kubota followed him up and did and for a debut blew out expectations. sakugabooru.com/post/show/75275\. We first open with a shot directly referencing Movie 8, with Kubota’s own spin on it.

Then the resulting battle is just insane. Buttery smooth animation, motion graphic tier background movements, and such a high quality of drawings that we’ve never seen on Dragon Ball






Pretty good considering Yuki Hayashi comes right after bringing one of the best highlights of the film next to Ryo Onishi’s part sakugabooru.com/post/show/75355.

The next year Kubota did some brief cuts on Raison D’etre an Eve music video with designs by webgener and occasional Trigger associate Mai Yonemaya

Kubota 0:57-1:01
And even worked on Pokemon Sun and Moon among many other talented animators like Hiroyuki Horiuchi, Toshiyuki Sato, Osamu Murata, and even working alongside Yoshimichi Kameda again sakugabooru.com/post/show/219589.

For two years, Kubota has found his place at Toei being the primary animator on any Dragon Ball related media, and who knows if he’ll be a designer of the next series, maybe Naohiro Shintani too? Who knows? On Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero Kubota was assigned primary character designer and AD, even though this was his first experience with CGI and first Dragon Ball CG movie in general.

As a first attempt at CGI animation Kubota admitted he was a bit apprehensive about the idea.

“When the description came in that this would be a 3D CG film, of course I had some trepidation. But beyond that, whether in 2D or 3D, was the sense that I just wanted to keep working with Dragon Ball. When I read the script, I was incredibly excited — it reminded me of my days buying Weekly Jump and reading the latest chapter of Dragon Ball as a kid. I was like, “Wow, this is new Dragon Ball!” (laughs) With a 3D project in particular, I felt like I might be able contribute my fixation with replicating Toriyama-sensei‘s style, on top of simply rendering the characters in three dimensions. Everyone has a sense of that distinct “Toriyama quality,” and I pored over the work of previous animators and their own approaches to representing Toriyama-sensei‘s artwork to convey that in the film.”

Kubota later stated it was a shame that film was going to be in 3D, and only promised to be part of the production if the opening segment was in 2D. This is a pretty entitled move, considering Kubota isn’t even a Toei employee, but just goes to show that his touch influences the sway of Dragon Ball’s future which is wild. Kubota in an Expo interview this year even mentioned that if a Dragon Ball remake is slated to happen that producer Norihiro Hayashida should contact him, a ballsy thing to suggest.

The opening scene animated solo by Kubota is a great tone setter for the movie, and pays homage to the manga and anime and is simply the best. There are so many little shots, and tidbits that are guided by Kubota’s touch. Of course the first thing to mention is the drawings, which are so badass, primarily just the Z segment,




Super strong drawings, can’t say enough good things about this man’s penmanship.

As for the OG Dragon Ball, which is more movement based, once again great choice of shot selection all of over my favorite being this one.

That second shot of Goku being flying down the tower and towards the camera, has the most silky smooth background animation I have ever seen in anything. I don’t know if it was achieved digitally or a***ogue? Kubota is jaw dropping. And the fact he maintains the designs of the original without alienating with something new is so good.

For animation Kubota was hinging on making the 3D work.

"With this film, I wasn’t part of what we’d call the layout and roughs stages in terms of 2D animation. Normally I’d like to be more involved there, but all the movement that came my way afterward was so lively I needn’t have worried. It was like a different culture, or grammar. I’d think, “Oh, they put this kind of frame in here. I see.” Sometimes there were even cases where I felt there was a bit too much motion, but I was in awe of how much control you could feel over even the smallest details, in comparison to 2D animation, where things tend to fall quietly into line. Even the production floor responsible for producing the visuals differed greatly from 2D animation. With so many processes, parts and people, I looked forward to seeing the images being brushed up with each new take."

"For my work as animation director, I used an iPad to layer corrections directly over the 3D-rendered images. With 3D, changing even one line can result in the need to adjust the whole model, which can be quite troublesome. I had to take extra care to explain exactly why a certain change was needed, sometimes leaving written “illustrator’s perspective” notes to carefully detail why one thing would work, another wouldn’t, etc. What surprised me was that even in cases where I’d think, “Was that too much? Will they fix it?”, the scene would come back exactly as I’d requested. Everyone was working so hard. There were so many times I’d get an “animation director corrections” take passed back to me and be touched by the fact that all the changes were there.”

The use of 2D effects work was vital to not solely rely totally on CGI, Kazunori Ozawa did some great smoke effects sakugabooru.com/post/show/213071 and presumably water effects sakugabooru.com/post/show/212422\. Dragon Ball’s most impressive younger animator Yuya Takahashi also handles effects throughout sakugabooru.com/post/show/213086 sakugabooru.com/post/show/214446\. This kind of hybridized technique with 2D effects with 3D characters and backgrounds, has also been apart of American CG animations like the Spiderverse movies and even the recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film.

Kubota’s designs harken back to the Buu-arc albeit have a bit more of a more practical layer of detail to them.

Around the same time as the release date of Super Hero it was announced the third season of One Punch Man would be in production at Mappa with Kubota returning with a poster drawn, though no confirmation on him being character designer or AD

The same year on Dragon Quest Kubota did a pretty clean fight scene, sakugabooru.com/post/show/206925 the impact frame cut resembles his digital animation.

Chikashi Kubota is a professional through and through. While I wouldn’t say he is the most personality driven animator, through his animation, he is one of the only few I’ve seen through interviews says he actively enjoys animating. He goes through the notions of being reliant on references like many other animators, and being complicit with source material but I think his approach pays off in dividends. Kubota is respectful to original material, even labeled as a “fanatic” by Toei staff. His upbringing through Gainax seriously opened doors for him, and gave him the opportunity to race to whatever project he wanted to be on. Through diversity, and involvement Kubota rose up to become a revered CD and AD. Hopefully it stays that way, as the future of IPs like Dragon Ball rest in his hands.

Follow Kubota on Twitter!

Monster is very good

26eps in, I thought it would fizzle out

But the mystery is nice

It will only get better. Very memorable show, I still think about it a lot.

Im picky with animated things cause alot of stuff is childish to me

This is very good I’ll be looking for a similar show when I finish this

Saito's directorial career has been insane so far. I'm really interested in seeing how stacked his portfolio will be 10 years.

4 eps in its pretty good so far

Any of you watching the one piece live action

I don't remember watching this show but this one of my fav openings

you snapped with this one

Thread should make a op and ed tourney

New JJK

Might be the best episode of the entire series

Hyped for this

The shibuya arc ep1? Or are you a dub watcher

Kimi ga ii
Mou kimi janakya
Ima wa tada kimi wo yakitsuketai

Wake up new Rent a GF dropped @MORPHE