Animator Spotlight: Arifumi Imai

All gifs in order
Attack on Titan Episode 5 (2013)
Attack on Titan Episode 25 (2013)
Attack on Titan No Regrets Pt. 1 (2014)
Rolling Girls (2015)
Attack on Titan No Regrets Pt. 2 (2015)
Boruto Naruto The Movie (2015)
One Punch Man Episode 8 (2015)
One Punch Man Episode 12 (2015)
Attack on Titan Episode 33 (2017)
Attack on Titan Episode 45 (2018)
Boogiepop Wa Warawanai (2019)
Attack on Titan Episode 51 (2019)
Vinland Saga (2019)
The Great Pretender (2020)
Ranking of Kings (2021)
Princess Connect Re:Dive* (2022)

Happy Birthday to Arifumi Imai. In the early to mid 10s there was a steady rise in up and coming action animators. Webgeners like Shingo Yamashita had pushed the limitations of traditional sakuga, and specialists like Yoshimichi Kameda were updating older Kanada styles of action with fresh new approaches, and in the meantime older counterparts such as Yutaka Nakamura would change battle sakuga yet again in anime for the foreseeable future. Enter 2013 where Arifumi Imai makes his presence known on Studio Wit’s Attack on Titan defining the show’s most powerful moments. Few action animators that I have covered on these spotlights have been able to not only apply impressive effects into their battle scenes, but character depth and emotion as well. Imai’s character drawings evoke such a strong feeling of aggression, power, and viscera that it becomes nearly impossible to copy by anyone else. This can also be stated about his effects. Almost every scene he does has an overwhelming degree of effects that in the hands of a less experienced animator, could not comprehend or translate frame to frame, but Imai is practical giving the spectacle around his scenes a sense of substance. His action is lumbering, slow, and is able to display a gripping feeling of weight. Even away from Wit Imai was still equally capitulating, doing marvelous scenes as a freelancer. One of the de-facto animators of the 10s, and a standout AD, Imai is one for the history books.

Imai did not become a star action animator overnight, this was a long process that he accumulated over the years through experience and sheer charisma. Imai originated from Production I.G. during the mid to late 2000s. His earliest work being on Moribito, xxxHolic, Library War, and Sky Crawlers. Imai’s very first efforts on key animation would be on Sengoku Basara where he animated on three episodes and the 2nd OP. Episode 15 is a great example of early Imai action sakugabooru.com/post/show/200625\. A lot of his debris dispersal, and dust effects are already characteristically him. You got curvy smoke, coal black debris, and an abundance of sparks making it all too easy to tell this is him. The wispy contrails of dust appear to be more of a KyoAni thing though that could just be a coincidence.

Imai would keep cutting his teeth working on Eden of the East, From Me to You and A Letter to Momo. Momo was the same year he did a very standout scene on Naruto Shippuuden Episode 194 sakugabooru.com/post/show/103879\. The scene is carried with impressive AD by Masayuki Kouda, and the resultant effect is a scene with heavy impact. Every hit Imai makes onscreen coalesces with carefully spaced smears and follows it up with throbbing camera shake. The rhythm of the cut is super Imai, with the chain guy being animated away that emphasizes forceful motion over anything.

Imai’s first big hit as a sakuga genius came on Guilty Crown

Directed by Tetsurou Araki, and produced at Section 6 of I.G., the show felt like a culmination of Araki wanting to bring on new talent and he was successful in that regard, letting a new guard of animators have some say over the action within the show. Imai was an AD for 3 episodes, and animated several episodes. Other new main KA staff included Imai’s friend Takuma Ebisu who came up with him early on his career doing in-between animation. Ebisu under the leadership of legendary IG creative Atsushi Takeuchi was a tertiary mechanical designer on the show, as well as KA. While Imai and Ebisu, were important long time IG regular Takaaki Chiba, was the sole main animator of the show, tackling a lot of the character acting scenes. Imai was credited as an animation director, but its important to observe his actual animation to see how he was a cut above his contemporaries sakugabooru.com/post/show/76834 sakugabooru.com/post/show/76613 sakugabooru.com/post/show/76607 sakugabooru.com/post/show/76481\. Improvement on explosion fx, body movement, and timing. Though the show did not land with having a big culture shock, the next work would.

On June 1st, 2012 Wit Studio was founded. A subsidiary of IG Port, with George Wada as president and Tetsuya Nakatake as studio director. With a new studio founded it was an eventuality that staff were brought on for a new project. Nakatake brought on Tetsurou Araki who then opted to bring on ADs Kyoji Asano and Satoshi Kadowaki. Their first task, was a bombastic debut on the adaptation of Hajime Isayama’s Attack on Titan (or Shingeki No Kyojin if you prefer that)

A new series that was meant to be Hollywood size. A series that defined the decade and anime, being some people’s first exposure. What more is there to say? Araki and company did not think that Attack on Titan would be as successful as it was, and with Ryotaro Makihara’s more romantically driven Hal being released around the same time, there was no way that Wit Studio would not be type casted into the future. The show was a hit, and the pre-production process had all the markings to bring some of the most unique anime action and animation up until that point.

The first main ingredient is unique character designs. With a brief contest held by Araki, the CD role went to Kyoji Asano who did a complete overhaul of the manga’s artwork.



Isayama’s original drawings, have a rough coarseness and sadness to them. The story of Attack on Titan leaves a lot of room for tragedy and expression. Asano was keen on bringing out the anger in the characters, and leaving a variety of reference material for the animators. Heavy hatching, and big inky outlines were the main stay attraction making the show stand out from other anime.



This applied to all the characters, and was a big great cheat on Asano and Araki’s part as there was not that much character acting going on in the first season. Though it was mended through re-releases, the art carried a fairly still show outside of the action. Isayama himself admitted he wasn’t a fan of his own art around that time, and was impressed with anime’s results.

The second ingredient came from a hybridized mix between 2D and 3D animation. The original vision was to have the show be all 3D with CGI director Shuhei Yabata showing 3D reels of the maneuver gear action with all CGI titans and soldiers. Araki vetoed this and instead opted for 2D animation with 3D backgrounds. This gave leeway to the two 2D and 3D teams working on layouts and animation, with 2D roughs and 3D reimaginings then bringing the key animator staff back on to do 2nd KA and cleanup. The primary action animation directors were Yasuyuki Ebara, Yuuto Sera, and Arifumi Imai, with Asano, Kadowaki and Chiba being Chief ADs.

Episode 1 and 2 of Attack on Titan are two of the most impressive opening series episodes of any anime ever made. Brought to life by incredible art direction, and visceral depth defying emotions. The Survey Corps opening action scene is a taste tester for what the show was all about with Ebara, and Imai heading the animation.

Imai 0:50-1:04
The initial destruction of Wall Maria was another insane outing, with the first appearance of the Armored Titan.

Imai 0:37-1:25
Imai’s force in the run of the Armored Titan is gigantic and forceful, and when it speeds up you can begin to see a heavy presence of blobby debris, almost semi masking as speed lines further emphasizing the power in the titan barreling towards the wall.

On Episode 5, Imai was able to instill awe-inspiring creature animation and his signature steam effects with all his sparks and propensity for over doing it everywhere sakugabooru.com/post/show/118880 and then later on doing the iconic 3D and 2D fusion shot debuted in the trailer sakugabooru.com/post/show/41802 with Imai going through the motion of Eren getting hit afterwards.
sakugabooru.com/data/4d369751264a0c23cf79bb546a9ecf0c.mp4

Throughout the rest of the season it was a free for all for impressive animation with Imai doing some of the best scenes. Even some nice character acting throughout sakugabooru.com/post/show/57370\. Imai’s tenure on the show was seriously well spent with a laundry list of iconic scenes. Levi’s attack on the female titan sakugabooru.com/post/show/57007, the insane maneuver gear shots in Episode 24 sakugabooru.com/post/show/224042, and a portion of the brawl in Episode 25.

Imai 2:35-2:48

Attack on Titan was a mega hit, though Wit Studio had already had a road map for the next few years to work on other shows. The reason for this was so the studio could show off its diversity, and made it easy for the creatives to work on other things. Those being Seraph of the End, Hozuki’s Coolheadedness, and Rolling Girls. Before any of that came, it was quickly decided after AOT’s success two OVA’s would be made titled No Regrets. Recounting Levi’s days before and after joining the Survey Corps

Imai 1:40-2:24
Once again Imai further flexes his impressive action prowess, even doing epic fight choreography.

On the second part of the OVA, Imai once again handles a Levi scene, with him destroying a titan that killed his friend.

Imai 0:43-1:30
I talked initially about the emotional fury of Imai’s animation but this scene encapsulates it perfectly. Even without hyper expressive character acting, with instead shadowed anime anger Imai is able to bring out so much aggression in his animation. Big glowing sword swipes, and an abundance of blood, it pools over Levi just as much as the rain.
sakugabooru.com/post/show/172516 better quality

In 2015 Wit Studio released The Rolling Girls

A bizarre early outing for the studio focusing on young mob girls who get powers from special jewels? A strange premise but Imai returned to work with the staff. Imai at this point had already been perplexingly good and was just showing off from scene to scene.

Imai 1:03-1:35
Notice the flower shaped purple effects after the hit, you don’t see any other animators do that kind of stuff, and so subtly.
Episode 2 continues the exchanges with more impressive sparkly debris and star effects sakugabooru.com/post/show/218192\. I can’t begin to describe what Imai or the AD is going for here, is it bubbles? or stars exploding out of bubbles? It is satisfying to look at. sakugabooru.com/post/show/75667 sakugabooru.com/post/show/16970 Imai’s action here still felt like his usual output albeit more severely unhinged in approach. Notice how he delicately crafts his dispersal of liquid, and sparks making for an interesting combination of shapes almost look like blooming flowers, or firework laden shapes. Imai in fact was the “Effect Designer” for the show.

In the middle of 2015, Imai did a visually stunning scene on the first Boruto movie.

Thanks to the overlay of animators from Studio Pierrot and Production IG opened up even more with Wit in its AOT hiatus era Imai was able to come on as he had worked on the series before. Legendary IG animation director Tetsuya Nishio had assembled a seriously impressive lineup from past Naruto productions, giving overlap to movie and series staff. Norio Matsumoto was on Action AD, along with other significant players such as Hirofumi Masuda managing effects. It was a big stack of animators that Imai was not unfamiliar with, as he showed the goats what he could bring to the table. In a scene reminiscent of Matsumoto’s work in OP6 sakugabooru.com/post/show/175389 Imai flexes his muscle and does impressive giant Kurama action sakugabooru.com/post/show/161772\. It’s an astounding feat with Imai mostly animating through a majority of the cut with the two giants bashing it out. When the initial slash to the golem is made, Imai pays a significant amount to the debris and smoke effects even (as someone pointed out on the Booru) animating the rock strata, which is the varying layers of sediment between each one. The only thing that sucks about this scene is it’s on Boruto.

In a surprising turn of events Imai was also recruited that year to work on Shingo Natsume’s One Punch Man.

Thanks to Natsume’s work on Space Dandy he was able to command an army of freelancers on the seminal adaptation of One and Yusuke Murata’s material. With former Gainax animator Chikashi Kubota as Chief Animation Director, the anime was a spectacle of talent ranging from the main studio Madhouse and beyond. Imai was dealing with a lot of newer big names, as an assortment of key Bones animators were the runners up for best scenes in the show, but he was no slouch. On Episode 5, Imai, free from the IG and Wit hemispheres, was left to do Saitama and Genos’s first training fight.

Imai 0:33-1:49
One of Imai’s greatest scenes, clocking in at 1 minute and 17 seconds. Another key factor that is a part of Imai’s animation that I have kind of underplayed in this retrospective, is he is incredibly extra with his effects. Being so extra can usually be a bit taxing on many animators, but not to him. Here, everything that Imai has built in his career so far:

Geometrically pleasing dispersal shapes
Detailed debris effects
Animation on 1s
And fluid and fast animation, so fast in fact that the two characters buzz in and out of being pure smear deformations in frame, then zapping back into place.
Again something you see virtually no other animators do. It is a jaw dropping sequence that has the best characteristics of Imai sakuga.

Episode 8, Imai did a brief fight between the Sea King and Sonic sakugabooru.com/post/show/170547 albeit with some very limited animation. Then we get the final fight with Boros and Saitama battling the fate of the world

Imai 2:23-3:11
This is the longest portion of animation handled by any other animator in this segment with legendary Bones animator Yutaka Nakamura doing the second longest. Imai had a big plate of competing animators, with guys like Yoshimichi Kameda, Norifumi Kugai, and even Imai’s friend Washio trying to outdo one another. Nakamura’s part of the fight is a nearly un-winnable battle in terms of animation, but Imai came very close. The amount of ambitious boarding by Natsume and direction by Kubota seriously brought out the best in him as he’s able to vary up the scene. I love the crazy threads of light being thrown around with the two fighting so fast and viciously. Once again Imai animating seriously impressive debris, even opting for Yutapon Cubes with one mighty impact from Boros.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this was spurred on by knowledge of Nakamura’s own involvement.

After doing brief action AD on Flip Flappers in early 2016 Imai was brought on as AD for Episode 476 and 477 of Naruto Shippuuden, heavily involved in the effects laden action scenes. Co-paired with the show’s primary animator Hiroyuki Yamashita who did most of the fighting portions. He did no animation or corrections, and instead was credited with being in charge of action reference material

Imai was brought on by Pokemon director Daisuke Tomiyasu to direct, storyboard, AD, and animate Episode 8 of Pokemon: Generations titled “The Cavern”

Full Episode, Imai 3:21-26, 4:15-4:52
With assistance from Wit Studio, Imai was able to craft one the more visually stunning episodes in this short web series, despite its short run time. Imai’s boards feel epic movie sized in scale. Beautiful scenes of near world ending destruction by Kyogre. Some magnificent swooping scenes.
The final scene of Kyogre attacking the Aqua Leader’s ship was entirely solo’d by Imai. It’s one of those shots on paper that seems easy, but is a tedious process. Imai makes it look easy as butter, and while the cuts aren’t given as much priority as an AOT scene it still is very well executed, and raw work from Imai.

In 2017, Attack on Titan was finally back for Season 2.

Finally, everyone from the Wit staff either working abroad, or on their other shows were able to return. This came right off the heels off of Araki’s original Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, and Masashi Koizuka had served as the show’s primary director with Araki in the “chief” position. This also brought an influx of newer freelancers who were fans of the show and wanted to hop on. One new inclusion would be a returning Takumi Ebisu, who upgraded to an AD on the show making an insane debut with the Beast Titan throwing a horse sakugabooru.com/post/show/236928\. Imai this season quote on quote said he “ran out of ideas”, but that felt like a major lie, as he had also upgraded from an impressive animator to a god in total control of each frame he commanded. Since the season is so action packed, a majority of cuts were more focused on revisions by ADs and other animators for consistency, and the overbearing presence of it. In fact the action directors read through the manga, and cherry picked scenes before anyone else were assigned to them. One serious thing to take away from this season also, enhanced character acting. Where digital revisions were done and learned on Kabeneri that skill was applied here too to great effect giving a serious amount of sheen, and almost Kou Yoshinari-esque beautification in certain shots.

Imai was on fire this season doing some of the most pivotal scenes. The first scene that was a standout came on Episode 29 where we get the first appearance of Ymir’s Titan form.

Imai 2:10-End

The second and more pivotal portion came in the form of the second attack on the outer wall where Reiner and Even duke it out. The titan fight scenes this season were admittedly hard to do coming from the 2D staff. The quality of detail in each titan is super hard to replicate, but they made it up for it in reference material and great boards.

4:29-End

The finale and beginning of the next episode coincide with the Colossal Titan falling on Eren and Reiner. F***ing insane effects animation from the debris, steam and smoke culminating in effects work rivaling that of Masaaki Endo and Takashi Hashimoto.

0:22-0:30
And that would be pretty much the season for Imai, he did do some cuts later on but they were pretty hard to beat from the start of the season.

After some freelance work from Imai, the first half of the third season rolled around in mid 2018

The team at Wit had been putting a stellar job into the show however the third season had a lot more still frames and had to make up for it with some phenomenal action direction. Imai this season was keen on handling the Levi vs Kenny squad encounter, as he actually got to work on this scene early. According to accounts of Imai he actually was using references outside of anime, even going so far to using Allen Iverson as a reference.

Imai 0:26-0:32, 0:42-0:51, 1:06-1:15, 2:52-2:54
This is a quick succession of cuts from Imai, with Yuuto Sera and others handling the scenes around it. Imai is in a completely different league from his contemporaries here. Not only is able to manage insane 3D esque boards done by Tayayuki Hirao, but also hyper realized and detailed effects and character drawings.

Interview with Imai about the scene from 2020,

”I’ve collected references for months, mainly from games and movies. Probably, all of them got inside the Levi scene in a way or in another. I referenced the movie Van Hellsing during the part where the wire flies in the form of a neat spiral. As well as the game Uncharted 3, specially the part when the first enemy chases you from behind and their shadows are reflected on the wall. I’ve accumulated materials like these and I’ve reinterpreted them in a way that reflects myself.”

”Especially when I was asked to do scenes where the characters get up from their back I felt like I wanted to experience bungee jumping first. Actually, I’ve always thought of that, that would be helpful for the three-dimensional maneuver scenes. I invited Ms. Yuko Sera and Mr. Yasuyuki Ebara but they responded to me: “A company outing like that? You really think we have time for that?” with a really upset expression so in the end we didn’t go anywhere. When I finally did bungee jumping by myself I felt that experience so real that I felt dead inside.”

”…when you draw the characters in that peculiar context it’s like they’re flowing, they move quickly and it feels like their micro-actions end very quickly. To prevent this from feeling so obvious I always try to exaggerate a bit on the facial expression intentionally to convey the emotion of the character performing the actions.”