Animator Spotlight: Takashi Hashimoto

All gifs in order
Howls Moving Castle (2004) cuts shared with Atsuko Tanaka, Hashimoto last cut only
One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island (2005)
Evangelion 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone (2007)
Evangelion 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance (2009)
Summer Wars (2009)
Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn (2011)
Evangelion 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo (2012)
Space Battleship Yamato 2199 Episode 15 (2013)
Space Battleship Yamato 2199 23 (2013)
Terror in Resonance (2014)
Your Name (2016)
Jujutsu Kaisen (2021)
Evangelion 3.0 + 1.01 Thrice Upon A Time (2021)
Fate/Grand Order Camelot; Paladin Agateram (2021)
Revue Starlight: The Movie (2021)
Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War (2023) Genga by Hiroyuki Yamashita most likely, Hashimoto was Effects AD, and 2nd KA only, and it appears he overly corrected everything

Happy Birthday Takashi Hashimoto The God of Destruction. In anime, animators who rely on a specific niche are often considered specialists, and the ultimate person in the field of effects and effects only is Hashimoto. Getting his start in the late 80s and freelancing in the 90s onward Hashimoto’s realistic and showy effects has landed him on titan sized projects whether it be Evangelion, Gundam, and more. Hashimoto is one of the few animators today that I have seen accurately animate nuclear destruction or even fictional world ending events rivaling the most notable with that skill such as Hideaki Anno, Shoichi Masuo, and the master of such effects; Masaaki Endo. Like the three above Hashimoto has been placed on scenes involving realistic phenomena such as space rocket launches, nuke detonations, volcanic eruption, and meteor rumination. His animation is so revered that he’s inspired a whole new gen of effects wizards such as Hidetsugu Ito and Hirofumi Masuda (both of whom he’s worked with). A true trailblazer of world shattering proportions, Hashimoto is the
one and only explosion animator.

Hashimoto like most legendary animators, had an early career ripe working on key projects such as Urusei Yatsura, Bubblegum Crisis, Appleseed, Angel Cop, Megazone, The Hakkenden, Giant Robo and just about any classic late 80s to mid 90s anime OVA you could name.

One of the earlier instances of Hashimoto’s animation is a collab effort between him and another (more mysterious) legend Shinya Takahashi

Hashimoto 0:52-1:05 (presumed), 1:22-1:27, 1:55-2:02, rest is likely Takahashi
One thing very important to note is that Hashimoto’s smoke effects are very distinguishable. They have a rounded bubble like shape that doesn’t seem to take after the more late 80s realistic way of drawing smoke. He’d keep up this way of drawing for the rest of his career though make modifications when needed.

On Yamato 2520 along with another key explosion animator Shoichi Masuo, Hashimoto got the best of animating spatial destruction sakugabooru.com/post/show/87247, while it isn’t ambitious as his future work and is leading on with his Mitsuo Iso influence with the circle shaped explosions, things were going to only get better from here for him.

Super Dimension Century Orguss is the first time we get to see some Hashimoto spectacle credited to him that has a decent source sakugabooru.com/post/show/125287\. Strong and simple effects work and his first time handling missiles.
That same year Orguss came out Hashimoto worked on three genre defining animes on Evangelion, Ghost in the Shell and Memories an anthology film by Katsuhiro Otomo. While his work on Ghost has yet to be identified, and Evangelion he did some minor work sakugabooru.com/post/show/133013 his tunnel scene on the Stink Bomb portion of Memories has outstanding effects, done primarily on 1s and brimming with detail sakugabooru.com/post/show/187049 the characters were handled by one of the most seminal directors in Madhouse anime throughout the 80s and 90s Yoshiaki Kawajiri. Hashimoto’s tendril like smoke here was heavily inspired by Shinya Ohira and Toshiaki Hontani’s effects from Akira.

The next year Hashimoto got a more substantial cut on an Evangelion episode sakugabooru.com/post/show/61036, and he’d continue to work on an insane amount of projects. 8th MS Team, X: The Movie, Gowcaizer, and Tenchi Muyo. He returned to do a full fledged specialty scene on The End of Evangelion

Anno’s epic magnum opus, and one of the most stellar pieces of animation to come from Gainax and Production IG this would be a long line of Hashimoto making dream connections for him to show off his best work. Surprisingly Anno and AD Tadashi Hiramatsu had him do none of that and instead helm some of the most horrific Lovecraftian terror in the entire movie. The scene where Shinji is forced to accept instrumentality as a tool, and gives in.
sakugabooru.com/post/show/145348 sakugabooru.com/post/show/145533 the initial sequence of the mass produced Evas transforming into Rei faces is pure Anno anime terrorism

and the genga perfectly illustrates how heavily Hiramatsu helped Hashimoto lean into the fear of it all.


Hashimoto then ends instrumentality with Unit 1 deforming the longinus spears of the mass produced Evas sakugabooru.com/post/show/145351

The same year Hashimoto began to experiment more with explosions going into nuke territory on Voogie’s Angel sakugabooru.com/post/show/166919, and two years later on the The Big O furthering his ploy of destruction sakugabooru.com/post/show/70881\. Hashimoto was working on a variety of other shows doing other things besides full tilt key animation, whether it was mechanical designs or creature designs. After doing light work on Naruto and some explosions on Stand Alone Complex, Hashimoto lent his identity onto Planetes the spacefaring adventure series by Sunrise director Gorou Taniguchi. Hashimoto worked on the OP

Hashimoto 0:00-0:03, 0:42-0:48, full animation from Episode 16 sakugabooru.com/post/show/25282\. Here begins a long line of Hashimoto being assigned to realistic rocket animation, which he would get more better at as the years went on.

Now there is a lot of animation that Hashimoto covered throughout this portion of his career, where he began to find his footing as a specialist explosion animator and only that. So I will only cover noteworthy drops of animation from the boom man. After doing phenomenal work on Paranoia Agent, Katsuhiro Otomo brought Hashimoto to Steamboy

Hashimoto was assigned the primary effects supervisor of the film and it’s easy to see why with the amount of them flailing throughout this steampunk infused adventure. The amount of effects in this movie is astonishing especially in the in the latter half. Of the effects staff there is Soichiro Matsuda another prolific late 80s and 90s up and comer who is just as on par with Hashimoto, the second is the friendly rival of Yasushi Muraki who is right on the same wavelength as Hashimoto in terms of smoke. Effects animators keep on coming with Shuichi Kaneko and the somewhat younger Hideki Kakita. Also some outliers such as Toshiyuki Inoue and Gainax’s Sushio both whom are more character and action oriented but both do mind-blowing scenes, especially Inoue with his wonderful finale

The smoke billowing towards the screen is a heavy trait of Hashimoto’s animation and the way every crease of the smoke layering so meticulously drawn is thanks to the prowess of the staff’s skills on the movie.
One of the standout animators, who made way on Ninku and Spriggan among other anime’s was Hidetsugu Ito (a long time friend of Tetsuya Nishio). His effects were the most unique, with the distinctive flinging debris and smoke, Ito is extra on the details. sakugabooru.com/post/show/193344 sakugabooru.com/post/show/193461\. Despite being the industry for only 9 years, Ito was significantly better than most older effects veterans at the time. The variety comes a lot from layering dark dirt debris on top of brighter smokey explosions, this color coordination is suggested by a strong communication with the coloring department.

Another movie where he was involved on this role was Naruto: Ninja Clash in the Snow where throughout he is really helping the animation department get through all of the varieties of effects especially during the snow fights mid way through the movie, sakugabooru.com/post/show/139542\. Hashimoto was joined by legends such as Hirofumi Masuda another effects goat, and on co-supervision Masaaki Endo, who got his fair share of explosions sakugabooru.com/post/show/139558\. Hashimoto did some brief KA here and there, my favorite is Kakashi’s hill attack sequence sakugabooru.com/post/show/139562\. Hashimoto would be an effects supervisor on almost every Naruto film from here on out, though seems to be only for consistency’s sake.

On Howl’s Moving Castle, Hashimoto was in a constant rotation with Matsuda, and Hideki Hamasu being asked to be primary effects animators on sakuga heavy projects in 2004.

While Hamasu and Matsuda also maintain the reputation of being character animators Hashimoto mostly isn’t unlike them. Yes he does little minor character acting here and there like with this scene sakugabooru.com/post/show/236041 but he is dominant in destruction, sakugabooru.com/post/show/236022 like this scene co-animated with Miyazaki’s animation maestro Atsuko Tanaka. Her effects greatly differ from Hashimoto’s, where his take on a more rounded cloudy explosions and simple two tone debris she is still trapped in the 80s doing more viscous looking smoke and adding a lot of sparks and lava like fire.

One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island is an ideal example of Hashimoto’s more rounded and less detailed effects still able to make an impact on a scene. Joined alongside former TMS animator Hiroyuki Aoyama, both tackle a portion of the Gainax dominant heavy finale where they workout the effects. Aoyama’s smoke resembles the limb-like presence of a creature moreso than actual smoke and his explosions show that too. sakugabooru.com/post/show/180806
AOYAMA


Hashimoto makes his explosions purposefully rounded and is more keen on adding in his chunky effects debris that gives the resultant explosions a bit more flare with the rocks contrasting the background
HASHIMOTO

Throughout the rest of 2005, Hashimoto worked on Eureka Seven including new trick like colored ring effects on his explosions for more alien experimentation sakugabooru.com/post/show/236720, he continued to do more heavy rock and stone effects on the second Naruto movie sakugabooru.com/post/show/117840\. Hashimoto is also not quite a one trick pony with debris as he can do beautiful fire effects as demonstrated on the first Bleach movie sakugabooru.com/post/show/117010

Fast forward a year later and for the first time, Hashimoto flexed a new set of skills on Mononoke where he was chief AD, KA, and primary character designer.

An experimental anime detailing the end of the Edo and Meiji periods of Japan in the weirdest way possible, it became clear after Kemonozume (Masaaki Yuasa’s wild ride monster series) Hashimoto got a humongous confidence boost. After doing designs on Ayakashi, he further justified the madness into a new series. The color grading key mapped, as gradients of fabric and even in backgrounds are moved around on invisible planes, with a world as beautiful and colorful as it is horrifying. The distinction between background and foreground is completely lost. Unsurprisingly many of the more out there 4C adjacent animators like Takaaki Yamashita and Tatsuzou Nishita both handle pivotal scenes, as well as a returning Soichiro Matsuda once again working with Hashimoto. Another was an early Yuki Hayashi, who’d go on to become on of Toei and Bones best animators. This is one of the only times Hashimoto does character direction and designs ever in his career

The same year that Mononoke released, Hashimoto was still at it with ka-booms on the first Evangelion Rebuild film at the newly formed Studio Khara

Essentially a recap of the first few episodes of the show, Hashimoto was largely assigned to the Ramiel battle, at the helm of all of the mountain sized devastation.

Hashimoto 3:28-3:49, 4:01-4:28, 4:44-4:51, last scene of Shinji firing the energy canon shared cuts with Ken Otsuka and Sushio.
An all stop no breaks Hashimoto really showing the power of his animation here. Every single blast exchanged between the two goliath beings feels very immense and Hashimoto and the other animators feel insistent on the realism and intent of fear being instilled in the faceless and spherical being. This is helped due to a great compositing department adding camera shake, and bright color gradients (to be honest it does look a little washed out here but that gets fixed in later films)

rough genga of his scenes

After doing work on a number of popular animes like Soul Eater, Ponyo, Casshern Sins, and a Eureka Seven movie, Hashimoto returned to the second Rebuild film in 2009.
After a stellar set of cuts on the first film, Hashimoto’s role expanded doing an insane output of animation this time around. And he is firing on all cylinders in every cut, doing explosion after explosion.

Though like I said before, Hashimoto isn’t a one trick pony, as after a key defeat of the angel known as Sahaquiel, Hashimoto animates the resultant spilling of blood from the miles long beast

After doing meteor destruction on Summer Wars and character designs on Kuuchuu Buranko, and a f*** ton of other animes Hashimoto made his appearance on a Gundam series on Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn.

Taking place before Hathaway, Unicorn sees Hashimoto steering in the direction of inter spacial conflict bringing friends along the way. From Episode 3-8 Hashimoto made minor appearances with his bombastic personality coming through in each cut. Episode 7 is especially interesting with the inclusion of Hidetsugu Ito assisting Hashimoto with a dangerous weapon sakugabooru.com/post/show/5666\. And things keep it blowing up throughout sakugabooru.com/post/show/13338

On Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo Hashimoto was assigned to his usually scheduled program of explosions, but for the fourth impact going beyond adding elements of large scale psychological horror, gore, all from the f***ed up minds of Anno, Kazuya Tsurumaki, and especially Mahiro Maeda

Hashimoto was correcting a large sum of explosion effects, competing against Ito, and Masuo for having the best handled one. The crown obviously goes to Hashimoto but Ito comes incredibly close doing probably the most astonishing fight sequence in the film sakugabooru.com/post/show/117779\. But besides that this was a full Hashimoto effects effigy

This nuclear sized explosion towards the beginning was my favorite

Around the same time Hashimoto went back to more natural phenomena animating a volcanic eruption on One Piece: Film Z
sakugabooru.com/post/show/8165