The same team came back again on a commissioned project by 343 Studios for Halo Legends

An anthology series directed by Frank O’Connor five anime studios were picked to steer the direction seven shorts, Production IG, Studio 4C, Bee Train, Toei, and Casio Entertainment were among the three. Muraki and Tomoki Kyoda both were in charge of direction on Bones’s short entitled “Prototype”, with Appleseed director Shinji Aramaki assisting on production designs. The story follows Ghost, a sergeant of a squad set out to protect an experimental weapons facility from being captured by Covenant forces. Ghost then grabs the heavy armor unit and uses it to fight off remaining forces while his team escapes from an overwhelming enemy. After being nearly destroyed by remaining Covenant he sacrifices himself with the self-destruct sequence. Most of the typical Eureka Seven style aerial action is brought to a halt with the character suit moving in grounded terrain. For this approach the heavy action was required to have a lot of rock debris, with several animators such as Yutaka Nakamura and Naruto adjacent Hidetsugu Ito. Masuda, Matsuda, Kakita, Terada, and others return, as well as Yoshinari who does a stand out cut assisted by Shingo Fujii. His cut is unique with his unorthodox approach of compositing the heavy armored suit with digital paint, making the figure appear like a CGI asset.

More unothordoxy remains true with his painted explosions as well

All of these animators did such a crazy job its wild that Muraki did a pretty insignificant cut

Muraki would keep up with the Bones team on Star Driver

A show with one of the more curious and unique mecha designs, Driver was yet another series flex for Muraki. While Nakamura, Suzuki, Hironori Tanaka, Shingo Abe and Jun Arai were the undisputed stars of the show Muraki managed to dazzle with his more retro Obari-like approach. And of course he’s got time for a good old Itano circus. You actually can get a good look at his production materials from this series


One animator he was keen on mentoring, along with Soichiro Matsuda was the younger talent from AIC Shingo Fujii. Fujii since Legends had began to implement Flash animation into his work, making him a semi-webgen animator. You can see how on some of his cuts he will focus on a single missile rather than one, which is a prominent trait of Matsuda. By the movie you begin to see just how insane Fujii would get.

After Star-Driver ended, Muraki hopped onto Eureka Seven AO

A sequel series to the original, AO focuses on a new character, who suddenly has a power awakened in them. The change in staff position on mecha designs isn’t that important as Muraki and others were still just as capable handling these designs. Once again Muraki is consistently drawing in his style yet occasionally getting flexibility from interesting boards. Kazuhiro Miwa who became increasingly more interesting overtime, was a another charismatic effects animator pitted with the staff. His mecha animation by comparison to Muraki’s is much more subtle, with more touch ups to it such as dynamic Itano cuts merged with character acting.

After a quick cut of the OP of Wizard Barristers, Muraki continued to be on the Bones fam, with Concrete Revolutio in 2015

0:54-0:57 Muraki
Now back at Studio C, with the same staff that worked on Star Driver, they’re back into business delivering high-octane mecha action. Nakamura, Suzuki, and Tanaka once again are some of the undeniable standouts, and Muraki fills the niche of veteran action guy. Unlike Star Driver or AO where Muraki was defaulting to his usual Itano-ite techniques, he embraces his Obari roots and opts for pose-heavy action. This is incredibly unusual him to venture back into this realm, but he totally nails it. Another show he did the same year was Gundam Build Fighters Try where he went back into his traditional direction

The next stop for Muraki would be the first Hi-Evolution film

A sequel film, a recap? Maybe both? Reading the plot synopsis is confusing to say the least. The first 20 minutes of the movie is completely new footage while the rest is a recap with footage from the original series. Despite this odd choice, the initial extension of new animation is thrilling and epic. Muraki, Kakita, and Kaneko had effectively forged a super team of mecha animators resulting in the fast paced dogfights the series is known for. Shingo Abe and Nobuaki Nagano join the fray as well along with *Kenta Yokoya who Muraki brought over from Revolutio. Muraki himself had animated one Itano cut, and while some of his cuts are left to assumption it was a guess he did some character acting which is very unusual especially for him. This scene with Charles represents a harrowing shift in his animation, there is a solid attention to muzzle flashes from gunfire, debris laced explosions, and dozens of other features that you don’t typically see in his animation. Perhaps the scene was interpreted by another storyboard artist, but now is anyone’s guess.

The second Hi-Evolution film, titled Anemone came out the next year

With a new Rebuild-esque aspect ratio, Kyoda had spread the animation team a bit thin releasing a year after the first. This change had lead to a lot of lengthier scenes with multiple animators being allotted to single scenes. Given the fast paced production this wasn’t too much of a drastic decision. Muraki managed two standout scenes, the first being his typical Itano tricks then more sci-fi mecha action, with further contributions from Kakita, Yokoya, and Toei adjacent animator Ken Otsuka.

After a three year hiatus Muraki returned to the last Rebuild film after sitting out the last two. Muraki did some minor assistance with explosions joining Takashi Hashimoto, and Hidetsugu Ito on a cgi heavy scene lending their 2D effects

After storyboarding 6 episodes of Godzilla: Singular Point, Muraki came on to the last Hi-Evolution film simply titled Eureka

The first Eureka project to utilize more cgi, after the COVID-19 pandemic this film had been in limbo for several years. Muraki is on chief effects direction, and his friends like Kakita and Abe have remained, though Kaneko had abandoned the project by this point. Kakita easily does some of his most impressive work on the franchise here adding a lot of detail to explosion and shiny smoke effects. Muraki joined Kakita for the opening moments of the film dealing with some destructive layouts. Muraki himself presumedly did a lot of the dog fighting throughout the middle portion though its up in the air for several cuts he’s credited to sakugabooru.com/post/show/196301 sakugabooru.com/post/show/196300

Muraki is currently credited as the special effects director on a new Bones original anime called Metallic Rogue commemorating 25 years since the studio’s founding. It releases in January of next year!

So that is Yasushi Muraki. A long time lord of mecha, and really a kind of character in the animator’s circles that you really don’t see much of anymore. A lot of retro animators from the 80s and early 90s like Masahito Yamashita and Masami Obari who are still kicking today usually can lose some of their luster after years of remaining key animators and nothing more, but I think Muraki with his training from Ichiro Itano, and discipline by people like Hiroyuki Okiura has made him stand the test of time. Sure his animation isn’t the flashiest ever, and does resemble a more bygone era, but his dedication to his craft is what makes him so appealing. Kakita, Kaneko, Matsuda, Masuda, and Hashimoto all fall into the same category as him being peak at orbital/atmospheric combat, and ageless effects. He is in my eyes the king of the Itano Circus, having the most credited circus cuts out of any animator ever, and has been well defined for over 30 years.

Yasushi Muraki Pt. 2 (continued next page) @ragedsycokiller

Hmmm might watch

Appleseed reference

I hate the mechs in this so bad I never watched Deoxys built ahh

Gundam will pay for its crimes creating recap/remake films

Studio Ponoc
by Yoshiyuki Momose

What are the % chances you're leaving that concert wearing the position zero hoodie?

Love it when your features showcase something I enjoyed as a kid. I really wish they went all in with a full seasoned show

Iight @op time to AoT the entire front page

@MORPHE spotlight on AoT staff?

Thanks for the roll call!

sakugabooru.com/post/show/241268

the fabric when stark is putting on his coat is so good

sakugabooru.com/post/show/241278

sooooo good

and the best part is they did it without needing 5 episode directors, 5 assistant episode directors, 15 animation directors, and 75 2nd KAs.

Frieren cinema

End of an era