Finished my Madoka re-watch in preparation for the new movie. Nine years ago I definitely didn't appreciate it as much as I do now. I don't even think I made a single mental note of its visuals back then, all I cared about at the time was plot lmao. God, that Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei --> Madoka Magicka --> Bakemonogatari run by Shaft was legendary.

If all the members of Shaft's golden age re-united to make an OVA of the Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei manga ending I could 5 star it and retire from anime.

Hells paradise anime not bad so far

Nihei really fell the f*** off, crazy

Completely lost interest in anime. Someone recommend something comfy

Speaking of Madoka Magica

Animator Spotlight: Hiroto Nagata

All gifs in order
Zoku Owarimonogatari (2019)
Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story Episode 2 (2020)
Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story Episode 13 (2020)
Assault Lily Bouquet OP (2020) last cut is Kazuki Kawata
Assault Lily Bouquet Episode 2 (2020)
Assault Lily Bouquet Episode 4 (2020)
Assault Lily Bouquet Episode 8 (2020)
Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story Season 2 Episode 1 (2021)
Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story Season 2 Episode 4 (2021)
Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story Season 2 Episode 7 (2021)
Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story The Final Season (2022)
Rwby Ice Queendom Episode 1 (2022)
Rwby Ice Queendom Episode 2 (2022)
Rwby Ice Queendom Episode 10 (2022)
Rwby Ice Queendom Episode 11 (2022)
Rwby ice Queendom Episode 12 (2022)

Happy Belated Birthday to Hiroto Nagata born November 24th. Long overdue for me to cover a Shaft animator. Take Yutaka Nakamura, and Nozomu Abe, throw them in a blender and out comes Hiroto Nagata. A part of a new legion of polarizing sakuga animators, coming around the same time as Studio Engi’s Ryuuki Hashimoto. In a world frequently dominated by the aforementioned Yutapon’s, and Abe’s ,Nagata takes a lot of the core principles of their animation, and turns it up times infinity. Over the last 10 years action animation can be split into two camps with flow animation (animation that is movement oriented, yet is off model in character sheets) or highly detailed action animation that is overwhelming in effects, impact frames, and more also known as “overload”. That is Nagata’s realm as his animation is solely hell-bent on cluttering a scene with as many effects as he possibly can. This approach of complexity has become very popular with crowds flocking to action animators, but Nagata seemingly takes it further even having dubious sakuga nerds question their tastes (like this isn’t exactly what they wanted). Nothing goes untouched, from debris, to hair, to effects, to impact frames, it is rollercoaster ride of animation when viewing him. Coming out of a studio that is so reliant on out of the norm creativity, those ideal founded by their head director Akiyuki Shibo, it is no surprise that an animator like Nagata came from them. With that being said let’s cover this crazy animator.

So Nagata was a part of the Shaft staff from the very start coming into the studio around 2016 first doing in-betweens on March Comes in Like a Lion, he would continue to in-between for the next three years. He was being mentored under a lot of veterans. During that time Nagata put out an original net animation in 2017.

All Nagata
Even in this very rough flash animation you could see a lot of promise coming from Nagata, especially towards the back half doing some remarkable background animation, with Yutapon inspired debris effects. It’s pretty ambitious boarding, and you could see him get better with time.

After in-betweening multiple projects like Kizumonogatari, and Fate/Extra, he debuted on Quintessential Quintuplets …. but more importantly Zoku Owarimonogatari. Not a long scene, but the quick little details are all you need to know, particularly the shading that is very reminiscent of Yutapon.


There is a lot of large obtuse shading, and also additional highlights around the nose and face to give q sense of volume in regards to the direction of the lighting.

Then in early 2020, we get a more full spotlight of Nagata’s talent on Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story

Based off a spin off game that was based around the original Madoka Magica series from 2011. The series is directed once again by Akiyuki Shinbo pushing Gen Urubochi’s strange high sprung magical girl concepts and action material. Many of the same animators from the original animator returned here helping a young and new crew with guys like Shaft’s pinnacle animator Genichirou Abe returning, and effects animator Kazunori Ozawa. Kazuki Kawata and Nagata were among the two young animators needed to help forward the franchise. Nagata was doing a lot of interesting things throughout these episodes. Interesting water effects, great hair animation, all culminating with a new found sense of identity. He was sparsely credited on a few episodes with the real meat of a scene by him coming on Episode 13. Animated alongside Genichirou Abe, after Abe animates a few cannon shots it feels like he’s almost through animation passing the sakuga torch to Nagata.

Nagata 1:13-end
There is a lot to unpack here, Nagata’s hair and body animation is already fantastic with him doing a lot of shading, animating 4 tones of shading, but he does quite a bit more to make it stand out. His sparks are unusually big, not normally seen like this as another animator would tend to draw more in frame. The all encompassing webgen Kutsuna Lightning is there but instead of continuously moving its all separated and clustered in to do different rivets of lightning.


Then we get to the actual details with the smears and it feels like Nagata has every smear trick Yutapon and Nozomu Abe, and even to an obscure extent Shinya Takahashi have been able to achieve. Not only is Nagata making room for more oval like Yutapon smears, but for close up shots of Sakaya he is completely distorting the characters outline in smears, and then making way for impact frames.



The only downside of this scene, and not the fault of Nagata is the compositing that adds a lot of blur and flares that makes it hard to see his fantastic drawings.

After the first season of Side Story ended Nagata went to work on Shaft’s next project Assault Lily Boquet

Here we begin to see insane animation from Nagata, and newcomer Kazuki Kawata. The first signs things looked up were on the OP

Nagata brief fight scene with the monster with Abe and Kawata

Then some real good s*** comes on a breathtaking character acting scene

All Nagata
The hair animation is superb to look at, Nagata even pays respect to how the sun’s light is brandishing the hair with nice highlight streaks across the character Yuyu’s bangs, and is on Riri’s hair too

Then we get the action, which is where Nagata shows so much talent in overloading the screen with his big and loud effects. He shoots really high in some scenes, and in the case of Episode 4 literally.

Nagata 2:43-3:13 full scene without dimming
What is this incredible power? Badass shaded guns? two tone spark effects? chunky Kutsuna lightning, and Kutsuna Lightning impact frames? What more could you want?

Episode 8, is where we get a full-fledged Nagata, going on all out and doing some of the most detailed action genga I have ever seen

0:21-End
Nagata and Kawata are on fire here, doing detailed mech and character action animation especially Nagata. The severity of his detail os so great that it makes a whole essay’s worth of a***ysis. Every single frame is pushed to the extreme, through a lot of elements that makes Yutapon and Abe sensations, but this is almost too excessive for some people. He is decorating the scene with shading. And while Yutapon or Abe might use their shading for volume, Nagata does the exact opposite by highlighting pretty much everything, even the debris which is three to four tones shaded, its very unusual. This kind of approach makes the separation of character in frame, and the action all coalesce together as one individual piece, not just focusing on the character. Everything has the appearance of a shiny surface

Despite all that there is still a strong foundation of pose to pose esque, action focusing really hard on the timing of the scene, that is evenly spaced with 1s and 2s following into the gorgeous slice at the end which is polluted with a ton of effects, its almost like Nagata is drawing effects action canvases.

Nagata was a monster on Lily Bouquet and now he was the prime candidate to return back on the second season of Madoka Magica Side Story

Let’s cut to the chase and get to the first scene Nagata was placed on for the first episode

All Nagata
The silver tinged aspects of his previous Bouquet fight is already readily apparent here, but much more faster in the dynamic layouts, depth defying impacts, and the deformations and smears are more ever present than ever. I also love how he’s able to maintain all this high strung action without giving up on the fabric animation, which doesn’t feel repetitive but moves with a sense of weight and abnormal shading lines. Even in the hair.

Then moving on to Episode 4 (which Nagata got to AD some portions of) he comes back on to do his most riveting yet also most controversial scene to date

Nagata 0:46-1:14
This scene is incredibly fast and Nagata once again overloads the scene with his shiny details. Due to the intense nature of the scene there was a lot of initial complaints about the readability of the scene and what was actually happening. It’s not exactly as rough as people claim, but I can’t help but stare in awe of the level of insanity and amount of line work that dominates the sequence. It is a maximal approach to animation that is stupendous and mind boggling. This scene got corrected in the blu-ray with more frames cut out, but the tv version still exists here in its original glory.

Episode 7 Nagata is much more lighter on the insane layouts and boards and instead opts for a precarious short-long shot

Nagata start-0:12

And for the last season of Side Story Nagata animated a nuclear sized blast filled to the brim with impact frames.

The next series Nagata took on was RWBY: Ice Queendom

An adaptation of the the Rooster Teeth web series made by YouTube Monty Oum (yes that Rooster Teeth, AND RIP MONTY) Nagata tones back a lot of the high octane and frenetic maximal intensity of Side Story and tones down a lot elements from that. Look no further than the first episode for evidence of this.

Nagata 1:21-1:40
There is still a high tinged sheen to his animation, but it feels like given the grounded nature of the fight there is more of a balance of taking that highly detailed approach yet also being able to follow what is happening.

This principle then carries throughout the rest out the season where Nagata had essentially simplified a lot of his animation, easing up the line work and dwindling down on detailing every single object in frame.

Nagata 1:10-End

Nagata 1:19-End

Nagata recently returned to AD and direct a special for the series he starting animating on, Quintessential Quintuplets

Nagata AD with HEAVY CORRECTIONS

And that is the new and short career of Hiroto Nagata. A God of Overload action just smearing the frames in every single facet of sakuga animation that fans of it today love. Through the sheer amount of his decorative shading, to the propensity of smears Nagata is a once in a generational talent falling in line with Ryuuki Hashimoto of Engi of perhaps a new era of maximalist animators that don’t turn down complex designs in a scene. This guy is going to go places, and as in-house Shaft animator I hope he and Kawata can help build up a brand new staff of in-house talent, doing as many potently beautiful and cranium destroying sequences as possible.

Nagata's maximalism makes the readability of his scenes a little tough at times, especially on first watch in my opinion, but I would be lying if I said I didn't love them all the same. I'm excited to see what gets cooked up in the new Madoka movie.

oh you literally said that in the write ups ok

Starting the Kyo Ani train this month watching Violet Evergarden

Probably just speedrun through a lot of their series but I got to especially go through Ishidate and Kigami’s stuff

Although in regards to the latter I don’t know much about Munto

run with the wind

this hard

Hiroto Nagata @ragedsycokiller

Amagi Brilliant Park