2019 was an important transitional year for Kiro, as this would be his last time (for now) working on Bones projects, where he’d then start to have a more sizable impact on Studio Mappa projects for the foreseeable future. The first project was on Boggiepop wa Warawanai reuniting with Shingo Natsume.

The restrictors were off, and Kiro seemingly had more freedom than had ever been allowed before. This becomes the time when I think some the compositing on scenes had trouble catching up to some of his unorthodox methods. Episode 3 showing of this with first off great running, and jump cuts with a great sensation of depth, but the sliding ground cut at the end kind of has an tricky time keeping pace with the frenetic action he’s presenting. Unlike in Episode 10 the fast pacing running cuts are not halted by any weird layering errors.

Kiro then returned on to Mob Psycho Season 2.

Kiro came mid way through the season on the fantastic Episode 5, directed AD’ed and storyboarded by the incredible Hakuyu Go. The Taiwanese prodigy who after showing out on the year prior on Fate/Apocrypha Episode 22, this episode was one of his crowning achievements, pushing a legacy that lead to mind boggling cinematic action set pieces, while he was only doing this in his early 20s. There is a long rap sheet of animators on here and Kiro had a very brief part, in the fight that makes up a bulk of the episode, Mob vs Mogami.

Kiro 0:28-0:40
Kiro manages to work in more strange figures in this seismic spiritual battle. The weird liquid esque shapes converging together, one interesting shots looks like all the disembodied spirits glued together, and them shaking and forming through Mogami’s whim. Kiro does a great shot near the end of his part with Mob’s arm reforming.

Kiro shows up later on the Leaf boarded Episode 11, where the reentry of Mogami leads to some of Kiro’s most improbable animation.

Kiro 1:06-1:21
All of those wriggly shapes Kiro loves to animate are still here, but the shot at 1:16 re-contextualizes their usage as he animates them around form of a giant moving being outlining the body. He even goes so far to show the interior of Mogami’s giant body forming with a ribcage moving in the motion. It’s a wild shot, and he’d actively try to achieve that effect more later on.

Then nearing the mid half of the year Kiro was placed on 1 episode of the remake of Dororo

Kiro 1:08-1:27
Not one of his flashiest scenes, but he more than makes up for it with his very strong posing in the fight. There are nice subtle additions too, like the trees passing in frame being clearly his pen, and also the janky timing with the sparks makes a typical action scene have a more unique pace to it rather than being a highly detailed fight. Kiro was also allowed total modification over the designs, as you can see the art style switch over to his.

While doing work with Weilin Zhang and Yamashita on Pokemon Twilight Wings for one episode, Kiro was working on the concurrently airing The God of High School

An unfortunately rushed show that had way too short of an episode list to cover a ton of actual material. Despite that, there was some bright spots in the animation department brought to life by action warhead Sunghoo Park. Park has a dynamic and sharp focus in his scenes, and animators usually fall under his scrutiny of corrections. Kiro being Kiro didn’t seem to get any of that rage, instead his scenes went completely unchanged by the director.

Kiro has some sweet cuts on the show, but I want to bring attention just to Episode 2 where Kiro’s action prowess seems to be enhanced by Park’s supervision.

Kiro 1:18-1:43
There is some very creative deforming going on here, helping convey a feeling of speed. My favorite example being some of these shots



Super crude, almost Looney Tunes esque if someone paused to point out the animation here is bad, but when in motion it is a very dynamic and spread out cut. Kiro’s timing here is really well delegated making every punch or motion have that loose sense of form.

After doing nice effects for a Doraemon film Kiro then came on to Park’s second show that year, an adaptation of Gege Akutami’s Jujutsu Kaisen

With Park on action direction, and Gainax legend Tadashi Hiramatsu on character designs, it seemed like Kiro had a high chance of becoming more restricted, but this wasn’t the case. Amongst the very sharp and ceaselessly on or off model (depending on episodes) character designs, how could Kiro ever adapt to this complex look? Well he doesn’t instead doing what he does best and letting go per usual

Episode 2 is one of Kiro’s strongest scenes ever.

Kiro 0:26-0:53
Kiro’s formless style surprisingly makes up for the stiff models here. The first shot he does is a pure chef’s kiss.




Kiro all of sudden becomes a god of smears here. The other thing that stands out about this cut is the sense of opposing force. You have Sukuna swing around to try and hit Gojo, then Gojo reppears back in to reality, and then uses an opposite turn around burst to hit him directly. This circular motion is super out of the ordinary for fight choreography. Kiro even has smears that aren’t even a part of the body, almost like air particles, or sweat molecules coming briefly in to frame cause of how fast the cut is. Each individual frame feels in-betweened by him too giving that auteur animator feel that greats like Shinya Ohira or Shinji Hashimoto have. Also look at this leg deformation

Later episodes still take up the mantle of his best, but unfortunately some of the compositing can’t follow his idiosyncratic nature. Episode 9 is telling of this.

Kiro 2:11-2:30
The 3D background animation almost gives everything this skating on the floor feel, that just isn’t accurate to what is happening on screen. Not bad animation by any means, but does not make up for with the poor and lifeless compositing

Its a shame since the original genga has so much of his personality to it. I especially love the debris

On Episode 19 we get another contender for one of Kiro’s best scenes, albeit somewhat muddied by the dull coloring and compositing

Kiro 0:17-0:47
A super ambitious scene by Kiro. He keeps the trend going of having protagonists evade tendrils (in this case branches) in long and busy shots. The first shot of Hanami is great with everything moving in frame, even him drawing the clouds and mountains. The following cuts of Yuji and Todo dodging the branches are odd though. The displacement of direction is tricky to the eye, but what is made more unclear is the lack of contrast from where the branches are and where they are moving. Once off the ground it becomes way more clear, but the poor brown coloring does make the scene hard to follow on an initial viewing.

Episode 24 has a similar problem with the 3D compositing not matching much of what Kiro is doing. It’s a fantastically boarded scene with a lot of energy, but the sliding cuts are not met with great looking compositing. Kiro is just too good for cgi

Kiro did a brief cut on the Jujutsu Kaisen: 0 film, but not much to report there other than all hail Kiro.

Then in late 2022, Kiro along with the same Jujutsu Kaisen team was brought on to Ryu Nakayama’s Chainsaw Man

Controversial to say the least. Chainsaw Man had the likeness of Black Clover director Tatsuya Yoshihara join the fray of action ADs with responsibility over a slew of animators. The name of the game was realism matched with some slight shaking ups of expressionism. Next to Hisashi Mori and a few others Kiro was one of the more bizarre animators to showcase their talents here.

Kiro first appears on Episode 4 with the fight between Denji and the Leech Devil

Kiro 1:16-1:46 parts of the fight are omitted cause of Leech Devil b****, so full scene here
Another tendril dodging cut. Kiro just does what he loves here. The initial shots of Denji have some great character acting with it being mostly on 3s and 4s, and then you get into the actual attack and its great. Kiro by this point, (like Yutaka Nakamura or Naotoshi Shida) has been allowed to modify storyboards to fit his style, or change them drastically to match what he wants to convey. The since of volume here is staggeringly apparent here especially in the ground cuts where Denji is wrapping the devil. Although the compositing is still a bit iffy

The compositing problems become even more apparent only 3 episodes later

0:05-0:54 minus the shots of the other characters
This should ideally be one Kiro’s greatest scenes. Every single thing is moving in frame for about 46 seconds, which is for a lot of animators is a nearly impossible feat to pull off, but not Kiro. The pained and cured mouths of the Eternity Devil cover the screen, with shots of Denji in the foreground tearing it to shreds. It was one of Kiro’s first time credited on boards and he does so much with even his limited maximalism, however, the compositing in this scene is very hard to follow. The dull and dimly let red tones all bleed in to one another and there isn’t much contrast to distinguish where blood is, where a face is, and results in too much uniformity in what should be a vivid and bombastic scene visually. Great animation, unfortunate compositing.

Kiro then returned back on to Jujutsu Kaisen’s second season with a new director Shota Goshozono, coming in on the Hidden Inventory Arc

Gosso (Goshozono nickname) and another new veteran character designer Sakaya Koiso shake the show up in new ways. Character shading is much more naturalistic, there aren’t unnecessary details, and the compositing has looked more uniform and rounded. Kiro shows up on Episode 3 where like Chainsaw Man Episode 4 has him rejoining director and SB Naoki Miyajima. Miyajima loves the interspersed mix of character with action, and that shows here in Kiro’s first scene on the episode

Kiro start to finish, FULL SCENE WITHOUT DIMMING
Nice janky character acting to start, with an insane assortment of effects followed afterwards. The debris animation is so well done it looks like a gif or animation loop within the blue ball to give a strange and otherworldly effect. The compositing seems to have nominally improved, with the 3D background not looking like complete s***. So many details make up for a short scene, its insane how good full powered Kiro is.

In-between his time on Jujutsu Kaisen, he briefly joined Toru Iwazawa and company on Frieren to do one of the best action sequences of the year.

Kiro 0:03-0:07
Joined by a ragtag team of legends plus one newcomer, Shingo Yama, Tatsuya Yoshihara, Hironori Tanaka, Yutapon, and younger freelancer Yen BM, Kiro was just a small part in this incredible sequence, showing off the idiosyncrasies of each animator and what makes them so great.

Back on Jujutsu Kaisen, Kiro’s most recent contribution was a quick fight scene on Episode 15. More Kiro greatness, one downside being he did not get to finish his in-between animation like he normally does, instead has it finished by another group, losing some of his touch in the process.

So that is Keiichiro Watanabe. The strangest action animator working today, even though he is very popular among sakugaists. Despite his polarizing and often rhythmically disorienting style, the presence of motion, unbecoming flow, and jelly like effects make Kiro all the reason to be up in the top ranks of animators today. I feel like he is the only animator that has kept the old webgen look alive, with more present day iterations by younger animators now being more reliant on Yutapon-isms, and also a big reliance on effect count. Having Kiro stick around is truly great. Idiosyncratic action animators are the best, since they are usually given the freedom to let all their wild ideas be executed and played out in full. Never change Kiro!

Keiichiro Watanabe (continued next page) @ragedsycokiller

I have a general culture question.

Who exactly is the target audience for a lot of manga that takes place in junior high/highschool and have explicit adult themes?

Like not some simple oops I slipped and grabbed a b*** content. But borderline 18+doujin material.

pedophiles and h**** teenagers?

Happy Birthday to Tatsuya Yoshihara

I’m sorry, I had a write up a quarter of a way done, but I just didn’t feel keen on covering him from the start and dropped it.

Much like Hironori Tanaka, and Toshiyuki Sato Yoshihara is a pretty frequented animator in the industry. Getting his start at Actas, known for Yugioh and other less animated shows. He had to grind for years until he started to show some talent. Arve Rezzle was his first time directing and there was a glistening influence of Hironori Tanaka and Seiya Numata.

He went on to direct a number of small fantasy and comedy influenced shows. Muromi San, Yatterman Night, Long Riders, but he is perhaps best know for Black Clover. In the ever growing list in studio Pierrot’s catalogue it’s unique for its director. Yoshihara was the chief director, chief animation director, and lead key animator on his own show. It’s a stunning feat that not many others have achieved. There was a nominal amount of quality due to his very strong connections in the industry and also the propping up of young webgen animators like Gem and Riooo. Yoshihara managed to cheat his animation a few times using experimental instances of Blender noise effects, and cgi making his scenes stand out a ton.

Once done with Black Clover he became an entirely new animator with a sensational knack for a variety of different animation styles and practices. His next project was on Chainsaw Man where he was the head action director, supporting some of the rising freelance talents in the industry.

He’s a workaholic, and while I dismiss the notion that there should be a ton of animators like him who should put out high quality stuff on a tight deadline, it’s great that guys like Yoshihara are this passionate for the craft and continue to mentor, support, and show off their talent in the industry

not surprised u didnt get it.

the first half of the new spyfam ep had me like

It's so nice when it's the 3 of em together

So I finished the entire Violet Evergarden series

The actual show: I thought was pretty fine. For a dialogue driven post-war drama its surprisingly fast paced and goes from every emotional beat you can think of although, I do think it fell into some melodrama tropes. The first couple of episodes I thought were good, but once it got to later on it was going into information the audience already knew or could infer prior and I was less interested. The same goes for the episodic episodes in the back half that weren't that interesting. Although I like that one was used as a narrative device in the main movie. The finale to the show I thought was okay, Violet doesn't really change too much throughout and is unable to be emotional outside of crying. There are only a few instances where they use that for a sort of Vulcan-esque humor, but it's so here and there sometimes. The supporting cast should've had a lot more to do with her, though their designs and personalities are strong more focus should've gone to them instead of being emotional support cheerleaders most of the time. Overall 6/10, still pretty though

The 2018 special: Wow why wasn't this in the show? An episode that was actually funny at times making me laugh a bit, and we get to see the postal service cast actually play off of each other in a fun way? Its a nice little scenario, brought to life with strong humor, and a semi-relatable story for any aspiring songwriters out there. 8/10

Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll: Really strong visuals matched with a solid story. This feels like another story that got omitted from the show for time's sake, but the widescreen presentation makes it feel bigger plot wise despite being a one off. Really enjoyed Violet's interaction here, and I also appreciate from this and the special that there are subtle changes to the designs of some characters to signify the passage of time, like longer hair etc. Yes it's another mellow dramatic pull, but I think it works better cause the sentiment of separation is done well, and easy to sympathize with. 8/10

The Movie: Ah the big payoff to the story, that I thought they could or wouldn't pull, based on what was inferred over the last couple of episodes. This was one of the the only things KyoAni put out in 2020 (next to Eternity) after their terrible fire, and it’s amazing they were able to pull through with this. The movie itself is fine, it hits all the romance beats, and dramatic layers that you expect it to do. Ultimately it makes one character kind of look like an a******, and while his plight is somewhat relatable it didn't resonate with me too strong. The B plot (while emotionally manipulative just a tad) was strong, and did move me to tears. The aforementioned narrative device was pretty strong, but this should've been a bit more of just an enlightening experience rather than having to deal with the generic "kid hates parents for reasons, then both parties learn something about each other" trope. Mixed feelings on this one, some strong moments here, and some of the most beautiful animation, but yeah not a big fan of this main relationship thing cause I've seen this so many times before. Not my favorite arc being closed out. 5.8/10

Overall 6.95/10 if averaged out, but pretty much 7/10 I liked it

Finished Panty & Stocking, yep classic

REPENT MOTHERFUCKERS!

Only time where I unironically accept the hymen virginity myth for a stupid ass plotline lol

JJK is going strong rn