best scene ever

where nijika

JJK is so hard

Where kita

They all getting scales

Yuki is rizzing Tohru up

If they had scales made by Alter I would have been down 1000$ by now.

Fruits Basket is really good. taking me time to watch it but it'll end up in my top 5.

easiest aoty oat

Animator Spotlight: Vercreek

All gifs in order
Sword Art Online: Alicization (2020)
Deca Dence (2020)
Granblue Fantasy Robomi MV (2020)
Jujutsu Kaisen Episode 13 (2020)
Attack on Titan (2021)
Jujutsu Kaisen Episode 17 (2021)
Wonder Egg Priority (2021)
One Piece (2021)
Fate/Grand Order Camelot Paladin; Agateram (A) (2021) first cut not Vercreek
Fate/Grand Order Camelot Paladin; Agateram (B) (2021)
Ranking of Kings (2022) last cut Toshiyuki Sato
Kaguya-Sama Love is War (2022)
Chainsaw Man (2022)
Blue Giant (2023)
Magical Destroyers (2023)
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 17 (2023)

Happy Birthday Vercreek The young prodigy, and the second coming of an animation messiah. JK, Vercreek is a young animator hailing from the Philippines and as a former Sakugabooru member, saw rapid growth all of a sudden working along the likes of the biggest names in the industry. His meteoric rise comes from a plethora of animation styles. While a webgen animator Vercreek hasn’t been defined by the markings of webgen too visibly in some instances. He’s consistently on model, and often shows off scenes in incredible detail. He’s able to reach a level of web style realism similar to Bahi JD, but less so with the intent of copying some elements of Mitsuo Iso and more so focused on big spectacle, and psychedelic animation. Vercreek isn’t a purely deadset realist as he’s able to put a lot of care and expression into his scenes that have no right being as good as they are. From the sensational Jujutsu Kaisen 13 and 17, to his fights on Paladin to the advance dance choreography on Kaguya-Sama, Vercreek is a force to be reckoned with. Just turning 20 years old today, he is without a doubt going to be one of the best foreign freelancers animators for the foreseeable future.

Vercreek had a huge interest in anime from a young age, posting clips of rough animations from stick figure fights on his youtube channel being likely 12-14 years old making these

and he got way better over time

WAYY BETTTER

This was the last video he made before going professional

So believe me if I told you that some of Vercreek’s first animation roles were when he was 15, showing up for the first time on an episode of Sword Art Online: Alicization in late 2019.
Working with episode director *Satoshi Saga and brought on by any number of the 5 ADs on the episode. Vercreek does a really simple tight rope cut( with a lot of soft shading, and easy going timing. Not a lot to report, but for future episodes he’d get more movement in. My personal favorite is this sniper cut where Vercreek’s visual composition is really solid, almost like he’s a way older animator than he actually is.

In-between his time on SAO he did a cool explosion cut on Deca Dence and Dropkick on my Devil!!. One of his more notable cuts in 2020 was a Granblue Fantasy Music video

Vercreek 0:56-1:05
Really impressive explosion towards the end with a lot of personality in the character animation

Everything was about to change for Vercreek as he was about to get his biggest placement ever on Jujutsu Kaisen Episode 13. Directed, storyboarded and heavily AD’ed by animator marathon man legend Hironori Tanaka, Vercreek was placed on the brutal beat down of Mahito doing mainly LO and fantastic animation in portions

Vercreek 0:05-0:57 extensive corrections by Tanaka
A contender for one of the best beatdowns of the decade, Vercreek is so imaginative with the animation here. The first two cuts are slow movement on 3s emphasizing slow motion, then after Yuji’s punch Vercreek modifies in a big way moving onto 1s with a crazy amount of detail in Mahito’s hair then moving back into slow motion, then a real time beat down in mostly 2s with solid spacing, and good timing. This kind of stop start approach to animation is really visually enthralling, and is able to allow freedom for a level of anticipation for what comes next. The ensuing cuts with Mahito being punched by Yuji and Nanami is great, even if its mostly layouts. Then the final cut of Mahito opening his domain has the teetering on horror approach that Tanaka really likes to use. By this point he had favored more realism in his close up shots, and that benefits the contrast of the compositions here.
A physical and brutal display of sakuga

Vercreek then went over to another Mappa project, their infamous Attack on Titan: The Final Season. With a show trying to keep with an awful schedule, and even worse and janky character action to match, the once and a while burst of sakuga usually comes in the form of a freelance animator, whether it be foreign or local to Japan. For local one highlight was Shinya Takahashi who did this great cut in Episode 79 little later, but for 67 it was Vercreek. His personality is really able to shine through on these cuts, I like how he’s able to get subjects in wide shots, and then bring then closer into frame, a common characteristic of his work.

Vercreek is even able to get across very realistic body volume, which is something only higher echelon animators have achieved over decades, but he makes it look easy

The same month the Attack on Titan episode aired, a few days later came Jujutsu Kaisen Episode 17. Storyboarded by currently airing series director Shota Goshozono, the execution and deliberate use of spacing and time is remarkable here.

Vercreek 0:43-1:15
The dynamism of Gosso’s boards are great, but they are only accelerated with Vercreek’s touch. The shot of Maki throwing the spear is great with emphasis on foreshortening the item, and also quickly moving into 1s. That can also be mentioned with the decoy weapon with super close up shading shots of the dagger, almost reminds me of Takeshi Koike’s slow motion scenes. The quick cut of Maki running is modulated from 2s to 1s very quickly, and the shot of the blade struggle has the hair on the two animated as a separate element rather than altogether.

Vercreek continued to pump out the fire doing stunning slow mo cuts on Wonder Egg Priority, and appearing twice on One Piece Episode 972. The dimensionality of Vercreek’s animation is exceedingly impressive, and managed to survive under AD Yong Ce Tu’s corrections.

Vercreek did some minor work on a Naruto fan video, but then after months of work showed up onto Fate/Grand Order Camelot Paladin; Agateramam in May of 2021

Directed by webgen animator Kazuto Arai, with the boarding power of Takumi Sunakohara, and Itsuki Tsuchigami (Miso) in Vercreek’s. Vercreek was able to flex amongst the top dogs of the webgen era with an epic scale backed by a strong action team. Vercreek’s cuts are short, but lasting. He first comes on a fight between Mordred and Xuanzhang

Vercreek first four seconds
More usual of webgen shots with very quick background cuts. I love how Arai is emphasizing close quarter fighting followed by very far out shots of the characters blitzing across the pyramid, a shrewd way to do scale. For his second scene Vercreek was placed on the first half of Bedivere and Gawain’s fight, next to China (the animator), and Yen BM doing a whose who of rooftop cuts, he then does more cuts alongside Miso with an even better sense of dynamic shot composition, even when a character just moves into poses

8 months later, Vercreek was credited on the second OP to Ranking of Kings getting to work first hand with Shingo Yamashita. The well regarded king of the OP, Yamashita’s lighting, cross dissolves, and compositing is wholly cinematic, and grandiose. With a handful of other animators, Vercreek diligently followed a lot of the visual imagery, and tips and tricks that Yama had to offer.

Vercreek 0:19-23, 0:45-0:48, one shot of a mask breaking at 1:16
Yama’s boards are able to contrast so much, sometimes he conventionally frames a group of knights running on horses, then a few shots before a very close up shot of a hand, smudged in dirt, and hatching lines. Creek without a doubt likely studied a lot of Yama’s scenes, and he’s able to blend in perfectly with all the others.

After brief work on The Orbital Children all of a sudden we get Vercreek’s magnum opus (so far) on Kaguya-Sama’s Season’s 3 second ending song “My Nonfiction” performed by Chika Fujiwara, Konomi Kohara, and Makoto Furukawa, where he was credited as the director, storyboard artist, color designer, accessory designer, AD, art designer, layout artist, and solo key animator

All Vercreek
Mind you at this point Vercreek is only 18 years old!!! A full on dance battle between the MCs with Vercreek heavily modifying the designs to his liking. There is some great oval shaped soft shading, great breath effects to let you know the scene takes place in the cold, and the futuristic pastiche of the compositing helps elevate the ED to extreme levels. Everything here is brought to life by Vercreek’s pen game. At such a young age he has diversified his talent so well, and at this point has such a good resume that he could do anything. The dance scenes here are extremely well animated fluctuating between many different frame rates. The lyric sync up isn’t perfect, but I don’t think Vercreek intended on syncing up the mouth movement to the characters as his whole intention here is purely on movement and visuals. I know the song may not be everyone, and I’ve seen the animation be called cringe, but cmon, the entire artistic merit of the scene is just so wholesome. The roughness of some scenes is probably not what Vercreek wanted, but the fact of the matter is when you watch you can instantly tell its him without knowing before hand.

The whole myriad of production materials for this video make for great study material for younger animators




Vercreek’s boards. Side note: honestly Vercreek is so young that if he perhaps thought this wasn’t that good it wouldn’t matter, cause he will only get better and better.

Later in the year Vercreek joined on Chainsaw Man’s OP, once again helping out ShingoYama

Vercreek 0:51-0:55
A really brief cut, but the layout is absolutely nuts