better use of resources than mid x family or suicide squad

I dropped the show 10 minutes into the first episode after they played off sexual assault as a goofy joke. miss me with that s***.

i loooove using the industry's limited resources on remakes

i loooove when the industry abandons all pretense of creativity and just does the same thing over and over again

i cant wait for a future where every show airing is a remake of something i already watched 10 years ago, and then 10 years later i can watch the remake of the remake!

When they remake Rent a Girlfriend thread gonna feast

Hopefully Takashi Kojima is on design duty like he is for Monsters, then we are all good

We stan corporate greed

this is like a dream come true

Should be getting some news about this new Code Geass project tomorrow

wow, the final episode of overtake was so good. they did some cool stuff with the camera

Holy s*** what is going on with these old ass sequals or revivals

didn't think sound euphonium's OP would be so upbeat

which anime is this from?

Run with the wind

i’m almost at 400 completions and tranq still won’t @ me

Animator Spotlight: Megumi Kouno

All gifs in order
Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt (2010)
The Idolmaster Episode 6 (2011)
The Idolmaster Episode 26 (2011)
The Idolmaster Shiny Festa (2012)
Vividred Operation (2012)
Noragami (2014)
The Idolmaster: Beyond The Brilliant Future! (2014)
Your Lie in April (2014)
The Idolmaster Cinderella Girls PV (2014-2015?) Presumed
The Idolmaster Cinderella Girls Episode 25 (2015)
The Idolmaster Cinderella Girls Episode 26 (2015)
One-Punch Man (2015)
Shelter (2016)
Darling in the Franxx (2018)
Fate/Grand Order Absolute Demon Front Babylonia (2019)
Akebi’s Sailor Uniform (2022)

Happy One Day Belated Birthday to Megumi Kouno The hopeful maven of anime, and one of the greatest members of the A-1 Pictures staff. Getting her start in the early to mid 2000s at DogaKobo and Gainax Kouno took a while before she got set into a routine of being a sensational animator. She had churned out stellar cuts for years, being a great freelancer. Once Kouno got solo KA chances on Hanamaru-Kindergarten fourth ending, her style started to flourish from there. She got the opportunity to leave Gainax, and join Atsushi Nishigori over on the Idolmaster she would remain on the franchise for a while and would virtually define the visual identity of the iconic idol series. From her moppy Hironori Tanaka-esque hair animation, to the rugged simplicity of her drawings, she was able to add a subtle aura of grit to the prettiest dance animation you could find in the genre. Past that she had been a hire on as a fantastic character animator seemingly able to draw anything. Kouno is also equally as adept at action handling the music video action scenes in the Idolmaster, as well as chief action animator on Fate/Grand Order Babylonia. One of the shining stars of the industry, lets get into the history of Megumi Kouno.

So like I said Kouno got her start at DogaKobo animating on a variety of shows. First getting in-between animation outsourcing roles for other studios, she was on Kekkaishi, The Big Windup, Dennoh Coil, and Nanatsu Iso Drops her first KA role was on [Yatterman](sakugabooru.com/post/show/12020) in 2008. Not anything special at this point, but it was only up from here. About a year later Kouno got some expressive character acting on the second opening of Bakemonogatari*

Kouno 1:03-1:10
Lots of energy in her cuts with the fun poses, and lively animation on 2s and 3s.

Little improvements kept coming up in her animation, but it was the aforementioned Hanamaru Kindergarten ending that gave her visibility

All Kouno
Super fun animation brimming with life in every cut, even in the limited still drawn frames Kouno bursts with personality. The effects and character acting all have a sweet wholesome charm to them. Even with the limited motion feels comforting

From there on out Kouno was a Gainax freelancer working alongside other newcomers at the company. Kouno at a young age was getting requested on long character acting cuts whether it was, Nodame Cantabile, Azazel San, Angel Beats, or Okami-san and Her Seven Companions Kouno was the early tens equivalent of a Toshiyuki Sato starting to churn out a ton of cuts for two years.

The show that completely turned Kouno’s world around was on Hiroyuki Imaishi’s Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt

This Adult Swim cartoon parody became an essential reservoir of talent at Gainax, and served as the final frontier for many core 00s staff members as they would leave to later form Trigger about a year after. Here was the emergence of several relationships for Kouno, the first was with Atsushi Nishigori who was the character designer for this show and the previous Imaishi series Gurren Lagann with the two having a good understanding of Imaishi’s tendencies. The second was mecha animator wunderkind Akira Amemiya who judging by the amount of scenes they’d share in the next three years would start dating here, and got so involved to the point where they would be married in the future and still are to this day. Kouno got a lot of fun scenes on the show, from transformation scenes, to comedic scenes, and even this epic one take shot on the last episode that must have been difficult to pull off.

The fruits of Amemiya and Kouno’s love interest likely started on Episode 7, where Amemiya was involved on design sheets and boards and she helped animate partial sections

Unknown what Amemiya or Kouno animated

For the following months Kouno was credited on a ton of shows, she got on A Certain Magical Index II animating both OPs, and once again getting a long character acting scene, a long fight scene on Princess Ressurection, and several other shows.

This was mostly in 2011 one of the best years for anime, and would also be a defining year for Kouno as she’d join Atsushi Nishigori as the lead animator on The Idolmaster

This would be a huge sea change for Kouno and Nishigori. For Nishigori this is his first time as a director. He was already a fan of the original games, and wanted to do a faithful adaptation of the material making the dance sequences look incredibly special, which was challenging for 2D. Luckily Nishigori had a strong staff, with an adept A-1 Pictures staff bringing upon the likes of Isao Hayashi, Jun Uemera, and Yuki Komatsu but also a lot of former Gainax staff like Imaishi, Sushio, Mai Yoneyama, Yoh Yoshinari, Tadashi Hiramatsu, Chikashi Kubota, Satoshi Yamaguchi, and Amemiya. Key figures in bringing to life the dance and character acting also went to former Kyoto Animation member Yusuke Matsuo, and another Yusuke, Yusuke Tanaka. The person that was able to perfectly bring these dance scenes together was of course Kouno herself.

Kouno’s first appearance was on a rehearsal scene on Episode 1 animating with others. Once you get to Kouno’s cut you can already see how far ahead she is. The dancing is super well synced up, and rhythmic. An aspect that gives it a humanity to it is there is nothing mechanical about the movement, if this cut was done in cgi there’d be no discrepancies between one performer or another, but with 2D animation you are able to get those soft little details to help distinguish characters apart.

The fist big dance scene for Kouno was on a song called “Smoky Thrill” for Episode 6

Kouno 0:34 to 1:01
Tight coordination of dancers here with a lot of fun and expressive choreography. Following Yusuke Tanaka’s scene, Kouno is able to enact her carefully placed hair animation into the fold incredibly efficiently with each strand feeling like a dancer themselves. More dancing would ensue on Episode 13 and 25.

Even though the series is known for dance animation she was also able to add her fair share of action scenes in the in-between play skits, one skit had the girls in a sort of police crime action drama, and even a cool sword fight between Chihaya and Takane

The glazing is crazy