After Enokido and Sakazume were finishing some of the tumultuous animation that was Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 17, I want to briefly mention the work of Toru Iwazawa on the currently airing Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End

Keiichiro Saito has quickly proven himself as a second coming of Shingo Natsume. After proving himself on the phenomenal Bocchi The Rock, his next task was to take on a slow moving fantasy story about an elf witnessing the passage of time, and exploring the fruitful journey of life and magic. I did not get the chance to write an Iwazawa spotlight four months ago (due to the stacked list of birthdays that month), however here I will make an exception. From legendary staff of Shinji Otsuka to some of the youngest webgen freelancers in the industry like Hiroki Uchiyama this show is a playground for young and old animators, and at the helm of two crucial departments is Iwazawa on action direction and his wife Reiko Nagasawa on character designs and chief animation direction. The two had already previously gone lengths to be a key duo on Takt Op and now with assistance from animation producer Yuuichirou Fukushi, and external design help from Violet Evergarden illustrator Akiko Takase the show ended up being one of the most stunning events of the fall 23/winter 24 seasons.

The culmination of both of Iwazawa and Nagasawa’s animation direction were ambitious, and the earliest example can come no further than Episode 6, Iwazawa’s TV episode debut.
From the simple walk cycles, to the carefully constructed character acting, it plays out as a normal Frieren episode, with some minor portions of Sakazume KA (Enokido has not been credited yet) until the final bit of action comes into play with Iwazawa’s connections through the years coming to the aid of the then 28 year old.

For the past years sakuga enthusiast have romanticized the idea of the top action animators doing scenes together, even making depth charts on who could work well with who, and Iwazawa was able to make that a possibility. The absolute cream of the crop of anime action animators are present here. From Chainsaw Man staff, a quad grouping of Keiichiro Watanabe, Shingo Yamashita, Yen BM, Tatsuya Yoshihara and Hironori Tanaka all appear and its a wide ranging array of different animation. Kiro’s disjointed Norio style animation, Yama’s hyper three dimensional drawings, Yen BM’s practicality, Yoshihara’s buttery smooth hair animation, and Tanaka’s macabre flair it is an exceptional team. The only outlier, through perhaps intervention of Fukushi is the inclusion of Bones regular Yutaka Nakamura anime’s god of action. His cuts make up a bulk of the dragon’s complex movement, and being the storyboard modifier he is was able to add some intense POV shots to set the scope of the dragon lifting off in flight. It is a truly daunting sequence

Iwazawa and Nagasawa dream couple, and ever since they have been able to maintain a consistency in their direction that most productions could only dream of.

One of the most recent contributions by a member of the duo was Sakazume’s Guda Guda 2023 CM for Fate/Grand Order

This ad stands out amongst the rest of Sakazume’s usual output as it stands as a huge visual departure from the other character designs done usually by Yamada. Namiko Torii helms the AD/CD on this, and given her softer touch to drawings a warm rounded look is applied to the characters.

The material sheets for this CM are impressive to say the least, I hope Torii is able to work on a bigger series

The second was was Enokido’s Mashle OP that aired this winter.

A strange departure from Enokido’s usual larger than life action set pieces, here we get a minimal dance oriented OP that is just centered around character acting and its main song being a culmination of American Jersey club music. The final moments of the OP is where some action KA is laid out, but is fleeting comparatively to the rest of the OP.

So yeah that’s Shun Enokido and Takahito Sakazume, two of the best digital animators in the industry. From the leadership of Tatsuya Yoshihara, Shingo Yamashita, and others, their mentors wisdom and resources really helped fortify the confidence of the duo, and their equal strengths in resource management and animation strength by just themselves. It is exceedingly difficult in an industry more demanding of action than ever to be as good as these two are, but time and time again they have pushed the limit. From Ordinal Scale, to Apocrypha to the Fate/Grand Order ads, Mayu Tokage have set such a high standard as a prestigious duo, and have raised up some impressive friends as well. Their lineage is so integral to the future of the anime and I hope through talent scouting, good direction, and connections they are able to care for the next generation of digital animators and directors.

The duo is set up to direct the Fate/Strange Fake tv series for A-1 Pictures and I am sure they will do a great job

Finally all caught up with 86 light novel

Shun Enokido/Takahito Sakazume (continued next pages)

@ragedsycokiller

Kushami has to be the cutest japanese word

What anime is this it looks familiar

frieren

koe no katachi / a silent voice
(garbage adaptation btw)

A Silent Voice, check it out if you haven’t seen it. It’s a film

It’s not garbage ☹️💔

u read the manga?

nah ngl idk if I’ll read a slice of life manga anytime soon tbh

gomenasai🧎‍♂️ I’ll check it (maybe)

I think I already read it

I'ma read it again cuz I don't remember how it goes

get ready to f*** up ur whole day