Animator Spotlight: Kenichi Kutsuna

All gifs in order
Naruto (2006) first two cuts Ryo Timo, last cut Kutsuna
Naruto Shipudden Movie 1 (2007)
Someday’s Dreamer II Sora (2008)
Tetsuwan Birdy Decode Episode 7 (2009)
Tetsuwan Birdy Decode Episode 12 (2009)
Naruto Shipudden Episode 167 (2010)
Naruto Shippuden ED15 (2010)
Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011)
Bleach (2011)
Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos (2011)
Garo: The Animation (2014) Presumed
The Perfect Insider (2015)
Jujutsu Kaisen (2021)
VLAD LOVE (2021) OP Direction only, KA by Shuu Sugita
Magical Destroyers (2023) OP Direction only, KA by Masayuki Nonaka

Extremely Belated Happy Birthday to Kenichi Kutsuna born January 31st, 1983. I have previously stated the history of the webgen, movement with the origins tracing back to Akira alumni Satoru Utsunomiya the story officially began when he started to train two young animators Ryousuke Sawa aka Ryo-Timo and Kenichi Kutsuna. The two were both of the earliest adopters of digital animation, using Adobe After Effects, and Flash Animation to create their famously off kilter style. Among the two Kutsuna was the first to be recruited before Timo, working early on Paranoia Agent and Aquarion Evol making him the first ever self taught “webgen” animator ever. Kutsuna hails exactly from the same class as Timo, being the first generation along with Shingo Yamashita and others forming a small group of animators with the older (also Utsunomiya and Mitsuo Iso inspired) Norio Matsumoto most revered from his time on the Naruto franchise. Out of the four, Timo, Yamashita, and Matsumoto, Kutsuna is probably the most uneven of the defunct team. His animation never had the smoothness of a Norio, the insanity of Yamashita, or the fine tuned pacing of Timo but he was the closest thing to Utsunomiya in style. He is deformed, obtuse in animation, and crude with care. With a lightning named after him, Kutsuna is where webgen began. Lets cover him

Kutsuna started formally in animation around the early 2000s, where his gif work frequented early forums and got him a lot of attention. His bulletin board back then started to attract a ton of newcomers into the anime industry. Satoru Utsunomiya was one of the most prestigious animators that came into contact with Utsunomiya and wanted to work on animation with him through mentorship. Utsunomiya had slowly became more aware of the industry’s usage of more artists adopting software into their workflow, with Mitsuo Iso, Shuichi Kaneko, and more chiefly Kou Yoshinari utilizing digital practices. This was already first nature to Kutsuna, but Utsunomiya kept it imperative that he was to pivot in this direction throughout his career.

Kutsuna’s first appearances in anime weren’t nearly as explosive as Timo or Yamashita’s first appearances, but he does maintain the subtleties of webgen still present in succeeding generations to this day. He first appeared under Utsunomiya’s episode of Paranoia Agent assembling the full might of the realist cadre with Takeshi Honda, Tetsuya Nishio, Hiroyuki Okiura, and Toshiyuki Inoue (excluding Iso) all present in the episode, with additional guests like Kouichi Arai, Norio Matsumoto filling out the roster. Kutsuna had previously done work on Gad Guard, and Fullmetal Alchemist but this was the first time his earliest KA was identified.

From there, Kutsuna would go wherever Utsunomiya went, from Beck Mongolian Chop Squad to Aquarion on Episode 18 a heavily contentious episode due to Utsunomiya’s art style. From Eureka Seven’s third OP to Kemonozume Kutsuna was keeping busy, but had not yet showcased anything outstanding. A significant stepping stone down the line would be OP9 of Naruto with him first working with Ryo Timo.

1:13-1:17 Kutsuna, before Timo

The next year we hop into 2007. The biggest year for Kutsuna featuring his largest body of work yet. This sudden boom was not for no reason, as friends and colleagues were electing the young animator to take up as much work as possible and given his workflow he was more than capable. He first joined Osamu Kobayashi on his episode of Gurren Lagann yet another controversial episode Kutsuna happened to be involved on due to a shift in character and animation style. Kutsuna does a bulk of the mecha action here, changing his style up to be more movement oriented on 2s, and giving his animation more springy anticipation typical of a Gainax show around the time. Kutsuna had regularly used Flash to animate during this time, and you can see hints of it in the smoke effects. Later episodes showcase animation stemming from inspiration from another series

The following months would then have an assortment of Kutsuna buffet as he pours his heart out into his animation, he randomly appears in an episode of Onegai my Melody doing some epic comedy, but that pails in comparison to his work on Bokurano. This was Kutsuna’s first credited work with Shingo Yamashita who made his genga debut on Episode 23 of the show. Accompanied by AIC animator Shinichi Kurita (not quite a webgener but was closely tied to Shingo Fujii) the three animate incredibly cruel Norio-esque explosions with utter disregard for any shading with the explosions, and smoke contrails being reduced to scribbles. This approach for guys like Norio and Utsunomiya was not too uncommon, but seeing another generation wholly embrace it forecasted the type of animation that was to come from Kutsuna, Yamashita, and Timo pushing that style to its limits. Baccano was another big stepping stone for the newly formed trio, but more so for Yamashita as he was quickly improving his effects cuts

Perhaps the most noteworthy cut of this year for Kutsuna was his work on Naruto Shippuden: The Movie. Now considering the variety of effects animators like Masaaki Endo, Hirofumi Masuda, and Hidetsugu Ito rounding out a majority of the frequent movie staff, it is strange Kutsuna is here, the only other animator being relatively close to the more expressionistic style is Shinji Hashimoto. Kutsuna’s fire in this scene is aptly Utsunomiya esque with only two bars of shading and incidental sparks to add variety.
You can even see the genesis of this drawing style all the way back in 1995 with Utsunomiya’s contributions to Legend of Crystannia where the effects feel closely tied into Kutsuna’s cut here.

2008 would continue the hot streak with Kutsuna applying more of his talent to other shows alongside Timo, Yamashita, and Norio. Macross Frontier and Soul Eater included the sum of minor works by Kutsuna with the major work being Someday’s Dreamers II Sora

Directed by Osamu Kobayashi, this was the culmination of his limited proto webgen sensibilities coming into full display here with heavily limited character designs, and liminal grey settings reflecting the atmosphere of the series. With Yusuke Yoshigaki from Gainax on CD it was a bit unusual for the series to take such a drastic and unsafe approach from the succeeding season. Kutsuna seems to work better in a low stakes environment where action isn’t always the norm, and a heavier emphasis on character acting is relayed. Having trusting Kutsuna so much last year on Gurren Lagann Episode 4 Kobayashi places Kutsuna on the most pivotal moments in the series. In his tenure here Kutsuna does a considerable amount of subtle character work from him with a 1 minute sequence from the first episode being all him. Episode 2 was an early indicator of his strengths in translating realistic layouts even having to go up against the progenitor of webgen Mitsuo Iso.

Episode 6 was Kutsuna’s AD debut with him opting for some experimental choices beyond the animation that went into using real photos for backgrounds and implementing animated characters into them.


This had been used beforehand in the series, but the implementation was more of a blur. Here it is fairly obvious, and once again Kutsuna is all over the animation.

By the end of the show, Kutsuna had done enough and on the last episode animated a total minute and 30 second of cuts, with this beach cut being the most nostalgic, and even this final section animated by Yama, Kutsuna, Kobayashi, and Montonobu Hori inspired Hori’s own show, Carole & Tuesday.

In 2008, Kutsuna had some commitments making his first appearance on Naruto Shippuden the tv series on OP5 and OP6 this year

Kutsuna with the Sasuke bird near the end

Kutsuna with Sasuke’s lightning at 0:33-0:36
The first OP had Kutsuna with Timo, and his spatial animation was particularly well drawn
The second was Kutsuna and Yama, with Kutsuna showing mastery over Utsunomiya inspired lightning

After doing some very realistic animation on Xam’d Lost Memories, Kutsuna assisted Timo on one of his most ambitious projects up to date at this point Birdy The Mighty: Decode 2 releasing in Winter of 2009

For the second season of the show Timo was promoted from chief animation director, and character designer to series director, giving him ample opportunity to push the boundaries of what was possible in the newfound brigade of webgen talent. Timo, Yama, Kutsuna, and Norio were all present with Yama and Norio being the most frequent to show out. Though the show wasn’t all digitally animated, coloring on Flash, painting, and digital in-betweens allowed for a show that had the flow animated look Timo was striving for. Tomoyuki Niho and Yuki Hayashi round the roster of semi-webgen animators who perfectly fit into the style, the highest of their order would be a then 25 year old Hironori Tanaka. Perhaps the more traditionally oriented of three being a part of the new wave of the neo Kanada animators in the second half of the 2000s. What made Tanaka stand out the most is macabre and mysterious energy to push out a high amount of cuts(sakugabooru.com/post/show/2032130 and seemingly boundless in how much he would exert into a single scene. Among the veteran staff Takahiro Kishida was one of the stranger additions given his similar leanings to experimental animation pre-dating the flowy look of webgen since the 90s. An illustrious animator, and good friend of Norio.

For Kutsuna this was one of his first times to shine as an animator with several episodes showcasing he is just a perfect middle ground between Yama’s insanity, and Norio’s perpetual motion. Kutsuna is on fire with some character acting early on, then immediately gets into an insane fight scene boarded by Timo.

Kutsuna 1:02-2:41
Though the resultant scene after Violin’s death by Yama is more emotionally wrought and powerful in its violent deformations, Kutsuna is equally as raw. So many of the cuts are janky and purposefully so, alternating between 1, 2, 3, and even 4 to 5 frames per second using the whole spectrum of limitations in a cut. You can even see some Iso esque frame recycling in a few his cuts with Violin struggling after being crippled by the Berserker. A true testament to a good animator is also matching an action dependent scene with great emotion, and emphasizing the high stakes as well and paired with Timo’s direction it is a match made in heaven.

The second glorious scene by Kutsuna came in the final episode 12 with Kutsuna handling a significant portion of the Long Moss and Nataru fight with former Xebec animator Katsuhiko Kitada and Niho assisting.

Right at Kutsuna’s scene starting at 0:54-1:54 you can immediately see the art style degrade and go off model with him emphasizing motion and fluidity over anything rather than pure artystlye. With virtually any other director this would get them fired, but Kutsuna’s status at this point gave him the freedom to do what he could. The barely shaded smoke effects, the wildly offset deformations, and the disregard for physics makes Kutsuna equal parts interesting and perhaps unappealing for some people, which will come up later.

After making affiliations with Shingo Fujii and other new semi webgen adjacent talent on Umi Monogatari, the Timo, Yama, Norio, Kishida, Tanaka, and Kutsuna crew all went over to A-1 Pictures 5 year anniversary film Welcome to the Space Show

A sorely overlooked film, with one of the greatest ensemble staff lists I’ve ever seen. Stuff of legends with director Koji Masunari and AD Masashi Ishihama pulling together a visual feast of a film. There is an absurd amount of pour over from Naruto movie staff with Hidetsugu Ito, and Takashi Hashimoto showing up, and then even Masaaki Yuasa who’s insane theatrical talent put him in the spotlight of the film. Kutsuna and Yamashita were put at the forefront of some of the action cuts with Tanaka involved, as well as Kishida, and Norio was given a nice character acting scene.

Months later, Kutsuna, Yamashita, and Norio all hopped onto the epic yet infamous Episode 167 of Naruto Shipudden, the climactic battle between Pain and Naruto.

Storyboarded and directed by Norio’s partner in co Atsushi Wakabayashi, who’s friendship goes back to Ranma, Wakabayashi’s ambitions had reached their apex essentially giving this new webgen crew free rein to go entirely expressionistic and loose in flash. That ethos isn’t more easily stated than in Yama’s opening scene which is a leviathan sized 7 minutes of KA. Unlike Kutsuna and Norio, Yama is completely undeterred by sustainability in his cuts and is constantly throwing insane s*** at the screen, whether its unusual deformations, or thrashy and wild animation you can only achieve in Flash. Next up is Kutsuna who is way more liberal with his cuts, but matches the scale Norio is able to pull off later.

Kutsuna 0:32-2:35, animates the last cuts towards the end.
Pliable as ever, Kutsuna even gives the scene some jarring sense of comedy with the shot of Pain at 1:39 being quite funny. The effects animation towards the end was quite unusual for Kutsuna with him adding and interesting amount of detail which was odd considering the nature of the episode.

Kutsuna start to 0:18, 0:49-1:16, the action cuts after are Norio.
The chase animation from Kutsuna is the highest regarded cuts by him in this sequence, Kutsuna feels more zany in this sequence trying to match the craziness of Yama from earlier but in a completely different context. Some of the shots of the Six Tails are completely jarring, with the camera struggling to follow the wild animation. History has been split on this episode, one section of fans love it for it’s loose style with epic leanings, others hated it due to how utterly off model and absurd it is compared to the former episode in terms of style, and no easing into it. I for one think it looks good, though it doesn’t look as good as this team’s work on Birdy

Yama and Kutsuna both weren’t quite done with Naruto, coming onto ED15 later that year.

Kutsuna and Yama 0:54-1:10
This was visually great, the following cut by FMA: Brotherhood superstar Yoshimichi Kameda marked a quick meeting of minds between the three, with Kameda having Yama and Kutsuna join another project next year.

After doing some stellar paper cut out work on Madoka Magica, and a grimy sword fight on Bleach, Kutsuna and Yamashita went on to join Kameda on Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos

A huge departure in style from the TV series with former Ghibli animator Kenichi Konishi overhauling the designs, this movie was packed to the brim with some of the best action the FMA series had to offer despite a terrible story. A cast of animation directors who basically were reared in the new webgen age, but had the conscious underpinnings of the best Ghibli animators. We’re talking Kiyotaka Oshiyama on action direction, Ayako Hata from Studio 4C, up and comer Tomohisa Shimoyama, and Masaru Oshiro, and Shinpei Kamata two sleeper animators with ties to high end directors. There was even an assistant AD appearance by Toshiyuki Inoue. A big set of players were able to role in with much of the Bones team coming on from Brotherhood and Xam’d Lost Memories. Kutsuna was one of the staff members from Xam’d, and he was a big player on one of the penultimate showdowns between Edward and Julia and Atlas.

The scene opens with Satoru Utsunomiya making his return to the franchise since 2004, and officially reuniting with Kutsuna in some capacity. Utsunomiya is much different in movie form, with the cut animating closer on 1s thanks to some quick revisions by Inoue.
When Utsunomiya’s liquid piles up in the last cut, we immediately switch to Shingo Yamashita who looks completely different from the last with the use of a special technique thrown throughout the cut known as Kutsuna Lightning. To be clear, Kenichi Kutsuna did not invent Kutsuna Lightning, it was more so of an aesthetic choice for the movie, and its unclear if the effect was invented by Kutsuna, Oshiyama, or some other animator. The title remains a formality, however, its unknown if this was one of the scenes made earlier in production. The following cut is the full power of Kutsuna energy. After a cut by Hiroshi Shimizu, Kutsuna engages his full-might into the electrifying beam struggle with Yamashita doing the climax to the struggle, and webgenner Majiro doing waning parts of the sequence. Kutsuna Lightning past this point became a monumental staple among the webgen movement with a ton of animators using it as a crux for lightning effects. Its usage has even exceeded the Obari Punch, but not the Kanada Light Flare. Ironically Kutsuna has only used Kutsuna Lightning twice in his entire career, here, and a random episode of Shadowverse 9 years later.

Now by this point Kutsuna was at a bit of a crossroads in his animation journey, Shingo Yamashita and Norio Matsumoto had gone over to rear up a new generation of webgen talent on Yozakura Quartet directed by Ryo Timo for the next several years, and his other connections had gone on to do other projects. Kutsuna in a twist of fate did not remain with the others, and instead went solo freelance from here on out. Though he would still occasionally return to work with Yamashita, and Timo when needed. The first project that had Kutsuna’s ambitious stamp placed on to it was 2012’s Horimiya OVA with Kutsuna on CAD and CD

This 6 episode OVA adapted from HERO’s romance manga had no series overseer instead falling into the hands of whatever director the team could scrounge up. Shingo Natsume previously affiliated with Kutsuna on Welcome to the Space Show and he was the director for Episode 1. This episode (start to 23) was pretty significant as Kutsuna and Natsume were both credited as the sole animators for the episode. First lets talk about Kutsuna’s characters


Much like his mentors Kobayashi and Utsunomiya, when it comes to design Kutsuna is notorious for doubling down on as many details as he can, just for loose expressiveness. For fans of the manga I’m sure this came as a a shock as HERO’s designs are more wavy and not understated at all.

Episode 3 had Kutsuna on CAD as well as some AD contributions from Yamashita.

Kutsuna’s ethic afterwords would be significantly spread out for the 2010s, he’d be the main effects director on A Certain Magical Index’s first movie, and he was also partially involved in Naruto’s 13th OP with Yamashita on direction, and his fleet of new webgen animators including Keiichiro Watanabe and Ran Kamezawa

Kutsuna with the cut of Tsuchikage at the start

The same year, Kutsuna did some KA on the second season of A Certain Scientific Railgun

Kutsuna explosion at 1:10
He was also involved with a fight on Episode 24

This opening moved my childhood I cant lie even tho it was for these horrendous filler episodes. The Pain fight also lowkey sparked my interest in animation even tho at the time it was so heavily clowned on. Great stuff. And I adore the jjk Opening shot he made.

Kutsuna would animate on a few OP’s for the next few years, reuniting with Tomoyuki Niho on Garo: The Animation

unidentified work

In 2015 Kutsuna was credited with some rotoscope animation on The Perfect Insider’s OP

Kutsuna 1:20?

This then would lead to three years of silence from Kutsuna until he returned to work on one of the last projects Osamu Kobayashi helmed creatively, Dororo’s Episode 15.



Yet another Kobayashi work that is marred by the fandom of a series. Unlike his previous efforts Kobayashi stays somewhat closer to character designs, but even in its best moments by industry gods like Shinsaku Kozuma this episode still was the subject of disdain. Kutsuna was heavily prominent throughout animating the creature cuts. Therein lies the problem of anime fans being confused about bad animation vs drawings. Kobayashi afterwards would begin to work on his last series Hypersonic Music Club but was never finished due to him passing away from kidney cancer during production around 2021.

Kutsuna following Dororo worked on a music video for Flying Lotus’s More video done in production with Shinichiro Watanabe on direction, Hidekazu Ohara on CD, and five animators, short film director Yutaro Kubo, famed MV animator Masanobu Hiraoka heavily regarded for his detailed morphing effects, webgenner Hiromitsu Seki, and Kutsuna and Ohara.

Kutsuna cuts not yet credited

Entering into the 2020s, Kutsuna became a regular OP director doing a myriad of different series, though before his transition to that he did some work with Timo on his Snow video by Eve

Timo for the longest time had not done 2D animation, instead moving over to 3D blender works, however given the nature of Eve’s music videos it was ripe timing for him to return back to his routes.