i think endless eight might be one of my favourite artistic endeavors in anime

i dont even get the downside of the whole "its eight episodes of the same events happening over and over again" thing because i dont give a f*** about plot and can just appreciate how 8 different directors direct the same exact story

Animator Spotlight: Moaang

All gifs in order
Encouragement of the Climb (2018)
Revue Starlight (2018)
Ride Your Wave (2019)
Fate/Grand Order Absolute Demonic Front Babylonia (2019)
Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken (2020)
Just Call it Love (2020) first two cuts only, last two are Myoun
Wonder Egg Priority (2021)
Heike Monogatari (2021)
Ranking of Kings (2022)
Chainsaw Man (2022)
Bocchi The Rock! (2022)
Detaramena Sekai no Melodrama (2023) CD and AD only
Heavenly Delusion (2023) first two cuts only, next two are Shingo Yamashita and Masami Mori
Jujutsu Kaisen (2023)
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End (2023)
Garden of Remembrance (2024) CD and AD only, KA by Weilin Zhang

Happy Birthday to Moaang A Korean animator close friends of animators China, Myoun, Eri Irei, and Noriyuki Imaoka aka Eel (the only one among the four who’s actual name we know). Among the the other two Moaang is the perfect middle ground between China’s ultra conservative webgen style, and Myoun’s heavy realism leanings. Taking after ex KyoAni animators like Atsushi Saito and Yuusuke Matsuo, Moaang leans into that tempered character acting among the two former animators, and updates it with a more sinewy and gooey web style like Shingo Yamashita. His drawing style is very rough, and like China more closely resembles layouts than actual key animation. Moaang made a splash on the scene back in 2017 on the Ryohei Takeshita directed Eromanga Sensei, where China, Myoun, and Eel would become frequent collaborators from there. Moaang frequently appeared on anime episodes with the other three, usually as an AD on China’s directed tv episodes. Encouragement S3 Ep 10, Heike Episode 3, and Apothecary Episode 4. Moaang has also directed one tv episode being Akebi’s Sailor Uniform Episode 7. Two pivotal music videos by China have also had Moaang’s involvement too. Without further ado, Moaang.

Early in Moaang’s career he showed great promise in being an animator. His rough animations had quite a bit of character. I highly recommend going through his animation posts pre 2015 on his tumblr. His first credited animation according to Anilist was on Seraph of the End Episode 11. Unknown what he did, but I am willing to throw out a guess that he helped with presumed to be Itsuki Tsuchigami aka Miso’s section, as that would give him some visibility.

A long stretch of uncredited work from mid 2015 to all of 2016 Moaang did not have any animation credits on official anime tv shows. He did do some cut scene animation for a Korean video game called Maplestory, and he also worked on a short fan animation called Kepler’s World All Stars, in which he provides stellar smears and rough webgen art

Moaang returned back to anime for the Spring slot of 2017, working on My Hero Academia and Eromanga Sensei. On Episode 17 of Season 2 of My Hero this would be Moaang’s first time working with Eri Irei. Irei would become a very close regular with Moaang showing up on a number of episodes in his future. Myoun is also credited here with all three of them supervised chiefly by Yoshihiko Umakoshi (CD for the show) and Yuki Hayashi (one of the venerable action animators of the series).

Moaang 1:05-1:21, 1:25-1:27
Moaang and Myoun make up a majority of this section with Irei coming in and cleaning up their art. Moaang’s cut of Iida launching off has some nice cubic debris that is worth pointing out. Yasuyuki Kai does the last couple of cuts.

Now we get to Eromanga Sensei. Myoun, Irei, and Moaang all ganged up on Episode 11 directed by series director Takeshita.

Chief AD Yuuichi Oka will become very important figure for Moaang in the future as he will frequently appear on episodes with his involvement.
This was the first time Moaang got to work firsthand with China and Imaoka, and also Nakaya Onsen a reputable animator that would go from a great character animator to action animator. Another connection this episode was Kiyotaka Oshiyama, an amazing director and animator who would keep Moaang on hold for smaller projects. Everyone is on their A-Game the entire episode, China notably takes up a big portion of the episode with his rough LO style peaking through on cuts like this. Keisuke Kobayashi a regular of the A-1 Pictures and now CloverWorks animation departments also makes a splash here. And for whatever reason Ryu Nakayama got in one scene, and this connect would be also important for Moaang going forward. It’s not exactly known where Moaang is in the episode, but its believed to be in close proximity with Kobayashi’s and uhh yeah. Some of the crew from 11 then worked on Episode 12, and it’s less known who did what.

Over the summer Moaang did some brief KA back over in his home country, doing some animation for a video game Latale Agni

Moaang 0:08-0:20, probably corrected by another animator heavily.

Around late summer, Moaang worked in the middle to latter half of Fate/Apocrypha with action directed by duo Shun Enokido and Takahito Sakazume

On Episode 11, Moaang, and Myoun paired up going headstrong into effects heavy scenes. Myoun was placed on a magical fight scene, and Moaang presumably did some crumbling debris animation. He is not well known for effects so I’d assume he had some help. Episode 22 was a jam-packed sakuga fest with Hakuyu Go making his mission statement as a symphonic action director. Too many animators to name on this episode, but one important figure will be Masami Mori aka SOTY who Moaang will have some ties with China later on. Myoun and Moaang are the two animators credited on this episode, with China being hard to pin down. Myoun and Moaang’s animation in this episode looks nearly identical. Myoun does nice character acting and same with Moaang who keeps the scene very rough

His genga is pretty on model for the most part too. Looks like minimal douga (in-betweens) occurred too giving just the natural feel of the Moaang’s charm.

Moaang and Irei some brief animation on Made in Abyss animating an action scene during the climax of Episode 8. Irei and Moaang tag teamed most of 2018 working on Cardcaptor: Clear Card with Irei making a great homage, Darling in the Franxx where Irei was the only one that could be identified, a Laid Back Camp OVA and at the end of the year Episode 63 of Black Clover*. A heavy action oriented episode that has Moaang instead doing some absurd character cuts.

Again very well preserved genga.

At the start of 2018, Moaang and Irei riding high off a breezy 2017 came onto China’s Episode 10 of Encouragement of the Climb Episode 10.

After solo animating Episode 2 of the season, China became even more ambitious moving essentially his small team of friends onto a fantastically animated episode. China’s calming storyboards, and light animation style lended greatly to benefiting everyone here. Mori, Imaoka, Ken Yamamoto aka Leaf, Sakazume, Keiichiro Saito, Kai Ikarashi, Ryo Imamura, all the friends are here. Moaang and Irei are placed fairly early on. Moaang’s scene is great. The rough line style from his previous Apocrypha episode returns here. He gives a fair amount of detail, and keeps in line with China’s design ethos. Simplified, but goopy (pay attention to the hands forming together). It’s like a webgen Yoshiji Kigami. Irei on the other hand goes for something a bit more subtle, but keeps in line with China’s ruggedness

n the summer of that year, Irei and Moaang came onto Revue Starlight

Moaang does some characteristically milky looking animation on Episode 2, and then animates a whole ass fight on Episode 5 between Karen and Mahiru

Moaang 4:42 first cut, 4:48-5:07
Not the flashiest of his cuts, but the theatrics of the scene remains dynamic. It is unknown who did the second cut in his part.

Moaang, then doubles up with Irei on Episode 7 with Karen vs Maya.

Irei 3:31-3:43, Moaang 3:43-3:58
Again pretty slow and bellowing swings, but the art and boards remain dynamic enough to work against the pace of the scene.

At the start of 2019, Moaang was recruited onto Episode 5 of Mob Psycho 100 Season 2, joining China for Go’s animation team.
On this incredibly sakuga heavy episode Moaang chose to work on a bullying scene placed in an alternate reality.

Moaang 1:09- 1:25
Pretty reminiscent of his Black Clover scene where the stability of the characters is based on the unevenness of the drawings.

Around spring 2019, Moaang got his first AD placement on Episode 9 of Sarazanmai

A fairly short penned effort from Moaang. You get a dance bit presumably by Shingo Fujii, nicely drawn character acting by legendary mecha journeyman Toru Yoshida, and Moaang draws one of the final scenes doing over a minute of KA. Some of the wide shots enforce Moaang’s designs, while closeups seem corrected by the Chief AD.

In the summer of 2019 Moaang, China and Irei were credited on Children of the Sea. Regarded as 2001: A Space Odyssey but under water, this was a gargantuan project by Studio 4C requiring the best in-house and external talent for the studio, and had a wide and far ranging list of animators, compositors, and background artists. Moaang was the first identifiable animator doing a short scene, and the same applied to Irei.
During the project Moaang must have made a good impression on legendary animator Hiroyuki Aoyama, as Moaang would be recruited onto his future projects.

Ride Your Wave was a second big project for Moaang that summer, joining director Masaaki Yuasa and CD and AD Takashi Kojima

Thanks to the ease of the animation due to the soft, and again goopy designs of Kojima, Moaang was able to pretty seamlessly insert himself. The swimming scene is fantastic

The genga is great, and other scenes show just how easily he was able to adapt to this style