#zero rise

"Zero Rise" TV Anime Officially Announced. Teaser visual & PV unveiled

Animation Studio: Nichicaline

New Multi Media Project about (handsome) social outcast guys participating in an underground street basketball league.

i play fire emblem heroes, a gacha game that commissions a ton of different artists for the artwork of the characters. a few of them reminded me of kimisute's art style, and i became sure when looking closer at this character in particular:

i think the way the hair is drawn is a dead giveaway! especially those ribbon-like strands on the left side and the layered shading. the folds and wrinkles on the girl's sleeves also look really familiar.

this same artist also did this one, with the characteristic non-outlined loose strands of hair that we see in kimisute's style. the shape of the highlights in the hair and the mouth are also quite reminiscent!

the artist for these two characters is nekomichi (that link goes to a fire emblem heroes wiki page collecting all the character artwork that this artist has done).

however, there are more characters by a different artist that also look the part.

argon is a mostly male character artist that first made me start considering that there could be crossover between two disparate games i love.

just look at that guy. the stiff legs, the long bony fingers, the hard shadow under the neck.

now look at another one:

the line weight just looks so familiar. the particular leanness of the body and the way the facial features sit on the face as well.

one more:

this one's not as good of an example but i still see it in the legs and the line weight. mostly i just think he's very cute and wanted to show him off.

so here's the fun part: nekomichi and argon are both credited as part of trys inc (their credits on the character's ingame profile page will be like "argon / Trys Inc.". side note, trys inc was formerly known as exys inc, so some older credits still have that instead).

with brief googling we can see that trys inc is a company that, among other adjacent pursuits, creates artwork for games. i think it is likely that trys inc was contracted to produce the artwork for kimisute, and potentially aaside as well.

however, i'd like to add that i think there's a difference between "who produces the artwork" and "who is 'the' artist" for an ip. i call the latter one the "key artist" upon whom the style is modeled. for argopro, i think that there may have been 2 or 3 over the course of its life.

first is the original character designer for argonavis, hikaru miyoshi. i don't really count them so much, since artwork created using their style (probably also produced by only miyoshi themself) was only for a brief time.

second is the aaside era artist. i hold that the early promotional/celebratory/holiday illustrations were drawn by this "key artist".

it has a buoyant, juicy, and natural quality to it compared to the artwork produced for the game and merchandise. so in my mind, this is "the" artist for aaside, while most other artworks during the aaside era were created following the "style ruleset" established by them.

compare the early white day illustration theoretically drawn by the "key artist" versus tadaomi from the cynicaltic fakestar/sake it love jacket illustration:

(not making any judgements here, just demonstrating a marked difference despite following the same "rules". it's a symptom in many gacha games that attempt to maintain the same style for all its artworks.)

i'm not sure who the third "key artist" is, or if there is one at all, but i feel it is certain that the original aaside "key artist" did not continue their tenure into kimisute.

it could be someone from trys inc, or it could be that trys inc's argo-assigned artists just work together. i see more argon in aaside era and more nekomichi in kimisute era, but as artists whose job it is to follow "style rulesets", it's impossible to say for sure from our perspective out here.

*(of course, there are many more artists in trys inc besides nekomichi and argon. just highlighting the two with the clearest signs of involvement.)

to bring it back to the impetus of this post, i believe that zero rise has a different "style ruleset" and potentially a different "key artist", but we can certainly tell the artwork is still produced by the same artist(s) as kimisute, which i speculate to be trys inc.

since trys inc isn't a singular artist, and because of the potential that there is a distinct "key artist", i wouldn't say that "zero rise has the same artist as kimisute", i would say that "the artwork for zero rise is produced by the same team as kimisute". basically, i'm just using a bit of pedantry as an excuse to share some long-held observations lol.

bonus meme (please remake this with a more suitable kmst artwork. im tired):