Ā Animation Directors on Yusei
I held off doing one of these collages for a while, because the blog is called ygoanimation, not ygostillscreenshots. That is to say, I want everyone to keep in mind that what makes an animator unique is not only how they draw the characters, but how they express motion, compose layouts, and so on. And be reminded that the animation director is not the be-all-end-all to how their episodes will look. Most of them can have up to 20 or more key animators and inbetweeners. This leaves for a lot of room for variation.
That being said, itās hard to get people to visualize the differences in an animatorās style without some sort of comparison, so these collages do have their uses. In addition, Iām lazy, so these arenāt all the ADs that worked on 5Dās. Merely the ones who work on it most often, or ones I otherwise find notable for comparison.
Kenichi Hara: Needs no introduction. Heās been with the franchise since early DM. 5Dās features the stabilization of his style. He draws facial features (all of them) in a very angular fashion. While not pictured here, his shading tends to be high contrast, and very angular/spiky as well. Proportionally, Hara likes to draw Yuseiās hair bigger.
Kokai Yuji: The mechanical animation director (D-Wheels) for several episodes. His characters are a tad weaker. His drawings typically feature thinner necks with that odd hatching over it. A lot of times he corrects drawings to have thicker, curvier outlines, but it doesnāt save the often-wonky looking faces and body proportions. Almost always is AD for episodes outsourced to Animation Planet during 5Dās.
Shuji Maruyama: The official character designer for 5Dās. His style should be considered theĀ ādefaultā. OP/ED 1, 2, and 5 are his work. As well as episodes 27 and 154. And a good chunk of the DVD covers until the second half. Being the character designer, the model sheets are in his style.
Kimiharu Muto: Believe it or not Muto was also an AD during late DM, and alternated doing in-house episodes with Hara during the Memory Arc. Here, Muto often does AD work for episodes done by Gallopās Korean half, Dong-Woo animation (during 5Dās, theyāre technically listed as being in house crew). Because of that, Noh Gil-bo often shows up as a KA during his episodes. His style is kind ofĀ āsafeā. He has a quirk where he likes to draw highlights right next to his charactersā nose lines. This goes all the way back to DM.
Shinichiro Minami: I wrote about him in an earlier post. Usually ADs for Studio Flagās episodes in early 5Dās. While his still shots are fluid and full of life, you can tell the team is short on time because there are often huge chunks of episodes without any sort of correction.
Nagare Namikaze: ADs for MAP episodes. Iām not sure whether or not to blame them or the KA staff for how off most of the episodes look. Namikazeās work is relatively nice in late 5Dās (the Ark Cradle stuff).Ā
Mitsuru Natsukawa: I used to not be such a big fan of their work. Still am not, really. But then I found out that (as a part of Ecura Animal) they almost always do storyboard, episode direction, AD, and KA all by themselves. The end result... still isnāt that great, but itās a distinctive style that Iām impressed doesnāt look worse considering itās usually a one-man band. Natsukawaās work is often characterized by the BIG SHINY EYES they like to give the characters. Right next to Takahashi, their style is probably the furthest away from the model. Having to do a large part of the work themselves, Natsukawa tends to over-rely on stock footage (see: episodes 108 and 135).
Takahiro Kagami: One of the first people most Yu-Gi-Oh fans think of in regard to animators. His only work concerning 5Dās was on Bonds Beyond Time. Looking back through it, relative to his other stuff itās not quite as consistent and smooth as his other work. Being the character designer for the movie though, I think this is the best I can do.
Noh Gil-Bo: While 5Dās 136 is his debut as an AD in YGO, heās been working on the series by doing bits of key animation since GX. During 5Dās, he gains somewhat of an influence from Kenichi Hara (itās sort of in the eyes), but his faces and bodies tend to be rounder, and his animation timing smoother. In comparison, Hara likes a lot more quick, jerky (in a good way) motion.
Kazunori Takahashi: Takahiro Kagamiās right-hand man during the DM days, his work on 5Dās is fairly limited. Iāve written about Takahashiās style at length on the first post of this blog, and what I said still stands. Takahashi likes to throw the models out the window, but his snappy, wacky character animation just makes me love what he does. His episodes here, as well as in ZEXAL and ARC-V, tend to be on the low side of animators. About 3-6 or so?
Astro Stadium: ED 3 was the only thing they did, and most fans agree that it doesnāt look that good. I put it up here for comparison.
Hidekazu Ebiba: He didnāt actually work on 5Dās, but heās an AD with a lot of ZEXAL/ARC-V work. His Yusei is fairly unique all things considered. I wonder how heād draw him if he had to do it so many times as an animator on the show itself?
