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Tengoku Daimakyou (Heavenly Delusion) #10
Artist Unknown continues its coverage of Tengoku Daimakyou with episode 10! After a year to reflect, surely Artist Unknown has deep insight into Kai Ikarashi's amazing contribution!
The artist_unknown OPfest: Winter 2024
Welcome to a new column on this blog where we take advantage of the piecewise format to finally produce blogging that embodies the true spirit of the unknown…
One Piece, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, Brave Bang Bravern!, Bucchigiri, Idea
Trying to Bridge the Gap between US and JPN Productions: An Interview with Will Feng
Join us as we interview Will Feng! An animation producer affiliated with Studio Trigger; he produced their video game openings (Shantae, Indivisible, Omega Strikers) along with scouting out…
BLEACH: Thousand Year Blood War Cour 2 (#14-26) Production Impressions: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Disclaimer: This post is meant to be an unbiased and critical review of the production of a series I have an extremely large vested interest in. If you…
Yuuji Yanase and Takaharu Ozaki at Otakon 2023
Otakon 2023 was host to many guests, and I did my best to cover all the anime production related ones. Here's all the stuff I heard and saw…
Orange Roundtable at Otakon 2023
Producer Yoshihiro Watanabe of the studio Orange hosted a roundtable at Otakon 2023 with CG Director Shingo Kiyomiya and CG Producer Kiyotaka Waki.
Trigger Fukuoka’s New Generation: Shunpei Gunyasu, Takuya Saitou, and President Masahiko Otsuka at Otakon 2023
Studio Trigger president Masahiko Otsuka has "big plans" for the all-digital Trigger Fukuoka branch, now hard at work on Dungeon Meshi. Artist Unknown covers their presence at Otakon…
Interview with Quintessential Quintuplets TV Special Staff at Otakon 2023
Veteran Shaft animator Kazuya Shiotsuki, freelance screenwriter Keiichirou Ouchi, and TBS producer Junichirou Tanaka came to Washington DC for Otakon last week – July 2023. Otakon was kind…
Vinland Saga Retrospective: Weathering the Storm Known as TV Anime
Makoto Yukimura's manga are no strangers to inspired adaptations—Vinland Saga included. This is the story of its team, the challenges they've faced, and the recipe they concocted to…
Animator Spotlight: Hiroyuki Yamashita (Part 4 of 5) – The Valley of the End
Naruto vs. Sasuke is much more than just a cool fight with exceptional animation. It represents a return to simpler times. The last and best chance to remind…
Tengoku Daimakyou (Heavenly Delusion): Episodes #01, #02 & OP
The second episode of Tengoku Daimakyou (Heavenly Delusion) maintained the up-tempo pace of the first while ushering in a pair of director debuts of its own, one of…
Tengoku Daimakyou (Heavenly Delusion): Staff Preview
Tengoku Daimaykou wasted no time showing off its incredible background art, sophisticated photography, and ominous music. There is much more to the show's initial success than just these…
Animator Spotlight: Yasunori Miyazawa
From humble beginnings on the beloved Moomin to the big screen under Satoshi Kon, there was one whose drawings carried an unparalleled sense of individuality. In his infinite…
NARUTO #48: Crafting an Ideal Platform for a Digital Revolution
As a wave of digitalization was ushered into the industry, one director in particular channeled his passion for creating into a mastery of new technology that resulted in…
Do It Yourself!! Retrospective: The Creator-Driven Anime
Do It Yourself!! was an undeniable passion project. While that in and of itself isn't rare, few anime are capable of channeling that creative spirit into the final…
BLEACH: Thousand Year Blood War #06: The Fire
BLEACH: Thousand Year Blood War #06 is a monumental episode for the franchise. Historically one that valued consistency over idiosyncrasy, under Hiroyuki Yamashita's supervision, the material takes on…
In Defense of the 2011 Adaptation of Hunter x Hunter
Hunter x Hunter recently made its long awaited return to JUMP serialization. As such, there's no better time than the present to look back on its pair of…
NARUTO #19
If you can believe it, this episode is twenty years old as of writing. As the climax of the first arc, it leaves the viewer with a taste…
A Peek into the Future: Interview with Rising Talent Ryo Shimura
It’s impossible to talk about Shaft these days without bringing up the mass exodus of talent and the reshuffling of roles to compensate– as we covered in lengthy…
Exclusive interview with Vincent Chansard – Part 2
Part 1 can be read here. Interview conducted in french by Iluvatar and Blou, translation by Blou. Considering the quality of your work, is it safe to assume…
Animator Spotlight: Pomu Rainpuff
Character animation has long been considered a weakness of web animators, but there is no proof more conclusive that the world has changed than the greatest, most important…
Animator Spotlight: Hiroyuki Yamashita & Boruto: Naruto the Movie (Part 3 of 5)
Part 1 | Part 2 | < > | Part 4 | Part 5 Kishimoto: After I finished watching The Last: Naruto the Movie [Jump Festa Event, December…
Boruto: Naruto the Movie, Naruto, The Last: Naruto the Movie
Exclusive interview with Vincent Chansard – Part 1
Thanks to Iluvatar, we get the opportunity to publish an interview between him and famous animator Vincent Chansard. Impressing fans and industry professionals alike, Vincent Chansard has been…
Neon Genesis Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0: Deho Gallery and Tatsuya Kushida’s post-apocalyptic Eden
Let's dive into the staff working under Tatsuya Kushida at Deho Gallery and why their contributions to the final Evangelion were so meaningful.
Animator Spotlight: Hiroyuki Yamashita (Part 2 of 5)
Our second part focuses on a pair of promotions for Hiroyuki Yamashita, examining his style and exploring the way in which he would shape the Naruto series from…
Animator Spotlight: Hiroyuki Yamashita (Part 1 of 5)
Hiroyuki Yamashita is an artist whose contributions to the Naruto franchise are second only to Masashi Kishimoto himself. Join me in this five part series commemorating his career…
Bakuten!! #03 – Production Notes
Storyboard/Episode DirectorYoshiyuki FujiwaraChief Animation DirectorYuka ShibataAnimation DirectorMiki Muto, Naho KozonoAction SupervisionFumiaki Kouta Key AnimationShino Kuzuhara, Miki Muto, Susumu Matsunaga, Yoshiyuki Fujiwara, Miyako Yatsu, Naho KozonoKeiichi Ishikura, Nana Fujiki,…
What Ever Happened? (…To Studio Shaft.)
As a preface: this is by no means a rebuttal against the “Shaft is Dead” rhetoric getting thrown around recently. Is it lacking in nuance and not entirely…
Bakuten!! #02 – Production Notes
Storyboard/Episode DirectorSeishiro NagayaChief Animation DirectorAya NakanishiAnimation DirectorAya Nakanishi, Shogo MatsumotoAction SupervisionFumiaki KoutaKey AnimationAika Kawasaki, Shuto Enomoto, Shino Tsuzurahara, Takuya Yoshihara, Ayumu Ikeda, Toumitsu Ina, Shou Ochiai, Yui Kinoshita,…
Monster Strike MV: Narrating a story through visuals alone.
Today I attempt to dissect the Monster Strike MV directed by Daiki Harashina and animated by the Fukushi team at studio Madhouse.
Keiichiro Watanabe: Jujutsu Kaisen #02
Most of the time I do this kind of analysis on twitter because aside from reaching a larger audience much faster, I also feel less of a need…
Exclusive Interview with Yuu Yoshiyama: Impact frames as surprise boxes?!
Even before their discovery and subsequent artistic recognition within the sakuga community with Star Twinkle Precure, @Agresiel and I got really excited by an aggressive and quite nostalgic…
The key staff of Fire Force season 1
Director side Yuki Yase I won’t talk too much about Yase for two reasons: he’s somehow the director we covered the most on the website but also he’s…
Mekakucity #12 – Yuki Yase’s Particular Thirds
I just happened to be taking a closer look at the career of Yuki Yase on a whim and this scene from Mekakucity Actors managed to catch my…
Winter Production Recap #2: ID: Invaded and Atsushi Ikariya
ID Invaded is a fascinating project in many ways, starting with the way it came to exist! Around 2012-2013, Ei Aoki started planning an original show featuring a…
Winter Production Recap #1: Haikyuu!! To The Top and Sachiko Fukuda
Haikyuu!! returned with a new season and with many aces of the franchise gone, there was some legitimate doubt about the quality of this new season. However thanks…
Yutaka Nakamura X Masahiro Ando: Superaction animation Talk
This is the first of a series of articles dedicated to Yutaka Nakamura, without a shadow of a doubt the best known contemporary Japanese action animator, but at…
Winter 2020: Anime Season in Hindsight and Production Notes
On this blog I commonly find myself writing from a position of anticipating something which has either yet to happen, or conversely reacting to recent events around the…
The Creators of FGO Babylonia #04: Toshimasa Ishii
As explained in an earlier post, it’s not that uncommon to find production-related people climbing to a higher position such as episode director or even series director. Even…
Attack on Titan: omni-directional mobility animation Art Book -Arifumi Imai 1″ Release Commemorative Talk & Autograph Session
This is the transcription of a short but really interesting and light Arifumi Imai talk written by Ynkl, a well-known Japanese sakuga fan always present in these kind…
Sakuga Week in Review #11: Jan. 13, 2020 – Jan. 19, 2020
Pokemon: Twilight WingsKey Animation: ? Geth: With a mere six minutes per month to work with, one has to imagine efficient use of available time is at the…
Pushing through the limits: Yoshihiro Kanno and SAO War of Underworld
SAO: WoU was a production full of surprises and great artists but one of them stood out for the quality and quantity of his works throughout the arc:…
Sakuga Week in Review #10: Jan. 6, 2020 – Jan. 12, 2020
We're back in 2020 and evidently chose a good week to return. @HiMyNameisChair joins me to discuss the blobby goodness of Eizouken, a grotesque morphing scene in In/Spectre,…
Haikyuu!! Season 4: Preview
Director: Masako Sato (佐藤雅子)Assistant Director: Mariko Ishikawa (石川真理子)Character Designer: Takahiro Kishida (岸田隆宏)Chief Animation Director: Yuu Kobayashi (小林祐)Action Animation Director: Hideki Takahashi (高橋英樹) I recently had the pleasure of…
Boruto Year in Review & Animator Spotlight: Kana Ito
Kana Ito is the Boruto series' brightest animation star over this past year, delivering time and again whether it be expressive acting or strong action. Her latest outing…
Sakuga Week in Review #8: Dec. 02, 2019 – Dec. 08, 2019
Some fancy footwork in SAO:A, the short but sweet return of franchise ace Hiroyuki Yamashita on Boruto, and a guest appearance in Psycho Pass from a bonafide legend…
Sakuga Week in Review #7: Nov. 25, 2019 – Dec. 01, 2019
Today we aim to uncover the mystery and/or magic of Kazuhiro Miwa's absurd output on Fire Force, an Azur Lane episode which sparked controversy (none of which is…
Sakuga Week in Review #6 (F/Go Takeover Edition): Nov. 18, 2019 – Nov. 24, 2019
We did something a little different for the week of Nov18– Nov24, seeing as how animation-wise, F/Go Babaylonia stole the show- we each took our own personal favorite…
Sakuga Week in Review #5: Nov. 11, 2019 – Nov. 17, 2019
My Hero Academia #68Key Animation: Sakiko Uda (宇田早輝子) Geth: While it’s not necessarily a competition, one would have to imagine the sign of a job well done if…
I Don’t Know the Names of the Two Characters Fighting, Do They Even Have One?
Don't blink or else you'll miss it! Yutaka Nakamura's latest contributions to the MHA franchise might be stylistically familiar to fans, but few were expecting the legend himself…