@neshru Thanks. I should have known there was something up with those episodes. I knew Murata was the director, but not that there were only two key animators. Admittedly, I watched most of those episodes earlier in my days as a fan. Haven't rewatched them completely ever since.

@Ben I appreciate your kind words. I rarely get bent out of shape when it comes to ANN editorial, but it sure happened in that case.

Oh, Pierrot's own animators are definitely solid. I'm just saying that the really impressive scenes that you see in the series are either Yamashita's work or the work of someone that doesn't regularly work on the series.

I pretty much agree with braves41 on Oshiro. His style definitely stands out and I like it, but I wouldn't put him on the same level of other skilled animators.

Some examples of his work:
http://www.crunchyroll.com/naruto/episode-110-memory-of-guilt-527316 - from 6:15 to 7:50 and then from 8:50

http://www.crunchyroll.com/naruto/episode-158-power-to-believe-539834 - from the start to 4:45

http://www.crunchyroll.com/naruto/episode-168-fourth-hokage-542500 - from 14:50 to 17:40

OT here, but by the way braves, I admire the fight you've put up on the subject of Casshern Sins. I read the original author's comments and think they're wrong on just about every count, and I'm glad to see that many people disagree in the forum comments, though you've phrased why best.

Feel free to email me your comment and I can post it.

About the name, I thought it was read Shojuro for a long time, but I noticed it spelled Toshio on the sakuga wiki, so I figured I would go with that, as perhaps they know something I don't, and Toshio seems like a more likely reading.

But yes, Yamauchi has definitely left behind a large and in some ways significant body of work that is worth discovering. He deserves to be remembered.

His work first came to my attention in 2006 and inspired my post on the Kanada School.

I think there must be plenty of 'solid' animators who work regularly on Naruto, including the names braves41 mentioned, but it's just that they don't have the punch and individuality of Hiroyuki Yamashita, so they don't jump out as much. Just like I'm sure there are many sakkans who do very good work on the show that simply doesn't get recognized because it's not particularly individualistic.

And yes, I know it's Naoki Tate. Naoyuki isn't even a possible reading. That was just a typo. You'll notice I spelled it Naoki in all other instances.

I actually haven't seen that much of Oshiro's work on Naruto, so I can't comment on whether I agree or not, but it's good to hear a different take on his work. I find that there's a tendency among sakuga fans simply to accept something as good because it's flamboyant or sticks out, regardless of whether it actually works. I think I recall feeling something similar in one episode I checked out with work by him.

I had tried to post a follow-up to the Colorful post I wrote, but for some reason the website is blocking me, so I wanted to write briefly about Shojuro Yamauchi (identified by you as Toshio Yamauchi). I was not familiar with much of his work, but needless to say loved his scenes for the Ghibli films and Beautiful Dreamer. I'm very sorry to hear about his death, as he was another of the older veterans I had hoped to meet someday, but at the very least, he leaves a large and lasting legacy of quality works which I am just barely starting to scratch the surface of. I will look forward to seeing more of his art in the future as I delve back into anime history and the earlier films I have missed. At any rate, thanks for giving him a write-up. I'm glad to see him remembered.

"Can you mention some of the more identifiable shots from Asai so I can get a feel for her work?"

Just check out the second half of those four episodes, since she's the only key animator besides Murata. You can also check out the first half of 113.

Sorry to double post here, but Hiroyuki Yamashita is apparently a co-sakkan for ep. 178 of Shippuuden. Sesshagorou is the director and a co-sakkan for ep. 180 too. Looks like good times are ahead. I wonder what happened to Nigorikawa, though....

You are right about the language and subtitles.
At least in the middle ages they represented antiquity in the frescos by using elements of their own era (clothes, furniture, houses etc) and thought honestly that at that time the ancients had to be like them.
To make things easier (though they are not by any means) lets just say to have the realism that started with writers like flaubert suffices, instead of the simple realism of balzac or the naturalism of zola. That means the viewer gets to understand the motives of each character and the social circumstances, instead of becoming too descriptive and focusing on every detail.

Ah, I see that Asai has been involved in a number of episodes including the 1st series. Interesting. I think it's because she's usually been paired up with Masahiko Murata as a sakkan that I haven't taken much notice of her in Shippuden. Can you mention some of the more identifiable shots from Asai so I can get a feel for her work?

If you are wondering, I'm obviously (but begrudgingly) accepting of subtitles in films. Even though they only vaguely transmit the same meaning as original speech in a different language, they are removed from the world that the characters inhibit (well, usually), so they can only fail themselves, not the film as a whole.

It is basically impossible to replicate how Ancient Grecian Sicilians would have behaved/acted.

In this case it is compounded by the cultural gulf between the animators and the subject, and simply because language dictates how characters can behave. I imagine a person trying to speak Japanese with, say, the English speakers' predilection for placing themselves in speech (e.g. 'I') would just be laughable and nonsensical.

This is something that perturbs me often, but it makes sense. You can only genuinely portray things you instinctively understand, and they must be portrayed consistent with reality unless you want to incur logical errors that undermine the fabric of your fictional reality.

For example, it is impossible to portray Japanese people (who are living in Japan, etc.) in a consistent and believable manner if they are speaking native English. Language isn't just a modular stratum that is completely portable between cultures, and this isn't just limited to more blatantly 'out-there' groups like the Japanese.

Apparently no, there is no other animator regularly working on Shippuuden that stands out as much as Yamashita. The only other name that comes to mind is Seiko Asai (she worked as AD in episodes 35, 42, 55, 138 and has done animation in many other regular episodes), but even she doesn't stand out quite as much. Then there are all the really good animators that just occasionally do work for the series.

I enjoyed reading your blog on Taku Furukawa. It was especially interesting because I am visiting with my Uncle Taku, his wife Michi, and his daughter Momoko and your article came up while I Google'd Taku-san. I was reading your blog out loud to Taku-san and Michi-san and they also enjoyed it.

There seems to be a lot of analyzing for One Piece's Toei animators, but there isn't that much for Shippuden's Pierrot animators. Surely there's at least one person besides Yamashita who's a solid animator. Perhaps it's because nobody else of has a strongly distinctive style. From what I remember, the names that I've consistently seen from Pierrot are Masayuki Kouda, Retsu Ohkawara, Tatsuya Koyanagi, Rinako Nishihara and Shigeki Kawai. Kawai is the only one of these who's moved up to be a sakkan on the show.

There were a pair of episodes lately in Shippuden that had a very small team of animators working on them. (159 with 3 animators; 169 with 4). On ep. 159, their drawings were hard to watch at times because they weren't that good, but you still got a clear feel for each individual style. It seems like they were drawing a lot of frames too.

Ep. 169 was a bit of an upgrade. There was nice moment where Shikamaru was taking off his sandals and slapping his foot to take the dirt off it. Again, the drawings were pretty raw, but I thought it was a touching moment in terms of character animation. It's the kind of stuff I'd like to more of...just with better drawings.

You mention Ohshiro, but I have to admit that I'm not a fan. His style might appropriate for SFX and the like, since it has a rather dynamic timing. However, when it comes to character animation I don't feel like the application of that style there fits at all. I'm not sold on his drawings. It sure doesn't help matters that he's the featured animator in episodes that have been outsourced to Jiwoo Animation (who seem to be a pretty bad company judging from the work I've seen on Shippuden).

"Naoyuki Tate"? I thought it had been confirmed that it was Naoki.

Thanks for mentioning Yuki Hayashi. Apparently he's the one guy who's responsible a dinner scene in One Piece movie 8 that was nagging at me since I didn't know who it did it (per a MAD of his work). That movie had some nice work from Hironori Tanaka and Soichiro Matsuda too. There wasn't much else to look at, though (terrible CGI).

"In a side-note, I find it interesting how fans of these shows are much more in the know about the animators responsible for the good work on their shows than they used to be."

It's true. I actually started to care and look for quality animation because of the discussion on Naruto Shippuuden's animation, who are the people that worked on each episode, who did this and that and who are the animators to look out for.

Bahi -

Thanks for that! Good to see those. The first one looks to be from the character design sheet - it's the design for Melos' bag. A whole page just for his bag. I'm curious what the second top one is - it looks like a layout, but doesn't have the border markers, so maybe it's just a concept image. The second bottom and third top are also from the CD sheets, and the third bottom is a genga.

Pete -

I agree that if you're going to do a film like this you should really try to make it authentic, but hey, it was a decent effort. There aren't many anime films like this. I wish they'd followed up and made more films in this vein so that they could do a better job. I"m sure Okiura would have loved to do more films like this.

You're right about the translation. Decent overall but with some obvious flubs that a little research would have remedied. The 'Flooney' bit in particular really annoyed me.

Another thing that nagged me in this film was that the despot's face was too static. He's always got this zombie-like look instead of actually having expressions appropriate to the situation.

Dazai's story is in fact based on Schiller's Die Bürgschaft, which itself is based on an old Greek legend of Damon and Pythias. So this film represents quite a sequence of re-interpretations of reinterpretations of the same story.

The spelling of the protagonist in Schiller's original is not Melos but Moerus. Melos has become the usual way this is romanized, which isn't entirely inauthentic since melos is the Greek word for sung poetry, so it might be too much of a stretch to go back to Moerus.

I just started reading the original story since it's online. Apparently in the original Moerus and Selinuntius are longtime friends, and Moerus actually comes to the city in order to assassinate the king, rather than being unjustly framed for it. It's Moerus who suggests that Selinuntius be taken as a hostage in his place so he can go take care of his sister's wedding, and Selinuntius agrees without hesitation when Moerus tells him what's going on. I found this part pushing it a bit. I can see why they changed things in the film so that they just met and it's Selinuntius who volunteers for personal reasons. The movie does a fairly good job of stretching what is actually a very thin short story out to almost two hours and giving its various protagonists believable motivations (at least more than in the original story, which feels very forced).

I watched the movie too. It is realistic but that is marred by the difficulty of knowing how life in Ancient Sicily really was. This would need more research and makes an animated adaptation even more difficult.
Also the ending is historically inaccurate since Dionysius was in Italy when he was ousted by another tyrant and not by "the people".


Also who translated Dionysius wife as "Flooney"?
Her real name was Sophrosyne so in Japanese it refers to Phrosyne. The subbers should have refered to an Encynclopedia.

About the odd character design I did not really mind, with the exception of Dionysius. That face is laughable and devoid of any seriousness.

Overall a good effort for an animated movie.

Cheers, Bahi. I'm not a fan of these designs, but it is good to see more production drawings.

I got some douga from Run Melos! made by Okiura. Got them from a japanese friend, but haven't ask him where he got them.
There are definitely more of them on the web.

http://www.abload.de/img/0000257193o8ch.jpg

http://www.abload.de/img/0000257195ij9s.jpg

http://www.abload.de/img/0000257196wwkn.jpg
___

The only thing I know from this anime are the amazing animation scenes by Utsunomiya and Inoue. Haven't seen it completely but the design is really different from other productions of that time.