General Information

Tomekichi Takeuchi was involved as an animation supervisor throughout Dragon Ball and the first part of Dragon Ball Z (up through episode 63), although he was a key animator for the entirety of both series. Before working on Dragon Ball, Takeuchi had been an animation supervisor and key animator for Toriyama’s previous series, Dr. Slump – Arale-chan. In fact, Takeuchi was the oldest animation supervisor involved with the series at the time. Prior to becoming an animator for Seigasha in 1959, Takeuchi was enlisted in the Imperial Japanese Army and fought in World War II.

Following the first part of Dragon Ball Z Takeuchi stepped down as animation supervisor, but remained on staff with the lesser role of being a key animator. Since then he has never credited as an animation supervisor in any other series. After the completion of Dragon Ball GT he went on to work as a key animator for only one other series, One Piece. Unfortunately it would end up being the last series he would work on, as he passed away in early 2001.

Takeuchi’s animation style matched up quite well with Toriyama’s earlier round artistic style, as seen throughout Dragon Ball and early on in Dragon Ball Z, but had become outdated as the series reached the Namek arc. This was most likely the reason behind his abrupt demotion. His animation supervisor role was handed over to the talented Masahiro Shimanuki, another animator from Seigasha.

Animation Gallery

This gallery serves as a small example of the animation seen in episodes supervised by Tomekichi Takeuchi and may not be representative of his entire body of work during his involvement in the series.

Dragon Ball Episodes

Dragon Ball Z Episodes

Animation Team

The animation team under Tomekichi Takeuchi’s supervision was quite talented and very consistent. Seigasha was quite good at fully utilizing each animator and they would often be rotated based on their specific strengths and skills. Following episode 63 of Dragon Ball Z, Takeuchi was demoted to simply being a key animator for the remainder of the series and Masahiro Shimanuki was subsequently promoted to take over his spot as animation supervisor. A short while later Kazuya Hisada was also promoted to the role of animation supervisor, taking over for Masahiro Shimanuki. For the remainder of the series the two would rotate back and forth as animation supervisor. However, Kazuya Hisada would completely take over the role in Dragon Ball GT.

Takeuchi usually stuck with his main animation team and only enlisted a few supplementary key animators thoughout the series when needed. Some of these key animators were simply fill-ins from other animation studios, such as Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru and Takeo Ide who were from Toei Animation.