The Future of the Animation Styles Guide

[JulieYBM]

Clearly the advent of Dragon Ball Super has thrown us all for a loop. Animation supervisors no longer quite play the role as they did in the first three series and the look of and feel of a crucial scene doesn't necessarily reflect the animation supervisor. What's more, the chief animation supervisor role is now regularly employed to homogenize the different animation supervisors. Are there any plans or ideas for how guide will be updated for newer works? Will the focus broaden beyond simple animation supervisors and into key animators and storyboard artists worthy of note?

At the very least...could we add Shida Naotoshi? He did supervisor the video game openings from the 1990s video games.

[DragonBalllKaiHD]

Mashiiro Shimanuki is the only one that seems to consistently keep his own model within the episodes. It seems to me that Shimanuki "defied" chief animation supervisor's wish of keeping uniformity.

I feel like as though the only reason chief is employed is to keep everything animation side of things close together from the production crisis. Had the production committee planned ahead of time to avoid the rushed mess, we sure as heck wouldn't be seeing chief animation supervisor in every episode's credit. Would Dragon Ball Super reflect the same as the first three series if there was no mess? I would think so. The sakkan would still be the episodes' strongest suit, with their correction on key animators' drawings and all.

But after what had transpired within its production, everything is out of loop right now, unfortunately.

[Ajay]

Heath asked me for some material to add to the guide back during the summer, so it's definitely in the process of being updated.

Can't imagine they'll add too much to Super until we're a good way into the series.

[JulieYBM]

It depends on the producer. The industry isn't the same as it used to be, episodes are not so easily sent out to be entirely animated by a sub-contracting studio like there were on the first three series. There would still be a lot of variation under animation supervisors because the couldn't always guarantee someone to return.