"Dragon Ball Super" Animation Staff Discussion

[Sodhi]

So toma is a regular for real Yessssssss. He will have so much time to do #41 too, 9 weeks holy crap.

[Chuquita]

King Ryû does 41 & 42 too?! So great!

[Sodhi]

I am convinced that king ryu deleting his promotion was either just his own act or someone at toei said something because it looks like he is still the composer(which I figured was the case anyway)

[JulieYBM]

Wait, what?? That's 36 dollars a cut! That's sounds like almost slavery... not to mention less than 3 dollars a drawing. WTF.

Not exactly, if key animators work five ten hour days (fifty hours) in a week that's still $1,800 a week, for 20-ish year olds who probably still live with their parents. When Ide Takeo was a tweener he made about $700 a week and shared an apartment. By the time they hit animation supervisor, which pays around $3,000 an episode, they're making a hell of a lot of money.

[Wezenheim]

More Toma makes me happy! I'm so glad that he gets to work on multiple episodes. If he does stay in the rotation for good, how many regulars does that make, 6? That's pretty good. Might be 7 if Karasawa sticks around too (which I'm hoping for).

[Ajay]

Might be 7 if Karasawa sticks around too (which I'm hoping for).

I expect him to. From what I can tell, this is his first venture into the animation supervisor role, having only ever done key animation for various series in the past (Dragon Ball, included).

Given the bump in pay that Jacob described, I'd be surprised if he ducked out.

[Wezenheim]

Might be 7 if Karasawa sticks around too (which I'm hoping for).

I expect him to. From what I can tell, this is his first venture into the animation supervisor role, having only ever done key animation for various series in the past (Dragon Ball, included).

Given the bump in pay that Jacob described, I'd be surprised if he ducked out.

That's awesome. I really like Karasawa's drawings. If the rotation stays like that, they should get a good amount of time between episodes, especially if they continue to have a guest supervisor step in every now and again.

[Ajay]

Yeah, I thoroughly enjoy his work.

He adds so much charm to the characters, somehow.

So many little subtle differences between the model sheets and his drawings. Makes a world of difference, though.

[Wezenheim]

Yeah, I thoroughly enjoy his work.

He adds so much charm to the characters, somehow.

So many little subtle differences between the model sheets and his drawings. Makes a world of difference, though.

Man, his Goku and Piccolo are so good. I mean everyone is drawn really nice, but I really like his Goku and Piccolo for some reason! I'm very happy that he's a part of the staff. I bet he'd have a lot of fun in a downtime episode, if we get one of those sometime soon.

[JulieYBM]

I've been talking with Sun_Chopper, a certain well-connected Japanese fan, about the production. So far he has told me:

The schedule is so bad for Dragon Ball Super that there are times you wouldn't be able to understand the content of the rushed storyboards. Using separate storyboard artists and episode directors is something Toei Animation only does in times of danger, which is to say the schedule is so rushed storyboard artists don't have time to do their own directing.

In contrast, Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbou (2015) had such a good production schedule that Nakashima Yutaka had an animation meeting for an episode meant to air in Winter...back on 22 July 2015. His first episode working on the series was Episode #6, but that aired 07 November 2015 and he acted as episode director. His next episode was Episode #12, which aired 19 December 2015 and he storyboarded and directed. The 'winter' season for Japanese broadcasting is January, February and March. After that he storyboarded and directed Episode #14, which aired 30 January 2016 and would qualify as a 'winter' episode. In other words, this series had an incredibly good production schedule. Mind you, I hear it looked bad, so that might be why.

[Wezenheim]

I've been talking with Sun_Chopper, a certain well-connected Japanese fan, about the production. So far he has told me:

The schedule is so bad for Dragon Ball Super that there are times you wouldn't be able to understand the content of the rushed storyboards. Using separate storyboard artists and episode directors is something Toei Animation only does in times of danger, which is to say the schedule is so rushed storyboard artists don't have time to do their own directing.

In contrast, Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbou (2015) had such a good production schedule that Nakashima Yutaka had an animation meeting for an episode meant to air in Winter...back on 22 July 2015. His first episode working on the series was Episode #6, but that aired 07 November 2015 and he acted as episode director. His next episode was Episode #12, which aired 19 December 2015 and he storyboarded and directed. The 'winter' season for Japanese broadcasting is January, February and March. After that he storyboarded and directed Episode #14, which aired 30 January 2016 and would qualify as a 'winter' episode. In other words, this series had an incredibly good production schedule. Mind you, I hear it looked bad, so that might be why.

I thought it was odd myself seeing separate credits for storyboard artist and director when I looked at the staff for episode 37. Even the washiblog post mentions that the director usually also does a lot of the storyboards (with other artists often helping out for a lot of TV anime, I believe). Seeing news about this production continues to make me cringe when people constantly call the staff "lazy". In a scenario where the episode director works with a storyboard artist (like what Super is doing now), does the storyboard artist typically just draw what the director describes, or how does that work?

That's a pretty interesting story on Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbou. That isn't very normal at all is it?

[Chuquita]

This is all really unfortunate. Shueisha's own fault I guess. Also why having time to prepare is important.

[Lord Beerus]

This is all really unfortunate. Shueisha's own fault I guess. Also why having time to prepare is important.

Fuji TV and Toei are also to blame. They produce the show and ultimately wanted Super to secure the 09:00AM Sunday as soon as Kai ended.

[JulieYBM]

It's not entirely clear what the dynamic is. I've read that a storyboard artist will usually just draw based on the episode director's dictating but I've also seen a lot of storyboards where the storyboarding is consistently similar across different series. The storyboard artists for Naruto (2002) were very consistent, even when the storyboard artist either didn't act as the episode director or would work with differing episode directors. Satou Shinji was very good about being consistently good, even if he rarely directed his own storyboards.

[Chuquita]

This is all really unfortunate. Shueisha's own fault I guess. Also why having time to prepare is important.

Fuji TV and Toei are also to blame. They produce the show and ultimately wanted Super to secure the 09:00AM Sunday as soon as Kai ended.

This is true. I agree.

I really wish they'd had a better schedule to plan things out. I really enjoy Super's writing for the most part. I wish the animation had the time to be produced it needs.

[ArchedThunder]

I'm feeling pretty positive that Toei is working to improve the schedule now that we know Karasawa and Toma are becoming regulars. Yashima will have had 7 weeks since his last episode, Toma 9 and Ishikawa 7. Kinda a weird amount there but I can only hope this is because they now have enough leeway to put someone like Karasawa on an episode further into the future.

EDIT: Huh, no Yamamuro, I thought for sure he'd do an episode in the tournament, specifically one of the climax episodes. Wonder if he's decided to not do episodes anymore.

[Sodhi]

I wonder what episode would oka tatsuya would do next?

[ArchedThunder]

I wonder what episode would oka tatsuya would do next?

Toei should really try to get him as a regular.
Imagine a fight like episode 14 with some more time to be polished.

[Wezenheim]

While we are dreaming, I'd like to get more work from Oonishi Ryo.

[Chuquita]

I'm feeling pretty positive that Toei is working to improve the schedule now that we know Karasawa and Toma are becoming regulars. Yashima will have had 7 weeks since his last episode, Toma 9 and Ishikawa 7. Kinda a weird amount there but I can only hope this is because they now have enough leeway to put someone like Karasawa on an episode further into the future.

EDIT: Huh, no Yamamuro, I thought for sure he'd do an episode in the tournament, specifically one of the climax episodes. Wonder if he's decided to not do episodes anymore.

Even though I don't think I'd want Yamamuro working on it, I partly think the reason he might be gone atm is what if they're having him work on another DB movie.