-Of course, Studio Junio directs the best-looking episodes, especially in Dragon Ball: Sato Masaki's characters are pretty accurate-looking and have linear and angular shapes (the most notable scenes are the ones, in which Goku kicks Drum, Piccolo uses his Tsuikidan against Goku, Gohan pushes the Genkidama towards Vegeta and, of course, Goku's first SSJ transformation scene).
Ide Takeo's style is pretty interesting as well, his characters are shadier and tend to smirk a lot, especially every time they're upset, by grinding their teeth (for example, Goku's Kaio-ken against Ginyu until the former repels the latter's energy blasts, Goku and Piccolo fighting each other during their training for the androids, or the last part of USSJ Trunks and Cell's fight in episode 164, while in the movies, he drew the first part of Goku and Piccolo's fight in Movie 2, Gohan's transformation into a Oozaru in Movie 3, Android 13 and Broly's deaths, in movies 7 and 8, respectively. He also animated the first part of Vegeta's power up against final form Frieza in episode 84).
Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru's style is almost similar to Masaki's, only more angular-shaped, with much more three-quarters stances (Tao's rush against Goku, Piccolo regenerating his arm against Goku, Krilin and Gohan saving Vegeta from Recoome's Eraser Gun, Dende summoning Porunga on Earth, and USSJ Trunks' first attacks on Cell in episode 164). He also directed episode 120, which had great animation.
Miyahara Naoki's style is also great: his characters are less shady than Takeo's, but are a bit more serious and sometimes tend to wrinkle their noses (Frieza destroying a mountain on Namek, Cell's Makankosappo against Piccolo and Gohan's SSJ2 transformation in episode 184). Like Nakatsuru, he directed two episodes, 159 and 280, which were pretty nice.
Maybe Hideko Okimoto's style is similar to Maeda's, her characters have slightly narrower traits (last scenes of episode 48 of DBZ, the second part of Vegeta's power up in episode 84, the segment of Vegeta's nightmare in episode 124).
There are still other ones I didn't mention, but that's because I still haven't managed to recognize their styles (ex. Akira Inagami, Chikako Uesugi, and many others)
-Seigasha's animation quality improved dramatically from original DB to DBZ, and its style kept up with Toriyama's changing character model. Their episodes are awesomely animated, even though they were wasted for fillers, such as the infamous episode 125, in which Goku and Piccolo get a driver license... ugh, anyway:
Shimanuki Masahiro is very talented, I really love his unique style, which is very detailed and smooth, his characters got flawless proportions, maybe their eyes are slightly round, but they still look great (Kaioken Goku punching Vegeta in his stomach, Vegeta mad at Gohan for stealing his last Dragon Ball, Imperfect Cell powering up against Piccolo and 17, and Vegito's birth). His animation style is also recognizable in DBS, and, despite some criticism, I still like it, because it does still embody DBZ atmosphere, so I don't get why he's a bit criticized nowadays.
Hisada Kazuya's is very detailed as well, and a little slower and more angular than Shimanuki's, his scenes seem to share some 360°degrees rotation (Tien's one-handed Kikoho against Nappa, Vegeta's transformation into an Oozaru, Ginyu Force introducing themselves in Kaiosama's planet, SSJ Vegeta's Big Bang Attack against 19, SSJ2 Gohan's Kamehameha rejecting Cell's and many others).
Tate Naoki's is really good, I honestly think it's a mixture between Shimanuki and Hisada's styles, with the former's eyestyle and the latter's slow movements (SSJ Goku forfeiting his battle against Frieza, SSJ Vegeta punching 19, Piccolo's Light Grenade against Cell, SSJ2 Gohan kicking buff Cell and SSJGSSJ Goku karate chopping Golden Frieza).
However, Takeuchi Tomekichi's is odd: his style fit in DB, but was kind of dated throughout DBZ and due to this, it was called 'Caveman style', for his characters' twisted eyes, big ears and faster but jerky movements (even adding kinetic lines, typical of comic books). Although from late Cell saga, he seemed to get used to it and managed to keep up with his younger coworkers, so his kinetic lines disappeared almost completely (the scene with Cell using Kienzan against SSJ2 Gohan was done well, maybe thanks to Smimanuki's direction).
-On the other hand, Last House's episodes suffer a severe drop in quality animation throughout the series, which is too bad: in DB its animation was nice, just like Saiyan and Namek sagas in DBZ, even though it was keeping the DB model, unlike Seigasha, which was following the evolution of characters' development. Of course, it's not random that its decreasing quality coincides with Naotoshi Shida's departure, after episode 145 of DBZ, who was the only one able to give a bit more accurate details (Goku punching Jeice in the face, Vegeta's rampage against Ginyu, Goku escaping from Namek in his flashback, 18 breaking SSJ Vegeta's other arm).
Masayuki Uchiyama worked on animation direction and also as a key animator. While his style fit in DB, it just didn't work in DBZ, because it was closer to a cartoon than to an anime: wrong shading, lack of detail, and sometimes wrong proportions. I give him some credit, though, for female characters, who look younger than they should be, which is not a real issue. But, still, he animated a great amount of episodes (possibly because it was cheaper), which usually followed those animated by Seigasha or by Yamamuro Tadayoshi, which were much more accurate and closer to the original.
Ohara Taiichirou stayed at Last House until the end of the series, and just like Uchiyama, his drawing is cartoony-type and lacks of details. Honestly, I'm not a big fan of his animations, its proportions are slightly better than Uchiyama's, but I don't like some unnecessary details of his, such as the glare of Cell and SSJ's pupils, the characters' weird noses or their exaggerated sweat drops. For example, I just don't like his design for Frieza: he made his traits much gentler and blander and his lips were a bit more jutting than usual. However, I admit his animated scenes had a good fluidity and he even made some cool episodes in DB, the fight between Goku and Piccolo Daimao was drawn really well. I still think Last House's animation is far from the best, though. http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/dra ... 0226032944
Studio Live... is more consistent than Last House: while the latter's animation started off well and later dropped in quality, this one remained equally bad. A lot of DB fans believe Last House were the worst one... in my opinion, Studio Live is much worse than Last House.
Yukio Ebisawa, a.k.a. the Triangle **** Guy, draws his characters using wrong proportions, twisted traits, making everything triangle-shaped... even female characters (I just hate his design for Bulma, he made her eyes bigger and took up about half of her face). I'm sorry to say this, but he's the worst DBZ animator, his characters are simply ugly (Vegeta's giant forehead and distorted proportions). Those who strongly criticize DBS animation perhaps forget about what Ebisawa did in several episodes: not only his style was bad, but he even tried to make some great animators' work worse, such as Ide Takeo and Toshiyuki Kanno, who was literally the savior of Studio Live episodes. He had to render the episode at least decent, and even managed to create some great frames (Piccolo's Hellzone Grenade against 17, SSJ Vegeta attacking Cell, Majin Vegeta's sacrifice against Buu and Gogeta killing Janemba in Movie 12, this one was a proof of his huge talent, which was kind of held back by his director).
There are also other ones, such as Hiroshi Takeuchi, who was OK, and Tomoya Handa, who among the good one (Kanno) and the bad one (Ebisawa), was the decent one: his animations were nothing great, but nothing horrible, either. (Frieza trying to stop Goku's Genkidama, Dr. Gero absorbing Piccolo's energy).
Shindo Pro's animations, the so called 'Evil eye one', are good under Mitsuo Shindo's direction and awesomely detailed under Yamamuro Tadayoshi's supervision. He was part of the original team, along with Teruhisa Ryu and Noriko Shibata and at the moment contributes to the current character design in Dragon Ball franchise, too.
His animation style is just great, the proportions are perfect and the movements work really well, too. (Goku's Kaioken X20 against Frieza, ASSJ Vegeta's Final Flash, SSJ2 Goku and Majin Vegeta power struggle and SSJG Goku vs Beerus in episode 14 of DBS).
Studio Cockpit is really peculiar: their animations didn't follow Maeda and Tadayoshi's model and even so they were great and really accurate. Its chief animator was Keisuke Masunaga, who usually drew dark and serious expressions on characters, which is atypical for DB standards, but it worked (SSJ2 Gohan killing Cell, Gotenks turning SSJ3, SSJ2 Goku vs Kid Buu).
Freelance had interesting animation, too. It looked more animeish than some other animation studios, and was really not bad (Goku defeating Tien in 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai, Z-Fighters against Saibamen, Goku fighting Vegeta in episode 30, their last one).
Throughout the series, there are a lot of studios which made some really good-looking episodes (K-Production), but I can't recognize any of them thoroughly. I hope my thread didn't bore you, I wanted only to help who was interested in DB animation and couldn't identify the accurate key animator. I didn't include some other ones, simply because I don't know about their art style. So, yeah, that's it.
