Favorite Dragon Ball Super Animators?

[InfraredGod]

I haven't seen too much about DBS's animation recently. Now that we have a new series coming out soon and plenty of resources to identify a good portion of Super's work, I wanted to start this discussion back up.

To start this off, my favorite animator on Super was (unsurprisingly) Naotoshi Shida.

My favorite work from him on the series was the 2nd half of his work on Gogeta vs Broly. I love his camera work, his sharp shading, and his flowy effects.

I also really like Yuya Takahashi and Ryo Onishi, and the funny thing all 3 of them have in common is that they didn't contribute to many episodes on the TV series but had lengthy contributions to the Broly film.

I'm curious to see the community's take on DBS's visuals nowadays. Feel free to leave your thoughts below!

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Yuya Takahashi, because he grew up a fan of the series, and it shows in his work, which feels like it carried on naturally from where Dragon Ball Z left off but also feels modern.

The best of Dragon Ball Super early on was undoubtedly when Takahashi came in for me, his work was beautiful both still and in motion:




Here's a couple of shots with some wonderful shading, which may have been corrected by Yamamuro, but I like that Takahashi's body designs don't feel as rigid by adhering to Yamamoto's model sheets:





I also get a feel for the story being told through Takahashi's shots, here are a few that are really engaging visually:











Let's not forget these shots from when Dragon Ball Super "broke the internet", drew massive crowds in Latin America, all thanks to Takahashi's incredible artwork:













Takahashi's animation also had this great lighting effect during the peak of the action scenes he worked on:



Great depth of emotion in these shots too:





Gotta love Takahashi's effect work too:

This is from the Resurrection F movie, but again it shows Takahashi's incredible talent:

I wish Takahashi had greater involvement with Super from the beginning and supervised more episodes rather than just 114 and 122, he's the best animator of the modern era for me thus far.

[InfraredGod]

Here's a couple of shots with some wonderful shading, which may have been corrected by Yamamuro, but I like that Takahashi's body designs don't feel as rigid by adhering to Yamamoto's model sheets...

You mean Tadayoshi Yamamuro's sheets. Also, aside from episodes 13 and 131, most of Yuya Takahashi's work on the Super TV Series was left untouched. However, in the episodes mentioned earlier, as well as both Battle of Gods and Resurrection F, Yamamuro redrew his work. It really is a shame since 2010s Yamamuro is not nearly as great as 90s Yamamuro:



I also really like Takashi's work. It reminds me of 90s Shida and Yamamuro a lot, which isn't surprising considering Takahashi said himself that he's inspired the most by DBZ's 8th, 12th, and 13th Movies (1st Broly Movie, Fusion Reborn, Wrath of the Dragon). For reference, here's Shida's Gohan in DBZ's Wrath of The Dragon (1996):



Reminds me a lot of Takahashi's Gohan in DBS 122:



Technically Yuya Takahashi is following the model sheets. He's just using the ones from 30 years ago.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

You mean Tadayoshi Yamamuro's sheets.

Yes, apologies I was typing on my phone and I didn't notice that name was auto-corrected.

Also, aside from episodes 13 and 131, most of Yuya Takahashi's work on the Super TV Series was left untouched.

I wasn't aware of this, but thanks for confirming.

I do like those Gohan shots and I made that comparison myself, they are both ominous and have the same serious facial expression.

[InfraredGod]

I was typing on my phone and I didn't notice that name was auto-corrected.

Ah, auto-correct can be a real pain in the ass.

Back to the topic at hand, what's your opinion on Naoki Tate? He's got a pretty divisive style in his modern work, but I think he was one of Super's Top 5 Animators thanks to his very strong movement. I'm all for his exaggeration even though his art is simplified and completely ignores the model sheets.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I like Tate, he got far too much undeserved hate for episode 5, but that episode's production schedule would have screwed any animator.

Looking at stills Tate's art is quite nice, simple but what they lack in detail they make up with how expressive they are and they work well in motion.






I prefer Tate's work on Dragon Ball Z and GT, although some shots don't look great, like the one here of Vegeta in the Cell arc, the others are all quite nice. Pre-Super Tate's work was more consistently good than Super onward:









I'm not saying detail is the most important thing, I'd take Tate over Yamamuro any day as his art is detailed to the extent that they look too stilted in motion.

I would argue episode 5 had potential, if you just look at some of these scenes. Tate's drawings were quite good, in fact they were more detailed than what we usually see from him, just take out the bad in-between frames, as the Blu-Ray did and they are quite nice looking animations.

[SelfTrainedNamekian]

shintani all the way. love his art style

[FortuneSSJ]

For me there's Chikashi Kubota / Yuya Takahashi (no order) and then the rest. Two incredibly talented and huge fan of the series, who can recreate easily the old artstyle, which I love. Mainly the Buu arc designs and last DBZ movies.

I often wonder how DBS anime would've looked if those two helped from beginning. Even with the fucked up production, It definitely wouldn't look worse.

[JulieYBM]

I love Tate Naoki's style the most. I wish his episodes had more time for production. They were so cool and cute looking. It's way easier to look at his drawings than any of the others' work.