Best and Worst Animators

[JulieYBM]

Kameda's animation is very hard to miss/not recognize, especially with those "in your face" sketchy frames.

Hironori Tanaka likes to make hair move in very detailed ways. These two guys did pretty much everything good in FMAB. Also, Murad's account getting nuked not too long ago made me sad. His videos were incredibly useful for showing other people the names & styles of animators and now they're mostly gone.

He does have a back-up. Any videos that get taken down will typically reappear with new additions, too.

[DarkPrince_92]

Those area cool. The thing is with FMAB, I've only watched through one time. With DBZ, I've been watching and rewatching since I first saw it on Toonami, so at this point I got it. With Brotherhood, I wasn't really looking out for it, I was new to FMA and wanted to know what it was about, so I just enjoyed the story. I guess the next time around I'll pay more attention.

[paparapa!!]

As for in-between animation, it matters a great. In-betweening helps give fluidity to the motions by filling in and connecting the key frames, without it you get lifeless cuts between the key frames.

Thanks for the Help! Does it matter more the level of skill of in-between animators or their number? Also, I can't believe I forgot this [*]shakes fist while swearing[*], but, do each of the key animators work on their own part of an episode or multiple parts? If they only work on a single part, are they listed in the credits by their order of appearence? Also, about the questions...!

[JulieYBM]

I'm not entirely sure about in-between animators. Surely being able to do many frames (or the ordered number of frames) is a blessing, but I don't think the exact quality is a noticeable with in-between animation so much as it is with key animators. Then again, it also boils down to the animation supervisor.

A key animator works on what they are assigned by the animation supervisor. Sometimes this can be a brief cut, multiple cuts, or even entire portions of an episode. As for list of order in the credits, I think they're credited by how much work they do. Those at the top do the most, those at the bottom the least.

[csl002]

In the old days key animators handled like, a half or third of an entire episode on average. There were not a lot of animators per episode. Solo episodes were not uncommon for a series either, especially during the late 70s with longform series' like Lupin III series 2 for example. While it stretched resources a bit it also arguably led to more creativity to create something visually appealing with their limited time.

More recently, key animators handle a handful of cuts or so on average. Sometimes special situations occur and they'll handle a significant chunk of an episode, like Shingo Yamashita did for Naruto Shippuden 167. Sometimes in specific shows, a director will allow an animator to handle an entire episode. It's not common though. They will also usually storyboard, episode direct, and animation direct episodes themselves as well. Completely solo, really. A recent and personal favorite example would be Nobuyuki Takeuchi's episode 9 of Mawaru Penguindrum.

Inbetweening, as previously stated, is very important to bringing the animation together. Inbetweeners themselves are not very important however, just their job. Inbetweening is not a place for artistic expression, it's one of the worst, most mundane jobs in the anime industry. Most inbetweeners are basically working as apprentices with hopes of becoming key animators -- it's not exactly a career to pick and stick with, as not only is it boring gruntwork but it doesn't pay well either. Inbetweeners do not pick where they draw the inbetweens or what to draw -- it's specified by the key animator on time sheets and timing charts (these can be modified and corrected by the animation director.) This tells them where to draw and what poses to draw. Sometimes key animators will leave rough reference sketches for them. While this gives them less room to mess up, it can also leave them at the mercy of mediocrity that happens to have a higher position than they do. Skill is still necessary though, because good inbetweening requires good drawing skills and understanding of motion. Bad inbetweens can absolutely ruin a previously decent cut. Inbetweeners are also responsible for cleaning up the lines (not the artwork itself though, that's the animation director's job) since it gets passed off to coloring after their inbetweening is checked by the inbetween checker.

Sometimes key animators handle the inbetweening job themselves. Normally in modern day anime, a key animator is credited for "genga" and inbetweeners "doga." When they handle both key animation and the inbetweening job, they are credited for "sakuga."

[fps_anth]

I made a thread last year with screencaps of some of the best looking episodes. Now that I'm done school, I intend to update it soon

[JulieYBM]

I'm re-watching Dragon Ball Z episode #177 right now and just have to comment. This is the first time Hakamada Yuuji and the team from Studio Carpenter appear on the TV series', but the really interesting part is the inclusion of Douga Koba as the headlining studio. Yes, this episode has two different credited studios working on the animation. What's more, the animation supervisor is Hattori Ichirou, his first and only time acting as an animation supervisor on Dragon Ball. I really have to wonder what was going on behind the scenes that we had two entirely different teams working on the animation. It's rather bad in spots (only two in-between animators worked on it, so that makes sense), but some of the key animation is rather gorgeously on-model. This is really just a strange episode, matched only by episode #178, in which four additional key animators are finally credited by name on an Last House episode. Of course, the bulk of the key frames appear to be done by Uchiyama Masayuki, so it boggles my mind how an episode with six key animators and six in-betweeners can be so fugly at times. I guess it really goes to show the lack of attention Uchiyama pays while correcting the key frames. Then again, I have to wonder where Maeda Minoru is in all of this. He is still credited as Chief Animator, so he ought to be paying some sort of attention, shouldn't he?

[DarkPrince_92]

Hey....what exactly is Studio Carpenter? I see elements of Seigasha in it, and then it looks its own thing. This episode is a prime example. I always thought it gave DBZ a sorta weird look.

[Attitudefan]

For the longest time I thought it was Seigasha. Looks like it.

[JulieYBM]

Hey....what exactly is Studio Carpenter? I see elements of Seigasha in it, and then it looks its own thing. This episode is a prime example. I always thought it gave DBZ a sorta weird look.

They're just another studio that was brought on for the regular rotation during the Cell Games. They stayed around right through Dragon Ball GT, too. You'll notice that Nakatsuru Katsuyoshi is a key animator in episode #188, which is probably why that episode looked a little like a Seigasha episode.

[DarkPrince_92]

Oh okay. I was confused because by the Buu saga it looked less like Seigasha and had it's definite look by that point.

[kei17]

Oh okay. I was confused because by the Buu saga it looked less like Seigasha and had it's definite look by that point.

That's because Shimanuki was the chief animation supervisor in their episodes in the Android/Cell arc. He isn't credited, though. Hattori's episode that JulieYBM mentioned earlier was also supervised by Shimanuki.

[JulieYBM]

Oh okay. I was confused because by the Buu saga it looked less like Seigasha and had it's definite look by that point.

That's because Shimanuki was the chief animation supervisor in their episodes in the Android/Cell arc. He isn't credited, though. Hattori's episode that JulieYBM mentioned earlier was also supervised by Shimanuki.

So he was basically a second/un-credited animation supervisor? Huh. I can see a bit of him in those episode, actually.

[kei17]

So he was basically a second/un-credited animation supervisor? Huh. I can see a bit of him in those episode, actually.

Yes, he was. Miyahara also was an un-credited supervisor in Studio Cockpit's early episodes. Most of rookie animation supervisors were supported that way, and they started listing such supervisor's supervisor (chief animation supervisor) in the ending credits from the Buu arc.

[JulieYBM]

So he was basically a second/un-credited animation supervisor? Huh. I can see a bit of him in those episode, actually.

Yes, he was. Miyahara also was an un-credited supervisor in Studio Cockpit's early episodes. Most of rookie animation supervisors were supported that way, and they started listing such supervisor's supervisor (chief animation supervisor) in the ending credits from the Buu arc.

Miyahara makes sense, considering he did do key animation for the end of episode #184. This Chief Animation Supervisor credit is also interesting. I haven't seen it on Kanzentai, so I'll have to re-check. I can't wait to see the full episode guides once Kanzenshuu begins to add them!

EDIT: Now that I think about it, I see a lot of Miyahara in episode #188. O.o