Who is the Character Designer for Budokai 2 Opening?

[DragonBalllKaiHD]

I just watched the Budokai 2 opening out of nostalgia, since this animation is one of my favorite animation works. After watching it, it just got me wondering. I could be wrong, but it does seem that the character designer and chief animation supervisor for that opening is Kadayoshi Nakatsuru, the character designer for Dragon Ball GT TV series. He's been known to bring vibrant colors to the character models as well as softer looking linearts. Comparing the arts for Dragon Box for Dragon Ball Z TV series to the opening, I have a gut feeling it might be him. Anyone think the same?

The credits say the "Animation Director" is Naoyoshi Yamamuro. I'm not too familiar with his work. Even so, it looks very strikingly resemble to Nakatsuru's.

[Keikari86]

I would hedge my bets on saying that Tadayoshi Yamamuro was responsible for supervising or animating that opening. Nakatsuru, though he made key animation for essentially the entire run of the anime, didn't do too many promotional/side projects involving Dragon Ball. When Yamamuro replaced Minoru Maeda as the character designer, he worked like a machine, pumping out promotional arts, supervising and key animating the anime and every Dragon Ball movie up to this point, even still being heavily involved with other aspects of the series to this day. So, given Yamamoru's involvement in the series and the line work that is in the opening, I would say that it was Yamamuro.

[JulieYBM]

'Naoyoshi' is a misreading of 'Tadayoshi'. Yamamuro Tadayoshi supervised the Opening for Dragon Ball Z 2 and Dragon Ball Z 3. 'Animation Director' is the more common reading of 'sakuga kantoku', because 'kantoku' literally means director and is the term used for a film's director. Outside of Toei Animation the term 'kantoku' is also used for the series director of a series. For example, on Naruto Shippuuden the 'Kantoku' is Date Hayato. He retains this credit for every episode of the series. However, for Episodes #290-295 Tsuru Toshiyuki is credited as シリーズディレクター (shiriizu dairekutaa), the term that Toei Animation uses for their series. Tsuru held that role while Date continued to hold his role, most likely because Tsuru wrote, directed, storyboard, and key animated for most of those six episodes and was the top authority on them.

Anyway, the point of the matter is that Yamamuro Tadayoshi did the same thing here he has been doing for the past twenty years. He also just so happened to use some better key animators.

Does anyone have the credits for these Opening animations?

EDIT: Credits for Dragon Ball Z 2's Opening animation begin at 4:47 in this video.

Key Animators: Yamamuro Tadayoshi, Shida Naotoshi, Shimanuki Masahiro, Hisada Kazuya, and Tate Naoki. All Dragon Ball veterans who worked on the series since 1986-87. The 'Assistant Director' (is this a mistranslation of enshutsu? It happens with Pokemon's official credits) is Zako Arifumi, who was the series director of Toriko and is actually a pretty good director.

EDIT 2: Koga Gou is credited as 'director'. Yamamuro Tadayoshi is confirmed as the sak-kan. Koga Gou is a pretty good episode director, going by his work on One Piece and Disk Wars: Avengers. Zako was probably just helping him manage the production a little.

EDIT 3: I don't see a storyboard credit, so Koga Gou probably drew it. He does his own for his television episodes, so it makes sense.

EDIT 4: Credits for Dragon Ball Z 3's Opening animation begin at 3:16.

Key Animators: Yamamuro Tadayoshi, Shida Naotoshi, Shimanuki Masahiro, and Hisada Kazuya.
Assistant Director: Satou Hiroyuki (Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Crystal Episodes #2 and #12)
Animation Supervisor: Yamamuro Tadayoshi
Director: Sakai Munehisa (Series Director of Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Crystal and Director of One Piece: Strong World)

[DragonBalllKaiHD]

Is that so? That's a bit disappointing. I'm a big fan of Nakatsuru's coloring and models, so I thought it might be him. Even so, that opening for Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 2 was really great. Not on the level of Ultimate Blast, but still pretty good. Of course, it's all thanks to them olden veteran animators from the series, so it's a wonder the opening is gorgeous, but then again, Toei wasn't as busy as they were this year so it would give them time to storyboard and animate.

[JulieYBM]

Hisada Kazuya and Shimanuki Masahiro were better animators back then, although I'm not entirely sure either of them did much in the way of action-heavy cuts in the Openings. Shida Naotoshi is credited second, so I'm thinking he handled a majority of the cuts, if not all of them. If my Japanese were better I'd ask him on Twitter...but it's not, so that page isn't going to get turned.