Your favorite animators and their styles.

[Cure Dragon 255]

I am astounded there is no sticky thread for this! I am fond of Takeo Ide ever since I saw this epic AMV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYVrl9v7Q7A


I dont know what is unique about his style but he's certainly talented!

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I'm quite the Yuya Takahashi fan, he's admitted to have grown up loving Dragon Ball, and it shows because his animation has that old school feel:



I love that shading and being detailed while not to the extent as Tadayoshi Yamamuro that it becomes too rigid. We've also seen from Super's best episodes that the show shines when it's not adhering so closely to Yamamuro's model sheets, particularly because the earlier episodes were so poorly drawn and animated Yamamuro's designs were not going to save it.







Some great shadowing across the board here. I prefer this to CG as it gives these 2D shots of animation more of a 3 dimensional feel on paper that retains the classic look I love from the original anime.

I also believe in this shot the facial features, black hair and body design is Takahashi but Yamamuro corrected the shading:



Wonderful work on the bands of Vegeta's armour here and great variation of colours:



You can really see the fear in Jiren's face here, which is a testament to Takahashi's ability to tell a story through his designs:






You can tell things we're getting serious from moments like this. I also love the lighting effect on the first shot of Super Saiyan Goku and the depth of emotion in the other three:






While Takahashi didn't work on Z he has shared some shots, specifically from things like the Boo arc and movies 8, 12 and 13 he got inspiration from:



A lot of Takahashi's work is very Studio Cockpit-esque and is likely influenced a lot by Iwane Masa'aki who had a knack for animating a load of episodes in a short space of time without sacrificing quality.

He also shared a few little drawings he's done casually with followers on Twitter:



Gotta love fun little ones like this too:



Even teased fans about going to the end of Z, so he's very much a fan-oriented guy, naturally from being one himself:



And drew some classic shots putting his own stamp on them:



His effect work is also phenomenal and really makes the action scenes stick out and feel real:



Just look at how smooth these fight scenes are:

Also props to his Piccolo vs Shizami cut in Resurrection F:

I'm sure the hype for this in Latin America was also insane, best part of Ultra Instinct in addition to it being a rather unique concept:













I'd argue early Super when Takahashi came in (episode 13 specifically) his work was the best we got up to that point in the show:





I really wish this guy was more involved with Super from the get-go, his style feels like a natural progression of where the Dragon Ball Z anime left off while also feeling appropriately modern.

Takahashi also had his share of supervisory experience on not only Super episodes 114 and 122 but also shows like Fairy Tail and was the animation director for seasons 2 and 3 of World Trigger so clearly the guy has that leadership quality.

[JulieYBM]

Tate Naoki and his work on Dragon Ball Super: Broli is easily my favorite in the franchise. The drawings are kept simple and cute, but still really depict the characters' muscles really well, while also focusing on the timing of each drawing. The manner in which his characters move have so much personality, they feel like they add just as much if not more to the feeling of the scene than a voice actor's addtion. I would love to see Tate get to do more work like this.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

For me it's a toss up between Minoru Maeda and Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, but the former in particular because he seems to be the animator from the original era who best captured the essence of Toriyama's distinctive art style in animated format. He also was quite a seasoned artist in his run on the series and even before that with the original Dr. Slump anime. Even though it came to the point where he was edged out due to the character designs transitioning like they did in the manga when Toriyama naturally shifted from that looser, more rounded kind of art style used from his earliest stuff (one shots, Slump.etc) up through the Freeza arc before easing into the more sharp, angular look after that point.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Tate Naoki and his work on Dragon Ball Super: Broli is easily my favorite in the franchise. The drawings are kept simple and cute, but still really depict the characters' muscles really well, while also focusing on the timing of each drawing. The manner in which his characters move have so much personality, they feel like they add just as much if not more to the feeling of the scene than a voice actor's addtion. I would love to see Tate get to do more work like this.

Naoki Tate is good, he probably got too much of a bad rap for Super episode 5, as while he does nice simple drawings they don't hold up well in motion during a chaotic production like Super had in the beginning.

In Dragon Ball Z and GT Tate's work was mostly good, although there were some where the low level of detail sticks out, like the one of Vegeta during the Cell arc:









Likewise the shots of Vegeta and Goku Black here look a bit wonky, in frames like these I probably would have preferred someone more like Takahashi whose designs are more intricate but aren't as ridiculously hard to animate as Yamamuro:











There were some nice drawings in the Universe 6 arc though. Some unique expressions from Vegeta particularly:







The animation here also wasn't bad, although obviously hindered by a TV budget. Super Broly, as you mentioned did wonders for the fluidity of Tate's style though, I also quite like the animation in the last one here:









Great sense of seriousness in the first two eye shots here, third one is a bit more dull but the fourth one really expresses Goku's joyful state:






Although there is some of Tate's art, even outside Super episode 5 I can't defend:




These are good drawings, although there's a little inconsistency on the face sizes:



The best we've seen from Tate for me though, is not on Super Broly but in the first few episodes of the Future Trunks arc. Just phenomenal work on the whole between character expressions, the ominous aesthetics, great lighting effects for and of course the Goku Black reveal being the cherry on top:

[SupremeKai25]

This thread is a good reminder to never judge a book by Page 5.

I'll say Naotoshi Shida.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNDQgR9KbwE&t