Whether it be on my channel, Sakugablog, Kanzenshuu, or any other website that deals in a form
of animation coverage, one of the most common questions you'll see is: "How do you know
who animated what?"
And it would be so nice if I could turn around and say, "Well, the studios just tell us",
but unfortunately that is very rarely the case, and the truth of the matter is:
Everything that goes into identifying animators is pretty much like roleplaying CSI.
It involves research, gathering evidence, analysing evidence - which essentially means
going frame by frame through a hell of a lot of episodes from many different shows.
By the end of I t, many of us look like Charlie from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
It's very stressful, but very rewarding when you finally crack the case.
Today, we are going over all the different aspects of a scene to look out for, what to
keep in mind, and why it's okay to make mistakes.
This is a guide on identifying animators…
Let's get underway.
<INTRO> WHERE TO BEGIN!
Approaching a brand new show for the first time can be very daunting, but the best place
to start is with the credits, and they will be your best friend throughout the entire
process.
Sites like Animator's Corner put up translated versions of the staff lists for certain shows,
but they don't cover everything, so you may find yourself drawing kanji into Google
for ones that haven't been translated.
The reason to begin here is that you need context.
You cannot make guesses unless you know who's working on the show.
A style in one episode may look like one in another, but unless you can compare staff
lists to see what recurring names there are, it could well be a coincidence.
It's also a great starting point as far as research goes.
It's very rare that everyone on a show is a newcomer, and often you'll find that the
interesting scenes you're looking into, are being done by animators who have a great
deal of history in the industry.
Perhaps they've been identified before, either by a director or themselves on social
media.
If that's the case, you can plug different names into a site like Sakugabooru, and start
comparing confirmed scenes against your presumptions.
Sometimes that's simply not possible, though, in which case I strongly recommend starting
with the animation supervisors.
A supervisor's job to provide consistency within an episode – they correct, aka partially
or fully redraw the artwork in scenes to ensure the characters are at least within the realms
of the show's designs.
They may also overhaul the movement if there are issues there.
The reason to start with them is that their style will often dominate an episode, and
if you're not familiar with the supervisor's work, it can be very easy to accidently attribute
their idiosyncrasies to certain animators, when really, they're simply corrections.
Once you understand the supervisor, you can then begin to put aside their input in your
mind, and take a better look at everything else.
EVERYONE HAS A TELL With those things in mind, let's touch on
what exactly to look for when considering character art.
As important as character sheets are, everyone has their own touch, and it's those standout
differences that are the key to working out who's who.
Ears, noses, shading, eyes – everyone has their tell, and if you find a certain stylistic
trait dominates every episode a particular name is on, the likelihood is, that is them.
For example, Masahiro Shimanuki in Dragon Ball Super has a very recognisable style.
If we go by ears alone, you can see that distinctive shape across every single one of his episodes.
He uses very large indented cheek shading, and his noses are often almost tear drop shaped,
but with a sharp 90 degree angle at the bottom.
Naoki Tate's drawings are very round, with thick eyebrows, and the eyeball starting very
close to the far edge.
His noses are very thick, and he consistently uses a sort-of rectangle cut in half when
drawing grimaces.
You can find these distinctive traits across every single supervisor, and while they may
not be obvious upon a first viewing, it's very easy to spot these things when you look
at their episodes one after the other.
Sometimes it's as overt as the examples I just gave, while other times it's subtler
– it depends very heavily on the extent of the supervisor's corrections.
Either way, you will find them somewhere.
One thing to keep in mind is the frequent use of a "Chief Animation Supervisor"
in modern anime.
While a regular supervisor's job is to bring consistency within an episode, a chief supervisor
is there to add consistency across the entire show.
If you find a certain style in every single episode – or in Super's case, every other
episode – chances are, that's your chief supervisor stepping in.
As you can see, it's like building a picture of styles, and this can often lead to identification
through process of elimination.
If there are three supervisors on an episode, and you know two out of three, it's not
difficult to look at that leftover style, compare it to their episodes in the past where
you weren't sure, and make the connections pretty easily.
EFFECTS AND TIMING If character art is primarily a tell for supervisors,
then there needs to be a way to get to the animators underneath, and that's where effects
and timing come into play.
Effects refers to things like smoke, debris, beams, and explosions.
The shapes of these things are some of the best ways to identity an animator.
For example, to use Naoki Tate again, his smoke is chunky, heavily layered, with large
circular shadows that sit on the edges of the plumes.
Futoshi Higashide's is much more cartoony, with very bold round shapes that are generally
edgelit.
Naotoshi Shida's is probably one of the most distinctive out there.
It's incredibly angular, and features very unique shading.
When it comes to beams or debris, the idea is similar – look for reoccurring shapes.
Kenji Miuma wants to assault you with deathly sharp beams in almost all of his scenes.
Heck, the most famous example of debris would have to be Yutaka Nakamura whose cubes have
pretty much reaches meme status.
Next up is timing.
Timing is one of hardest things to use to identify an animator, but it's just as important.
To put it simply, timing refers to how something moves.
The weight or ease of various motions.
Naotoshi Shida is one of the most famous animators with hugely recognisable timing.
His characters move like rushing water, and the camera beams along with every movement
– almost looking sped-up in places.
On the flip-side, there are people like Mitsuo Iso who don't draw from pose-to-pose, but
rather frame to frame, resulting in spectacularly loose, and at times, almost hyper-realistic
movement.
Learning to understand and recognise timing is incredibly useful, especially since many
scenes may not contain any effects.
Unlike character art, these aspects are transferable from show to show.
There are no style guides for effects or timing, so unless a supervisor is a little overzealous
and redraws an entire scene, they're the one strong voice an animator has across all
of his or her projects.
GENERAL ADVICE I've been doing this stuff for many years,
and have made a lot of mistakes along the way.
As a result, I can thankfully tell newcomers what be careful of.
My biggest piece of advice is "The simplest answer is always best".
If you find yourself saying, "Oh, this is probably this guy, maybe it looks different
because they had more time", or you're saying, "Oh, this is uncredited such and
such… probably just helping out", make sure you're not letting confirmation bias
cloud your judgement.
The aforementioned examples absolutely happen, but generally, if you find yourself jumping
through mental gymnastics to credit a cut, it's best to put it on the backburner until
more evidence presents itself.
Don't be afraid to reach out to animators on sites like Twitter.
Quite often, unless the studio forbids it, they're more than happy to let you know
whether your guesses are right or not.
And lastly, it's okay to be wrong.
After all, we're essentially playing a guessing game here, and even people who work on shows
get things wrong.
I remember Hideki Yamazaki accidentally calling Tadayoshi Yamamuro's work Miyako Tsuji's.
Nobody's perfect, and while you can be 99% sure you're correct, there's always that
1% chance you're wrong.
- Identifying styles can be incredibly frustrating,
but it's so rewarding when you crack someone's work.
When you finally nail down who exactly did that one scene you loved, it opens up their
entire back catalogue, and helps you build a mental picture of the type of styles that
really work for you.
Thank you so much for listening, I hope this serves as a nice starting point to your own
adventures.
If you have your own tips or you have any follow-up questions, feel free to leave those
in the comment section below.
Rate the video if you'd be so kind, subscribe if you're looking for more animation content,
and I
will see you next time.
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