Since it’s such a large part of anime itself I thought it would be a good idea to open a topic focusing on the actual animation aspect itself.
Sakuga is essentially a fandom focused on the drawing craft of anime (and other industries!) that aims to draw attention to the hard work of the animators themselves, in particular the keyframe animators. Since artists often don’t get credited for their specific scenes the fandom also focuses on correctly crediting artists for their scenes.
Post your favourite animators, your favourite scenes, or anything that catches your eye!
Some helpful links: Sakugabooru - for video examples of quality animation cuts The Sakuga Blog - for writing about the industry and how it operates or deep dives into certain shows
i adore a ton of the work people put into some of the Precure shows, namely Heartcatch and Go! Princess.
umakoshi’s art style is beautiful and sharp while retaining what i love about the shapes and forms of classic shoujo, and he nails his action scenes too
I recently fell in love with the fight sequences from the second Kizumonogatari film - some of the best fear/desperation facial animations I’ve seen, and certainly one of the best examples of choreographing not only the motions of a fight, but the emotions:
There was a really good 2-part post on the sakuga blog about the Precure series in general (over here) that’s definitely worth reading for anyone interested in that show I think.
I’ve scarcely seen a series of frames that’s felt as delicate and tactile as this one. It managed to give wordless closure to the series in a way that no other sequence could have.
that show had such good animation and imho some of the best audio design i’ve honest to god ever heard in an anime but the show itself was such a letdown. i’ve tried to watch it all the way through like 3 times and each time its too horny to stomach
So the latest Hero Academia dropped today and our glorious overlords at Bones let Yutaka Nakamura loose on the big show-stopper. Needless to say he absolutely crushed it.
Remember back when studio 4C used to just do whatever the fuck with their extra budget, back when animators apparently had free time to do shit like that? Because holy shit dudes, Genius Party: Beyond is mandatory watching. Especially Dimension Bomb.
Eh, I dunno if I’d call Bones the best, but Nakamura’s been up there for like… 20 years. Every time you see a crazy gif from a Bones show it’s probably him.
Worked on Cowboy Bebop, Utena, and Evangelion pre-Bones.
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