We are back to Mob Psycho’s relatively weaker mode, though it has taken a different form this time; more isolated animation highlights, less directional excellence.

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Episode 9

StoryboardStoryboard (絵コンテ, ekonte): The blueprints of animation. A series of usually simple drawings serving as anime's visual script, drawn on special sheets with fields for the animation cut number, notes for the staff and the matching lines of dialogue.: Katsumi Terahigashi | Direction: Yoko Kanemori
Animation DirectionAnimation Direction (作画監督, sakuga kantoku): The artists supervising the quality and consistency of the animation itself. They might correct cuts that deviate from the designs too much if they see it fit, but their job is mostly to ensure the motion is up to par while not looking too rough. Plenty of specialized Animation Direction roles exist – mecha, effects, creatures, all focused in one particular recurring element.: Naoyuki Asano, Takashi Murai
Animation DirectionAnimation Direction (作画監督, sakuga kantoku): The artists supervising the quality and consistency of the animation itself. They might correct cuts that deviate from the designs too much if they see it fit, but their job is mostly to ensure the motion is up to par while not looking too rough. Plenty of specialized Animation Direction roles exist – mecha, effects, creatures, all focused in one particular recurring element. Assistant: Takafumi Hino

Key AnimationKey Animation (原画, genga): These artists draw the pivotal moments within the animation, basically defining the motion without actually completing the cut. The anime industry is known for allowing these individual artists lots of room to express their own style.: Takashi Mitani, Koichi Horikawa, Takuji Miyamoto, Miho Kato, Yoshino Matsumoto, Saori Surugi, Yukiko Busa, Kazue Motohiro, Nozomi Sakamoto, Kaori Saito, Yuko Dangi, Nobuhiko Kawakami, Ayaka Kawai, Tatsunori Sakamoto, Shunsuke Takarai, Satsuki Tamura, Shiori Araki, Shuichiro Manabe, Takashi Murai, Ayaka Nishino, Masaya Sekizaki, Toshihiro Kawamoto

Paint-on-glass: Miyo Sato

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Mob Psycho’s lesser episodes were usually carried by their consistently strong direction, a combination of interesting visual concepts and solid execution of events exponentially increasing in tension. This episode, while it still presented some fun ideas and drawings full of personality, was a step down in that regard. It wasn’t notoriously uninspired, but the bar had been set too high.

This week’s storyboarder was Katsumi Terahigashi, a veteran who has belonged to the industry since the early 80s. Terahigashi used to work as an animator for many legendary super robot series including Votoms, Gaim, Dancouga, Layzner, and even MD Geist. About a decade later he stopped animating entirely, and instead focused on storyboards and direction. Nowadays he’s a freelance storyboardStoryboard (絵コンテ, ekonte): The blueprints of animation. A series of usually simple drawings serving as anime's visual script, drawn on special sheets with fields for the animation cut number, notes for the staff and the matching lines of dialogue. artist who gets hired by studio BONES quite often, so seeing his name pop up in this project wasn’t very surprising – unlike some freelancers who showed up previously, like episode 7’s Kawabata.

An interesting detail about this episode is that it was outsourced. But not in the traditional sense – rather than to another company, it was by a different BONES substudio! The company is currently split into 4 groups, Studio B being the one currently in charge of Mob Psycho. This episode was instead produced at Studio C, which until recently was busy with Concrete Revolutio. The staff overlap with that project wasn’t huge – in fact, it shared more animators with Studio A’s My Hero Academia – but its production assistantProduction Assistant (制作進行, Seisaku Shinkou): Effectively the lowest ranking 'producer' role, and yet an essential cog in the system. They check and carry around the materials, and contact the dozens upon dozens of artists required to get an episode finished. Usually handling multiple episodes of the shows they're involved with. Takayuki Gunji has been working at Studio C, so that was a giveaway. BONES substudios tend to assist each other when they have no projects being actively produced; in recent memory, it happened when Studio D was on the break between Show by Rock!! and Bungo Stray Dogs. They animated episodes for Snow White with the Red Hair (#10) and the previously mentioned Concrete Revolutio (#4). It’s a nice way to keep all the staff occupied and ensure a certain quality, which can’t always be guaranteed when outsourcingOutsourcing: The process of subcontracting part of the work to other studios. Partial outsourcing is very common for tasks like key animation, coloring, backgrounds and the likes, but most TV anime also has instances of full outsourcing (グロス) where an episode is entirely handled by a different studio..

The name that caught the attention of many people this week was Naoyuki Asano, the animation director for first half of the episode and character designer of the massively popular Osomatsu-san. The second half was handled by a BONES Studio C regular, Takashi Murai, while Takafumi Hino worked as their assistant. Both action scenes this week were animated by ex-studio Wanpack animators; BONES has a steady relationship with Wanpack when it comes to leaking projects outsourcingOutsourcing: The process of subcontracting part of the work to other studios. Partial outsourcing is very common for tasks like key animation, coloring, backgrounds and the likes, but most TV anime also has instances of full outsourcing (グロス) where an episode is entirely handled by a different studio. key animationKey Animation (原画, genga): These artists draw the pivotal moments within the animation, basically defining the motion without actually completing the cut. The anime industry is known for allowing these individual artists lots of room to express their own style., so it’s nice to see that they keep employing their more talented artists when they decide to go freelance. Takashi Mitani animated the fight between Teru and Terada, featuring a good share of background animation. Masaya Sekizaki was in charge of Mob rather casually defeating Koyama. The biggest name on the KA list was certainly Toshihiro Kawamoto though, the famous character designer behind Cowboy Bebop and co-founder of BONES. This episode also marked the return of our favourite paint-on-glass animator, Miyo Sato.

The preview for next week’s episode suggests Gosei Oda’s return, and that means lively animation, so please look forward to it!

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BONES賢い

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