Flip Flappers: Episode t-ime to talk about Kiyotaka Oshiyama, actually.

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Episode 10

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.: Kiyotaka Oshiyama
Episode DirectionEpisode Direction (演出, enshutsu): A creative but also coordinative task, as it entails supervising the many departments and artists involved in the production of an episode – approving animation layouts alongside the Animation Director, overseeing the work of the photography team, the art department, CG staff... The role also exists in movies, refering to the individuals similarly in charge of segments of the film.: Emi Yamashita
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.: Akiko Sugizono, Shiho Tanaka, Ripa
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. Assistants: Akihiro Sueda

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.: Hiromi Nanbe, Shuji Mizutake, Reiko Okamura, Rumi Abeshima, Yuka Koichi, Mitsuhiro Nanbe, Mariko Matsui, Yuka Hasegawa, Kaori Do, Kosei Kudo, Akihiro Sueda, Yasunori Aoki, Mamiko Nakanishi, Akatsuki Koshiishi, Yuki Morikawa, Yo Yamamoto, Hisatake Hayashi, Keita Watabe, Yoshito Narimatsu, Tomoki Hirano, Yuki Fukaya, Hisae Ikezu, Hirotaka Nii, Izumi Kondo, Ryoga Fujiwara, Yoshihide Ideue

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Goodbye fun weekly adventures, you were delightful while you lasted. The actual plot and overt narrative are taking the focus now, which means explanations, revelations, twists and turns that had to happen at some point. In a way, it was a standard exposition episode – as standard as a show like Flip Flappers can be anyway. I don’t think there was anything outstanding about the way the story was told and the same could be said about the visuals, which were up to the series’ high standards minus the explosive animation highlights often accompanying them. With that in mind, and considering every new reveal simply opened the doors to future developments, what’s there to be said about this episode other than running down the plot reveals which all of you who’ve seen the episode know already?

Let’s talk about series directorSeries Director: (監督, kantoku): The person in charge of the entire production, both as a creative decision-maker and final supervisor. They outrank the rest of the staff and ultimately have the last word. Series with different levels of directors do exist however – Chief Director, Assistant Director, Series Episode Director, all sorts of non-standard roles. The hierarchy in those instances is a case by case scenario. Kiyotaka Oshiyama, who deserves lots of praise for what he’s done. As a top animator, his relationship with the series hasn’t quite been what’s expected from a director. Since the very beginning, it has been a well-known fact that Oshiyama himself came up with the ideas and rough designs for the inventive settings, environments and even objects populating them. He’s been doing 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. regularly (episodes 1, 4, 5 and 7), which is quite rare to this extent and requires additional time in the director’s already packed schedule. For episode 1, he did layoutsLayouts (レイアウト): The drawings where animation is actually born; they expand the usually simple visual ideas from the storyboard into the actual skeleton of animation, detailing both the work of the key animator and the background artists. for circa 100 cuts (quite a lot if you can’t tell!) which were then animated by character designer Takashi Kojima. Let’s not forget that he also animated the ending all by himself too, without even requiring inbetweeners. Usually, when a director decides to do 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. in his own show, it’s for the series’ most important episodes. A good and recent – though unconfirmed – example would be Susumu Mitsunaka’s breathtaking rotation in Haikyu Season 3′s finale. These are exceptions to begin with of course, and they can get pretty extreme. For example director Masaki Tachibana, with help of many clean-up assistants, solo key animated the entire final episode of his show Barakamon!

But back to Oshiyama. Reports from an event also revealed that he tends to not get credited for all of his drawings, contrary to the character designer and chief animation directorChief Animation Director (総作画監督, Sou Sakuga Kantoku): Often an overall credit that tends to be in the hands of the character designer, though as of late messy projects with multiple Chief ADs have increased in number; moreso than the regular animation directors, their job is to ensure the characters look like they're supposed to. Consistency is their goal, which they will enforce as much as they want (and can). Takashi Kojima, who gets listen even for 2nd 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. and in-betweensIn-betweens (動画, douga): Essentially filling the gaps left by the key animators and completing the animation. The genga is traced and fully cleaned up if it hadn't been, then the missing frames are drawn following the notes for timing and spacing.. That means Oshiyama probably did even more stuff that we likely won’t find out about unless it’s specifically mentioned. If we look at the more regular directional duties, he storyboarded episodes 1, 2, 7 and this one. His storyboards make excellent use of the settings that he himself created, as this episode once again proved; some of my favourite shots this time around displaying these fascinating designs include the very first cut of Papika sitting on spiral stairs, Mimi’s lonesome room and Papika(na)’s bizarre dwelling. Oshiyama clearly likes experimenting with angles and reflections, as shown in this cut that’s clearly using the same motif present in the opening sequence. It’s a bit of shame that Studio Pablo left the production, because while Inspired’s work at developing Oshiyama’s concepts is satisfying, it doesn’t quite live up to what the show had before.

The piece of animation that caught my attention in this episode was this weird morphing sequence of Cocona’s fake grandmother, not only because it’s a striking scene but because it relates to what I was talking about. The blobby shapes are very much like Oshiyama’s own and it really reminds me of his work from Doraemon‘s 2008 movie. Maybe we’ve got our hands on one of his uncredited works after all!

I’ve derailed this post a bit but I think it’s worth to appreciate the director’s work on this show. He really deserves it!

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