Well, this sure took a long time. Hope it was worth the wait! Thanks to the Kanzenshuu staff for providing me with additional translations and designs for this video. ~* SOCIAL MEDIA *~ Twitter - / animeajay
hnnghhh.. Yamamuro's work on the Majin Vegeta vs Goku fight is just... God I love it so damn much. They looks just fucking phenomenal. I cannot express how much I love it.
@Nata R. No, not the whole half, he became character designer since the Cell saga, but there were a lot of other animators, his style changed way before Super, like since DBZ Kai.
bro look at Naoki tate and Mashiro Shimanuki. They are completely trashes in dbs. Yamamuro is doing far better than them. He is doing great only thing is we can’t to get to see him often in dbs. People confused and thinks some bad animators as Yamamuro.
@@keepmovingforward2050 No dude Tate has way better animation and fluidity than current Yamamuro. Especially seeing how he did Mui goku vs Jiren. People only give him a bad rep just because of what happened with Episode 5.
excellent video. I didn't expect anything less Ajay. regarding yamamuro, I feel that while everything you have said is correct... because the images the fans of the series associate with dragon ball nowadays have only been yamamuro's work. that is now Goku for then. so while I feel you are absolutely right in your assessment I do believe that this is a point of view only held by people that hold a magnifying glass to this part of the industry. also way to shout out Kameda. love that guy!
I still can't really look at a Yamamuro design and instantly understand the problems people have with it. But at the very least, I can understand how his omnipresence in the franchise could be hurting creative growth.
MozillaVulpix the only work I dislike of his is GT. its like a diversion for the sake of diversion of the dragonball art style. I still love his work on Z and the Z movies.
to be fair, we dont know if he's gonna come back or not on whatever comes next after the broly movie, since currently he's designs are stilled being used for DB-Material like commercials and anything heroes-related, so theres still a chance they might re-use he's designs again for the next anime
I find it kind of annoying that almost every single dragon ball related fight or moment, I can't go a few seconds without seeing the phrase, " it's better than super" I get that super has had a lot of animation problems in the past( particularly episode 5 and most of the Resurrection F arc) but some people act like DB and DBZ never had animation problems. Every time I see those comments I think to myself, " ok, we get it, you don't like it" anyways, great video Ajay, sorry about going on that rant there, it just annoys me a lot.
Its not that DBS has animation problems. Most of it had been fairly consistent from the Zamasu arc onward, its just the artstyle and models that look horrible. Especially Goku. His model has never looked proportionate at all since Super started, and his facial expressions are very limited to just a confused look all the time. When the fights don't have that ugly multiple fist thing they're doing now and actually uses more than 2 looping frames, the fights can look good. They just rarely do in Super.
Lloyd Irving I do understand the criticism for the off models and art styles. Well, I think it's also kind of that the way super overall looks makes it easy to notice how characters look different in contrasting episodes. For example, ever since episode 5, you can probably just look at Naoki Tates work on super for a brief moment and be able to notice it, same with Naotoshi Shida. And too be fair, I think they've also gotten better with the artwork as well. A few examples are the current few episodes with the recent new filter, and in the zamasu arc, with great examples being Black Goku's first appearance and Black's first transformation into SSR. I kinda blame Episode 5 and most of the Resurrection F arc for Super's bad reputation on this matter personally. I know I said that in my previous comment, but it's a point I really wanna emphasize, sorry about that lol
This took a long time (twitter.com/AnimeAjay/status/829781742974296065) - I hope you enjoy it! Let me know down here if you're with me or if you're absolutely fine with Yamamuro's current output. Either opinion's fine, but I'd love to hear from you!
Ajay I really enjoy your videos and posts on Kanzenshuu. I love learning all the behind the scenes stuff, and thanks to the reliable info you provide, I've learned a lot! About Yamamuro, I used to like his animation style, but as I learned about his 'draconian practices' as a supervisor, I started disliking him in favor of other, more talented (in my opinion) animators such as the underrated/misunderstood Tate and Shimanuki. His promotional art during the early 2000s was truly despicable. I also hate the fact that he stomps other animators and doesn't let them truly shine. The only reason he is where he is now, is due to the talent he used to have back in the day, and that's kinda sad... Honestly, I'd prefer he stayed away from Super and let the other animators do their thing like in Z. I find it very entertaining trying to figure out who animates which scene, and with Yamamuro around, that'd probably be a lot harder lol
These videos are great and really informative! I've learned so much from these videos and your channel. They've really given me an appreciation for all the animators involved in this series. I've grown to really respect animators like Naoki Tate because of this channel!XD Now I can't wait for the Super Supervisor episode for Yuichi Karasawa whenever you get around to it. Question, would you ever make a video like this about animators like Futoshi Higashide, Yuya Takahashi, and Yuki Hayashi even though they're not supervisors?
I'd definitely love to focus on key animators and keep it all linked into this series; I'm just wondering how I'd go about doing that without changing the name :P
I feel like this is a very important episode that.. yet again is essential viewing for anybody who wants to have an informed opinion on Super. I didn't realise to what extent yamamuro is responsible for the failures (at least IMO) of recent movies and the current character designs in Super (which again.. I really am not fond of for the most part). Excellent work Ajay as per, I know from twitter how much work you put into this so thank you. It's truly important stuff for Dragon Ball fans and to have it available and presented with this level of quality is truly a blessing. Amazing work and thanks again.
Yamamuro used to make very nice scenes, as the Kaioken X20 VS Frieza, Gohan SSJ2 staring at Cell, Goku SSJ2 vs Majin Vegeta. Too bad his work is stiff nowadays. Off-topic, Eguchi was really an underrated key animator: his works were really impressive, despite being quite on-model, his animations were intense, such as Yamcha's Spirit Ball VS Kami, Goku vs Piccolo in the Tenkaichi Budokai. As always, interesting video.
I agree 100% with you Ajay. As a guy who basically draws dragon ball on his free time, I have to say that the old Yamamuro designs are much more appealing to me. That's why whenever I see art reminiscent of the DBZ era in Super I get my hopes up and get all happy:D
Watching this over a year later, *after* the ending of DBS and the recent announcements with the DBS movie and that snazzy trailer, it's such a relief that Dragon Ball is finally getting the makeover and attention to time and quality it needed and deserves. And honestly, I don't hate Yamamuro or even dislike him, really, but I'm really glad to know he wont be bringing down Dragon Ball's quality in the near future due to his involvement.
Drew Sparks the trailer looked good awful but the director said it wasnt corrected. Hopefully it looks like his gorgeous deaigna,which the trailer sadly didn't copy.
You should really have more subscribers dude, I love how you analyze the animation down to detail and tell us about what's great and what takes time. Really makes me appreciate dragon ball super animation alot more, very interesting stuff!
This guy drew over all my work in Kami to Kami! Now it looks worse than it originally was. Glad he doesn't work too much on animating Super. Otherwise, my 2 animated fight scenes wouldn't look so fluid and detailed
The biggest problem I have with the modern character designs in general isn't the shading, or the skinniness, it's the roundness of the face/jaw. The characters just look...fat a lot of the times. I much prefer the more angular designs whenever they do shine through in certain episodes.
glad to see theres a new one, i love this series ^^ i personally loved how the characters looked in episode 13...but maybe thats just my bias for overdetailed shading..
I loved ep 13 too .Actual yamamuro's movements details and fitnesses are great. A lot of people confused him with other animators and making him look bad. He is still greater than Masahiro Shimanuki and lot of other animators
This is exactly the kind of channel I've been looking for. As someone who has been working away on improving myself as an artist in an attempt to eventually move into the animation industry, all of your videos have captured me completely. I also appreciate the censuring of spoilers in your Staff Roundup videos for DBS. Just overall, an excellent channel. Keep it up.
What a video. Nearly killed you, but entirely worth it. Great job showing his style gradually change into what it is now. So disappointed we're stuck with Yamamuro. Give Shimanuki the reigns of character designer. The man is the anti Yamamuro. His style was horribly One Piece early on in Super, and now it's my favorite by far. I really want Yamamuro to go back to his old ways, but even if he's shown slight improvement it's not good enough.
Yamamuro is like, this one really drunk friend who you have great memories of and you know he's capable of being better, but now he's really rude and is just a buzzkill to the party. "Go home Yamamuro, you're drunk."
Goku's design in his fight against Majin Vegeta was JUST PERFECT, it transmits to you everything you need to feel when you watch a DragonBall fight. Super's design and fights are so FLAT, they say nothing to me. Thanks for this video, is nice to know I'm not the only one who feel this way about the new design.
I honestly hope Yuya Takahashi becomes a character designer after ToP, so we can start off a new Saga with fresh and familiar models that have a classic Z look with a couple of updates.
Midnight Twister Even if I would like to see the return of the old designs through Takahashi's interpretation of it, I just think Tate would make a better character designer and be more suitable to modernize the look of the series while staying true to Toriyama's work
The best animator and the best designer for Dragon Ball Z was definitely Masaki Sato ! Check the episode 64 with the fight Reecom vs Vegeta on the Namek Arc
Wow, I've often thought that Super needs to look more like the "Good DBZ Episodes." Not knowing that the same person is responsible for what I like and dislike in dragonball is a little shocking. Especially in regards to the movies and the Goku vs Majin Vegeta fight, my personal favorite in the series. IMO, let Tate have a bigger presence in the show, he's been pretty good in super.
My theory for the stiffness of the models is the round face combined with the stiff eye and brow shape. Back during the cell/buu arc the face was sharper with slight curves in brows, eyes and indent in the cheek shadow. This made the face feel full of detail even if it was only two levels of shading and allowed for more exaggerated expressions. The new designs with the round face and trapezoidal eyes and brows look blank leading to a stiff design with more detail for the animators to draw where it doesn't matter. This blank face also makes it look terrible when animators draw even slightly off proportion.
Heres an example of these blank expressions I found in ROF. 2.bp.blogspot.com/-84iHKD3tW1Y/V_NtAn1vSCI/AAAAAAAAACk/cHljnoDYnPAsH1XiH_jt3osmR-9sYfIlwCLcB/s320/Capture.PNG
That's some awesome music you've used and yeah amazing video with a lot of insight I love it ❤. I would have loved it if they went with Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru instead of Yamamuro as the character designer :(
You nailed every point in this video. The character designs they made for Dragon Ball Super today make the characters' head rounder and squashed, like a child's head on an adult's body. Give us the old character designs. Please.
Holy cow this is so thoroughly researched and put together, instant subscription! Didn't know the same guy was responsible for both my favorite (movie posters, SSJ3 Dragon Fist) and least favorite parts of DB Anime art...
Episode 13 was one of my favorites, I always wondered where is the guy behind it...I guess now I know. Can't wait when you break down the guy who made episode 16, that episode was awesome too. I hope he doesn't has some kind of dramatc/dark past like Yamamuro.
Nobody likes when people speak negatively on things they like. I like episode 13 too, but really it's far too overrated by those who don't know about animation. They cite it's movie quality animation. It's really not. The only thing you can say is in terms of polish it's definitely incredibly polished. Hell, the one great bit of animation on that episode wasn't even done by Yamamuro. It was Yuya Takahashi. Yamamuro is a shell of who he once was. I sincerely wish he'd go back to the old designs, because anything is better than his current designs.
***** I just like that episode, I didn't said that animation was the best. But this is what I prefer, art and maybe a little bit slow moments. It's just what I like.
I think most people do like that episode. I was just talking from a technical standpoint. I wish we had designs with far less shading and detail. We'd get so much more interesting animation.
***** So how would characters look with "right" design? I can only see Tien as more muscular (since he always was), other than that I didn't see the problem. Where I see the problem is story and that stuff, what was/is he doing with Super or RoF, if I understood right he "helped" with RoF stroy or something, and of course he directed it. And all of this is leading to bad arc in Super and other bad things. But I really don't get what is so wrong with desings...
What a great video, finally someone who dares to point out the flaws of someone who is often portrayed and looked at as somethig like the god of DB character desingns when in reality, he isn't everything.
This video is amazing. I'm totally with you. Yamamuro has changed his art style in a negative way imo. The way he drew in DBZ was amazing. Super looks stiff, you are right , as well as childish. Love your videos :)
key animator should be granted with "whatever they want", creating their own, unique style of animation while following the story board, naotoshi shida is a perfect example as to why his work is flawless
Well, if all things considered the industry is gonna pop like a strained water balloon at this rate, as with much of the world there's a conflict in quantity vs quality, and so far when Mr. Yamamuro's concerned, he's concetrating more on quantity, and considering his influence, other studios are doing the same.
HAHAHA i'm just stating the facts, you shouldn't have uploaded a video of yourself doing something stupid to begin with. *P.S:* Blocking DOES NOT work on Youtub.
This is sooo enjoyable. Im glad i found your channel. I feel so good about the stuff you said in this video. I really winder what the characters would look like with different shading.
Amazing video. When I watched the Kai opening my first thought was how round a lot of those character designs were. It's always bugged me. Now I know why
This show is so much more complicated than I imagined (in terms of how everything works). So many possibilities that would change Super immediately...I know this is just a show, but man, this is really getting into me...
I loved this video. As a fan I've been really frustrated of the new animation and I had a huge hope that it would change to the better on this upcoming universe arc. At least now it's clear where the problem is
Honestly, Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru shall return if things starts to get worse (like Yamamuro stepping down). Or in the worst of the worst of cases, Toyotaro shall step in as main character designer and chief animator
NicoAk47 Except Toyotaro can't do that. The position of Main Character Designer and Chief Animator are exclusively attributed to experienced animators, never illustrators. Toyotaro is an artist, but he's no animator. So if Yamamuro were to step down, they'd hire someone who has experience working on the series as a supervisor and key animator.
- Yamamuro was one of the best animators, today he is nothing more than a corrector, and also makes some posters. It's sad to see someone of his caliber fall so much, well, he don't help even himself.
How about he goes back to his roots and revisits his best designs, and then bases new designs on the old ones and adds it to super's design? I seriously can't stand Yamamuro's designs whey they're badly drawn in animation.
ちょき地 Chokichi I like his old Z designs more than Super's, aside from that, his animations were never that good, not back then and not now, Goku Vs Majin Vegeta is the only noteworthy cut from him in the entire series and we're not actually sure if that's him, since he has the bad habit of overcorrecting other animators' work
I can see that he declined but tbh i have no problem with his Character Design. I think his animation was better back then but its still imo good. Not the better the Shida or Tate but still good. That Majin Vegeta Goku fight was animated pretty good. But I can see your point and understand it.
That's cool, man. That's really all I was hoping to get out of making this video. I get asked _a lot_, like *A LOT a lot* about why I'm not a big fan of Yamamuro, and I really wanted to have something to link to people so they'd at least understand my perspective, even if they don't agree. Thanks!
Mhm and tbh I watched this video like 3 times already and started to agree with you more and more and understand more and more. This is actually very informational and I hope you do more with other animators!
Yeah but the detail in the choreography in that one scene between Goku vs. Main Vegeta is literally the only time you really see that detail in the arc, let alone after it.
I didn't realize either it's the Yamamuro himself that did so much change in the looks of the characters, it would rather look like he is not even present in DBS, his movies vere pure perfection and practically made any ,even boring storyline -amazing. Well, probably at this point he just want to make things quicker and easier for himself....the only hope is that they thought: hey let's make it easy for some time and see if people are actually interested in the show or not, and than we could progress to the old level
I think the pose that yamamuro did in his head is hey if the kamehameha pose is good we can use again on other that way so the fans watch and buy our stuff
Hi Ajay would be interested to hear you do a full breakdown of Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return!! Is that something you think you might do? Love your content also!
You should do a video saying everything that's bad with the new dragon ball content art, animation, colors, shading, it would be very cool to see what you think about it
This is my biggest gripe about Super. Imagine the show we could've hade, from a purely visual standpoint, with modern animation and technology and maybe creative new/old Animators who would make it fresh but still pay tribute to the classic Dragon Ball warrior aesthetic, much like Takashi did in the few episodes he did. R.I.P.
Same, personally they don't live up to some of the older designs imo and they still have traces of this modern era look and style ( like the nose} but I appreciate the thought of returning to the manga aesthetic and if the movie (and hopefully anime) is as fuid as everyone says it will be, then I'm all for it, i've been waiting for a change, especially one that gets further and further from the current one, not a fan, thanks Yamamuro, R.I.P. a G.O.A.T.
I personally love all of Tadayoshi Yamamuro's art from old to new in Dragon Ball. His art is the best out of any other animator that works on Super. But whoever worked on episode 44 is very talented as well. The art was amazing on that episode!
looks more like a oiled up action figure then people? Sums up super to me. Im NOT a hater of super, but I wish they'd kill the stupid shiny effect and bring back the more gritty colors back when they had cels used.
