The Evolution of Tadayoshi Yamamuro's Art Style (Part 2) 

I think it also goes to show how important color palettes are. If you took a still of GT and gave it more modern saturated digital coloring it'd work way worse. Say what you want about GT, but I feel like the look of that show in general is somewhat underappreciated.

that Bardock at the end made me happy and sad, you mean he can still invoke that old style and just chooses not to?? 😩

His work in the buu saga can NEVER be topped!! He's the reason ssj3 is my favourite form because of the way he drew goku in SS3. His work in gt was great too, especially the way he drew goku (and vegeta) in SS4!

to me it seems more like a devolution, he has its moments in SDBH but his older work is just far superior imo

Was so confused when the first image of the video was of Kim Jong Un, but this was a good one 👏

It's really interesting, we know he can channel his older designs still because of the Son Goku Special, yet he _chooses_ not to. How does a world class artist look at what he's doing now and go, "yeah, this kicks"? Truly baffling.

I can't understand how uneven his work in the 00's is. Still, his 2008 designs are my favorite of his. I don't know if he also chose the color design but it's way better than what Super would get too. The filter at the beggining of the Tournament of Power in Super helped, tho.

it should be called “the devolution of Tadayoshi Yamamuro’s artstyle”

his artstyle in the dbz are the best. i wish they kept the indented cheek shade, there where some moments the character look flawless. happy to see shida and takahashi kept the style in super.

For me Yamamuro's 90 Art Style was so beautiful and near to perfection in Dragon Ball Z. (Android Arc/OAV and movies include are already very beautiful, and even more in Buu Arc). Times change but this DBZ era still just unforgettable.

If it wasn’t for this channels I would’ve thought there was many other artists and not just one man changing his style.

His art in buu arc was the best ever of all the animators.

Even though I'm not too familiar with Dragon Ball (I'm more of a One Piece fan myself), I always love watch behind-the-scenes and the technicalities of a creative project, especially animation. Can't wait to see where you go from here!

Yamamuro: So anyway, I started highlighting.

Already know this is gonna be a good video

Was waiting for this one Amazing job as always!

I remember as a kid when I first discovered DBZ on the morning run [my first experience with anime] I was intrigued by the animation change in every episode. Being used to Western cartoons that are always the same, I would anticipate the art change. When an episode started instead of thinking ‘oh cool whats this episode about’, I would think ‘what art style will this episode have?’. This became apparent more in the Android & Cell arc. I enjoyed the series as a whole, no doubt about that, but I had ‘favourite’ art styles that made me enjoy an episode more than others. I found myself critiquing episode art styles compared to others, resulting in missing the magic of the story in general. No one I knew enjoyed DBZ [or anime for that matter] so I couldn’t discuss this topic. I did bring it up with my parents once but they just said ‘it all looks the same to me’. Okay, to be expected [lol]. Sometimes I thought I was weird for noticing these style changes, but after discovering the internet I wasn’t the only one who noticed this. Thank you for making these videos for putting in the research and analysis. I still have my favourite art style, but I still love every episode no matter what. DBZ started my love for anime and animation, I’ll never forget that and appreciate all the work put into the series of my childhood.

The thumbnail 1994 /2003 are night and day like wth happen. Always give your content a watch start to finish you hit every nail on the head. Excellent takes break downs/presentation. And you even learn along the way! I hope this channel achieves success.

Yo I'm glad to see the part 2 broski!

Every tragedy needs a downfall and a tragic hero who starts out so noble

I never realized it but this man defined the foundation of my artstyle.

I think z and even Gt had a better art style than super. The characters in super are too shiny and often look like action figures in super and that is because they kinda are. Z did have toys and the cell ark had a lot of weird art style choices especially with vegeta he looked weird as a super saiyan in the cell saga. There are a couple of exceptions in super where the art was good like in the top and the broly movie but besides that it is a downgrade from Z from my perspective.

Even up to GT Yamamuro work was still pretty good, but after the show ended his art took a drastic turn. He relied on the highlights too much that the characters came off as stiff and plastic. He improved somewhat with the Yo Son Goku Special which where some of his best work in modern Dragon Ball, but when it came time for Battle of Gods and later Super, any lessons he learned went out the window and his art work have decline in quality ever since.

It's strange how some of the artists who made my favorite Dragon Ball animations gradually change their style to something I'm not impressed with. I would like to blame the model sheets and the deadlines.

I'm so glad you finished part 2😄 This was an awesome breakdown. But I'm curious was it actually yamamuro who did that Bardock cut in super dragon ball heroes or was it just supervision?

It's incredible how can you see the devolution year by year.

Keep up the content! Twelve year old me thanks you! For real excellent work.

Amazing video and now I fully understand why I love the old artstyles over scenes from Super. Too much highlights give it an unnecessary plastic feel and I love that the older artstyles don't have such a sharp look to them(One of the reasons why I hate XV2's cover of Goku).

He is devolving.

I feel like the round cheek shading should be used on Female Characters since they do have rounder designs

Super is such an obvious regression from DBZ’s style I don’t understand it

I love your channel since no one else covers dragon ball animation besides you and AnimeAJay but he doesn’t upload anymore and when he does it’s super infrequent with long droughts oof.

Thank you. I appreciated this a lot.

I glad that toriyama was the one that chose shintani rather than toei animation doing that

Yes, finally!

Just naised on this video this artist is by far my favorite

Everything got better in the top arc but still, I hope super season 2 comes back looking really good.

i love the yo son goke designs. i wish super looked like that

Thanks!

ngl i went back to rewatch gt recently and i had to skip a few episodes but, i love the way the animation is on there idky but it gives me nostalgia.

Just found your channel, you're going to blow up dude. I'm currently making shit post to learn how to edit and produce videos, hoping I'll be able to present like you one day.

Btw,poor guy once he was a hero now everyone despises him.

How I wish he went with the Designs from. The Yo Son Goku and his friends returns special, in DBS. At least SDBH has an improvement.

Yamamuro's consistency of staying close to Toriyama really showed how talented he was and still is.

That newer bardock picture towards the end is how it should be IMO 🥵

wow, the quality for GT looks so good! what release are they?

I love dragon ball regardless of mistakes or not grew up watching it and it’s amazing and will always be amazing 🔥🔥

Tadayoshi is the best

Liked how’d the characters shadings starting to changed just from gt and why it ended up plastics Feel bad for yamamuro actually cos he’s getting old and quite changes been made from him and other’s tries to at least makes it better Like for examples yuya make better than fan expectations and not so polished and plastic and it was so balanced to show the shading between black and some few colour shades

Highlights powers, Activated!

Next time do Masahiro shiminuki

Angular Jaws with smaller eyes are the best styles in the franchise. Its one of the main reasons why Masaguna&Takashashi's styles look so good. I'm not saying Sato&Maeda's softer styles aren't great but the angular designs just SCREAM 90s, you can take Yamamuro's design and put them on Image comics. It doesn't look anything like mainstream anime. Idk what caused him go in the exact opposite direction with his wide jaws. GT looks decent due to Nakatsuru's sheets, it balances out the wide jaw but yamamuro fell off after Yo Son GOku Special.

And his animations were fantastic. Wish his work was shown across the whole show.

looking at modern yammamuro goku gives me scoliosis

11:38 The Vegito SSB's character sheet is draw by Miyako Tsuji btw

The Title should be "The Devolution of Tadayoshi Yamamuro's Art Style (Part 2)".

Someone take his highlights away from him in dbs 😂

Gonna be honest. I never want to sw him animating or designing ANY future characters in dragon Ball

Oh yess💯 Everyone Go watch pt 1. If you Haven't 🔥🔥

It was interesting to see his really recent stuff at the end of the video because I hadn't seen much of his new work because I don't watch dbs heroes, good video. Also 3:49 is so cursed

You know you played a lot of Budokai 2 as a kid when you instantly recognise that frame in the thumbnail

Damm GT is so beautiful

You know I wonder what his style never decreased

Yamamuro doesn't want light in his drawings for the anime. It's the toei who requires it to stick to the artistic direction of their other anime (precure, onepiece). He says it in an interview for "AnimeLand".

The involution

I wonder if Yamamuro looks back at his older work.

His work for me was the best next to Masunaga .

i think my favourite look was how it looked during the Cell saga

I think Yamamuro's style was also used for the opening animation of Chrono Trigger.

The best look of his work is Cell arc, absolutely. I would say that the evolution was only through the time of Z and GT - then it's only devolution.

The de- evolution

I love highlights especially in dbgt

Ayyyy

Z Cell saga and Buu saga(First half) Yamamuro＝Art style faithful to Akira Toriyama Z Buu saga(Medium) and GT Yamamuro＝Original art style with solid feeling Although I was off from the art style of Akira Toriyama from the middle of the Buu saga, I liked it. The Illustration of gendamama that he painted the next year after the end of the GT broadcast was almost the same as the Lately art style.

In dbs the hair was the biggest issue. That thing looking shiny and stiff was the worst

there is an alternate uninverse where all of super looks like Yo son goku and his friends return and that makes me sad

2:54,god I miss serious Goku. 7:00,to quote AnimeAjay 'This looks more like an oiled up action figure rather than a person'' 9:56,what the...Launch? 0_o 10:07,god I want this style. 11:41,my boi Vegito got nerfed!! 11:49,when fenyo does a much better job than the supposed master himself. You know you're doing something wrong. 12:15,I can honestly say...the Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans (2010 ver.) is probably one of the worst of the specials visually. 11:36,ok..one last thing...Bulma looks pretty good here.

I actually acquired a dbz cel and douga this week and wondered is this a Yamamuro sketch? It is a Shindo episode and he is the supervisor on it but would he do the douga parts?

@7:52 SSJ Gotenks looks a little different from hat I remember... lol

id call that devolution

Did he do anything for dbz kai? Mainly theme songs and endings but I kinda liked that era

Please post more

8:01 Do you mean budokai 2 and 3? Budokai 1 was a cg recreation of the DBZ opening if i remember correctly

8:40 Does someone know where can I find this full image?

When did he redraw bardock in his old style? I've never seen that before

Do you know who did the cover for the SNES game dbz hyper dimension?

Wow, Bulma character sheet looks really cool. Feels like it would look really lithe properly animated. The interesting thing to me about the changes are that so many of the individual changes in style are ok, or even look good in isolation (like say straighter noses in GT) but put together the whole eventually gets to the modern not good look.

GTs artstyle had some moments where I didnt like the artstyle with the glossy shine but overall I did enjoy it. Certainly more than freaking Super. But what is his obsession's with the shine on the cheeks on characters faces? Sometimes it worked but ALOT MORE times it doesnt.

Does anybody have the link to that db heroes bardock commercial?

11:52 what Heroes commercial is that?

i think yamamuro can get back to his old style if he wants but i think due to his age or maybe him getting used to the stiff style as it is very fast and easy for him to get done remain that is my point as you said he does not have that consistence

Bros favourite word is "furthermore" 💀

I just want to see Uub again

his 3 shade is good , just that his should pick more lighter shade instead of straight go to white

What about the artist that did the DBZ Kai openings?

12:26 fin.

His animation and artwork has gotten better in the 2010s, but they are still a hit or miss. I think my biggest issue with his art as of recent (and I guess this goes for most other artist) is that he makes the characters look less bulky then what they used to be. While they still have muscles, they seem more thin compared to DBZ. I guess another issue, and this one is more nitpicky, but his small anatomy issue always bothered me, especially Goku. Goku’s spine isn’t aligned with the rest of his body and makes it look like he has scoliosis. I thought it was just an issue with the concept art, but this is apparent in a lot of his works both in concept and in animation.

How does one become a featured artist:(

Great video! I know art is subjective but damn the quality in his work deteriorated dramatically over time. Those DVD box arts look so bad, especially compared to the older art works. I will never understand the appeal of the shiny plastic and rigid character designs. Fingers crossed they still with the DBS Broly look from now on.

What does highlights add to these characters I don't get why he stuck with them