Thread by @Richmond_Lee

Hiroyuki Okiura (沖浦啓之) is the kind of animator who animates so perfectly that he often gets accused of rotoscoping, but actual animators know he obvopusly doesn't because it looks TOO GOOD to be traced from a video.

https://twitter.com/Ahmedmedhat000/status/1344966204725866496

Hiroyuki Okiura (沖浦啓之) was a natural prodigy at animation, who left high school at age 16, with no formal training to become a pro animator on Dougram (太陽の牙ダグラム). This was 1982, before digital technology and the internet made animation more accessible!

By 1984, Hiroyuki Okiura made his debut as an animation director on Star Muskateer Bismark (星銃士ビスマルク) an original series from Studio Pierrot which was released in the west as "Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs"

Hiroyuki Okiura is largely known to Western anime fans for his incredibly sensitive and realistic animation of humans. But he actually cut his teeth on mecha anime where he distinguished himself by his incredibly realistic and sensitive animation of mechanical objects!

For instance, Okiura was the key animator on the legendary helicopter attack scene in Patlabor 2 (1993)!

https://twitter.com/randomsakuga/status/1306442814235070464?s=20

This scene would almost certainly be animated via 3D cg today. Detailed mechanical animation is one of the most difficult things anyone can attempt to tackle in traditional animation! It's incredibly rare to find animators who could do it on this level without a cg base!

Here's the legendary opening sequence from Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door animated by Hiroyuki Okiura (沖浦啓之) and Tetsuya Nishio (西尾鉄也). This is the epitome of realistic traditional animation that WASNT rotoscoped.

There are certain schools of animation who believe that animation should only be used to depict the unreal. Things not possible with film. They might wonder "why even animate this realistically from imagination? What's the point?"

My answer to them is "well I just think it looks really really really really really good."

#沖浦啓之 #西尾鉄也 #CowboyBebop

Moreover, if you pay attention it still "hits different" from film and directly rotoscoped animation! These subtle differences make life more interesting!

#沖浦啓之 #CowboyBebop

As realistic as this is, it still has that beautiful, neat, concise intentionality that is characteristic of the best traditional animation. To me it's a kind of super realism! BETTER than life!

(Source for gifs here:
crofesima.tumblr.com/post/941195391…)

#沖浦啓之 #西尾鉄也 #CowboyBebop

Hiroyuki Okiura made his feature film directorial debut with Jin-Roh, an absolute CLASSIC for it's artistry and storytelling. It's one of the last great cel animated films, requiring over 80,000 cels of hand drawn, hand painted animation!

Jin-Roh is a breathtakingly beautiful film. In spite of these action packed gifs I've been posting, it's mostly a very sedate mood piece with a ton of dialog. It was written by Mamoru Oshii and is his third film in the Kerberos Saga (ケルベロス・サーガ). It's a VERY Oshii movie!

Fun fact: Hiroyuki Okiura met his future wife, Sumi Mutoh (武藤 寿美) while directing Jin-Roh. She played one of the central characters Kei Amemiya (who looks a lot like her too!)

Given the plot of Jin-Roh and it's real life production where Mamoru Oshii had hand picked Hiroyuki Okiura to execute the final film in his beloved trilogy, there's an incredible meta, poetic quality to how Hiroyuki Okiura and Sumi Mutoh fell in love during this production!

Another fun fact about Hiroyuki Okiura. His uncle is Kazuteru Okiura, a famed writer, historian, folklorist, activist and Marxist who specialized in bringing attention to groups who have been historically discriminated against in Japan.

Source:
ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B2%96…

Oh boy, I didn't even intend to create a long thread haha. Better get back to real life now! Thanks for reading! Check out my blog if you enjoyed this thread!

https://twitter.com/Richmond_Lee/status/1288926773011390464?s=20

Further info on another masterpiece of realistic animation here:

https://twitter.com/Richmond_Lee/status/1345616215474020352?s=20

If you've read this far, thank you for your time! Here's the game I'm working on. I'm putting all of my animation expertise into this game! It's still in the very early stages, but you can follow the game's development by signing up for our newsletter

https://twitter.com/ZechaTactics/status/1341647533391540224?s=19

Oh cool, this thread is still doing the rounds! Here's some bonus posts...

Here's a beautiful flip book animation by Hiroyuki Okiura. This is a physical flipbook, published by @stbreak who puts out all kinds of amazing books showcasing the works of Japan's best animators.

That previous flipbook animation has been making the rounds on social media for years. If you google it, you just get a ton of pinterest links with no source. If you dig that animation please give @stbreak a follow for making that flipbook happen!

Here's another amazing animation from @stbreak's wonderful series of printed flipbooks. This one is by Tatsuyuki Tanaka (田中 達之), another master of realist animation whose incredibly precise animation is often confused for rotoscoping, but nope he's just that good too!

Here is @stbreak's website. If you love super high craft "sakuga" animation, you really ought to follow st.BREAK!

stbreak.com

I believe @stbreak mostly sells their stuff at Comicket. But you can purchase their flipbooks and other books at Mandarake

order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPa…

(CW: It is incredibly easy to stumble across adult content on Mandarake)

Tatsuyuki Tanaka is another absurdly great realist animator from Japan. I'll do a thread on him in the future. Keep an eye out!

(follow me if you wanna stay tuned 😎)

Also please consider supporting me on Patreon so I can devote more of my free time to articles and posts like this!🙏✨
patreon.com/ArtEaterOG