Talking to a REAL JoJo Animator (ft. Ken Arto) | Trash Taste #36
01:55:14 Share

This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Forget the frustration of picking commerce platforms when you switch your business to Shopify, the global commerce platform that supercharges your selling wherever you sell. With Shopify, you'll harness the same intuitive features, trusted apps, and powerful analytics used by the world's leading brands. Sign up today for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash tech, all lowercase. That's shopify.com slash tech.

This episode is brought to you by Experian. Are you paying for subscriptions you don't use but can't find the time or energy to cancel them? Experian could cancel unwanted subscriptions for you, saving you an average of $270 per year and plenty of time. Download the Experian app. Results will vary. Not all subscriptions are eligible. Savings are not guaranteed. Paid membership with connected payment account required.

- Hello and welcome to another episode of Trash Taste, the anime podcast where we talk about Japan, food, shitting, and occasionally anime. I was trying to remember what I said last week. - Is that what you said last week? - I think that's what I said last week. I am your host for today, Garnt again, and joining me is as usual, the boys. And once again, we have a guest as I'm hosting,

We have Ken Arto. Do you want to introduce yourself and what you do? Yes, nice to meet you. My name is Ken Arto. I am a co-animator in Japan since 2015. And so I had work on projects like Dragon Ball Super Broly, My Hero Academia, JoJo, a lot of things. Yes. And... Sorry, I just love JoJo. Yeah.

And I am actually an animator at Studio 4C. Oh, okay. Wow. Well, we have a quick spread of some of the shows you worked on, not everything. Wow, you worked at Monsters Universe. Yeah, I like pretty much Shonen Jump, so yeah.

- Yeah, I mean, obviously this isn't all the shows that Ken's worked on, but you know, these are the probably, I'd say the most notable ones. I mean, there's obviously more like, you know, the recent "Jujutsu Kaisen" as well. - "Jujutsu Kaisen" - Episode 16, right? - 16, it would be this Friday.

- Hell yeah. - And recently also Kimetsu no Yaiba's movie. - Oh my God. - Oh my God. - Just casually dropped that. - That's one hell of a CV. Well, thank you very much for coming on because it's nice to have someone who's actually been working in the industry and is knowledgeable about what it's actually like working in there. So just having three guys sitting in the room, just taking guesses, taking pot shots. - Just take knowledgeable guesses. Sometimes not knowledgeable guesses.

- Yeah, I think when we don't have a guest, it's like, don't listen to what we say. We don't know what we're talking about today. - But now we're literally like first hand like source. - Now we can get the answers at the same time as our audience. - Right, right. - I am curious if there was perhaps one scene or one show that you would recommend for someone to watch to maybe experience your work the best, what would you point towards? - Actually, I would maybe say, actually I'm working in a movie for Studio 4C. I can't say the name because it's not,

Actually, yeah. On this movie, I put all my guts. And so, yes, you have to wait a bit, but...

- That was the most slick way to promote the new movie. - My best work is one that you're gonna have to go see in cinemas. - But yeah, "Jujutsu Kaisen" episode six, I think it's a good shot I have done. - I mean, how long have you been working in the industry now? - So we don't count my internship, it will be now five years.

And so I start as in-betweener. Right, in-between frames, right? Yeah, in-between frames, clean the in-betweens. And I have done this for one and a half. And after I have switched off studio, I went to Yapiko Animation. The previous studio was a graphene and Yapiko. Yapiko I made, so two and a half years.

And after Yapiko, now I'm Studio 4C. Studio 4C. Wow. Because your background is that you're half Japanese, half French, right? So what made you want to start working in the anime industry? Actually, in France, we had the first genre in the 90s, a show called Club Dorothée.

And actually, Dorothée was a woman who bought a lot of anime. Dragon Ball, Sensei, Maison Ikkoku, Ranma. And so when I was little, I watched those shows. And also I went often to Japan with my mother. And yeah, I was used to watch a lot of anime when I was a kid. And I grew up with manga also. And so, yeah.

I used to draw those characters when I was little. And so at first I wanted to be a mangaka. - As does everyone, I think. I think every weeb has had that dream one time in their lives. - No, no. - Every weeb who draws their first anime character is like, "I'm on my way to be on Show Ninja. Let's go." - Are you telling me, Connor, that you've never had a story or something that you've just fantasized about?

- You never fantasized as a kid at all. - Probably, but I probably, it was like, that was like my thing, right? I'm not sharing it with other people. It's my story, you know what I mean? Why am I sharing it? - You never had a phase where you were like, I guess though, like you started watching anime like a little bit of like an older stage. - That's true. - 15, 16, I started watching anime. So pretty late, I think. So I probably didn't get that whimsical phase of-

- Yeah, 'cause I mean, how old were you when you like first, like really, I guess like while knowing that this is anime? - Oh, I don't remember. I think the shock I had was in '98 when I watched "Princess Mononoke." And for the same, I didn't know what I'm watching, but it was beautiful, scary and beautiful. And I was just nine. - Nine. - Just nine? - Yeah, just nine. And also when I,

I watched just 10 or 11. - What? How could you understand anything? - Same here actually, same here. I'm glad someone- - I don't know if I was understanding everything, but, oh, there is Mecha, there is Alien. Okay, I have to beat them. - They're the bad guys. - That's all you like understand about Ava when you're like 10, right? It's like good guys, bad guys. - I mean, I'll be honest.

- I watched it last year and that's pretty much my understanding. - Also, the characters was 14 on the story and I was 11 so- - Close enough, right? - Yeah, close enough. - Yeah, true, true. - Okay, you can pilot it.

- It's gonna be me. - I actually have a similar story about like Ava 'cause Ava is the second proper anime that I watched after discovering it was anime. So the first anime I ever watched knowing it was an anime was Naruto. And how I found that was I was on a random gaming forum and it was back when having anime avatars was actually cool.

And I was like, "Oh, what are these avatars that people have? They look really cool." And I found that one guy had this,

that was the show from the show called Naruto. And I'm like, oh, this kind of looks like Dragon Ball Z. Watch Naruto, fucking loved it. Introduced me to anime properly. And then I went on the same gaming forum and I made it like an anime thread. I was like, guys, this Naruto thing's awesome. Can you guys recommend me something else to watch like Naruto? And some guy dead ass goes,

you should watch Evangelion. Totally like Naruto. - Totally. - So I went into Evangelion as like a 11, 12 year old thinking it was a Shonen anime. And so for like the first, I'd say half of it, it could like maybe have like passed as a Shonen because you know, Shinji could have still, you know, Shinji was still doing stuff.

And then the halfway point here, and then everyone just got sad and depressed. And my 11 year old mind was just like, why are people like this? This is so stupid. This is so unrealistic. I remember thinking as an 11 year old, the writing of the show is so bad because the adults don't have their shit together. Why don't the adults have their shit together? This is so unrealistic. - Imagine like 11 year old guy coming up to his mom being like, mother, what is depression?

I learned it in this show called Evangelion. - And now I'm just like, oh yeah. So adults just, no adults just have their shit together. That's just life.

- So you've always been able to speak Japanese since a young age? - Yes, with my mother. And so yes, I learned, I don't know if I can say I learned, but I-- - Like you just know it. - Yeah, I just know. And with anime, with drama, with movies and my mother and some of my family. But like I said, it's a family language. So when you have to work,

you use another Japanese language, which is Keigo. - Oh God. - And so yes, you-- - Keigo is like very formal Japanese? - Very formal when you have to spoke with your senpai, with your boss, it's different. You have to put your interlocutor up and you're down.

- Basically it's the bane of every like person trying to learn Japanese, right? Like that, it's like, it's smooth sailing until you hit Kago and then everyone's like, I give up. - Smooth sailing until you hit Kago? - Oh no, trust me. - Oh fuck off. - If you think it's hard now, wait till you hit Kago. - I've just given up on the thought of ever learning Kago. I'm like, Kago, I'm okay. - Because I thought that as well, 'cause I kind of was the same thing where I'd like, you know, I don't speak Kago to my parents. I don't think any kid does. So I had to learn Kago on the job when I first like started, like, you know, at a-

part-time jobs in Japan. And I was like, I thought I knew Japanese until I had to start using Keigo. It's just through every conception about Japanese out the window. - Is there like any comparison that's even close to English with Keigo? - It's like, oh man, I don't know what, is there a comparison? - Would it be like trying to speak like a very old,

like very posh kind of version of English. - Yeah, it's kind of like going from only learning internet slang to learning Shakespeare. It's basically a novel. - So you motherfuckers have to learn to speak in cursive. - Pretty much, yeah. - That's Japanese cursive. - We're literally like, it's like a Shakespeare play, you know, when the translation is on the next page. It's basically that. - I saw there was like Japanese cursive.

- Is there? - Like, yeah, I saw that someone was writing Japanese in cursive. - Oh, maybe like calligraphy, right? - No, no, no, like legit. Like it was like a doctor's note someone had showed me. - Oh, no dude, like every time I have to go to the doctor's here, I'm just like, I might as well die. 'Cause I can't read this note. - It's good to know that that transcends language that doctors just can't write for shit.

- Somehow that's universal, right? - Yeah, I thought kanji was hard, but you throw in cursive kanji and I'm like, come on. - It's like level 100 comprehension. - Actually, when you have some animators, you have some notes of my senpai on paper. I try to read it because what did he read?

- It's like decoding it. - Yeah, I have to decoding, but takes too much time. So I go to my senpai, sorry, what did you? - What did you? - What the fuck is this? - It's just easier to ask, isn't it? - Yeah. - So was it anime that, I'm guessing it was anime the reason you started to learn animation and really- - At first I think, no, so I wanted to be mangaka, but I was not good at school.

Not good at school and well, you have lessons, but I didn't listen to the lesson. I was drawing manga on my notes. And so I went to another school, not a high school, a high school where you could learn about communication, art craft. This is in France, right? Yeah, in France. I was born and raised in France.

And at first it was about communication, how to do CM, commercial. And it was not pleasant, but I had to...

go this way to go to animation schools. - Right, right, right. - Yeah, so I take the baccalaureate in French, let me say, so first degree, I think. - Oh, bachelor. - Bachelor, yes. - So you did a bachelor's degree in animation in university? - Yeah, bachelor, and after I went to animation schools. - Oh, wow. - Oh, okay. - So how did it transition from then that in France to being in Japan? 'Cause I feel like that's like a big leap, right? - At first, when you are an actor,

at an art school in France, in France, anime wasn't so... It was popular, but for adults, it's what kind of... What kind of child nonsense is this? And, oh, you should change some styles. It's not a good style. You have adults who are watching you from up and down.

change the style you're doing too much manga it's not a bad idea but it's manga and so yeah I was okay I don't if I draw manga it's bad things so I changed my style but when I

but actually I wanted to do manga style. - I feel like in Europe, there isn't the notion of animation is especially anime looks for children. I feel like everyone I spoke to grew up in Europe seems that way where it's like, oh, after I'm 16, I can't watch this child stuff. - It's every art student I know, like I have a cousin who's like, who's an art student and like she loves anime. But as soon as she started art school,

you were just like, it was looked down upon to really draw an anime art style. So I don't know if it's still the same. - We're just getting bullied everywhere. - Exactly right, 'cause like you draw anime and your art teacher would just be like, no, no, no, please draw real art. - Some arts professor of art school, oh, you draw a manga, okay.

I will give you a bad note, bad score. - You have to change. - Or you have to draw some American comics, good. So yes, not some equal by some professor, so teacher. So yeah, it was kind of hard the first time because you're a bit lost. Okay, I have to change my style, but yeah.

when you met other people who like what you like too, you have a better communication and you know, I want to do this, I want to draw anime style. - I wanna be a weeb. - I wanna follow my dreams. - And so yeah, and I found that there is an animation school in France and so I attempt to, I went to animation.

but you learn Disney way. Right, right, right. Not the Japanese way. Because Japanese way is very particular. You use economy of the frame. Okay.

It's a smart way to use Japanese animation. In Disney, you have a lot of budget, so you can put a lot of frames. - Right, right, right. - Okay. - Throw money at the problem. - Yeah. - So basically Disney is just more drawings where the Japanese animation technique is more, let's say, optimized. - Optimized, yeah. - I was looking for that. - Actually, because also the Japanese animation industry, you have to do one episode per week.

So maybe in America they finished and they delivered the episode to the channel, but in Japan,

when you broadcast the show, it's not finished. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - You're trying to work. - Yeah, 'cause I've noticed that a lot of Blu-ray releases have like retouches. Like JoJo, I remember part four, there's some famous examples, right? Of the side by side where you can like, there's a website I think where you can sweep the frame across. And like some of the character designs are totally changed in the Blu-ray. - That's called DVD retakes.

And actually, when you saw your show on TV, and so for people who want to buy the DVD,

There is a plus, and the plus or the bonus is better drawings, animation redone. More polished. So is it like the original drawing is thrown out and they just remake it, or do they improve the original drawing? They improve, or sometimes they redo it. Oh, wow. So it's quite intense. For us, this cat, we cannot do 100% what we wanted. Right. So let's redo it.

- Or this one, or just mess up on the eyes, or let's redraw the eyes. - Right, right, right. - Okay, okay. - Wow. - I did find that funny actually, because like, yeah, I noticed that like, 'cause you know, when I did voice work for Pop Team Epic, I did it on episode nine. And when I got the script for it, episode one had already aired. So I was like, is this gonna be out in time?

- 'Cause I always thought it works like how in American TV shows, where it's like the entire season is already done. - Gets done. - Gets done and then they start releasing it. But in Japan, they're just like, "Nope, we gotta do it now." It's all real time, right? - Yeah. - Yeah, it depends. When the first episode is broadcast, actually, so the studio might have done already 10 episode, maybe, if the schedule was good. Or if they have done just a four episode,

- It will be hard. - A lot of 10 episodes is considered a good schedule. - Yeah, exactly. Have you ever been working up to the deadline where you've been working on the show and it's been airing at that point? - The next day or something. - It was for "Hiroaka". - Oh my God. - It was, I think, season three. I was doing my Genga. So yeah, Genga is the second step of the key animation.

- What does Genga involve? - Okay, okay. Connor knows nothing about animation, so we're gonna break it down. - For now, I will explain the process of the fabrication of Genga. So you have the key animator, me, and I'm...

I receive an offer of work by Twitter or by mail. By Twitter? Sometimes, yeah, by Twitter. Because a lot of assistant production are looking for animators on Twitter. And so for Japan, most of the Japanese animators that use Twitter has a portfolio of contacts. Right, tons of DM. Yeah, exactly. And so, hi, I'm from this studio. I have this project. The schedule is that. Do you want to work on it?

So I look at my schedule, if it's okay, if it's a good match. Yeah, sure. Okay, so let's put a date for the meetings. So, okay, this date. So I go to the studio, meet the director of the episode, and assistant production who I send mails. And we are doing the meeting for the sequence I have chosen.

At first they send me a storyboard. A storyboard is a little comic, technical comic about... It's like a rough outline of how the scene will go. Yes, with the camera walks, technical notes. Right, right. And I choose my sequence. A sequence can be just like three cuts.

- What's a cut? - A cut is a one scene. - Like one continuous scene. - Oh, I see. - So you know when in live action, when you film something and then the camera cuts. Obviously in animation, you don't have an entire scene that you can cut out of, that's pre-planned. - Right, right, that makes sense. - And so,

One shin can be one second or 10 seconds, 30 seconds. It depends. And if there is a lot of seconds, it's more works. Right, right, naturally. And so...

let's take an example okay I will choose this sequence it's 10 cuts and so I go to the meeting so meeting for with the director and he going to explain me how he see how he want those 10 cuts make okay right and he expect me yeah for this cut I would like a

rough animation, more action, like a form of West Coast, we said sakuga. - Sakuga is like the Western slang word for like good animation. - Yeah, so the word sakuga in Western world is completely different to what sakuga in Japanese actually is. - Yeah.

- So in the anime community, we refer to sakuga as good animation, right? Like lots of frames, lots of flashy animation. But in Japanese, sakuga just means frames. - If you look into kanji, saku, make, ga, picture. - So it's kind of become like a buzzword here. - Right, right, makes sense. - Like if you say anime in Japan, anime is animation. But if you say anime in West, it's

- Only Japanese anime. - So in Japan, Monsters Inc is technically an anime. - Yes. - Hello. - My anime list, hello, hello. - So you had like 10 cuts of My Hero Academia to do. - Yeah. - All different types of animation. - Different types of animation. Sometimes just the talkings, little actings.

and sometimes some action cuts. And so I do the meeting with the director, so it takes like 30 minutes. So I have to do the first step, it's the layout. So I'm going to explain what is the layout. - Okay, okay, okay. You're telling me words and I have no idea. Tell me what the layout is. - Layout is, so you have the storyboard.

see one the one scene and i have to draw the background with the character on it and all the movement of the character just rough very rough okay very rough and also if there is a camera works i have to add it right and uh all put the timing of this cut

- Oh wow, okay. - So it's basically like the storyboard, but just a bit more refined. - You see the character, what movement he will do. - Oh, like when you see those outline sketches? - Yeah, like that. - Yeah, I see them sometimes. - Like that. - But you don't need to push it the most, so you have to watch the drawings, you have to know a bit what the character is. - The armor or the play. - Exactly.

And when you finish that, you send it back to the director. The director will check it.

Add some correction, or the arm is too low, more higher. The expression, not sad, more angry. And after those corrections by the director, it will go to the "sakukan". So "sakugakantoku" means animation director. And the animation director will put your drawings more in model. So if you have seen good drawing,

It's because the Sakkan have put all his guts on it. Because the Sakkan, in one episode, there is at least one or two, and they have to check the 150 cuts. Oh, wow. So they basically make sure that the characters kind of look the same and consistent throughout. In fact, the animators...

just to draw rough diamonds. And if this diamond is good quality, after the second can polish it. - Right, right, right. So like how many, like say for like My Hero Academia, like an episode of My Hero Academia, like how many different animators would be working on like one episode, for instance, like individual animators? - I think maybe- - Like on average? - On average, at least 10 animators could be good. If you, but-

You can see on the credits how many animators Genga, in the port Genga, how many animators. Sometimes you have 15 animators or sometimes you have...

what is called one man army. - One guy. - One guy. - Wow. - Have you ever done that? - No, no, no. Actually, I'm just a baby, man. I'm just a baby on your nature. - I was gonna say like, oh my God. - How much of a machine do you have to be to do the saga of an entire 24 minute episode? - Yeah, and those guys are called,

- Oh, that's just like red, like just destroyed. - Their wrists are just like this thick. - Very fast. You see, this is a Japanese animation when you see a veteran animator who show you- - I couldn't imagine one guy doing it all. - It's like that scene from "Hunter x Hunter" where the guy returns from like being up in the mountains for like 10 years or something. - Yeah, it's like that.

- Netero. - Netero, yeah, when Netero just returns and he just shows everyone how it's done and everyone becomes his disciples. - Take me like one day, you can do it in one hour. - Oh my God. - Wow. - Some people have too much talent. - Too much talent. - It ain't right, it ain't right. - Because he have also me, I'm 31. - Yeah, right. - And the guy, my senpai, is like,

- 31 years of experience in animation. - Oh my God. - That's why Jim's a baby. - So five years in the anime industry is like nothing. - It's nothing. - Wow.

- Oh my God. We'll have you back on in 20 years. - It's like, yes, I can do a cut in an hour, now what of it? - So sorry, going back earlier as well, even way over earlier in the conversation, I guess you said you learned in France and I am curious 'cause we jumped back into talking about anime. How did you then make the leap to when you're done with art school

Yeah, so because it was an animation school we have to do internship and so I asked my school it was possible to go to Japan to do my internship. They said yes if you find the studio by yourself. And so my first internship was, oh boy, 10 years ago in 2011.

And so I have sent a lot of mails. - Yeah. - Yeah. - 20, 25. - Bringing out the Keigo. - It's a good mail. My mother helped me to get the Keigo. - I've been there. - For the proper forms and my portfolio. And so yeah, I had just five answers.

And four, no. And one, yes. - Oh, that's all you need. - At least they're courteous enough to reply with a no. 'Cause most job interviews or most job places I apply, a no is just not hearing back. - Yeah. And I was so happy, but in March you had the earthquake.

and so the studio asked me do you really want to come to japan i i didn't know what will future will be for me and for me it was a unique chance so i said yeah definitely and the studio was a telecom animation film oh okay they have made a castle of cagliostro yeah the first movie of yeah yeah nyazaki hi-ho

I think most recently, didn't they make Tower of Gods? Yes. I think that's the most recent one I remember them making. This episode is sponsored by ExpressVPN. Going online without ExpressVPN is like not having a case on your phones.

Most of the time, you'll probably be fine, but all it takes is one drop and you'll wish you spent those extra few dollars on a case. Did you know that your data is valuable? Yes, even you, your data is valuable. And hackers can make as much as $1,000 selling your personal information on the dark web. I don't think you want that. And it doesn't take much technical knowledge to know how to hack someone. A smart 12-year-old could do it.

I can't though. Every time you connect to an unencrypted network in cafes, hotels, airports, your online data is not secure. Let me tell you a little bit why ExpressVPN is the best. You see, it would take a hacker with a supercomputer over a billion years to get past ExpressVPN's encryption. And it's super easy to use. Just fire up the app and click one button to start getting protected.

And it works on pretty much every device, phones, laptops, tablets, pretty much anything you have. So you can always stay protected on the go. And it's also rated number one by tech reviews like CNET and The Verge. I'm traveling around the world right now and especially VPN has genuinely been saving my ass. I like watching TV shows and it's very annoying that I have accounts in Japan and when I travel, it does not like it. So being able to just spoof that I'm in Japan or in any other country to watch any kind of content

is very helpful. So secure your online data today by visiting expressvpn.com slash trashtaste. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash trashtaste. And you can get an extra three months for free. That's expressvpn.com slash trashtaste. Thank you to ExpressVPN for sponsoring this video. Back to the episode. This episode is sponsored by ExpressVPN. You know what I like doing, gentlemen? What? Shitting.

especially shitting privately. - That's a controversial take. - I know. Now imagine if you just couldn't shit privately and your door was always open. Well, that's what it's like not using ExpressVPN. - I actually like shitting with the door open.

- I didn't need to know. - It's claustrophobic. Did you know that your internet service provider like Comcast or Verizon knows every single website you visit? - Now that's not cool. - And what's worse is that they can sell this information to ad companies and tech giants who will use your data to target you. - Well luckily ExpressVPN can put a stop to that. It creates a secure encrypted tunnel between your device and the internet so that your online activity can't be seen by anyone.

I use ExpressVPN on all my devices. It works on everything. - What? - Phones, laptops, even routers. Yes, I said routers, 'cause that's how I was taught to say it. Is it router or router? - I say router. - I say router. - I'm router. Well, I just said- - Router gang, rise up. - Router gang, woo! So everyone who shares your wifi can still be protected even if they don't have ExpressVPN. - I've put it on my bidet. - Did you? - No.

But I'd like to if I could. And the best part is using ExpressVPN is as easy as closing the bathroom door, which I don't do.

You just fire up the app, click the button and you're protected. - ExpressVPN is the world's number one rated VPN by CNET, Wired, The Verge and countless others. So if you like me and believe your online activity is your business. I see why they did that. They were there referring to shitting. Secure yourself by visiting expressvpn.com/trashtaste today. That's expressvpn.com/trashtaste. - And you can get an extra three

- Mons for free. - That's expressvpn.com/trashtaste. Links down in the description below. Thank you for the sponsor. Back to the video. - So what did you have to do at your internship? What was that like? - So at first, I have some one, no, two weeks of experience of how to do a walk, how a character do a rotation of the head.

So exercise, it will be exercise on paper. - Okay. - And so at first I, oh, I know that. But I, like I said, I know the Western-- - The Disney way. - Disney way. I didn't know the Japanese way with less frame, with just some key pose and after you do the in-betweens. But I had the key poses and I have to clean up these key poses and do the in-betweens frames.

- So the in-between frames are, I assume as they say, right? Like in the name, right? - Do you wanna explain key frames and in-between? - So let's say this is one, two, for a punch, one, two. But for, they need some in-betweens to maybe just the key pose,

- In-betweens. - Right. - In-betweens, key pose. - And those are the in-betweens are normally not as polished as the... - So the in-betweens, you have to take the two key pose and to... - Layer them. - Layer them and you do the in-betweens.

- Oh, okay. - It's basically like the plugin in After Effects that people put over the anime to make it 60 FPS, but someone's actually doing that themselves. - Right, right. - That's the best way I can describe it. - In Japan, we are 24 FPS. - 24 FPS, yeah. And that's the in-between frames are normally given to like interns and- - Yes, and first, when you start, you start as a dogaman, in Japan, you say, so doga is a doga.

it's mean moving pictures, but it's mean in between in Japan. And so I have done this for two weeks and after those two weeks, they put me on productions. Oh,

- Oh wow. - And it was- - Two weeks into your internship. - Wow. - Two weeks of exercise and the last two months and half, it was on the production of Lupin. - Oh my God. I thought you'd be getting coffee or something from the animators. Two weeks in working on Lupin. - They really put you to work. - So it was two weeks of exercise and after two months and half on Lupin, it was a TV special, so a TV show.

And yes, it was my first experience. And so I met a lot of famous animators, a lot of veterans. And the staff was very nice to me. It was at Mitaka at this moment. Now they are at Nakano. And yes, the staff was very nice. They were wondering, why do you go to Japan? And yeah, I wanted to go abroad. Boy, I want to...

i want to walk in japan yeah you want to be an animator for anime man i feel bad for our intern now like i'm i'm sorry ashley like hearing the story you know but uh so and i had met a senpai a french senpai who named christopher and uh french name and he said me that uh take a time and uh walk very late

And people, when you work very late, there are less animators, but the boss is not here. And so animators are more free to speak to you. - Right, right. - More socializing going on when you stay at home. - Yeah, more socializing at night. Or you work hard at very night, late, what are you doing? - I feel like that must be your bonding experience, right? - Yes. - 'Cause you're staying up late together. - Yes, exactly.

when most of my good animators friends was because yes, we walk very at 8 o'clock of the morning because we work hard, we didn't slept and yo, I'm a Brazilian nom. - My man. - So you literally just sent an email to a company and then you flew to Japan and wow.

- And then he worked on fucking Loop on the 3rd. - And then you literally within a month, like, so what timeframe was it from you sending that email to the company to you being in Japan and working on Loop on the 3rd? - Yeah, so I sent a mail in January, they said, okay. And so I went in June. - Wow, six months. - Six months. - That's crazy. - But yes, but I,

I was pretty lucky because the director said yes. And now the director is no more working at Telecom Animation. Because he's now retired. And yes, it was cool. So this was my first experience in the Japanese animation industry. It was 10 years ago. And so I went to another animation school.

And to this animation school, I had the occasion to do a summer school at Gobelin, l'Ecole de l'Image. It's a French famous school for animation. And I have met Thomas Romain. He's very famous because he's maybe the pop of French animators in Japan. And also because he's very famous, he redrewed his kids' drawings.

- Oh wow. - Oh, I might have- - That sounds familiar. - That sounds very familiar. That sounds like it blew up on the Reddit or something, right? - Yes, he kids drew and he picked a picture of his kid and redraw it as a professional way. - Yeah, that sounds very familiar, yeah. - And I met him at this summer school

And I talked a bit with him, and he gave me his business cards. And connection is very important. Like I said, this summer school, I could do it because, in fact, the director of telecom animation school was doing a summer school at Goblin, but he needed a translator. Wow.

And he called me. He goes, are you in France? You can help me. Right, right, right. And that's why the first way to find a contact is very difficult. But when you have one...

he can introduce you to someone else. - The door opens. - That's what it is with like the anime industry is that like, it's only so big. So once you know one person, it's just kind of strange. - The hard part is getting in, but everyone I've met who's working in the anime industry, especially if they're a foreigner, they've just had like that one lucky pull of like, just like that one lucky in. And once they've got that in. - As you animators,

The first time, it's difficult to entry, but after, it's to stay also. I will explain that later. So, yeah, I sent a mail to Thomas Romain. And Thomas Romain was working at, this time, at Satellite. So they are very famous for the series Macross. As an animation studio, I assume. Yeah. They made Log Horizon as well, season...

- One of the seasons. - Season two, I believe that is. - And so I could manage to do a four-month internship at Satellite. But it was very different of Telecom. It was a bit more colder, a bit more rush, hurry up, hurry up. And at Telecom, the animators were coming at 10 and leaving at night, like at 10 or so.

At Satellite, everybody was coming in the afternoon, 2 or 4, and was working at 6 a.m. Oh my God.

- Jesus. - Definitely a lot more like hardcore. I guess like what I wanna ask is like kind of going back to the loop in the third thing, like I assume you like watched the TV show after it came out, right? Like I've always wanted to know like as an animator, like how does it feel to see something that you drew be animated on TV? 'Cause like I can't imagine what that's like, right? - So sometimes you, oh shit, I screw up. And now I,

It's fine. I managed to do something good. But when some few weeks passed, look at it again. Not very satisfied. That's how you know you've grown. You hate everything you've made. The way to grow our drawings is very difficult because it's not like that. It's like stairs. And

And sometimes there is a long flat moment and you don't progress. - Yeah. - And yeah, you can, it's a, yeah, you fight against you to improve and sometimes you can depress sometimes. - But I'm sure there's been moments where, you know, there was like a cut that was really good and you're just like,

- Yeah, I did that. - Yeah, there is this moment and when you have this moment, it's the moment of, "Oh man, animation is cool." - I think it's the same for us where we make like a YouTube video. Sometimes we just feel like we've stagnated in content and sometimes- - How do I beat this? - Yeah, sometimes we put out that one banger video and like, yeah.

- This is why I do YouTube. You hate your job for the rest of the time. - And also when you can talk animation with your senpai or your coworkers is very good and how they share the same likes, the way of thinking of animation is the same as me.

Yeah, it's cool. And so talking about animation with your senpai and you learn a lot of history of other famous show at this point when they done this episode there was broken. But they managed to succeed it.

- I gotta ask, what's the first show where you got, that you were given, that you were like really, really excited for? Like, I'm like, when you realize, oh, I'm working on this show, really? This show? What was the first time? - "Dragon Ball Superboy." - "Dragon Ball," of course, of course. I bet it was. - When I was little, I was rocking "Dragon Ball" of Goku. I was imitating King Kamehameha. - I think, yeah. - And so I had, so yeah, "Dragon Ball," I had the chance.

to work on it because my senpai I was at Yapico at this moment and I had start as key animator and yeah so we skipped a lot of years of Grafnika while I was in Petrina so when I was at Yapico my senpai wanted to work on Dragon Ball Super the series but

So we had another senpai who had worked on Resurrection of F and previous movie of Dragon Ball Super. Oh, okay. And his name is Shimizu... Shimizu...

- Oh, fuck I forgot. - Shimizu San. - Shimizu San, yeah. Shimizu San. And, ah, Hiroshi Shimizu. He's the character designer of Megalo Box. - Oh, shit, okay. - And so he introduced us to Toei. "Hey, do French people want to work on Dragon Ball?" And so Toei made us work on Dragon Ball.

met us and okay, so we have this episode, you have a Vegeta and Goku who had to fight these, I don't remember the name of the man. - So someone's just like, "These guys wanna work on Dragon Ball." And Toei's literally like, "Yeah, sure." - But he, we had that recommendation. - Smooth talk. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Our senpai, okay. So at first, let's do the series.

And if the series was good, okay, maybe you can work on the movie because the movie wasn't announced at this moment. Right, right, right. And so, okay, let's work on the episode. But when they sent us the storyboard and the schedule, there was not a good match because it was the end of December and most of the French people was going back to Christmas. And so I asked, sorry, can you...

"Can you give us another story about another episode?" And, "Oh, okay. "Oh, by the way, how about the movie?" - Sure. - Just casually throw that in there? - So they tested you out on the movie? - Yeah. - Oh my God. - What a trial run. Imagine that. - And it was the first time I was doing Genga on a movie. - Oh my God. - So I had some pressure.

- Some pressure. - Some pressure. - Yeah, pressure because you know that Dragon Ball fans can be... - We've talked about it before. We've talked about Dragon Ball fans before. - Are the Dragon Ball fans the same in Japan like they are the West? Or are you talking about the West specifically? - I don't know. Some people can say bad things to me.

i think it's different when an animator who worked on the movie yeah i know right so i was uh i had the head pressure but i was happy man i'm working on dragon ball and well yes it's cool and so when i was doing my drawings on dragon boy we're putting i was sleeping at the studio but i was listening dragon ball and doing it you gotta get in the mood yourself and i had my buddy uh media

who was who we slept at the studio and doing our dragon balls oh my god so you went from being an intern to working on lupon and then being an in-betweener to just going straight into the dragon ball super no no no of course not so i might have done my internship at telecom animation film satellite so i have done two internships okay uh six months if you uh put all together and uh when i finished my school i said okay i have done two internships

I know it's hard that the telecom was a good mood at the satellite. It was more cold and you have to hurry. And you are paid also by frame. So the money- - Oh shit. - Yeah, it's per frame here rather than per day. - Am I allowed to ask what that might be per frame? - Well, when you're in between,

you are paid like two euros per frame. - Two euros per frame? - Yeah. - Holy shit. - So what is that in USD? - So you would draw a frame, go to Family Mart, get a sandwich and you just. - Yes, I use it. - It's like three or four bucks US. - It's less than that. - That's like before tax, right? - Yeah. - Oh my God. - I assume you wouldn't even make enough to go for the tax cut. - Yeah. - Oh my God. - So when you take a drink,

- You, okay, can I buy bubble? Maybe, yes. Oh, I have to do more frames. - So you're making a conscious choice. I need to draw more so that I can eat and drink. Okay, so how long would you say it takes you to do a frame? - It depends. - It depends? - The frame can be just five minutes. - Right. - Right. - Some frame can take you two, three hours. - Oh my.

- I mean, this has been a hot button topic in the industry for a while. - Yeah, I think a lot of people do talk about the animators get paid. - Just hearing it from natural animator, just, you know. - And also because nowadays the anime getting more details and more lines. - Has the price gone up? - More sakuga. - It was years ago, when you draw one frame, you can,

eat one ramen yeah right but the rate of the life increase but the inflation yeah okay so now you inflation so now if you want to eat a ramen you have at least to do a five or six frames oh my god so if

- If you don't mind me asking, when did your internship initially, how much were you getting paid for that? Were you living off just that? - Well, at the first internship I wasn't paid. - Oh wow. - Yeah. But the second internship I was paid. - So it really was like a passion thing. - Yes, it was a passion thing. I was knowing that my internship, you are paid or not. But I was paid, so by frame for my internship at Satellite. And so I knew, okay, it will be hard. So I tried to do my best.

But yeah, I was just for my one month, my best record when I was in internship, it was just 150.

- Under the frames? - Yeah. - So like $300. - Yeah. - Oh my God. - For a month of work. - For a month of work. - And a specialized job as well. - Yeah. - So this was my internship and so it was on paper. - So wait, the guy who was probably cleaning the toilets at the studio was probably getting paid more than you. - Yeah, yeah. - Honestly, it's probably true. - Actually, if you work at a convenience store,

- Just work in your local family. - Put it into perspective. Not trying to diminish any jobs, but like, I mean, you know, cleaning a toilet is not a specialized job. - Literally working at McDonald's. - Especially considering how art school was like one of the most expensive schools you can go to. - I'm not trying to belittle any of the jobs. We need those jobs, but like, yeah, the fact that it is a specialized job and you can do your best was 300.

it was my internship so it was I had still for an internship that's not enough to live right and yes but like I said I my mother is Japanese I had a family in Japan in Tokyo so yes I

- It was cool because my family, I was living in the house of my grandmother. So it was cool. - Oh, okay. That's awesome. - So you didn't have to pay for rent or anything? - Yes, because I had luck. So I was thinking, man, for foreign people, if you don't have family. - Yeah, I was about to say. - Did you have friends who didn't have family here? - Yeah, but they...

get a better they could negotiate better than me right so that's why you have to now the good advice is you have to look the good studio to take a lot of information of each studio how do they pay etc it was a

- Yeah, but it was just an internship. So I cannot take example of satellite, but more example on Grafnika, the studio I was doing in between, but digital in between. - Right, right, right. - Digital, I was more quicker. - Okay. - But was the pay the same? - The pay was the same. But the pay was the same, but we had a Cotecu,

It means you have a fixed amount of salary and it was at least 400 euros a month. And they ask you to do 300 frames per month. It was at least 300 frames.

- At least 300 frames a month. - Yes. And so when you success to do 300 frames, you also 300 frames, two euros, you have 600 plus this fixed salary. - That's about a thousand euros. - So a thousand euros. - Still for a specialist job, that's still quite low. - That's still very low compared to other specialist jobs. - Yes, and but my best record, wow, when I was doing in between was 600.

- 600 frames a month. - Yeah, 600 frames a month. So 600 to 1,200. - 1,200 euros. - Yeah, so you can last have 1,500 euros. - For an internship, that's probably like $1,500. That's probably not bad for an internship. - This wasn't an internship. This was a real job. - A real job, that kind of sucks. - Okay, wow. - Maylene's face over there. - Maylene's like sweating right now.

So, yes. And so most of my coworkers, I'm working, I'm living at my parents' house. I'm living with a share house. Yes. So you have to pay attention about your money, how you spend it. It's not a glamorous lifestyle. No, you don't live, you survive. Right.

- I think a lot of people sometimes would like, I remember I've had people come up to, 'cause I'll be like with like, I remember at Anime Expo I was with Trigger and they were like, "Oh, they want a job at Trigger." And I'm like, "Do you really want a job where like, you really have to work your ass off just to- - What are your work hours like, if you don't mind me asking? - At Grafunica? - Yeah. - So I start at 10.

And it depends about the deadlines you have. Sometimes I arrived and there is a lot of cuts and my senpai, "Oh, you have to finish this for this evening at eight." Okay, so I don't eat lunch. - It's very opposite of you. - And sometimes I have, oh, some good cuts. "Oh, I want to do this. "Please let me do this." Okay, deadline is in three days.

Oh, fuck. I would say. Because I wanted to watch Pokemon, guys. So I wanted to watch Pokemon. You make an exception because you're like, I like Pokemon. I'll ruin my life for Pokemon. It was brew...

yeah it was the Pokemon generation on YouTube so oh cool wow oh that one I wanted that one yeah and it was blue with the in Japanese you say Kamek so I don't know in English Last Toys Last Toys yeah Last Toys and so it was there's French names as well isn't there French localized names French name is Tortank Tortank that's

- That's way more badass than "Fast and Furious". - Well, I learned about that. Apparently the French civilizations were like really well done for Pokemon. - Really? - Really, really well done. And all the names were like really well thought out and to do with like a mix of Japanese and French mythology. - I mean, Tortog sounds badass. - Tortog is a tank. - That's awesome.

- That is like the very opposite of European lifestyle where it's like, oh, it's five. Oh, the building's on fire. Well, it's five o'clock, I'm going. It's like this. - Yeah, in between you have to be passionate. You have to love animation. - I've heard that a lot. - And also it depends what kind of experience you want. If it's just, oh, I want to work

just once for this show on Naruto on One Piece, I don't know. Or there. Or I was just one who two years experience in Japan who, no, I wanted to have a career in Japan. So. Right. It depends what experience you're looking for. So you often find people come into the companies like, I only want to be here for a year or two then go back. Yeah. So sometimes you have, sometimes some people have come in Japan and they had some homesick. Yeah.

Because it was the first time they came in Japan and the food didn't go well and they couldn't speak Japanese. So, yeah, so the most, and English was a,

So, yes, it was difficult to make some friends. And so, yes, you still hang around with the same people. - Right. - It's just a completely different lifestyle. - Did you know English before you came to Japan? - Yeah. - Oh, okay. - I was learning English at school. - Yeah. I gotta ask because you grew up in France and moving, you know about how much, well,

you were telling us earlier about how much more you can get paid doing the same job being in France and also having let's say less work hours as well what made you decide to give that up and move to Japan and have like a yeah because when I tell my story of my internship to my friends

"Can you, do you really want to go to Japan? Is it an issue?" Because me, I don't want, I want to have a life. I completely understand, you know? There is no, this is the right way. You have, everybody has his way of doing it. And in my case, I wanted to work in Japanese animation industry because I

I like animation, I like manga. And yes, there is something I can indeed, sorry, masochist. - Masochist, yeah. - But yeah, it's the way to learn also.

- It's just purely passion. - It just sounds like you are doing it purely for the passion. - I was gonna say for that pay, you better be passionate. - But yes, but I mean, animation two, three years are hard. So if you want to do a career in Japan, so you have to speak Japanese.

you can manage to work in Japan with English but just some few studios will open the doors because they have a translator or not

But if you can speak Japanese, more open doors will offer to you. - And as we've established, like, you know, from your stories is that, you know, getting to know the people as well, it just takes you so far. - It really does seem that like, if you do speak Japanese, it's like way easier to get into the anime industry than I think people make it out to be. - It's definitely an easy mode, isn't it?

- I mean, it's the same moving to any country and joining their industry, right? - I think because you almost find people put like the anime industry on like a pedestal, right? It's like, it's the anime industry, it's mythical, it's Japanese, we don't know what happens, right? But then when you talk to people, it's like, oh yeah, I get paid like two euros a frame. - That's the thing, and I think, you know, like going back to the story of the guy who, you know, came up and said like that he wanted to work at Trigger. Guarantee he has no idea

- No idea what it's actually like. - No idea what it's like to actually work in Trigger. - It's like six o'clock here, he's like ready to go home and everyone's like, "No, no, it's four more hours." - Yeah. - Because yes, in Japan you have the "dangyo" and you saw...

The studio say, "Oh, you can leave the studio at eight." But nobody leave at eight. - Exactly, exactly. You can leave at eight. And then you see nobody leaving at eight. - Yeah, yeah. The clock out times in Japanese companies is not an official clock out time. It's like a suggested clock out time. - So when I was working at Graf Unica, at first in my mind I say, "Warn you. We see how..."

one year will be if it's too hard I will go back to France and yeah first yeah first one year and okay I think I can do one year plus like that one year one year one year and now it's I'm at my five years and yes I still I yeah now I have found a good studio for C I learned a lot from my senpais and yeah I can do more more years yeah yeah

- How much longer do you think though? Because you said you were 31, right? - Yeah. - Still doing all nighters, crunch time and stuff. - My body cannot do that. - I was gonna say, 'cause like I've just hit my 30s as well and man, all nighters, they definitely hit different. - I'm not even in my 30s and I can't do all nighters anymore. - Because when you're 20, you're like,

- Yeah, a few cans of Red Bull, it's easy. - Staying up 48 hours is like no problem. - When I was younger, getting your drink at night and you go to work the other day, it was okay.

- Now it's like, oh, it's 11:00 PM, fuck it, right? - I definitely do find that my willpower is overexerting my body. I'm like, no, I can do this. I'm dying. - Yeah, so you have to push yourself. And like I said, so it's lot of hours you are sitting. And sometimes I was,

I don't think feel well because I had a lot of pain in my feet and because I was because I was always sitting sitting and so the had an amount of water water blood on my ankle which was

- Swollen? - Oh my God. - That's what happens when you're sitting in a plane for a long time. - Oh, I guess it is. - You could die from that. - And so I had to get up and walk because it was too painful. - This episode of Trash Taste is sponsored by honey.

- Yes. - We all shop online. - Yes. - And we've seen that promo code field that taunts us at the checkout. - But thanks to Honey, manually searching for coupon codes is a thing of the goddamn past. - Yes. - Honey is a free browser extension that scours the internet for promo codes and applies the best ones it finds to your cart, supporting over 30,000 stores online. They range from sites that have tech and gaming products to popular fashion brands and even food delivery. - Damn, that's epic.

- You know what Connor, I actually took your advice and I bought myself a Dyson. - I knew it Garnt dude. The suction power on those things is immense. - It was the best decision of my life. I even saved $20 on it. - Get out of here Garnt, get out of here. - That's a lot of money. - I mean considering the price of those damn things, you better be saving some money.

Thanks to Honey for enabling us to save money on our vacuums for the good suck. Imagine it, you're shopping on your favorite website. I know what it is, don't tell me. When you're at the checkout, Honey automatically searches for all the best coupons. All you need to do is click apply coupons and it will find it. If Honey finds the working coupon, you'll watch as the prices just drop. Honey has found it's over 17 million members, over $2 billion in savings. Not million, but a billion. And that's a lot of Gacha money there, I can tell you.

- You have an addiction, Garnt, stop. - If you already don't have Honey, you could be straight up missing on some free savings. - Wow. - It's literally free to install and it takes seconds, guys. - And by getting it, you'll be doing yourself a solid and supporting the boys. - I like that. - So you can get Honey free today at joinhoney.com/trashtaste. - That's joinhoney.com/trashtaste.

Back to the episode. - Yeah, I guess going off of that, I wanna ask, obviously you draw God knows how many hours per day, right? I'm sure you've run into injuries and wrist problems. Is there certain stuff that you do to make sure you don't hurt yourself? - Well, I have to do some stretch. I have a massage ball for my hands, I do stretch like that.

- Do you wear those wrist guards that I see some animators wearing? - No, not me. But yeah, every one, two hours I have to do some stretch because sitting, and you also have a good seat. - Good seat. - Do you have a good gamer chair at home? - I don't remember the brand, but yeah, but in fact, I'm working on tablet. So unfortunately, I cannot be like that. - Oh, you're hunched over? - Yeah, right, right.

- Don't forget the microphone by the way. - Sorry, sorry. - I guess it's the same kind of precautions a lot of let's say like professional gamers and e-sports athletes have to go through because you're doing a lot of movements on your wrist, right? - Yeah, like a carpal tunnel, right? - Yeah, so sometimes I have been here, so I can message.

So yes, in fact animators have to do sport also because, so I sometimes I went to go gym with my friend Mehdi and to do some exercise. - Do some weights. - Because yes, you lose muscles. - Yeah, yeah, you do. - I definitely feel doing YouTube as well 'cause I'm sat at my desk all day. I gotta do something. - With the Corona, so now you don't,

- You don't leave much, you don't move much. - To the desk, to the fridge, right? - Yeah. - As like a teenager sitting at your desk playing video games all day and all night, whatever, you never think about, "Oh, what are the ergonomics right now?" You never think about that. - What part of my body am I injuring? - Yeah, exactly. - I did feel bad 'cause when I used to play games,

pretty much from after school till I went to bed. And I never had any problems. And my other friend would play like two hours a night if he was lucky. And he got carpal tunnel. - Oh Jesus. - And I was like, you're weak. - You're weak. - Real gamers. - You ain't a pro gamer. Look at those weak wrists. Get out of here. Those aren't gamer wrists.

- Get some real thumbs. - I was just like worried. I'm like, why are my wrists not giving in and this man's are giving in? - He had some like Chad wrists. - Yeah, maybe I came out the womb with just like wrists. - Just like thickest wrists. - It's like natural selection like chose you in the wrong way. - My kid is gonna have like jacked wrists. Like natural selection is gonna kick in and like over the top. Oh my God.

- Yeah, so most of, when you are young, you can stay more longer at the studio, work hard. But when you get older, you have now a family, kids and you-- - Can't afford to stay that all day. - You go back to home and-- - No wonder your senpais can draw so fast. They need to. - Yeah, they need to. And they was trained to, so. And this pressure and these, those deadlines make them more faster.

and faster but and good you have the quality yeah but sometimes they when you you know not have a much experience you have to get faster and sometimes you have to sacrifice the quality yeah and i and i suppose are those the scenes that kind of always get memed on on twitter and social media and stuff like that yes and also you have you know those scenes while they was a

a bit of mess. Because the communication wasn't good with the assistant production, the animator didn't have time to do it.

or the animator couldn't do it, okay, we have nobody, okay, we'll give it to China or Korea to do it and China, Korea, oh, we don't have time, we have to speed it. Seven deadly sins, it depends also which studio will do it because sometimes you have gloss, you know, so, for example, you have studio A, we do all the episode of 12 episodes but, oh, we don't have much time, we have to do, uh,

We will do just 10 episodes and the two others will be done by different studios. So they will ask to studio B and C to do each one episode. And if B and C don't have the good stuff... It looks bad. You have some accident. And also, more than the studio, you should more look at the staff. The studio is like a share.

It's the staff that matter the most. Yeah, the studio will give a good environment for a good working place for the animators and good assistant productions. But all the skills and all the staff will be all in freelance. So it's the studio who, okay, you can do this project and we can give you a good working place. Yeah.

- 'Cause I've always wondered, 'cause there's always like the meme in our community where if an episode is animated well versus an episode that's animated bad, we always talk about like, oh, it's the budget, they're not given enough budget.

How true is that? Is that actually reflected or is it all about the staff that they can hire and the staff that's available for? - Also the staff, a lot of things in fact. You have also the budget, but for example, you have an episode or you have a lot of action, a lot of movement.

actually one episode is 350 cuts. But for some, a lot of heavy episode, a lot of action, epic episode can have 500 cuts. So for this episode, it will be more expensive per cut. But so for the next episode, you have to adjust this.

so so if you had the climax on episode seven so maybe episode eight will be more more cool

And you talked about some animators being more experienced and more skilled and like have making a name for themselves. Can they negotiate a higher price per cut? Yeah, actually, yes. So the rate of the cut is when you have the offer, they said you, the rate of the cut is this.

Most of the series is 4,500 yen. So I don't know. $45 roughly. For one cut? One cut. So one cut can take you like one hour, one day, two days. Oh, gosh. $45 for two days of work. Or sometimes it can take you one week. Oh.

- I know a great website called Fiverr. You might know. - So like that you can ask, excuse me, you try to negotiate. - My rent is this much. - You have to negotiate for this bit

- A bit heavy cut, can you put it twice the price or three times the price please? You have to negotiate and sometimes if you are very, very famous like we call this a super animator, like a one man army, you say my rate is this.

- Right, okay. - And they pay. - They want you. They want you because you- - You just gotta put your dick on the table. - You have now, if you are very famous, I'm calling like a veteran and major, they have the name value. Because in the show, people want to look it. - Right.

- That's kind of how it works with YouTubers too, right? It's just like, if you're a famous YouTuber that has so much years of experience, then you can just be like, yeah, you know? - Honestly, if you've made a name for yourself, you deserve a higher cut. - Right, right. - Actually, we can say that it's a bit like soccer teams.

when you're, oh, I want to want a Ronaldo or I want Messi. - Right, you gotta pay the money, right? Yeah. - Is that why whenever you see like the climax of a big scene, especially in like some shown in anime or like some big, you always see the same names animating

- Same names, yes. Or some new ones because you cannot relate only of some few names. You have to find new talent. - Are they constantly looking for new animators? - Always, always. - I guess it's 'cause if you're not getting paid like a lot, it's hard to find people who wanna do it, right? - Yeah, actually if you're too expensive, so, okay, we don't have the budget, so we are going to find some.

one else. You mentioned Twitter as well. Is that how they find a lot of the newer talent? Yeah, Twitter also because now we're on Twitter I think you know the web generation. Some quite foreign animators who

Yeah, I work on pretty much all the shows. I'm just wondering, so is there this much of a shortage of animators in Japan that they have to look literally on Twitter, doing what we do, and just browsing Twitter and being like, you seem to have a good portfolio? Or by recommendation by other senpai, oh, I had work with this young guy, he's pretty skilled for, or I have work with this, we had some problem, but

you can manage to work on it. So you have, uh, depends. I see. If you walk with a friend, people, you, you know, that they're learning by themselves, by themselves, and they're doing all the best that they want and they accept the amount of money. And so, uh,

if there is an accident, it's normal because they're learning by themselves. And you have to teach them how to get better. - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, 'cause I actually have like an artist friend who used to like draw stuff for me years ago, who ended up being an animator for Black Clover.

- Yeah, same here. Like I had like an artist who I was following and an animator and then they just showed up working on Sword Art Online. - Yeah, right. - Shout out to K Animations. - It's just weird how that, like I didn't think, like I'd always heard of like the web gen animators, as we call them, but like I've never actually like seen it happen. So when I saw it happen, I was like, oh, wow, they actually use Twitter as like a form of like auditioning. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. - Actually, seeing the flashpoint, we can say like that.

was maybe at Boruto episode 65 you have oh that fight that fight oh it's the Momoshiki Sasuke versus Sasuke Naruto versus Momoshiki yeah and in fact the episode director was Sekiko-san and he he's a Chinese guy who success to um

or call a lot of foreign animators and he was by himself doing the assistant projection by himself trying to contact a lot of animators check their car to put some correction and i think he have spent two months at the studio but because

- Because of him, he could manage a lot of animators to work on this episode and the episode 65 of Boruto was a masterclass. - Yeah, I mean, that was my favorite fight of the year. - I've seen the fight, I don't know anything. - I haven't seen Boruto, I've just seen that fight. And that was by far like the best fight of the year in my opinion. - And with this episode, it's proved, okay, foreign animators can also work on this.

Japanese animation but you have problems also about communication you have some you know you have staff who have to speak English or if they can speak Japanese it's okay or sometimes you have some mistakes by them but yes it's if you work with foreign it's happened but if you correct them and they will do their best to correct

What would you say is the best way for, let's say, a young animator to get involved in the anime industry now? Now, like I said, it depends on the experience you want. If you just want to work on one piece or just once, okay, so Twitter will be okay, I think. Or I want just a one-year experience. So, okay, if you want to come to Japan, you have to find a studio that could prove you a visa. Right.

- And if you want a career, I want to work in Japan, I want to live in Japan, I want to marry a Japanese girl. - I want that ideal weeb wife. - Bored of you two assuming you're gonna have enough time and money to marry a Japanese girl as an animator. - I was thinking of asking, I don't know how personal it is, 'cause you mentioned that like, obviously the senpais, they have a family and whatnot. How the fuck does anyone date who's an animator?

Because it sounds like you guys never leave the office. How do you date? You bring them to the office? You're like, hold on, I'm gonna do a key frame, I'll answer that question. - Yeah, so it's like that. - Have you ever brought a date to the office? - No, no, not me. But actually, yes, so I'm working at the studio and also sometimes I'm working on two shows at the same time. So I'm working on the movie and sometimes I-- - Again, how do you find the time?

- Unless you're dating like another key animator. - Yo, she's two blocks down.

- She's like three tables away. - Actually, I prefer not date at the workplace. - Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. - I'm sure what you eat, right? - Always speaking about animations for going to a bit kill my passion, I will say, I prefer to talk other things. - Oh yeah, of course, of course. - You have a lot of your life revolving around animation. I'm sure you wanna break that as well. - Because I'm thinking animation, I work animation, I shit animation, so I like...

- That's the thing, right? It's like, you're doing so much with animation. So it's like, how do you find time to be like, you know what, I'm gonna, today I'm just gonna go out of town, just, you know. - Do you get a lot of downtime? - Yes, yes, yes. Because now, like I said, so the few years are hard, but you can manage with the studio to have a

And Kousoku is mean a fixed contract, you can say. And you can get paid by a month. - Okay. - Right. - But this is-- - A salary. - You have to-- - You can negotiate to get a salary. All right, okay. - Okay. - So, but you have to prove yourself, okay? So, at first you have-- - You have to prove yourself to get a salary. - Yeah. - This is so bizarre. - Because, yeah, because like I said,

- All those salary, all those money is by self-taught. - You gotta prove your worth. - You don't sign contract. - Oh really? - Yes, or you get paid this amount, but you sign nothing, it's just by speaking. - So it's all verbal? - Yes, or by mail. - Do you get it like in cash or like what? - By mail.

- Oh, bank. - The bank doesn't ask questions, the bank believes you. Trust me, we had a deal. - It's free in Japan. - Oh my God. - But that kind of goes completely against what we talked about with like Twitter artists, right? Where it's like, you have to like sign a contract and like get an NDA and all that shit just to like protect your identity. Where in Japan it's just like, yeah, we promise we'll give you this. - I have more security buying something off eBay. Jesus Christ. - You don't sign NDA in Japan.

- Yeah. - You can come here and talk about the things that you've worked on. - Technically he could, yeah. I mean, you were telling it's all based on the trust system. Is this true even for when they like contact a random Twitter animator and ask them to work on a new project, it's not under NDA or anything like that? - Yeah, they trust you. - So that animator who could say no and be like, "Guys, I know the next movie that's coming out." - Yeah, like that's- - Oh my God.

How is that not being like a leak every week? Because it's the trust of the studio on the animators. And if you have some leaks, you get just blacklisted. Yeah, true, true, true. And if you get blacklisted, you find no more works. Yeah, yeah.

So yeah, it's you. - That's crazy. - It's up to you. - Don't fuck it up. - I'm surprised there hasn't been like just one person, one rogue animator hasn't popped up in the entire history of anime. That's impressive. - Well, if you mess up, you have some big names who, or what did you do?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Right, fuck. - Jesus. - Scary. And I guess it would make sense 'cause a lot of these people look up to the directors, right? And the people in charge. So I doubt they would try and- - I guess it'd be like backstabbing your idol. - Yeah, right. The thing that you love, right? - Yeah, exactly. - I guess that makes sense. - I guess, do you wanna talk about the thing

that all three of us have been wanting to ask. - Yeah, I mean, as an animator on Twitter and everything like that. - Your opinion matters. - Yeah, your opinion matters. - Our opinion doesn't mean shit. Your opinion on the other hand, it means a lot. - Like how would you feel about artists and animators getting backlash

after an episode has aired. - For example, attack on time. I'm gonna say it Garnt. For some reason people are very, very angry and have been sending even death threats. - Yeah. - To directors and animators on Twitter and stuff like that. - Does that scare you or anything like that working on projects? - Well, if I had those kinds of threats, it would be, oh, I messed up. - No, no, you shouldn't be like that. - Actually in my case,

it's just Twitter, internet I don't have time to bother about that I have to consider it in my drawings yeah exactly so yeah but for people who gave all the guts didn't sleep, managed to

to deliver the episode and receive all the threats. It's a bit, it's very hard. I feel like they're paid enough to deal with threats. Yeah. You know, it's just the hard work. Yeah. And I think that most of animators nodes are working, are,

I couldn't do this good well, but I managed to deliver the episode. And they know their level and they want to progress to good. Everybody wants to do a good episode, want to make a quality. But you have to manage it with the amount of schedule, the amount of money. And yes, it's very hard. And sometimes in animation, a good...

schedule a good, something going well doesn't exist in animation. You have a lot of problems, teeny problems you have to adjust. - Right. - It's not just like the problem of like, you know, the single animator. It's like, there's a lot of things that the animator probably has to juggle. But like, if I like, you know, but say for example, like I would maybe understand a little more if even the animator looked at what they did and was like, yeah, that wasn't my best work.

but this is "Attack on Titan" we're talking about. And it's been pretty amazing so far. - Have you been following the episodes of "Attack on Titan"? - Yes, I have watched the last one. - Yeah, and people are,

for some reason are very vocal that like, oh, it's terrible now. The animation quality is terrible. - I think most of the people don't like the CGI, I think. And yeah, if you are used to something that which studio have done with this quality, yeah, and now it's with CGI. Actually me too when I see, oh, this isn't CGI, well, I'm a bit,

I prefer it was more on Sakuga. I don't understand. - Yeah, but you can say that because you're in that. - I understand that most of some of them says, "Oh, CGI, I would prefer Sakuga." But it's not a reason to put stress. - And people are like, "The show is ruined. "The CGI has ruined my show." And it's like, "What do you mean?" It's so bizarre. - But people are also complaining about some of the Sakuga as well. - Really?

- Really? - Yeah, I've been seeing that like, you know, some, I've seen some people on Twitter. - Twitter has been awesome. - Yeah, no, but some people on Twitter have, you know, like done comparisons with like the manga panels, for example. And being like, it's completely ruined. It's not exactly the same, right? Like, how do you feel about stuff like that?

- They push too much. - 'Cause I've always wondered, 'cause you've worked on some pretty high profile shows. - My hero had this problem as well. - Yeah, my hero had this problem a lot. - Do you ever, when working on it, do you ever feel the pressure whenever you're working on a big IP that you need to and want to deliver? - Actually, I know that most of,

when I post something of my Genga on Twitter, it's not my animation that have likes, it's more the IP has likes. I think people don't, I don't know, most of the people like, put the like on the retweet, oh, but because it's my, I like this IP. Yeah, not because I like, Jojo fans are

- I did see on your Twitter. - Actually, yeah, I think it was my Jojo Gengar had the most retreats. - Was it the Pesci? - Yes, yes. - 'Cause I think I saw the animation that you did for that. - Yeah, it's Uchalachi versus Pesci. - I love that's like literally like the best fight in part four. Like so good and it was amazing. - Oh man, it was so hard to this because it was,

Yeah, it was in 2018. It was Christmas.

And I spend all my Christmas and New Year at working at the studio. I spent three weeks sleeping at the studio to finish. - Three weeks sleeping at the studio? - Yeah, yeah. - That's for the Pesci fight. - Because I had to finish the "Hiroaka" layout. And after "Hiroaka" I had my- - Wait, so you were working on the "Hiroaka" layout while you were working on the "JoJo" game? - When I finished "Hiroaka", bam, JoJo came back. And...

And the deadline was like the 10th of January. And so most of my coworkers went to, it was a Tia Pico, so most of it was French people. So they went back to France. I spent the New Year and they came back. And this month when they went to France, I had no beer. And when they came back, I had a big beer. Yeah.

Just haven't left the office. Haven't left the office. Just like became a hermit. Yeah, he basically is. And so I was going to go to the gym to have my shower. Oh my God.

- So that must have been like the case where like, if you were there all the time, you're probably like, were you just thinking about it in the shower as well? You're like thinking about what you were gonna draw next as well? - Yeah, but shower takes time, but sometimes you can, itch, it smells bad, I have to take a shower.

- You gotta optimize your showers. It's just like, do you ever get to a point when you're just like eating too much time? - So I was eating, watching an episode, eating and okay, the episode finished, I have finished to eat, okay, go back to work. - Geez.

- You're welcome Jojo fans. - You're welcome anime fans. - And so yes, I get sick also. I think I had, it's a bad one or I have a influenza, how do you say in English? - You got influenza? - Yeah, I get influenza this time. - You got flu. - I was walking like that. - Literally killing yourself for Jojo fans.

- You can say you were. - I think you can say that. - I was trying to do my best on this one. - I think a lot of people would argue that's one of the best fight scenes in part five. - Yeah. - You're right. - It looks amazing as well. - I think all of part five, everyone could tell. - Not just saying that 'cause you're here. - It's definitely crowd favorite. - Like I said, animations is a teamwork. So like I said, I do the rough animation after the,

the director put some correction. So something that was a too little, how can I say? Oh,

or you can push more this arm, the director will put it. And after the director of animation will put more in model. And so these three steps are very important. After I receive this correction, I redraw it, everything with all the details, all the shadows, all the lights, all the perfect frames. So yes, it's a teamwork. And after this drawing, it will be the in-betweener who will

It's a very teamwork. It's not just one animator's work. You have the director of animation in between and the color. - I'm curious, this may be a dumb question.

- Do you like hear, so when you're drawing it, I assume is the voice acting recorded at that point or is it not recorded? - No, it's way after. - It's after. - The voice acting is post-production. - Oh wow, so you don't even get to like hear the lines as you're drawing or anything? - Sometimes you have some rough voice, but it's not...

the finer voices. - It's mostly just like, I think it's written out in the layout section, right? Of what they're gonna say in this particular- - At the storyboard and after you have the timesheet on when at this moment you have the . - Oh, and then the voice actors match that.

- Yeah. - So all anime is dubbed anime. - Yeah, it is dubbed. - Wow. - Yeah. - Wow. - Checkmate, Sub-elitist. - Checkmate, Sub-elitist. - I've always been curious because obviously like you work on a lot of Shonen Jump properties and that's obviously based on like adapting manga panels. As an animator, do you ever like look at the manga panels of like the cut you're animating or do you just try to go in fresh? - Yeah, of course. When I do the meetings, I have the manga

on my side because they have print the manga okay all your scene will be on this part of the manga and they give it to me and so yes it's important to read a bit of the manga because you to more know how is the characters and also when you speak with the director he will say so this character is more calm he don't have much expression right and so don't

He less core man, ice face. - I guess you gotta know the personality of the character to know how they move and spin. - So if you have read the manga, it's a good job because, well, the director will be, "Oh, he has read the manga, so he knows the show." - Right, that makes sense. So all animators are manga readers. - No, it depends. Sometimes I didn't, whatever.

- I read everything. - Just proving your own point. - Some of my buddy, Medhi hadn't read the show and so he bet he walk on it or so. - I guess then in that sense, I guess like anime originals must be so hard. - Yeah. - So much harder because there's no reference point to like light novels, I guess even. - Oh, but even still, right? Like the light, I mean, light novels would be even harder because you gotta, you know.

- It's all text, right? - If you want a good fact, when I was working on Dragon Ball Super Broly, I didn't know it was Broly. - Oh really? - I didn't think it was. - I was working on the Dragon Ball movie, but I didn't know who was the bad guy. - Well, because you didn't read it. - No, because Torey didn't say to me.

- Oh really? - They're just like, "Draw this." - Wait, they kept the fact that Broly was a bad guy? Like a secret from the animators? - No, it was a secret that I didn't know. The title of the show is "Broly." - Oh, so you animated that without even knowing the context of the entire cut. - Yeah. - You were just like, "Oh, sick Broly." - Because my cuts was just Vegeta was grumbling against Goku. - Yeah.

And so, yes, I think they didn't want some leaks about "Puppy." - I mean, that makes sense. - I mean, you know, they could also just sign an NDA. - What? - I'm curious, this is just such a vague question. What is your like top anime shows for you personally? - Original anime show? - Anything.

I prefer to talk about original anime because when it's adaptation, you have more the power of the manga. And so maybe, I like Evangelion, like I said, and Gurren Lagann. Gurren Lagann. Yeah, the Gainax trigger. I guess it's a little like Gainax trigger. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they had the power to do original animation and it was great. After I don't...

watch much so much show than before so i maybe i forgot yeah and also yeah when you have oh what's your top 10 you yeah you forgot or no we were exactly the same spot yeah i do i do want to know that as an animator are there any like scenes or any animation cuts that you really look up to and you like idolize as legendary and have inspired you yeah uh like uh

you have a lot of animation

"Wow, how did he make this movement?" And so when you're doing frame-by-frame, when you're animator, watch the movement, okay. Oh, this frame is just exposed at one, two. Oh, this frame is exposed at three. And oh, at this moment, you have the fire come here and you analyze the movement like that, frame-by-frame. Every animator's doing like that.

And so, oh, so this is the key animation. - So you're watching anime really slow. - At first I watched the anime like everybody and what was his movement? So I put stop and . - I guess like an animator or I guess like director that comes to mind when it comes to like,

would be like Satoshi Kon, right? - Yeah, you know Kon Satoshi. - Yeah, Kon Satoshi, he managed to animate in a way, 'cause I think I saw it in some kind of interview with him way before, that the reason why he went into animation was because his way of directing is too fast for live action. - Yeah. - So whereas, because there's so many cuts in Kon movies where it's just, it's like a blink.

It's so fast, it's almost subliminal that you just can't replicate in live action. And it's just, I don't know, like even I'm not an animator at all or anything, but like you can watch a Satoshi Kon movie and be like, how do you even like think to animate something like that? - I have one of my senpai who had work on a Kon Satoshi movie. It was a co-director of "Tokyo Godfather." His name is Furia Shogo-san. And yeah,

The con movies are very realistic. Realistic, but on the character, the expression. Yeah. That, you know, in St. Andrew, Millennium Actress, the way who he mix up the fiction, the reality, it's so good. It's like the scene transition, right? And it's so...

You can watch it every time and you have the pressure. Oh, in this case, it was connected with this. And I, and also I like a Tokyo Godfather because I don't know. It's a movie. You want to watch it at Christmas. It's one of the few Christmas anime movies. I feel not, not, not that it was meant to be a Christmas anime movie. It was just, it just happens to be on Christmas. Right. And yeah, but yeah,

- One of my senpai said Satoshi was one of the best or maybe best anime. - Oh yeah. - And he's really fast. He have a perfect drawing. - Yeah, because I think I saw that like Satoshi Kon used to like draw some of his own animations as well. He was a key animator of his own shows. - He have done mangaka. Yes, he was manga. He had to work on a lot of

a lot of with Katsuhiro Otomo yeah yeah and so yeah I don't know if he has worked on Akira or not I don't remember but yes he was very close with Otomo with those generation of artists who was the

- As an animator, what do you think of like Akira, for instance, like the animation? - Akira is amazing animation. - 'Cause I feel that like when people say Akira, they're just like, yeah, this animation has an age, like it's aged so well, even though it's like a 30 year old movie. - If you want a bit of the, for animators, good animation,

You have so Jinro. - Jinro. - Jinro. - I've heard that's pretty legendary. - For my senpai, he said that Jinro is the animation realistic the most push at extreme. - Oh, right, right. - Too much extreme that most of the animators is just for masturbation of animation.

- He said it's too much, but he said the good entertainment one and with the good animation also very pushed was Memories. - Oh, the Ultima cut zero. - Oh yes, and you have the Magnetic Rose. - Magnetic Rose is so good. - And each plan of Magnetic Rose of animation is a master class because most of the frames are very,

Exposition or three frame and less frame, but just good drawings, good timings and. - Magnetic Rose, if you don't know, is like a space opera arc. That's the only way to describe it. - How old is it?

- How old is it? It's like from the 90s, like late 90s. It was quite a while after, but it's like "Magnetic Rose" is like a short film that Oto Katsura directed. - I think a 40 minutes. - It's like a 40 minute short film, but it's like, yeah, it's basically just space opera Akira is the only way to describe it, but it's fucking amazing. - And with the same team that "Magnetic Rose", you have Hachide Melos, Ron Melos. - Yeah.

I didn't watch it, but I had watched some cuts of "Hashimi Menos" and very impressive. So yes. - So I guess if you wanna like be an animator, just study those. - This is the realest one, the golden age of animators, we say that.

- It's interesting hearing an actual opinion from an actual animator. 'Cause whenever we think of like, oh, what do we think is the best animated whatever of anime of all time? Like most people would say like "Redline" probably. - I don't use it. - The one that comes to my mind. - Definitely. - Do you think that, what's your opinion about like older anime versus like newer digitized anime? - Oh yeah.

Well, digital animation, you can get quicker because we can work at your place and send by mail all the data. It's not paper, you don't have to scan it. But the problem of the animation industry, most of it, like I said, the second animation director, most of them are on paper.

Because they've been in the industry for so long. Yeah, so long. And they would like to learn some digital animation, but they don't have the time of...

- Yeah, well, they don't care anyway. - They just keep papers. - I work 10 years and will die so. - I'll die doing animation on paper. - I learned animation on paper, I will die doing animation on paper. - Some of my senpai have tried to learn digital animation but he was too much stressed that he have a

- Pain on stomach and had to go to hospital. - Oh no. - God. - It's horrible, but I have to love that. - So yes,

- So me, I'm doing digital. And so I'm doing my layout in digital. But if the second have to check it, put correction, they have to print it. So they'll put correction, but me, I'm doing-- - And then fax it back to you, right? - Yeah, yeah. So I just scan it. - Oh my God. - That was a joke, right? - That was a joke. - Oh my God.

I was joking. Oh, God. Because they have, okay, the correction is on paper. No, no, the fax, sorry, but they have to print it. They scan it. They scan it to send it back via data and for me to do it digitally. So, yeah, so...

I think now most of the in-bushes are digital, but it depends. So digital and paper are a bit... In fact, the veterans, the good animators are still on paper. Nowadays, some young are more on digital. But the problem is software. You have to pay it. And...

Most of the software are expensive. Yeah, especially commercial licenses are very expensive. And also, you know how much animators are paid. So they can... There is good software like TVPaint, but too expensive. Yeah. So, yeah, so...

I can't believe the software is like too expensive for the people who are gonna use the software for what it was designed to do. - It's like, sorry man, we wanna pay you more, but Photoshop is like 60 bucks a month. - So a lot of now young animators are working on Blender.

because Blender is free. - Yeah. - It's free and you can do 3D and 2D animation at the same time. - I thought that was just a meme. So people in the anime industry are actually using Blender? - Some of them, not everybody, but-

- I guess the meme had to come from somewhere. - 'Cause it's like a meme now, whenever we see something bad that is like, oh, this looks like it was animated in Blender. I didn't think it was any reality to that. - Shit. Slowly closes Blender.

- So yeah, in fact, the soft doesn't, it doesn't a big point. If you put it as a, still on like a paper, because the correction will be on paper or on digital. But if, because if it's on JPEG, every soft can open a JPEG. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah. - I'm curious, being an animator, 'cause like we do, we do animate videos on YouTube and talk about anime.

As someone who watches anime as a job, I cannot like, I still enjoy anime, but I can't enjoy anime the same way I used to as a kid. As someone who actually works on anime, has it changed your view of anime at all and how you watch it and everything like that? Actually, for some of my friends nowadays watch less and less animation and they are more critics.

- Right, right, right. - That does tend to happen. - I can't imagine an animator casually sitting down to watch an anime. - I can't wait for my favorite season of "Seven Deadly Sins." - What did you think about that? - Sorry, I just watched the first season, so. - Okay, okay. - Oh, have you seen pictures of season three? - I seen on Twitter, yeah. - Do I need to ask your opinion or is it obvious?

Yeah, I understand your feelings. I love memeing it. It's just like a disaster. Like, how did it happen? Like I said, maybe it was a gloss that they asked another studio, the studio had a time. Maybe they didn't have a second animation director. Like I said, if you have a good animation

Animation director, he can change everything. - It got fixed in the Blu-ray though, right? - Did it? I don't think so. - I think. - It must be redone from the ground up. - Yeah, yeah. - Like at what point do you just be like, "All right, just don't add this, don't add this, just redo it. Like just start over, please." Sorry, what were we saying? I got my interrupted, sorry. Oh, critics of the- - Critics. Yeah, but now when I watch anime, I look more about the technique,

how they made up and wow how did he do that like I do a frame by frame but also when you watch too much animation now you know the pattern okay the guy wanted to earn the isekai if you want to earn 2-3 isekai you know how it's

- I feel called out now. - Yeah, I guess for animators, it's just like watching anime is just like study material, isn't it? - Yeah, for most of the animators. Now, one of my senpai, he said, "I don't watch anime now. "I'm more watching live movies." And if I watch anime, I'm watching animation of Honda or Inoue-san. I think it's maybe the...

the best animators in Japan. - Right. - Kind of to see where the benchmark is. - Yeah, well, you know, Ehsan's nickname is the machine. - The machine.

- What has Inoue-san worked on? - Inoue-san, he's most of the directors of "Magnetic Rose." - Oh, okay. Basically like the VIP event. - Oh, okay. - Or you have Gengashu. Gengashu, do you know what is Gengashu? Gengashu, the key pose is a shura of a...

- It's like an archive. - Oh, right, right. - Artbook, yes, it's an artbook of keyframes. And a lot of, when it's in OSN, every animator's buying it because it's in OSN. He's the man of animation. - Wow, that's so cool.

So you have some animators who are very, very talented and they are like Sushi Osan of Trigger, Nakamura Yataka of Bones. Those names are very... They have put their touch in animation industry that now...

- It's like the kind of animators where like, even if you're not exactly like a Sakuya Tad, you can just be like, that's a Sushio. - Yeah. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Nowadays Nakamura, it's very famous in young animators. So Nakamura's using a lot of

Impact frames. - Yeah. I did notice that there's a lot of more impact frames. Like impact frames is, you know, in the fight scene where it has like the kind of negative of the image where it's like, you have the fight animation and then sometimes it would just like go into like the black and white negative of it for like a few frames. That's, I'm pretty sure he started that trend, right? - Yeah, yeah. I think he was one of the first and he's very famous because of his Yutapon.

And it's a debris with a cube form. Yeah.

- You've definitely seen some of his fights. He did a lot of like the My Hero Academia fights. - Every shot of you say on My Hero Academia, holy shit, it's him. - Oh, okay. - It's like when- - Todoroki versus Bakugou fight. - Yeah, like when the ground explodes, then it's like blocks of ground. - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. - Like that. - That's cool. - When it explodes, it's like square blocks. - And he's now very famous because he puts his touch. And so most of every young animators,

imitate him, learn from his animation. - That's crazy. - Yeah. - I guess like, you know, you probably plan to do like more stuff, right? But like, I guess like what's like one anime that you've looked at or like one creator that you looked at and being like, I wish I worked on that. Is that like an anime where you just like the animation, like all the story was just like so cool and you think like, man, I wish I had like worked on that. - I don't know if, in fact it's difficult to put just one. - Right. - But,

for example i would like if i had the occasion i would like to work but now it's finished but the last evangelion film i would like to work on it oh yeah but um uh yeah it's a in fact there is a it depends also of my schedule if it's possible if i if i have the level or not because i if for evangelion i think they are only just uh

- Very, very. - Very few animate. - I'm saying the most strongest animators in Japan. - Okay, okay. - Because it's Evangelion, the director is Anno Hidem. So I think most of his Inoue, Honda-san was working on that. - Does it hurt when you have to deny like a job that you really wanted to do because of your schedule? - Yes, yes. I have so much denied some good stuff, still don't announce. - Yeah, okay. - I want to work.

And so I send them in. Oh,

- I'll draw one frame. - Sometimes, oh, fuck my life. I want to draw it. But yeah, I also have a girlfriend, but so if I have to, like I said, it's a good balance you have to find with your privacy, your work, doing some sports. - Just like I'll see you in two months, girlfriend. - Because some animators have worked too much and they was married,

divorce because yeah so yeah and they send me don't mess like me i'm sorry i'm sorry honey i'm married to my hero academia thank you very much is there any ips you still want to work on that you haven't oh yeah quite a lot of i would like to actually my uh part six of jojo is my prefer i like jolene oh yeah of course and let's go i would like to work on chin someone or so right

Like I said, I like a pretty much jump so that's the shonen stuff. Yeah stuff I like but one of those fans But I remember mind is not also the big IP or so it's a walk or so if it's good senpai, right? Yeah, because actually I'm walking the movie and I've learned so much and it's not an it's Yeah

- Amazing. - It's an amazing experience. - And the way you can learn every day, that's cool. Or something, man, I don't understand this one. - I'll show you. - Show you and-- - That's so cool.

It sounds like every animator is constantly just learning and training themselves. Of course, we want to improve. We want to push our limits. But sometimes you have a war and you have to pass it. But I think...

- This sounds like a shonen anime in itself. - The office is blasting the, you say run. - Every animator is in a training arc. - You gotta push past your limits. - Yes, it's a bit like that. - Carpal tunnel nonsense, push past it. - But the only thing that you are sitting,

- It's just a roadblock. - You can get over it. - So that's why sometimes I saw you listening some music or listening some podcasts of your guys. - Oh wow. - You have your own podcast, don't you? - Yes.

uh anime was a mistake uh anime was a mistake why did we call our podcast i don't know because we're not an anime podcast showy that's why trash taste what do you mean uh so uh it's with media we shall we and uh yan lagal oh sorry french people we talking about our experience of animation industry uh the good the bad and

and how to don't redo our mistakes. And yes, and sorry, it's in French. - So any of the French Trash Taste viewers, you can go and listen to that. - Links in the description. - No doubt it'll be filled with information. - There is quite also a English podcast of animation, like Dark Studio, Yen Yen by STTBM on Tonali animation, all in English.

- I think for people who cannot understand English for French people, it was good to do French. - Yeah, exactly. - And you have a Twitter, right? - Twitter, Instagram also. - And that'll be all on screen right now and links in the description. So please go and follow Ken. - Yeah. - Yes. - Please, please. - What are you doing already? - Come on, look at what he's done. You deserve the clout, man. - He definitely does. You know who else deserves the clout? Our patrons.

- Look at these lovely patrons. - Shout out to those guys. - If you like to support the show, then make sure to go over to our Patreon, patreon.com/trashtaste. Also follow us on Twitter as well. - Yes. - And the subreddit. And if you wanna listen to us on- - We've just hit 100K on our subreddit. - Yeah. - Did we mention that last time? - I don't know. I don't think we did. - I don't think we did. - Yeah, so thanks to all the people on the Reddit and also make sure to listen to us on Spotify if you don't wanna see our faces.

- And Trash Taste episodes will have subtitles or captions. So if you do want to listen to them, they'll have them. So just click on the CC button if you're interested. Probably should have said that at the start of the episode. - Yeah, right? - But from now on, you know. - Yeah, now you know. - And thank you very much for coming on again. - Thank you, Trish and Mitt. - This has been the most educational- - Probably the most educational episode we've had. It feels nice just to not have three buffoons arguing over- - We're like, "Yeah, I think this is what happens in the anime."

check it up. She knows everything. I'm happy to, if I could, uh,

I don't know if it's teaching you, but a lot of more. I feel like I've learned. I have some information about the backstage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One episode, it's a lot of work, a lot of people who work on it and sleepless night and overworks, but for quality and doing, everybody are doing their best. I mean, the work speaks for itself, right? Give love to the animators. That's the bottom line, basically. And anyway, that's been this episode of Trash Taste. Hope you guys enjoyed it and we will see you

- Next time. - I was like stumbling there.