From this point on Sunakohara would take long gaps between projects, perhaps due to the pressure to deliver, and his style not well acclimated for tv schedules. Following an underwhelming and unconventional Fate/Grand Order film titled Camelot - Wandering; Agateram, Kazuto Arai was tasked with his first full length feature length debut in Camelot; Paladin Agateram

This was a major undertaking for Arai and company, and is a pure capitulation of Arai learning from Go’s bombastic style and assembling one of the most talented teams in the anime industry. Many familiar names reappear again; Go, Miso, and any animator from the Go online circle makes a splash in this film. The most unique portion of this movie goes to Sunakohara, who was very deliberately selected. Sunakohara comes towards the middle of the film with Tristan fighting against the assassin class servants. This entire sequence was storyboarded and directed by Sunakohara, and almost a full solo KA effort if not for some additional help by Keigo Arihara and an uncredited animator in a battle segment.

The scene opens up fairly strong with Tristan attacking the main trio of Bedivere, Ritsuka, and Mash . One thing noticeable here is Sunakohara greatly simplifying the character designs, likely for quick patch jobs as a way to focus more so on effects.

Many characteristics of Sunakohara are present here, with dissolving debris, to detailed contrails of particles that aren’t dense enough to be full smoke clouds.

One thing Sunakohara neatly takes into account is the environment. The Holy City’s main hall contains a sky terrace with massive windows, and a brittle structure. Sunakohara takes that into account by giving the debris a lighter feel making the combatants able to destroy the building with ease. You can see Sunakohara draw some exterior shots of cliff sides, and rock formations as the city begins to topple in different directions. This makes the clarity of the fight a tad difficult to comprehend.

The assassins get into the mix of the fight, and Tristan begins to struggle a bit after they start employing multiple tactics to best him. He is nearly poisoned, and impaled by a portion of the grand hall barely making it out alive.

Quite fond of this rock explosion with hundreds of flares

We then get the first full on combat fight scene animated by an unknown.

The nearly 50 second scene is hard to presume, but the sparks are reminiscent of Naoki Miyajima. The resulting scene is the bulky male assassin getting the better of Tristan by infecting him. The animation here is delectable, with Sunakohara and Arihara animating dozens of bulging veins, and mutating muscles with clinical precision.

The sequence ends with a bruised and defeated Tristan succumbing to the infection staring out the building while another battle rages on.

This whole sequence was a solid start for Sunakohara taking up a storyboard and directing risk. While I do not think the orientation of the character’s surroundings are properly communicated, the ambition of the scene more than makes up for it.

After a 2 year hiatus, Sunakohara wouldn’t properly return to an anime if it was going to be something special. By this point Sunakohara is essentially at the whim of huge projects either by Arai, or Go and is it turns out the three were ready to strike on Jujutsu Kaisen S2 directing critical moments of the Shibuya Arc.

Shibuya was already a massive exercise in Mappa’s miscellaneous production schedules come to a head, but thanks to the coordination of series director Shota Goshozono or Gosso things began to flow a tad bit more smoothly, however it was stressful for anyone involved. On Episode 13 we get a joint directorial outing with both Arai and Sunakohara directing Yuji vs Choso. While their episode proceeded Miso’s 16, and Go’s 17 the two realized they had to up the stakes in the resulting battle as both knew what was coming. Arai was responsible for the first half of the fight in the train station, while Sunakohara took the mantle of the washroom skirmish.
One element very key on this episode is the use of rim shading on the characters. For Arai’s section the number of multi colored neon advertisements gives the scene a well realized feel.

Once we get to Sunakohara’s section the rim highlights are simplified to shades of red or teal. That element is impressive in of itself, but also has an intentionality to it. Whenever one character is on the backfoot they face the blue light vs when another is on the attack they are usually shaded in red (all true with the exception of one scene).


Sunakohara personally did rough genga and layouts for the entire sequence. His biggest contribution is animating the water from the sprinklers, which again goes to show how carefully considered the whole scene is. For key animators most of the sequence is reliant on a handful of outsourced talent. Juny opens the scene with Choso ambushed in the washroom. The proceeding brawl with Choso taking out a toilet and Yuji flailing back is all modestly executed (with some minor compositing errors like the lower half of Yuji’s body completely distorted in one cut).

2nd Neo Gen Kanada animator Kosuke Kato then handles a small scuffle. One thing extremely impressive about his animation is how he adds a semi squash and stretch feeling to his motion, and elongates the characters designs. Big torsos, wide arms, its all great stuff. The subdued portion of the fight comes immediately after, with Yosuke Yajima adding minor corrections to character beauty shots.

Vann Oba works in the proceeding cut with Yuji pinned down. The flow and timing of this cut is pretty remarkable, with the anticipation before Yuji kicks Choso through the stalls feeling grounded and impactful.

The final portions are the most dense, and rich moments of the fight with three Chinese animators on display here. First we get Yewu Zhong aka Nothing Yukun. For an animator who lives a double life as a guitarist the rhythm of his cuts are of course perfect. There’s a quick stop and start methods of 1s and 2s, with 3s for slower motion. Also the density of liquid effects is insane when combined with thick smears. Fei Hung then handles a few cuts of Yuji trying to evade Choso’s punches, then the bit closes with Haojun Zhou showcasing a failed body toss by Yuji. In the rough layouts you can really see how Yajima’s presence helped shaped the scene as the designs in the materials are quite different.

Vann Oba and Hoodieboi then animate Choso kicked from a stall.

Juny then animates the last stand punch by Yuji, with Doctorbean lending his hand in the Choso cuts. Once again Yajima’s character art really lends itself to the scene when you compare it Juny’s original.

The final cut of the episode is this bizarre cut of Choso tripping out. Originally the rim lights in the scene were one solid color, and in the blu-ray they were corrected to be constantly changing.

This scene is interspersed with strange dream segments from Choso. They weren’t included in the booru posts, however the strange picnic shot in this concept art by Hiro Nagasuna give you an idea

This whole scenario was pretty new for Sunakohara. Working with new animators and not exactly friendly schedule, he still manages to persevere. The spectral flavor of Sunakohara’s own key animation is missing here, but it is all in favor of trying out something new.

Moving four episodes down the line we get to Hakuyu Go and Weilin Zhang’s overtly bombastic and nightmare production that is Episode 17. Perhaps the roughest of any of Go’s directorial outings this entire episode featured a whopping 60+ key animators. Given the scale of the chapters they were covering its no surprise Go’s efforts got the better of him. Basically anyone affiliated with Go, or on the main staff for Mappa were here in this episode making for a mini industry wide disaster flick. All key animators in the episode are only delegated to a handful of cuts barring Vincent Chansard who’s voice certainly feels the loudest.
Nearing the end of the fight Sunakohara assists with the city wide destruction, lending his signature multiples of cross flares in a few cuts. The most noticeable part with him comes with Sukuna seemingly disintegrating Mahoraga, a scene that’s a relay race between Go, Sunakohara, Arai, and Kaito Tomioka

Arai’s cut is quite notable as he animates the little dust sprites Sunakohara often favored (wondering if he did 2nd ka). Sunakohara then animates a brief shot during Mahoraga’s reforming scene with a god’s eye shot that is almost identical to one of his scenes from the Mob vs Mogami fight.

The Mahoraga vs Sukuna fight was the last time Sunakohara has appeared on a tv anime. Whether or not he has a big sequence with Go, Arai, Miso or anyone in his tight nit circle is anyone’s guess. A very mysterious animator.

Takumi Sunakohara might be a lesser known animator from the outside in, and isn’t as well known as his industry counterpart Kazuto Arai, but stands out greatly in a sea of mediocre action animators. While making a name as an effects artist it is rare to see someone this idiosyncratic in the industry. I only hope Sunakohara can see future success with Arai, or solo as their output is something anime needs.

@lilkuya we back?

sounds like it’s time to watch run with the wind..

Im a bit late but hyakuemu is a masterpiece, thoroughly impressed in every aspect, truly a work of passion, about passion. Gonna watch it again and offer more thoughts

This guy is a real fan of anime

Gotta be a real pervert to be an Umetsu fan

MHA Vigilantes is odd because there are some eps that are really good but some are just so boring

It’s probably just that I don’t care for the MC but I do like the masked guy, I actually wish he was more involved his storyline in S1 was the best.

Weeaboo pilgrimage

@Nil look what they did to out manga bru 😭