Then we get to Episode 5 with the Enkidu and Gilgamesh fight. Goshozono makes another appearance modifying his effects again but you can see him doing more with frame modulation, and irregular timing

Then we get Ken Yamamoto aka Leaf, one of the other star action animators within Go and Oshima’s neck of the woods. Much like Goshozono, Leaf is hard to pin down but he leans more into a limited frame rate approach which is especially impressive given the scope of the storyboards.

Massive amounts of effort has to be heaped on to the prop animation, and solid integration of cg assets.

Episode 7 and 8 were the main episodes where Oshima was credited as Action Animation Director. 7 isn’t too busy, but his AD is especially noticeable in animator China’s scene (someone who isn’t known for battle or effects sakuga at all)

Episode 8 has Oshima in the storyboarding and AD positions as this effectively marks his debut as a big director of spectacle, much like Go or Enokido and Sakazume. While this episode has the unfortunate side effect of the main villain in the battle being mostly CGI, Oshima is able to work around the limitations with some of the best animators he knows. Kouno works on guiding the animation as the CAD for the episode with Kiyoshi Komatsubara and and series regular Taishi Kawakami serving as sub AD’s.

The episode opens with the introduction of the giant snake deity Tiamat and the main heroes attempting her defeat. Takahiro Watabe and Kiyomaro Miyazawa
show off her initial attacks, and then all of a sudden a boisterous Kai Ikarashi comes out of nowhere

Despite being a 9 second scene he really nails Ushiwakamaru’s appearance. Big wide distorted perspectives, and huge warped mecha like effects. Jin Oyama (someone very involved at CloverWorks) takes up the proceeding scenes with Ushiwakamaru.
Miyajima then takes up the quick cuts of Ushiwakamaru evading Tiamat’s beam attacks.
Kerorira and a few unknown animators take up the final scenes of the two fighting in the city, I believe the last cut is extensively corrected by Oshima himself as action director. Oshima’s cross flares are all over this section

Coming into the battlefield portion, Yuusuke Yamamoto aka Nara animates Tiamat’s return. Nara is not known for being an effects animator, but Oshima does give him some leeway with brush stroke speed lines, and impact frames. The epic introduction of Leonidas is animated by Gen Asano, and you can see Asano’s Obari like mecha posing in his cuts. Leonidas struggles to hold up his shield against Tiamat with Takahashi and Yuusuke Adachi tanking the beams. The following scene is a last ditch effort from Leonidas to end the battle with star Pokemon animator Aito Ohashi delivering the blow.

Leonidas’s effort is in vain, and his fall to stone is animated by Korean animator Moaang

The battle is not over as Ushiwakamaru comes back from there near defeat, activating there noble phantasm in a scene co-animated by Tatsuya Miki and Yuki Yonemori

Ushiwakamaru’s attack on Tiamat is giant in scale, with Oshima assembling a non-stop sequence of animation talent.

Moaang opens with the initial rush with the copycats of Ushiwakamaru scaling the serpents.

Yuusuke Kawakami does a strange three dimensional cut with the copycats drawing their sword across the snake bodies.

Gosso changes things up with sharp geometric drawings of guts and blood flying everywhere. Kerorira follows up with more running and cross flare cuts, and Kosuke Kato comes in doing the only hand drawn cuts with his signature Kanada grunge

Then at the climax legendary experimentalist Hisashi Mori draws the explosion in his experimental off beat style (see in source link). Oshima’s full fledged debut as an director is serious stuff, and shows his growth as a leader and positive first time bout as a storyboard artist.

Fast forwarding to Episode 11, Leaf hijacks the show as an action director showing off his solo skills and his take on the action AD with the introduction of Quetzalcotl. The first scene of the episode shows Leaf’s epic flashback battle between Gilgamesh and Enkidu.

Once we get to the opening introduction of Quetzalcotl there is no boasting just straight forward dynamic fighting from Yamamoto and company .
Jaguar and Quetzalcotl’s stuff are honestly Shippuuden tier with a mixture of flow and Kanada style animation
(worth noting the insane amounts of finishing 2nd KA needed for Quetzalcoatl).
When the gang takes her on Leaf goes all the way with every trick he can giving the animation as much weight and power as he can.

The layouts of his animation this episode show how much effort goes into the layout stages.

Moving to Episode 14, while it is personal speculation if Oshima was involved this episode the appearance of animators like Kouta Mori, Orange, Shouta Sannomiya, and Vincent Chansard say otherwise.

Episode 16 is another episode where Oshima’s involvement is questionable, but apparent given the freelance names and co relations with episode director Ryu Nakayama. TMD Mizozune do some early flying cuts, and then with the return of evil Ushiwakamaru animator Hero does some exceptional swordplay animation

Again these are very detailed designs with an ornamental attire, to draw this is quite the feat. Nakayama’s direction demands a hybridized use of flow animation through weighty animation on 2s and 3s and this is very noticeable through Goshozono and Yen BM or Chris’s scene.

Episode 18 Oshima only draws on some minor 2nd KA, but was instrumental in the recruiting of Nakaya Onsen as episode director and storyboard artist.
This episode depicts the closing moments of the show with the battle against Tiamat.
While this episode may not be as flashy as Apocrypha 22 or Mob S2 E5 Onsen gives Hakuyu Go a run for his money with his sense of scale. Masami Mori and Naoya Takahashi open the episode with some remarkable character acting scenes. Then the main battle begins! Close friend of Onsen, Miso handles the opening skirmishes alongside Miyajima.

Once Ushiwakamaru enters the fray the animation becomes massive with Onsen’s signature close up shots coming into focus and animators like Kazuto Arai and Weilin Zhang making appearances. Quetzalcoatl’s noble phantasm shows all the limiters taken off the animators with two of the biggest sluggers in the industry Toshiyuki Sato and Hironori Tanaka
assisting on her attack.

sick pencil drawings from Tanaka

The final episodes of the series contain some supplemental but not essential animation. Leaf’s scenes in Episode 20 are great though. and Gilgamesh’s showcase by lead Fire Force animator Kazuhiro Miwa is fantastic.

By the end of the series Oshima had probably felt some burnout with animation, and would go on to lend his hand onto smaller projects, but not without a big shift in a new direction. At this point Oshima would join a new studio as an in-house animator that being Enishiya. Enishiya was founded by Shunsuke Hosoi in 2018 and grew a repetoire of mainly commercials and music videos brought fourth by producer Kei Ikarashi with Raison d’être

being an early example of Igarashi’s talent management.

It would just get better from there, moving on to a Rie Matsumoto commercial, and the China directed Just Call it Love video. While it’s not exactly clear to me if this was a Enishiya project or not Oshima’s first acquaintance with director Hiroaki Arai dates back to 2021 on the Selection Project ED so we can place a mutual friendship with the company here

Oshima likely did character drawings, or water animation

Oshima’s first fully official crack with Enishiya came with a short film titled Massara in late 2021 directed by ex-Kyoto Animation wunderkind Keita Nagahara, With the support of a title track by Kiyoe Yoshioka Massara is a great short tale about identity and connection through music.

Oshima 0:57-59, 3:42-3:44
Oshima had fairly minor role in this production only lending his design hand to the little Gengar-like avatar creature, and animating its scenes

In February 2022, Oshima would briefly appear on another CloverWorks anime spearheaded by Miyuki Kuroki (co director of Babylonia) with Kouno on character designs with Akebi’s Sailor Uniform

Oshima would appear on the Moaang directed Episode 7, a masterclass episode in character acting with animator Myoun doing some of his best work and animating nearly the entire episode. When it comes to the auxiliary animators Kerorira, Yuki Yonemori, Hokuto Sakamoto, Maring Song, and others all do wonderful work too. This would be the first time Oshima would make an acquaintance experimental animator Ren Onodera an animator who uses extensive cgi reference and tracing to give his scenes a heightened feel. You can’t really get more heightened though with Oshima who animates the piano led revelation scene.

Oshima has Akebi floating within her own little world and the background animation combined with the slow calming atmosphere makes for one of his best scenes. He still is able to retain some of his traits with splattering light flares

you can see the piano base picture for the genga here. Given his new tenure with Enishiya, Oshima went credited under a pen name for the episode.

Later in March, Ranking of Kings Episode 21 marked another sakuga epic in the late 10s early 20s with director Gosso going the full lengths in the final battle between Bojii and his father. I highly prescribe anyone who watches this clip to perhaps watch the entire show as it makes the entire scene worth it more. While the scene is entirely metaphorical Bojii’s ascent across his titan sized father is epic, and the tiny star shapes give a needed heroic feeling to the scene.

Phenomenal background animation, and perspective shifts.

In the summer that year Oshima did another CM for Enishiya for Teikyo Heisei University after doing one back in 2021. This is an interesting case of the same commercial being the same just having different genders and professions representing both.

Oshima does pretty much the same cut with the girl in the ad and the boy

After doing minor work on Summertime Rendering Oshima came on to Enishiya’s first tv produced episode with Do it Yourself Episode 5 directed and boarded by close friend Eri Irei.

The episode is filled with nice little character acting moments with talent like Takashi Kojima and Hokuto Sakamoto making appearances. The sudden burst of exciting animation comes from Oshima doing fun roof running cuts, he also draws a tree.

Coming in around the same time of that episode Oshima lended his hand to a Overwatch 2 commercial called Protector, where it is presumed that he drew the Tracer scenes.

Hiroaki Arai direction, Takashi Kojima CD, overall nice.

Its now 2023 and with a better production schedule handed out to him thanks to his full time dedication to Enishiya he got some spare time to work with others when he could.

One main partnership that had been ongoing was his connections through Shun Enokido and Takahito Sakazume, almost any very talented animator in Japan with the right connections in the outsource fields will be a phone call away from the duo. There directorial debut on Fate/Strange Fake - Whispers of the Dawn brought forth a small but talented cadre of animators, but Oshima’s scene has gone unrecognized. I am fully confident he comes in with Gilgamesh’s scene near the end

Enishiya wouldn’t go unchecked in 2023, as they provided outsource animation for Episode 14 of Frieren Beyond Journey’s End

Given the already unreal production of this show with Keiichiro Saito at the helm and the one two punch of husband wife duo Toru Iwazawa and Reiko Nagasawa as animation directors, having a rising prestigious outsourcing company be on one episode is just overkill. With the episode directed and storyboarded by Shinya Iino, and AD by Hiroaki Arai this was another competent Enishiya affair with more star power to boot. The episode itself is one of the more slice of life affairs, not doing anything crazy, but keeping up the quality of advanced character animation and warm magical charm it delivers on. Some early scenes are effective with some of the flashback scenes to Heiter are especially fun. Watabe, Irei, and Onodera all do standout scenes, but the only actual bout of action is when an avian monster abducts the crew. Before the monster can slam the group into the ground Frieren quickly decapitates the creature with the carriage then falling to the ground. Of course the only instance of action is animated by Oshima.

After doing brief KA on the Undead Unluck OP and Go’s Episode 17 of JJK , Oshima did another collab with Enishiya in early 2024 on Dungeon Meshi Episode 6

Given his semi relevant connections to Trigger through Kai Ikarashi from Gridman it was nice to see him return to another Trigger property this time as an animation director. Episode 6 was an interesting case for Enishiya as it would be a split duty, between to AD’s. Nagahara would handle AD for the first half and act as ED, while Oshima took on the second half. Nagahara’s first half was almost entirely animated by him and Arai. Nagahara is an insanely good character animator and the cuts of Laios horking down food are hilarious.

Once we get into Chilchuck’s chest robbing shenanigans Oshima takes over. The first animator to show up in this section is Hiroaki Nakamichi. First joining the Enishiya crew back on the Celestial MV, and a star action animator from Tatsuya Yoshihara’s Black Clover team, Nakamichi does a goofy compilation of Chilchuck succumbing to multiple chest traps from his past. Oshima then handles some character acting of the gang immediately after. From there two young Enishiya recruits help out with Chieh Huang and Yukiya Ataka leaving the sleeping chambers. Oshima’s friend from the Beyblade series Shunichiro Taniguchi animates Chilchuck deliberating on how to escape after a barred door closed on him. Ex Wit animator Hayato Torii then draws the scene revealing Chilchuck accidentally sat on not a chest, but a Mimic. Chilchuck accidentally hits another hidden button in the walls, and a spiked trap throws him and the creature into the air. It’s not over yet as the creature attacks with vicious cartoony brush strokes by prime neo Kanada animator Takeshi Maenami. Kaito Tomioka and Malaysian animator Meka Aoratos or Haoran Zhu animate the scene of Chilchuck fleeing the mimic and getting it stunned from a trap. Another neo Kanada animator Yooto then draws the proceeding scenes of Chilchuck figuring out the rune texts on the small bug coins
Ren Onodera then takes up a big scene of the mimic nearly getting Chilchuck

His 3D integration is pretty phenomenal. Nakamichi animates the climax scene of the dungeon cell door impaling the mimic. Like most Dungeon Meshi episodes the crew ends up eating the mystical creature they best and from here on out it’s cooking sakuga. Irei opens the scene with Senshi prepping the lobster like Mimic. Another Beyblade friend Hanako Ueda animates a goofy scene of [the characters forcing Chilchuck to give up his key picking tools to eat the lobster meat, and him being less than excited about it.
Ren Onodera again does another well integrated cg cut with the lobster meat lol

Chilchuck tries the meat and he likes it. Maenami returns with an expressive expository cut of why the treasure bugs are the way they are. Odashi one of the most expressive freelance animators then does the final goofs at the very end of the episode which are great. This is easily one of the better episodes of the series, and the triple attack of Nagahara, Arai, and Oshima is quite something and proves they can handle a large team.

Out of nowhere, Oshima directs the ED to Kaiju No. 8 making his first ever mark in this position.

Oshima 0:11-0:14
While mostly consisting of still frames Oshima is still committed to the drawing power, with Eri Taguchi providing AD.

We then return to more freelance Oshima working on Leaf’s movie feature length debut on
Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era

I cannot in good conscious talk about this movie too much, as I have yet to experience it and understand how Leaf transcends the commonality of animation, and goes above and beyond in every conceivable way as a director. Won’t say much, but Oshima comes in the climactic finale as the two leads characters sprint towards there hopes and dreams. Oshima only fulfills a small ten second portion, but its just as relevant as the surrounding moments by Enokido, Sakazume, Sato, Odashi, and others.

Summer of 2024, Enishiya offered another music video with Page of Lambda directed by Riki Matsura

An ex Bones and Shaft animator and one of the main animators for Fire Force, Matsura had first worked with Enishiya on the Massara MV and made acquaintance with Oshima previously on Babylonia and as a director on the Undead Unluck OP. This was Matsura’s first time as a character designer for this spinoff of a web ONA called Snack Time. Many of the best names in the industry end up in this video with Chainsaw Man staff like Kazutaka Sugiyama showing up, Fire Force animators like Hiroaki Otsujii, and Oshima’s endless resource of friends all contribute. It’s easily equivalent to Enokido and Sakazume’s Fate commercials with the sheer amount of talent in this one short form video.

2025, its a new year and Enishiya was ready to make their statement with their debut Takopii’s Original Sin

OP Dir: Ren Onodera, AD: Weilin Zhang
One of the finest animated shows of 2025 it is no surprise Enishiya would not make something short of stunning, emotional, and so resonate in an age where communication is so easy yet harder than ever. This show had been in the works since Taizan 5’s original manga serialization ended, and Kei Igarashi made the call with a lot of planning and a two year production cycle in a mini series format. While the process of the show wasn’t all rosy and perfect, director Shinya Iino and the Enishiya crew knocked it out the park. The crew of this show is an all star cast which is no surprise at this point. Nagahara comes in as CD and CAD, with two young animators 10+10 and Ann Nakai on prop design. 10+10 along with Azuma (co-designer from Koudai Watanabe’s camp) took up the mysterious title of 2D works, which is just basically assigning how the designs, characters, should look. Close companion of Rie Matsumoto, Yuki Akimoto is the color designer and is one of the best in the industry, then paired with ex Kyo-Ani art designer Sagako Itakura it’s magical. Then you have the cherry on top Oshima himself. Given the show’s short run, Oshima assembled an elite team of AD’s with Hiroaki Arai, Hayate Nakamura, Moaang, and many more lending their high end draftsmanship.