Thread by @SakugaLad, [Thread] - Keiichi Ichikawa: The pathway towards a new modern One Piece [...]

[Thread] - Keiichi Ichikawa: The pathway towards a new modern One Piece anime.

Today I'd like to dedicate a thread to one of the major players behind the turning point of the modern One Piece anime aesthetic, and that is chief animation supervisor Keiichi Ichikawa.

Before we get started, I'd like to go over a little bit of history in order to contextualize certain elements as well as to understand how we got here.

Simply put, the job of an animation director is to ensure a stylistic consistency on a specific episode by correcting the work of all of the different animators working on it. They're also responsible of fixing possible art/animation mistakes on an episode.

On One Piece, there are many different animation directors who work/worked on it, considering the longevity of the show.
I'd like to go over some of the most stand-out AD's who occupied this position on the show in the past.

Eisaku Inoue.

His art-style is really round and polished. He was known to be very faithful to Eiichiro Oda's style at the time, which made him stand out compared to his peers and he became really popular among some of the most hardcore fans.

Inoue eventually stopped doing AD work on the show around the beginning of the Fishmen Island arc and then came back to the AD position during the Whole Cake Island arc and has been consistently supervising in tandem with Hirotaka Ito, another animation director, until this day.

Naoki Tate.

His style really stands out by its incredibly loose and soft nature. Tate's also a very proficient action animator. His looseness applies likewise to his animation, which is widely known for its distinct fluidity. However his style is not to everyone's taste.

However, Tate stopped being a regular AD starting from the very beginning of the Marineford arc and has completely left the TV series ever since the Fishmen Island arc.

Katsumi Ishizuka.

His style is incredibly ferocious, visceral and often times highly expressionistic. He's was also popular for being one of the strongest action animators on the show.

During the beginning of the Punk Hazard ark, Ishizuka has stepped down from the animation director role, left the series for a while, has returned during the WCI arc and has been focusing on action key animation while simultaneously increasing his skills x100!

During a period of time after those 3 left the AD position, there wasn't really a notable AD that really stood out among the others and this was one of the many reasons why there was so much discontent with how the post-TS One Piece anime looked at that time within the fandom.

Shuichi Ito came close to becoming a favorite thanks to his elegant and consistently polished art-style. But unfortunately it wasn't anything really out of the ordinary and fell a little short.

Another strong condender was Studio Guts animation director Yusuke Isouchi, who beared a really soft, lovely and endearing style.

But unfortunately his issues with ehh body proportions on female characters were heavily disliked and he quickly fell out of favor.

He has fixed this issue to some degree nowadays.

As all hope for a golden standard for modern One Piece anime was lost, it all changed since the advent of this man during the Zou arc.

Enter Keiichi Ichikawa!

Ichikawa worked on various different shows before such as Kitaro, Toriko, Digimon etc. However, he's been especially attached to the St. Seiya franchise for a certain period of time. He was even character designer on one of the shows of the St. Seiya franchise for a while.

He's definitely no stranger to the One Piece series though! He's worked as a key animator on the TV series before, but went largely unnoticed.

He's also been the character designer and animation director on both TV specials Episode of Sabo and Heart of Gold. However, his style was hiding in plain sight because of the general quality of TV specials.

But then Keiichi Ichikawa did his animation director debut on the One Piece TV anime on episode 767 and oh my god, did it look superb! The character art was im-peccable al throughout the episode! We finally found someone who can make One Piece look very appealing in the anime!

At that time, his work was already mountains better compared to his fellow AD colleagues at that time. In terms of depth, polish and consistency, none of them were as proficient as Keiichi Ichikawa was.

Keeping him on the show is as no-brainer decision. His style was simply far too gorgeous to even consider letting him go. And sticking to the One Piece franchize he did. Starting from the Whole Cake Island arc, Keiichi Ichikawa was promoted to the chief animation director role!

A chief animation director (CAD) is responsible of maintaining a visual uniformity across every episode by correcting the most important parts of an episode to make sure that they look as good as possible in the final product.

Previously, that role was occupied by Kazuya Hisada, the character designer of the anime during that period of time. But because of busy he was with the highly demanding task of creating all of the huge amount of character sheets, he rarely had time to step in as a CAD.

On the WCI arc, Ichikawa corrections were present on almost every episode. It was impossible to miss! He did an tremendous job elevating the show's visual consistency to at that time unforeseen heights. Without Ichikawa the arc wouldn't have looked the same at all!

Unfortunately, pretty drawings can only bring you this far when it comes to movement. In fact, early WCI still suffered from lackluster animation due to various aggravating circumstances. Nice art alone isn't enough to fix a poorly animated scene.

But despite that, Keiichi Ichikawa's presence still had a massive impact on the show's visuals on the whole. Even some individual animation directors such as Masayuki Takagi as well as the aforementioned Shuichi Ito and Yusuke Isouchi took some cues from him.

Though I have to say that I'm not 100% confident when it comes to this observation. These could also be partially corrected shots by Ichikawa for what I know. This is mostly conjecture on my behalf.

Nowadays on the Wano arc, Keiichi Ichikawa is still going strong by providing corrections virtually every episode. This man's truly a beast!

Keiichi Ichikawa has softened his approach to how he draws characters a little bit in order to be more in line with the designs of show's current character designer, Midori Matsuda! But it's still Ichikawa through and through with almost no compromise!

In conclusion, Keiichi Ichikawa has had a huge impact on the show's visuals and is one of the foundations of the show's current aesthetic! Adding him as the show's chief animation supervisor has been one of the best decisions ever made for the anime.

[End]

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