Thread by @SakugaLad, [Thread] - Tu Yong-ce: The One Piece anime's most valuable player. A [...]

[Thread] - Tu Yong-ce: The One Piece anime's most valuable player.

A few years a go, the One Piece anime didn't have the best repuatation when it comes to art and animation, especially during the post-TS era, for various different reasons. Some of the criticism was fair and some of it, not so much.

But hey, I digress. Since around the WCI arc, the anime was on an upward trend animation-wise and since the start of the Wano arc, the series is being paraded around for its consistently exemplary animation in regards to a weekly long running series' standards.

Though, no other key animator has helped out shaping One Piece's animation into what it is today as much as the subject of my thread, that is action specialist and animator Tu Yong-ce.

Tu Yong-ce is a chinese animator who has been working in the animation industry for at least 4 years now. And for about a few years now, he's been closely affiliated to Toei Animation and has been consistently putting out work for them.

Dragon Ball Super is when he first caught the attention of many people. Tu's work on that show was generally quite well received and was definitely one of the Tournament of Power's strongest assets.

Tu Yong-ce also participated on the Pokemon series on numerous occasions, even during the time when he was busy at Toei Animation.

After he finished working on DBS, Tu Yong-ce was transfered to the One Piece animation team and while he started off on episode 832 only doing clean-up, but it was episode 841 where he made his debut doing a substantial sequence of key animation.

However, episode 857 is when Tu animated his first major sequence for the series. He was responsible for almost 95% of Luffy's gear 4 boundman fight against Katakuri. It is in this episode where Tu Yong-ce showcased probably his biggest feat as an animator. Speed.

Tu Yong-ce is an insanely fast animator. For this episode, he provided 138 cuts worth of layouts and key animation, he cleaned-up 73 of his own cuts and additionally helped out with 38 cuts of clean-up done by other animators who participated on that episode.

People don't realize how much of an insane amount of work this represents, considering the schedules of long runners. And the fact that it turned out so good perfectly showcases how much of a speed demon he is.

Fyi, cuts = amount of times the camera cuts from one scene to another =/= frames.

A landmark episode for Tu Yong-ce however was episode 870 of One Piece, which for me still stands tall as the best animated episode of the series as of today, on which he provided a lot of work despite having also done a very lenghty scene 3 episodes ago!

And on top of the quantity, Tu Yong-ce also has provided his best sequences of animation for the show on this episode without a doubt.

Man even today this scene here is still soo goood!

You thought that this specific bit with Luffy turning his arm into a golden cobra came from Naotoshi Shida? Well surprise surprise, it was actually Tu Yong-ce!

But then starts a new chapter for our chinese animator, in which he would eventually transform into an absolute never seen before powerhouse of an animator.

Enter Wano Kuni!

Tu Yong-ce would begin this new era of the anime by participating on many episodes with short intervals between them.

He managed to turn those less important fights into something pretty neat. Had that not been the case, all those different scenes would've been very likely handed to animators less talented than Tu and in results would've also very likely turned out much weaker than they are now.

However where Tu Yong-ce has outdone himself dramatically is on episode 915. This man has literally carried about 70% of the fight. He animated like 5 minutes worth of action animation. That is an insanely monstruous amount of drawings!

And in this same episode he also increased his animation skills tenfold. This guy is superhuman. I just can't process how it is possible for someone to put out such a mammoth of a work under intense time pressure while simultaneously providing consistent high quality.

Even if you absolutely disagree with how things unfolded in this episode, it would be foolish to not acknowledge Tu Yong-ce's enormous acievement on this episode. He deserves all of the praise in the world for pretty much carrying this episode's action scenes on his back.

Thanks to his efforts, Tu's efforts heavily contributed to turning episode 915, love it or hate it, into one of the best animated episodes of the series and I have to respect that big time!

Tu Yong-ce hasn't stopped challenging himself, as with episode 924, he made his first attempt at animating an entire episode all by himself, aka solo key animation.

While he entirely animated the 1st half of the episode by himself, Tu fell short of a couple of cuts in the 2nd half due to various different circumstances.

But regardless, this was another achievement trophy unlocked and went straingt into his infinite collection of Ws.

His superiors were without a doubt incredibly impressed by what he's capable of doing and with episode 946, Tu Yong-ce has ascended to another tier by being promoted to the position of animation director.

With his AD debut, we finally got the opportunity to have a better look at his art style. His drawings have a lot of personality. It's very sharp with some really clean linework and he does the show's character designs justice.

On top of supervising the animation of episode 946, Tu Yong-ce also animated the entire 2nd half of the episode all by himself. At this point this mad man's just flexing.

Nowadays, Tu Yong-ce is continuing on the animation direction path and doesn't stop knocking it out of the park by breaking his own records. He's truly an unstoppable force.

His art style has become even more stylized and he's drawing outlines even thicker than before.
He's definitely the best current AD by an absolute landslide.

The reason why I made this thread about him is also because of episode 872, the hotly fight between Oden and Kaido that will come out shortly. This is Tu Yong-ce's big next episode as an animation director and key animator. He will most likely outdo himself once again.

He brought along some animator friends from China, something he's also been doing since the start of the Wano arc.

For some reason Tu Yong-ce isn't brought up by the larger One Piece fandom, which is a shame considering at that time people watching DBS were quite aware of him. People mostly talk about Shida or Ishizuka, but Tu Yong-ce 100% deserves recognition in the fandom as well.

To wrap things up, Tu Yong-ce is one of the most important additions to the One Piece anime. We wouldn't be where we are right now were it not for him. He's been imo the clear One Piece animator of the year 2019 and is continuing to be this series's most valuable player.

[End]

Latest Threads Unrolled: