Interest Stacks

A pilot to a larger show, fitting for the first thing from a director.

Adapted from a manga of the same name. This is where a lot of his style comes from as this movie experiments with tons of different animation styles, techniques, and even some live action incorporation.

Masaaki Yuasa’s first full length show, animated by Madbox. Yuasa leans into the sketchy expressive character designs of Mind Game as well as using photos predominantly to give the world texture.

He directed the sixth short film in this anthology called “Happy Machine”. Leans hard into a softer style that that is most like the next entry “Kaiba”.

For Kaiba the art style is softer much like Happy Machine but clearly takes after Astro Boy more. The backgrounds rely on muted colors and clay like texturing which gives the show a very unique look, arguably his most unique because he doesn’t reuse this are style later on.

The Tatami Galaxy is an adaptation of a book of the same name. Yusuke Nakamura was brought in for the character designs and I would argue this is where a lot of his later character designs for shows and movies came from as the characters still retain a softer look while still having a sketchiness. The backgrounds tend to follow Kemonozume with heavy use of photos and some live action videos.

The Tatami Galaxy’s DVD extras, just some short stories but it doesn’t have the photographic backgrounds of the main series. This is the last thing Yuasa directed at Madbox.

what the fuck even is this shit i can’t find it anywhere i think this was just a group hallucination the MAL mods had

Through Kickstarter Kick Heart started… then it stopped after a little bit because it’s a short film. Definitely Yuasa’s most vibrant work, takes most after Mind Game with the sketchy characters and abstract backgrounds.

Adapted from a manga called “Ping Pong” and animated by Tatsunoko Productions, this one is notable as his last work before co-founding Science Saru which has been the studio behind his works beyond this show. The characters are most reminiscent of Kemonozume with a sketchy look however it doesn’t incorporate photos and goes for a sketchy line art with watercolor look for the backgrounds.

An adaptation of a book of the same name by the author of Tatami Galaxy and shares quite a few characters. The characters are designed by the same person as Tatami Galaxy but unlike Tatami Galaxy this movie does not incorporate photos and has a more conventional look to backgrounds of most scenes though it does have more abstract and colorful segments.

Taking influence from Miyazaki and Takahata’s films Yuasa chose to make a children’s film in Lu Over the Wall. This is where Yuasa modern art style really cemented and while this movie’s backgrounds are very conventional the way the movie was animated was not as it was all done in Adobe Flash.

Devilman Crybaby is an adaptation of the classic and influential manga “Devilman” by Go Nagai, tweaking elements for a modern audience. Yuasa first work distributed by Netflix which became somewhat common for Science Saru’s output. this show bridges the gap between Yuasa’s modern style seen in Lu Over the Wall and the next film on this list “Ride Your Wave” with his earlier more abstract style, with some gory bits the appease the monkey brain.

Ride Your Wave as mentioned before is one of Yuasa’s more conventional works, specifically, it takes some traits from Makoto Shinkai’s recent movies like Your Name and Weathering With You. A lot of time and effort was spent evolving the water since Lu Over the Wall.

A spin-off of Crayon Shin-Chan, the anime that got Yuasa’s foot in the industry, Super Shiro acts as a kind of return to the past.

One of the many adaptations of the 1973 novel “Japan Sinks”. One of Yuasa conventional pieces which much like Devilman Crybaby shows some of Yuasa more abstract visuals occasionally along with being another Science Saru project distributed by Netflix.

Adapted from a Manga of the same name Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken takes after that manga in terms of art style with some of the usual Yuasa-isms.

Yuasa’s most out there looking project since Devilman, taking after his earlier sketchy anime and melding them with the rock opera music prominent in this movie.