Konosuba

Interview with Konosuba's anime character designer and 1 of the 2 animation directors Koichi Kikuta.

>He was the First Animator for Princess Lovers and some Working, and these two apparently influenced his decision to have use a minimalist + animating design for Konosuba.

>He was hired by Studio Deen to make another series, but that production was terminated. So Deen asked him to switch to his one.

>On first glance of LN illustrations, he exclaimed "this is way too cute. No way we can animate this." So he decides to concentrate on the animation part.

>The producer only rejected his proposal once and asked him to closer follow LN's designs. Koichi Kikuta made some minor changes to the design and handed the design back.

>The original author never once complained about the design.

>Even though he is the character designer, the other animation director Komatsu Momoka (even number episodes) actually followed his original design better than himself (odd number episodes). Most agrees that his original design and by extension Komatsu's episodes is better than his eventual episodes. He hangs his hat and apologizes for being too carefree.

>He spent _A LOT_ of time reframing the series. He redrew the entire after death scene and guild scene in episode 1.

>As the production moves on to latter episodes, he and Komatsu had less and less time going shot-by-shot (out of ~300 shots, they looked thru all 300 shots for 1st episode, 3rd for 190, 5th for 170, 7th for 140.)

>He put in 120% for episode 9. He personally modified every single shot from basic scene composition, frame, layout, to animation. Fan service gave him the all the motivation he needed.

>He designed all the succubus. No direction from the producer at all.

>He loves saggy breasts. He loved them so much that even though the original design did not contain them. He found himself drawing bigger and bigger breasts, so he subconsciously sag them to make the physics look right. He sort of regret doing this now.

>By his own choice he added a lot of saggy breasts bouncing to a lot of scenes. For example, the producer rejected his first layout for this scene and asked him to make her hair floats more. While doing that, Kikuta said 'why the hell not' and added in boob sagging. Since the frames have to be redrawn anyway, this addition costed the production nothing.

>He also added all the hands groping, sliding, touching, body swinging the the bar scene. He added so many animations that the production have to add more animation to other scenes in the episdoe as well to make everything uniform.

>Actually he takes special pride in some of the more realistic scenes in the anime (like this scene.) This sort of thing is rarely done in anime. But everyone only cares about saggy breasts *shrug*

>As for facial expressions, he received no direction from the producer. The producer let him decides whatever he wants for faces, only to intervene for a few scenes when things got out of hand. The producer's direction is the funny faces should mostly be done by Kazuma and Aqua; Megumin should be mostly 'calmly cute'.

>They did NOT drew this because they ran out of budget. The faces are in the original layout.

>Since the lines are very simple for this character design, he put in special effort for lighting. Things like gradient in clothing, color matching, contrast, eyes reflective, have a huge effect on the overall viewers preception.

>He has learnt his lesson. He originally thought S1 design was moe enough. But he was surprised to see that the fans instead thought the characters' personality was the cutest part. For S2, he will try to make the anime 'more moe' to prove he too can make a moe anime.

>These days, he does mostly OP/ED animation layouts

>Even though he is known for his dynamic scenes, he himself prefer static shots. When he does action scenes, he has to limit how many key frames he is allowed to use, and this bothers him a lot.

>He joined the industry after he watched FLCL.

>He likes doing layout more than animation. He doesn't think he is that good at drawing; whereas designing layouts give him much more satisfactions.
>As an animator, the creation process tends to be iterative, and gradually progresses to good. On the other hand, if he has good animators who understand his intentions, giving them both the layout and his intents often lead to great work in the first iteration. He loves it.

>It is very rare for a chief animation director to do everything like he did for episode 9.

>As mentioned, he designed all the succubi himself. He tried to make them both appeal to his taste. Originally he also wanted to make them more realisticly proportion, but after consideration, he decided to exaggerate their designs such as shrinking their shoulders length and wider pelvis (ie. bigger ass.)

>Kikuta belives the essence of animation is actually not character- it is composition. Before even starting, one should decide the camera position. After that, then one can follow up and decide how to make the characters and composition interesting.

>The character designs are hugely influenced by Shingo Suzuki and his works "K" and "Princess Lovers". One can see the influence with he uses shadows, eg. shadow under the nose

>He is the Secondary Animator for the bath scene in episode 9. He loves drawing nude bodies; he also thinks it's easier than drawing clothed bodies.

>Finally, for S1 he didn't want to just make a garden-variety Moe anime, so he put in a lot of effort into this. As mentioned before, he will make the series more Moe in S2.

>caterwauling imminent

>As mentioned before, he will make the series more Moe in S2.

Hm.

Sounds good. I fear newfags on Sup Forums (and the Konosuba fanbase is filled with them) is going to get triggered by it like a bunch of filthy SJWs rather than understand what it really means.

No, fuck him. Let the character's personalities shine through instead of trying to force it with off character art. Designs should complement the original intent instead of trying to take them over.

>>He loves saggy breasts
NOW THAT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING

>He loves saggy breasts. He loved them so much that even though the original design did not contain them. He found himself drawing bigger and bigger breasts, so he subconsciously sag them to make the physics look right. He sort of regret doing this now.
I liked the saggy breasts. Leave them in.

>He loves saggy breasts
a gentleman and a scholar

>designer gives these to DEEN
>DEEN outsources the actual drawing to chinese 4yo kids

Where does this information come from?

>>He loves saggy breasts. He loved them so much that even though the original design did not contain them. He found himself drawing bigger and bigger breasts, so he subconsciously sag them to make the physics look right.

Not MY person preference, but mad respect.

>He loves saggy breasts

And now S2 will look like utter shit.


Fuck him and his piece of shit art

>He loves saggy breasts. He loved them so much that even though the original design did not contain them. He found himself drawing bigger and bigger breasts, so he subconsciously sag them to make the physics look right.

>As mentioned before, he will make the series more Moe in S2.
You mean more like Chaika?

kys tripfag

Kill yourself Tripshit.

>kys
Fuck off and kill yourself cancerous crossboarder.

>>He loves saggy breasts. He loved them so much that even though the original design did not contain them. He found himself drawing bigger and bigger breasts, so he subconsciously sag them to make the physics look right. He sort of regret doing this now.
MYSTERY FUCKING SOLVED

...

>trying to turn a comedy, isekai-parody anime into fucking moeshit
Nothing good can come out of this
S1 was perfect. Why fix something that ain't broken?
Fucking Japs and their shit taste

>He loves saggy breasts

Man knew what he liked, and made it happen.

Yo

YO

Them Aqua legs and feet

If they ever give Megumeme saggy tits I swear to Aqua I'll remind Japan why two nukes weren't enough.

...

>>He loves saggy breasts.

> *screams adorably*

>he will try to make the anime 'more moe'
NO! Fucking Stop It! This is how a lot of series get ruined! Season 1 was fucking fine the way it was!

Meh, s1 already perfected the comedic timing, expressions, relations etc. All they have to do now is flesh out the setting and tell the story. The hardest part is not trying too hard.

How much moe is too much?

[FFF], is it too much to ask that your BD subs don't suck vomit?

>>As mentioned before, he will make the series more Moe in S2.
S2 RUINED, fucking retards, the designs for the characters were good, no need to change them.
This will be Haruhi S2, it will looks like shit.
S1>S2 already.

saggy shit, and this is why megumin is the best.

Will they be getting to meet Megumin's family in the second season?

This is the only acceptable moe.

3rd season unless they rush it

They're all sold out except for one which nobody cared to buy.

only if we get two cours

Go with Chihiro

...

Why do they all have these dumb names? They sound stupid!

It's their culture.

Ironically, Sup Forums is going to get more hung up over the "moe" than whether or not the direction, writing, and story is good.

>saggytitsfag is back
Fuck off

>S1 was perfect. Why fix something that ain't broken?

Too many fans (including Sup Forums) bitched about the character design.

>he loves saggy breasts

Ay ay ay.

But it was all great. I don't know what's there to bitch about.

Have we gotten an episode count yet?

>he didn't see the BD special alt scenes and character design

It'll probably be 10 episodes because of Kadokawa again.

>For S2, he will try to make the anime 'more moe' to prove he too can make a moe anime.
Sigh.

It's interesting because those animations made the anime like 20%-40% better when I actually look back, it's amazing that it's intended.

bah the he's doing both at the same time apparently

Culture. You wouldn't say the same about Tyrone, Tyreese, or Rashaunda, right?

>Culture. You wouldn't say the same about Tyrone, Tyreese, or Rashaunda, right?
No, those belong to high culture.

what a fucking hypocrite

> For S2, he will try to make the anime 'more moe' to prove he too can make a moe anime.

Is she nopan?

>We want the kyoani audience

hahahahahahahaha

SAGGY IS BESTTTTTT

Fuck off. If you want disgusting saggy breasts go fuck a 3D pig.

No, she wears magical pantsu idiots can't see.

Something I enjoyed from Konosuba is the amount of comedy achieved simply from the storyboard alone.

Most anime does almost all their comedy from the script, while the animation supplements it. Studio Deen so far is the only studio that regularly puts in visual gags that is supplemented by the script, instead of the other way around.

It's a damn shame most studios don't do their scripts strictly through the storyboards, simply because it takes too much time. Modern day production demands a written script and a storyboard that goes by the script, and that right there is wasted opportunity.

Oh yeah, I see them now.

As expected of a monkey.

I was looking forward to S2 so much and now it's fucking ruined

Good episode.

I love the drinking montage in the first episode. That's something impossible purely through writing.

>>He loves saggy breasts. He loved them so much that even though the original design did not contain them. He found himself drawing bigger and bigger breasts, so he subconsciously sag them to make the physics look right.

>He designed all the succubus
I don't know what to say.

Salute to the man and his dedication.

The succubus onee-san appears in a LN illustration but yeah, rest of the succubi are fair game.

>He put in 120% for episode 9. He personally modified every single shot from basic scene composition, frame, layout, to animation. Fan service gave him the all the motivation he needed.

YAMEROOOOOOOOOOOOO

Are there genuinely these many subhuman faggots who like 3DPD saggy tit garbage or is it mostly samefagging

>80 posts
>53 IPs
I wonder, user.

>Dust is a powerful dragon knight who is unmatched with a spear

...

This. I've watched both and I can say that the meme-loaded crap FFF generated is not worth keeping, even if it kinda works with Konosuba.

It seems like darkness generally looks better than the rest of the cast. Usually anyway. I know someone wants to reference this

I think saggy may have been a mistranslation, I think they meant realistic breasts as opposed to generic balloon breasts.

I hope they do something with Yunyun design. It's the only one that i can't tolerate

Are you going to make fun of me if I said my name is Peteypeter

She doesn't seem to have much direction from the producer. She is not a very important character in volume 1/2.