Dragon Ball Z is one of the most popular manga and anime series in both Japan and Worldwide that most people would recognize Akira Toriyama art style from T shirts, promo posters and even fan art that borrows from his art. But some don’t recognize or even think what made DB and DBZ is the animators that help the style for the anime. One of the animators is Naotoshi Shida who not only a great animator for Dragon Ball but also still works on DB till this day with the recent Dragon Ball Super: Broly.
Now Shida didn’t started as a big animator, he started mainly as in between artist and didn’t went to art school, so he didn’t really wanted be a animator until he was employed by Toei Animation. While working at Toei around the early 80’s, he did study the animators work and did some drawings to the style and moment of the animators while he did some in between work. He eventually got promoted as an key animator on some shows Toei was doing, which includes Dragon Ball. He started working at Last House, a studio that Toei used for commission work on the episodes that other studios working on different episodes. Last House was probably the “C” team where they didn’t have the most detailed or moments like Studio Junio(A) or Seigasha (B) but they were more consistent and had talented animators than Studio Live ( the worst studio in my opinion and I will talk later about). Under supervision by Masayuki Uchyiyama, his team of animators like Shida and the underrated Taiichiro O’Hara were quite talented and deliver a lot of memorable moments that made them cheap but effective until Shida left the studio and worked with other animation supervisors on the later half of Dragon Ball Z.
What makes Shida a very unique animator is his timing and impact on movement and attacks he animated. Even at Last House, you can tell it’s him when he does face paced scene of punches or ki blasts that feels big on the impact.
Sources: https://youtu.be/k2L95cGw1b4
https://www.sakugabooru.com/post?tags=naotoshi_shida
Thanks for reading this! Check his body of work on Sakura Booru.
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