Sonny Boy’s visual identity – creative freedom as a way to convey the artistic intent

Anime, just like pretty much any other creative medium nowadays, is heavily commercialised, hence a lot of the decision making is done by the producers and not by the creative staff themselves. Sometimes there are exceptions to that state of things, when the producers give the artists free reign and total control over the project. Sonny Boy is such an example: a show envisioned, directed and written by Shingo Natsume, who explicitly stated before the broadcast that this is the first and probably last time when he’ll be given such freedom to do whatever he wants. He even called his work on the series downright selfish and egocentric, because he wanted to include in it as many elements important for him as possible. This freedom became a key factor shaping the entire project, including its visual identity.

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Trigger Fukuoka’s New Generation: Shunpei Gunyasu, Takuya Saitou, and President Masahiko Otsuka at Otakon 2023

For Otakon 2023, Studio Trigger president Masahiko Otsuka decided bring along two skilled but essentially unknown young animators from the Trigger Fukuoka satellite: Shunpei Gunyasu and Tatsuya Saitou. Otsuka has “big plans” for the digital branch, now hard at work on Dungeon Meshi. What are these new animators like, and how’s it going down down in Kyuushuu?

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