Yoh Yoshinari (吉成 曜 Yoshinari Yō)

Yoh Yoshinari (吉成 曜 Yoshinari Yō) is a Japanese key animator, storyboard artist, and anime director.

He is recognizable for the exaggerated style of his effects animation, especially for smoke and explosions, as well as his character action in general. His artistic style is particularly visible in his design work for Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and Little Witch Academia.

吉成曜 (YOSHINARI You), the younger brother of Yoshinari Kou, is a professional animator and illustrator, and currently works under GAINAX. His representative works include doing the mecha designs in the Gurren Lagann series, and for doing numerous character designs and illustrations for the Valkyrie Profile series in collaboration with his brother. Y.You’s birthday is May 5th, 1971, and graduated from Tokyo Design Gakuin.

Y.You’s illustration style is hard to classify properly as he does a lot of different things, though the one thing that is consistent is that he draws with a lot of solid, straight, and angular black lines, and his characters’ faces are more anime-like than realistic as they lack details such as eyelashes, even though he usually draws realnoses and lips. His colouring style is also extremely easy to recognize. For shading, he mostly uses relatively low-contrast shades, and as a result makes his pictures seem flatter and less “shiny”, and sometimes shadeswith a different colour than the main colour (In this case, the blue with purple on the legs). He also likes using inorganic colour palettes such as purple and cyan. Y.You is also very good at non-human pictures. However, Y.You is so overwhelmingly incredible that I can’t possibly apply all the above to all of his works, and you cansee some significant contradictions to everything I talked about above.

In addition to doing character designs, he also did mecha/machine designs for series such as Gurren Lagannand Melody of Oblivion. His mecha style is generally pretty colourful and although they are machines, the lines are relatively more curved and are not rectangular or boxy, giving them a less “piece of large metal that moves” feel.

Y.You as an animator is extremely well-known for his action and explosion scenes, the latter of which became so recognizable that fans coined the term “吉成爆発” (Yoshinari Bakuhatsu/Yoshinari Explosion). His action scenes consist of a lot of jumping and soaring, plus interesting camera work that involves close camera shots and little panning. As for his explosions, if you see a large cloud-like ball of fire and dust marked by different colours at the border with an inward center, then you have just witnessed a Yoshinari Explosion. The next time you see something similar in an action-packed anime episode, please think of the genius that is Y.You.
(https://polymetrica.wordpress.com/tag/animators/)

• Yoh Yoshinari: Anime News Network's Encyclopedia

Family name (in kanji): 吉成

Given name (in kanji): 曜

Date of birth: 1971-05-06

Favorites:

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

News:

Gainax, Hiroyuki Yamaga Working on 2 Unnamed Projects (May 24, 2008)

Other article:

Staff in:
Bastard!! (OAV) : In-Between Animation (ep 4)
Cat Soup (OAV) : Key Animation
Corpse Princess (TV) : Key Animation (OP)
Dead Leaves (OAV) : Key Animation
Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance (movie) : Key Animation
Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture : Key Animation
FLCL (OAV) : Storyboard, Art Layout, Key Animation
Gambo (movie) : Animation
Green Legend Ran (OAV) : In-Between Animation (eps 2-3)
Gunbuster 2: Diebuster (OAV) : Key Animation (eps 1-5)
Gunbuster vs Diebuster Aim for the Top! The GATTAI!! Movie : Key Animation
Gurren Lagann (TV) : Animation Director (ep 27) , Mechanical design, Eyecatch Illustration (ep 27), Key Animation (6 episodes)
Gurren Lagann Parallel Works (OAV) : Director (May you All Burn!), Storyboard (May you All Burn!), Animation Director (May you All Burn!), Key Animation (May you All Burn!)
Gurren Lagann the Movie – The Lights in the Sky Are Stars : Mechanical design, Key Animation
Gurren Lagann the Movie –Childhood's End- : Mechanical design, Key Animation
Heroman (TV) : Key Animation (ep 16)
Immortal Grand Prix (TV 2) : Key Animation (ep 13)
Jin-Roh - The Wolf Brigade (movie) : Key Animation
Kill la Kill (TV) : Storyboard (OP 1; ep 24), 2nd Key Animation (ep 15), Assistant Animation Director (ep 15), Key Animation (OP 1; 5 episodes), Layout (OP 1), Set Design
Kishin Corps (OAV) : In-Between Animation (ep 1)
A Letter to Momo (movie) : Key Animation
Little Witch Academia (movie) : Director, Original creator, Character Design, Animation Director, Art Setting, Key Animation
Little Witch Academia 2 (OAV) : Director, Character Design
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Mass Effect: Paragon Lost (movie) : Animation Supervisor, Creature Design, Key Animation, Prop Design, Weapon Design
Maze (OAV) : Creature Design, Key Animation (ep 2)
Medabots (TV) : Key Animation
(The) Melody of Oblivion (TV) : Mechanical design
Metal Fighter Miku (TV) : Key Animation (ep 13)
Mobile Suit Victory Gundam (TV) : Key Animation (4 episodes)
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Neon Genesis Evangelion (TV) : Key Animation (11 episodes), Mechanical animation Director (3 episodes)
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death & Rebirth (movie) : Key Animation (Rebirth)
Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion (movie) : Assistant Animation Director (ep 26), Assistant Design Director, Key Animation (eps 25-26)
Ninku (TV) : Key Animation (2 episodes)
One Piece: Omatsuri Danshaku to Himitsu no Shima (movie 6) : Key Animation
Orguss 02 (OAV) : Key Animation (eps 2-3, 6), Setting Cooperation (eps 5-6)
Pani Poni Dash! (TV) : Key Animation (OP)
Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt (TV) : Storyboard (ep 23), Episode Director (ep 23), Animation Director(ep 23), Art Setting, Concept Art, Key Animation (4 episodes), Setting Assistance (ep 23)
Pokémon the Movie: White - Victini and Zekrom : Key Animation
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Revolutionary Girl Utena (TV) : Key Animation (OP)
Shikabane Hime: Kuro (TV) : Key Animation (OP)
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Tokyo Babylon (OAV) : In-Between Animation
Trava (OAV) : Key Animation
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Yatterman (TV 2008) : Key Animation (ep 54)