A FLAWED MASTERPIECE | Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 Episode 12 Animation Breakdown

[00:00] Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 Episode 12, the big episode, the season finale, the high-priority spectacle whatever you want to call it, it finally dropped and it looked insane. Given the eye-watering

[00:12] amount of high-level action animation in it, I think it's safe to say the episode was extremely ambitious even by Jujutsu Kaisen's standards, and that's especially true now because this season, while nowhere near as messy behind the scenes, a season 2 has been struggling a bit for the past

[00:26] few weeks more about that in a bit. Anyway, the point is, what an episode, what an effort, what a spectacle. Of course, it wasn't perfect, but still pulling off something this ambitious, this leading to a production is a remarkable feat, and as such, as always, and for the final time for

[00:42] now, let's break down the visuals. Make sure to subscribe, Jujutsu Kaisen might be over for the time being, but as had had probably pretentious incorporated, it's just me, I don't have a team. We'll continue making content, so subscribe, that would help out a lot, it takes a second,

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[01:10] So I usually start these videos with an overview of the stuff before moving on to the scene by scene breakdown, but I'll switch things up a bit this time around. Instead of simply going over the stuff, let's talk about this episode as an overall production as a creative undertaking,

[01:24] because there are a lot of nuance discussions to be had there. First off, let me make something very clear, despite how good this episode looked, the way it was made behind the scenes was far from ideal. Assuming you know what to look for, one quick glance at the

[01:38] stuff list and you'll figure it out exactly what's wrong with this episode conceptually speaking, and if you don't know what to look for fear not, I'll explain. You see, this was no one's episode, if that makes sense, it had no all-encompassing creative identity. If you look at the stuff list,

[01:54] you'll see two storyboard artists, series director Shotagoshizono and the incredibly talented Hitsuki Sugigami, but neither of them did any actual direction. Sugigami was the assistant episode director, but that's just glorified technical support. What does all of that mean? That means

[02:08] while Sugigami's storyboards were the closest thing this episode had to an overarching visual theme, him not processing them himself, led to a degree of creative fragmentation, it watered down the overall creative vision, the too many cooks principle. Now I know what you're thinking, sure,

[02:23] stuff like that isn't ideal, but it's not exactly uncommon either, it happens and it is still possible for whoever the episode director is to make their mark creatively speaking, and you'd be correct, except which one? Which episode director this episode at 7? In case you didn't catch that,

[02:39] this slightly longer than average episode needed 7 directors, with each handling an average of four minutes in no universes that by design. That happened because someone looked at the deadlines and went holy f*** where cooked. Now I know what you're thinking, again, all right, sure, that's way too many

[02:54] directors, but at least the actual animation, the actual drawings were uniform and focused, right? Well, the 6G animation directors, 19 animation directors, 9 assistant animation directors, and 83 second key animators would suggest otherwise. Look, sure, some animators took some of their

[03:11] shots to Genga, and some particular ladies and critics EAD, such as Sota Yamazaki stood out, but by and large, this episode didn't have a strong visual identity, it didn't have its own look that high profile episodes usually tend to have, plus that many people supervising and cleaning up the

[03:26] drawings meant that the quality inevitably slipped head and there, leading to a few rough looking patches. There's a reason why when it comes to staff lists, the smaller things are, the better, there's a joke in there somewhere. More about styles and search, I saw some people online wondering

[03:40] why this episode didn't have its own distinct look, its own visual style and aesthetic that looks different from the rest of the season, kinda like Sukunavir's show go yet another its Kitsuchigami episode. With that one you could tell from the very first frame that things were different,

[03:54] it felt like a different show if that makes sense, why wasn't that the case with this episode despite it featuring many of the same artists. Well, that's because to pull off a unique look like that, you need uniformity at a conceptual level, you need one guy coming up with and reinforcing

[04:09] his vision, something this episode's messy production model and staff list wouldn't allow. Sukunavir's show go had one storyboard artist and episode director its Kitsuchigami, it had one CAD, Sota Yamazaki, it had two AD's, it had just over 20 second key animators compared to this

[04:24] episode's just over 80 and most importantly it had more time. It was effectively an isolated project immune to the issues, the rest of the season faced but that wasn't the case with this episode.

[04:36] This one was produced within the confines of the overall season, it wasn't immune to the end of the season crunch, that's the difference, that's why the two episodes aren't exactly compatible. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the schedule for this episode wasn't bad, in a vacuum,

[04:49] I'm sure it was enough for an average episode but this wasn't exactly an average episode, was it? Like I said earlier, it was a tremendously ambitious undertaking and they almost certainly didn't have the time needed to pull off a project this large. They were punching well above their

[05:02] weight which is something I feel like they've been doing for several weeks now. As I've put it, season 3 Sukunavir's show was in this episode, it was episode 8. That entire thing was key animated by one guy, Koki Fujimoto, meaning that one guy had the time to animate every single shot,

[05:18] that's the ideal, not this. Anyway with all that out of the way, let's finally go through this episode seen by scene, it had a lot of animation to offer so I might end up crossing over some stuff but I'll try my best, let's jump right into it. The episode opened up with some nifty acting,

[05:34] penned by Duong someone who excels at natural looking character animation. I believe the entire opening section around a minute and a half was animated by him and it was really impressive. Of course given the sheer amount of stuff he animated and the lack of time he couldn't clean up a lot

[05:48] of his shots with some of his layouts looking particularly rough but still very cool. I loved how his wobbly line art hair was preserved by the AD and the cleaner part is, this shot was quite consistently drawn especially because this season has been struggling to execute

[06:02] slow zooms like these without noticeable melt. The full body acting in this shot was amazing, we got some top notch running, take 2-3 tone effects and background animation it was great. Sure the sequence wasn't exactly free of melt and somewhat unpolished drawings but by a large it was

[06:17] amazing. From this point on the episode goes full action and before we talk about it let me get this out of the way, I did not like the backgrounds in this episode in fact I haven't liked them for several episodes now. The outside scenes look really weird with the PG's having an unappealing

[06:33] low resolution photograph like quality to them which is made worse by the less than stellar color use and poorly implemented and excessive aberration. I don't know why the backgrounds look like this but I'd be very surprised if this mess ends up being a creative choice.

[06:47] Anyway back to the action the first state minutes and change was storyboarded by Goshizono and the first proper action scene was animated by Rune Young. The latter started with the backwards camera pan made possible by a fully hand animated background plus the heavily foreshort and youth are

[07:01] quickly closing in on and then moving away from the camera gave the shot an additional sense of space. Also love how the foreshortening effect was seamlessly transferred from his head to his hand amazing work. This was then followed by these incredible 3-tone effects the mass of roaches was treated like

[07:17] one uniform body and the animator's lines were left untouched no compositing additions no blurring no transparency just pure 2D animation goodness also fantastic sense of anticipation and impact in this shot. Young sequence was followed by Shikaku's work which included this dynamic shot

[07:34] with Yuta's face sweeping past the camera some shot but impressive crowd animation and satisfying debris. We then got this insane shot with a hand animated background the insanely complex camera movement around which more than making up for the questionable sync between it and the character.

[07:49] This was then followed by more amazing 3-tone effects and these beams with spiky shapes inside them. This sequence is presumed to be the work of Shotaro Tamimizu and it started with those trademark quick cuts Koshizono loves using the execution of same being alright. We then got what can only be

[08:06] described as background animation galore. For this shot Tamimizu animated not just the ground and the bridge but also the buildings trees and this whole stadium by hand which is absolutely ridiculous. He also hand animated this top-down shot of the ground underneath Yuta and the poles in this shot.

[08:22] This liberal use of background animation gave the sequence an unparalleled sense of space making the whole thing feel extremely dynamic and effect accentuated by the spacious background illustrations classic Goshizono basically. In this shot the bridge was part of the background

[08:36] illustration near the start but then turned into hand animated debris surrounded by effects this was followed by a really smooth bit of running animation and even more effects with the entire swarm being one big 2d effect column. Quick Masahiro Tokumaru sequencer I'll talk about his 3D

[08:51] background usage when I get to his other sequence so for now let's focus on the character animation which was phenomenal. I don't know if Tokumaru used reference for the character but regardless his ability to convey heavy kinetic motion is truly unmatched. Despite the blinding speed Yuta's

[09:07] movement always had the necessary amount of flow and weight although and I know I've said this before but I have to repeat myself got those backgrounds look bad. The parking lot feels so flat there's absolutely no depth between the ground and the cause which should technically be above it

[09:22] the art direction has been a mess for several episodes now. Tokumaru's quick sequence was followed by this individual's quick sequence whose name I won't attempt to pronounce and it was filled with top notch effects some incredibly satisfying stylish character and fabric animation complete

[09:36] with distinct boxy shapes and even a tiny bit of background animation really cool stuff. Some fun fabric and effects animation drawn by Aiman Ibrahim then brought us to this minute long sequence presumed to be the work of Akiko Kudo an animator who effectively carried parts of

[09:51] Will & Saga and more recently animated that viral residance. Kudo's ability to make things move while maintaining form and volume is unmatched and the sequence while not as over the top as some of the stuff that followed was a perfect example of that constant flowy movement with top notch

[10:07] fundamentals you love to see it. Some thick smoke and one piece coated perspective caddy then brought us to the main fight the three way confrontation and things understandably stepped up a notch. A few things firstly I loved the effect they added 2 rows of ability. I believe the

[10:22] animator simply drew an additional effect layer and the compositing team superimposed it distorted version of the background on top of it. Also worth mentioning I loved the framing in these shots since the background here was actually moving I believe the fisheye effect was added by

[10:35] the compositing team the actual background illustration was probably normally drawn. One more thing like I said this episode had a lot of rough patches I won't waste time covering all of them in detail but they were there. The visible junk in these shots the lackluster drawings things

[10:49] weren't exactly perfect. Anyway we then got to Anthony new and sequence which was home to some solid effects and this outstanding drawing not sure what the credit distribution between the AD and him looks like. This was then followed by a masahiro tokumaru sequence the second and final

[11:05] one and once again the character animation was outstanding. Highly dynamic energetic kinetic movement with constant powerful body mechanics just look at uta spinning the pole there's so much weight behind this movement absolutely phenomenal as per usual. Unfortunately we also need to acknowledge the

[11:22] elephant in the room the 3D background it looked absolutely horrendous. Look I have no idea what happened but those bg's look awful. Also those ugly as explosions they look like placeholder assets. I know tokumaru likes to make his own 3D models and incorporate them into his workflow but I'd be

[11:38] very surprised if this is what he had in mind when he created this scene. If you ask me either the 3D background was supposed to look better but he didn't have the time or it was supposed to be drawn over but he didn't have the time I strongly believe it's one or the other. Like just look at the

[11:52] difference between this dumpster fire and this scene from episode 1 also animated by tokumaru it's night and day. In fact I'm being dead serious when I say this I'd take those clunky as 3D backgrounds from season 1 over this at least they never took me out of a scene this badly what a shame.

[12:08] Anyway with that the storyboard artist changed koshizono pasta baton onto its kisu jigami and there's a high likelihood that this is the last we'll see of him on jjk or on anime as a whole for that matter. He's no longer part of the anime industry in case you didn't know he moved to france.

[12:23] I'd make a joke about the french but I'm working alongside a lot of french artists on a certain indie project and all of them are quite coated. Now its kisu jigami is absolutely unmatched when it comes to action storyboarding he's one of if not the best in the industry at it and I'll sing his

[12:37] praises a lot but truth be told I wasn't the biggest fan of the first minute or so of Yuta vs Ishigori. Don't get me wrong anime to fast-storted a fantastic job and Sota Yamazaki's corrections stood out immediately a particularly impressive feat since the cad list for this episode was a confusing mess

[12:54] but the storyboards were really boring. The bland manga recreations the long holds on unremarkable poses I wasn't impressed. Also I wasn't terribly fond of that bounce effect I think it's meant to represent that cell animation wobble but like I said not a fan. Anyway shortly afterwards

[13:10] we got to kaito tomioka sequence and it was amazing. The dynamic angular backgrounds the perfect timing the camera tracking the sense of flow it was sujigami doing what he does best and tomioka executing his storyboards perfectly. Of course I can't go over every scene but I will go over the highlights

[13:27] I loved the hand on cubic debris hair meant to represent the roof caving in loved the rush attack loved the drawings of course loved the framing loved how the warp of the backgrounds accentuated the momentum of each shot left this incredibly impressive ultra wide angle shot the slope of the

[13:41] roof probably added an additional layer of complexity for tomioka loved the acrobatics and amazing scene overall. We then got short auto bounce sequence and once again the storyboards were amazing the timing the use of quick cuts the compositions the use of simple pants to withhold and

[13:56] convey visual information as he saw fit it was so good. I wouldn't say it was on the same level as his mob or jgk season two episodes but it was amazing regardless. Animation wise bonded a great job loved the little jump and bounce head the background animation was fun the zinc argue shot

[14:12] looked quite cool of course the actual action animation while not being too over the top was really solid as well fun stuff. This was then followed by more solid action including some energetic fabric animation and this bit of exaggerated body language presumed to be the work of sujigami himself and

[14:28] then by these money shots. The animation itself is presumed to be the work of naiki hot tori but unless proven otherwise I'll just resume cad so tayamazaki read you these shots from the ground up channeling is in our mainstream shonen fan and being as manga faithful as humanly possible

[14:43] like seriously it's not just the pose or the design even the linework and hatching is almost identical to the manga to the point where I don't know if I should praise this drawing skills or his observation skills it's very very impressive either way so I guess it doesn't really matter.

[14:56] Of course Yamazaki connected other shots around this section and they looked amazing too but this was obviously the highlight lots of detail incredibly confident sharp lines amazing stuff we then got takumi sunako hara sequence this being his first appearance on animation since that

[15:12] one jjg blue ray episode and unsurprisingly it was insane. sunako hara's trend lies in drawing these incredibly rich tense effects the kind that would give any other animator panic attacks and this episode was no different the lineless effects had including the hand animated japanese text looked

[15:29] insanely good and these paint like fists surrounding the intentionally broken character model were phenomenal also loved this paiki sound wave like effect he added to the shigori's attacks it was a fun look like I said earlier sunako hara loves drawing tense effects dense as in lots of

[15:44] individual shapes and lels just look at the sheer amount of intricate organic effect shapes and the decrease of smoothness with which they move absolutely insane and this wasn't even sunako hara's best from this episode more about that later the next minute and a half was arguably the finest

[16:00] display of action storyboarding across the entirety of jiu jitsu kaisen season 3 it was a textbook example of why I think so highly of sujigami during this section you effectively add two different fights taking place in close proximity of one another with some degree of overlap but the whole

[16:15] thing fell so natural the action kept track of every combatant it accounted for the environmental mayhem it perfectly cut back and forth between the two fights all while retaining a flawless sense of low top-notch choreography and never once violating the rules of action storyboarding

[16:30] utterly mind-blowing of course the action animation was amazing too shinya kane ko animated some top-notch background animation which coupled with the 3d background or more accurately the 3d fabric animation disguised as backgrounds helped convey just how ridiculous udo's technique is kane ko also animated

[16:46] a bunch of top-notch hand-to-hand combat the way the proportions were warped and exaggerated probably made the animation process a lot trickier his work was followed by hone hone sequence and while he didn't have the time to do his own ganga it was still amazing really energetic smoothly animated

[17:02] close quarters combat you love to see it some decent action penned by masashi takai and tora no skehori then brought his decreases sequence and while it was quite short clocking in at a mere 6 seconds it was one of the highlights of this episode based on his comments he drew the ganga for every shot

[17:19] besides the last one and his layouts were pretty much left and corrected meaning the sequence was pure crisp goodness you had this fun close up with ripple effects on his face followed by some insanely complex background animation not only was the entire background hand animated not only was

[17:34] that a complicated fisheye effect on it not only with the characters perfectly animated the camera did a 90 degree rotation followed by more background animation as rica crashed through the buildings ridiculous

[17:46] a short riotai k sequence then brought us to the second highlight of this episode the sequence animated by jack aminiprahim and daimaniprahim and it too was incredible now quick introduction to the two they

[17:58] animated that incredible 20th century boys fan animation that popped up a while back and they have done some stellar work for one piece chances are you've probably seen at least one of those things before that set introduction over this sequence mainly animated by jack was interesting not just

[18:13] because of how good it looked but also because it gave us a look at the limitations of this episode i'll explain if you look at jack's layouts you'll see that a lot of movements simply didn't make it to the final product you had fun bouncy acting and complex animated zooms getting replaced by still

[18:29] presumably because jack didn't have the time to draw his own ganga for some of his shots and the rest of the team didn't have the time to clean his layouts up efficiently which of course is really unfortunate still despite all that sad stuff the sequence was absolutely outstanding jack's

[18:44] animation tends to have an uncanny amount of volume with his tremendous draftsmanship and ability to maintain form making a free shot look three-dimensional be it the body language be it the subtle movements be it the animated zooms there's an unbelievable amount of volume packed into

[18:58] every shot also very cool cut by aiman in the middle the domain expansion scene was perfect with the sky-going grayscale and the color-coded characters perfectly transitioning into their manga panel poses also just because this was a direct manga panel recreation doesn't mean it wasn't animation

[19:14] heavy jack's highly volumetric animation was present throughout this entire sequence post to mean we got a couple of very different styles of effects animation in quick succession we had uto's trademark

[19:26] abstract shapes with snappy carnada-coded timing and we had hoku to sakiyama's wobbly uneven and constantly moving effects really cool stuff and speaking of effects some cool action and fabric animation and a few solid drawings and brought us to the most indulgent display of effects animation

[19:41] never animated by the aforementioned takumi sunako hara this entire sequence was filled to the prim within insanely dense effects it was everything i said about sunako hara's previous sequence but diled up to eleven the sheer amount of effect shapes and layers on screen at any given moment was

[19:57] mind-blowing so much so that i wish the compositing was a bit less intrusive not because it looks bad but because the animation note that i am i would have loved to see an unpack every single effect layer anyway the whole sequence was ridiculous tons of organic effect shapes lots of

[20:12] buttry smooth movement constant flow and of course very solid character animation insane work by sunako hara and also by kazu toarai because apparently one of these shots was animated by him not sure which probably this one but who knows sunako hara's sequence was followed by some

[20:28] nifty effects and action animation penned by gen tai shimori and then by the final exchange presumed with the work of a certain mokmok who's definitely not just someone else we all know in disguise the storyboards here were very visceral and to the point with extremely energetic holes

[20:43] and stills occasional speed line backgrounds and in your face style of action and some on the nose visual metaphors but it worked it accomplished what it was trying to do it made the viewers clenched their fists and jump out of their seats it was perfect anyway speaking of energetic stills

[20:58] this still wasn't just corrected by sota yamazaki it was colored by him as well which also means he drew the final lines not the second key or in between animator in other words yamazaki's lines made it to the final product no wonder it looked so good some decent debris and effects animation and

[21:14] character acting also animated by mokmok then brought us to the end of the fight and again for the millionth time what an effort sure it wasn't perfect given both the ambition and the nature of this production but still it was amazing regardless and absolutely mind-blowing effort the episode

[21:29] wasn't done though we got a solid minute of character acting animated by haru miyamazaki and some really strong use kajima connections including these sakuna shots really cool stuff and that was the

[21:41] episode what a way to end the season like i said near the start this episode wasn't immune to the issues that was slowly but surely starting to creep into the final product and in a perfect world it would have looked a lot more polished and did i say had its own visual identity but let's not

[21:55] well on that stuff what matters is the fact that the team managed to animate 20 minutes of extremely high level action with a remarkable amount of consistency not perfect but very well done regardless that's the highlight head and that's an insane feat and that's about it a special thanks to

[22:11] new zero three i'm it and the gales 90 for becoming tier three members and until next time