You animated the scene in Haikyuu!! season 2, episode 20 where Mad Dog (Kentarō Kyōtani) delivers an amazing spike. Its a jaw dropping moment of powerful animation perhaps the most powerful I have seen all year. Tell me about that scene. How long did it take you to animate? You packed so much emotion into it, what was running through your mind when you were animating that scene?
I feel extremely grateful that you like it! Thanks a lot! Its a coincidence that the production manager asked me to give it a try. I was not so confident at that time, but I thought it was a chance to promote my skill, so I took it! As for the spike, it was demanded in storyboard, but I didnt have any spike drawing experience, so I referenced the spike scenes which others worked on before. But to my surprise, the lines in every spike scene have totally different personal styles. So I tried to find inspiration among them. Finally, there is a scene that Kageyama did a amazing serve in a prior episode. And I said, Thats the feeling! I took it as reference then started drawing. It didnt take too much time to draft, hmm, maybe about day and a half (laugh) I stayed up at that night! However, I tried again and again and drew the in-betweens myself when using the spike on the 2nd key animation. In the end, it took almost 4 days to finish it.
In the beginning, Mad Dog places his hand in front of the camera, the moment his hand moves away he comes into view with a powerful spike. This idea came to me one night when I was reading the manga. I noticed the harsh style of Haruichi Furudate- senseis lines was so cool, so why not use it in the anime? I was worried about it would influence the sound effect, but after sharing this idea with director, luckily it wasnt an issue. As for whether or not to use a background, we also talked a lot about that. At last, in order to show the best texture of spike line, we decided to go with a monotone image. In my personal thinking, there are still many deficiencies, if there is a chance next time it must be better!