Anime OP: Speed Grapher.

One of the more disappointing shows I've had the displeasure of encountering is Speed Grapher. If you take a look at the character designs by Yuusuke Kozaki and Masashi Ishihahma and some of the concept art, then you'll naturally have high expectations for this one when it comes to the visuals. The actual series was far from that and it's such a shame that the concept came at a time when Gonzo was crapping out series after series. Had it come out a few years earlier with the likes of Gankutsuou and Last Exile, then maybe it would have had a chance with a better person in charge of the series composition.

However, we did get this OP.



Of course, as is well documented, FUNimation couldn't get the rights to this song for the DVD release. There was also another OP that had about 4 or 5 versions before this one that also featured Duran Duran's Girls on Film, but it was mostly a cut and paste job with scenes from the show edited together.

For this OP:

Director: Masashi Ishihama
Storyboard: Kunihasa Sugishima
Animation: Masashi Ishihama, Makoto Uno, Yasuomi Umetsu, Hiroyuki Okuno, Hiraku Kaneko, Erukin Kawabata, Takashi Kumazen, Fumihide Sai, Yuuchi Takahashi, Takahiro Tanaka, Jun Nakai, Yuchi Nakasawa, Naoko Nakamoto, Hiroki Harada, 村田峻治 (sorry, couldn't get reading for this one), Hisashi Mori, Ryou Morizaki, Toru Yoshida.

Aside from Ishihama, the name in the list that immediately jumps out Hisashi Mori, given his work on Samurai 7 (solo first half of ep. 7, among other eps.) and on the 6th and 9th One Piece movies. He's a particularly exciting animator given the wide range of speeds he can animate at along with the impossible-to-wrap-your-head-around movements that he choreographs. If I had to take a guess, I'd say he either does the shot of Suitengu at :37 or the final shot in the OP. Hard to say given so many people working on here that I'm not familiar with, but I feel confident banking on those two.

EDIT: Blogger is acting up on me. Just double click on the vid and ignore the inconsistent font choice.

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