The Ryo Tanaka school as an early representation of the Neo-Kanada movement

It’s becoming increasingly well known that there’s a slow growing amount of generational diversity in terms of hybrid art styles. 

Ichiro Itano himself is perhaps one of the greatest living effects animators in Japanese history, no wonder why the Itano school has most likely led to a rise in other fusion schools of thought from the early 1980s and beyond, which is pretty understandable when Yuji Moriyama now has a pretty strong, long running school once led by the two Kimuras. As one of the Kimura school’s older members, current leader Ryo Tanaka has long birthed the Neo Kanada movement over 2 decades ago, since members of his school’s first generation include Fujio Suzuki and Kenji Hayama, both masters of stylish comedic animation in their own right.

Yuji Moriyama still does interesting craploads of so bad it’s good stuff that I still forgive him for doing his best to just even animate.  

But it’s the Trigger school which unintentionally has continued Takuo Noda’s legacy more so than anywhere else. There’s also a friendly rivalry between the Yamashita and Trigger schools in making the craziest Kanada-spinoff style effects imaginable. That being said, the Yamashita school may still continue as a school for primarily detail and effects-focused animation, which is why its current dark horse leader is Masahito Yamashita’s spiritual successor Ryuuki Hashimoto. Fellow Members of the haggling second generation include Tatsuya Yoshihara and others. 

Of the members who’ve now spun off, Jun Arai is the most in-your face one, since he’s become a trickster mentor of sorts to Yoo-To, founding a school primarily centring on cartoony modulation in the process. Hanako Ueda is influenced more by Shin Matsuo’s snapshot antics, thus she is now in the Snapshot faction, so that the Watabe school continues the legacy of Yoshinori Kanada’s later years. 

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