[EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW] BEAST, the Black Clover episode 166 animator – It is with great pleasure that we announce the exclusive interview with animator BEAST. In this interview, he talked more about the beginning of his career and the animation process alongside Studio Pierrot.
BEAST spoke mainly about his experience with Black Clover and sent a message to Brazilian fans. Check out the interview below:
1) First of all, thank you for accepting our invitation, Beast. Your work on episode 166 of Black Clover was amazing! Would you introduce yourself to our readers?
Hello! I’m a freelance animator that has been working for the anime industry from abroad for the past year. Thank you for having me!
2) Could you tell us a little bit about the moment when you found out you would have this opportunity? I don’t think we even need to ask if you were happy, right?
I was happy, indeed, but for a different reason you might imagine. My first anime job was in Black Clover 145, around a year ago. I was pretty inexperienced on several things back then, and after getting my corrections, I was pretty much sure I had screwed the job and that I wasn’t going to hear from Studio Pierrot again. Until one day I get a email from the same Producer I had on episode 145, telling me she wanted me on the team for episode 166, which was going to be super important. I had no idea of the content of the episode up until a month ago, but I was happy I hadn’t been ditched by the studio. Now, looking back, my work on episode 145 wasn’t that terrible, I was just anxious, hehe.
Then, a few months later I got the storyboards. Once the studio sends you the storyboards, you have to rush to choose the part or parts you like and request your Producer to set them aside for you, because you are basically competing with all the other animators who might want them.
All of the first half of the episode was already unavailable (I really wanted to draw Vanica and Megicula), so I had to choose from the second half. At first, I requested the part when Dante transforms to his 80% form, and the part when Yami gets out from under the rock, but they told me the Dante part was already reserved so I got the Dimensional Slash part instead, which was my third option. I was pretty happy overall, and impressed they gave such cool cuts to a pretty much new animator.
3) How was participating in the production of Black Clover? Did you already know Black Clover?
It was cool, but very intense. The deadlines for this episode were crazy, and I’m very impressed at what they managed to pull off in such a short amount of time. I remember talking to other animators on the episode and we were like: “The episode airs when?? That’s insane!”. On the other hand, I was already more experienced and also motivated to have such a cool part of the episode for myself, so I somehow managed to not sink the whole production with me (just kidding).
4) Okay, we need to talk about the Yami and C215 scene, which should be displayed in a museum. How difficult was it to bring all that intensity to this scene where Yami is all bloodied holding his sword?
At first, I thought C215 was going to be one of the easiest cuts, but when I actually had it in front of me, it ended up being the most challenging. Every time I ran a test on it, I thought something like: “Should I also move the hand, and the head, and the hair? Maybe this should also move…”.
On the Layout phase, the animator has to define every single layer of the cut and how they move and interact with each other, always thinking on making it manageable for the staff who has to process your cut afterwards, and things can become very complex. So I had challenges, like how to move the hair independently if the head was already moving, should it be a separate layer? Or should the mouth be in a separate layer instead? Should I just tell them to slide the hand up and down or should I draw every single frame separately so it doesn’t look cheap? All of this while also trying not to overdo it. To be honest, I could have just moved the mouth, add the smoke and that would have been it, but I felt the intensity of the cut while doing it and I wanted the fans to feel it too.
About drawing Yami’s intense expression, the storyboards actually had the panel of the manga as reference, so it was a bit easier to nail the exact feeling of the scene. I remember discussing with other animators about how much we should actually copy the manga panels, and we came to the conclusion that Black Clover fans liked to compare the manga panels with the anime and see the similarities, so we tried to be faithful in the end. I just had to make sure that my drawings worked according to the model sheets of the anime, and thanks to some amazing corrections and secondary animation by the staff, it ended up looking great. I’m very thankful and happy with the result.
5) What was the biggest difficulty in bringing Yami’s Dimensional Slash to life? Especially because we know that it is an iconic attack and full of personality.
For that cut, they only gave me the manga panel, the duration and a 3D reference of how the background would look. From the manga panel, it already looked intimidating hehe.
I decided to dive back several episodes and look at how other animators had approached the Dimensional Slash before. I noticed all of them were different and very creative, but I managed to extract some common characteristics, like the timing and those “photo negative” effects they all added. After that, it was up to me to choreograph the whole scene.
I think the biggest challenge was to make the attack look energetic and not slow and boring. For that, I decided it would start small and slow and then rapidly accelerate until making it bounce against the back of the scene with a lot of energy, like a big wave at the beach. The cut even had an expansive wave that was later removed by the Animation Director. I was a bit bothered by that at first, but now I think it was a good choice.
After the slash was finished, it still looked a bit plain, so I decided to use those photo negative effects previously mentioned. I imagined the immense energy of the attack damaging the sensor of the camera (I always imagine a camera for some reason) and then slowly concentrating on Dante until the actual slash was released. I also decided to animate all of those lines by hand, instead of asking the post production guys to do it for me. That, plus a couple of well placed white and black frames and the cut finally had the energy I was looking for.
A couple of days after I mailed the cut to my Producer at Pierrot, she wrote me back and told me that she and the staff were impressed at how cool that particular cut looked, and that the Director of the episode had praised it too. I was incredibly happy.
6) Of course, this question could not be left out. Of all your work in episode 166, what was your favorite scene?
It might sound a bit dumb, but my favourite was a minuscule 1 and a half second cut where Yami bounces on the ground and then blasts off flying to the sky to make the Dimensional Slash on Dante. That was actually the last cut I animated for the episode and it was kind of rushed. I was afraid it ended up looking poor on the screen, but when I actually saw it in the episode, it was so fast and energetic that I think it looked very good. I was so relieved it ended up being my favourite cut. Also, I loved to be able to draw Grey, she is just too cute hehe.
For the rest of the episode, I liked watching the parts that some of my friends made, like Saurabh Singh and Jarrett Martin. They really outdid themselves.
I also liked the introduction of Megicula in the first half of the episode, the acting of the seiyuu was great and that deep double voice they used plus the music made it super creepy and cool. I wish I had the opportunity to work on that part too.
7) You’re aware that you drove the Black Clover fandom crazy, right? People just loved it! I believe that everyone is very happy with all the work of the staff. Knowing this, would you like to send a message for Brazilian Black Clover fans?
I’ve been happily overwhelmed by all the love I’ve received in the past few days, very specially from Brazilian fans and sites, which I found very curious! Animation is sometimes a tough and draining job, but receiving sincere love and encouragement from the fans makes it all worth it, we make this so you can enjoy it! So look for the people that contribute to the shows you love (not only the animators) and let them know you love and appreciate their work!
8) The future of the Black Clover anime adaptation is still uncertain, but we would certainly like to see your work again on it. Thank you very much. Please tell our readers where they can interact with you on the internet.
You can follow my work on my Twitter account @Beasto_ani. I can’t spoil too much, but you will certainly see me back, as I have a ton of new work coming out. I also love interacting with the fans, so don’t hesitate to come around and say hi. Thank you very much for the interview!
That was our interview with BEAST, Black Clover episode 166 animator, if you liked it don’t forget to share and of course, follow BEAST on twitter. Stay tuned here at Megascópio that soon we will have many other interviews with animators and anime directors!
Black Clover is currently transmitted by Crunchyroll here in Brazil and also by the broadcaster Loading.
