Naruto Shippūden Animation Credits

Main Credits
Series Director: Hayato Date

Original Creator: Masashi Kishimoto

Series Composition: Junki Takegami, Satoru Nishizono, Yasuyuki Suzuki

Character Design: Hirofumi Suzuki, Tetsuya Nishio

Art Director: Hideaki Kudo, Shigenori Takada

Music: Yasuharu Takanashi, -yaiba-

Series Director
The series director is responsible for the overall look and feel of the series and oversees almost every aspect of the production process. Almost everything must meet their approval before moving forward. They are also responsible for creating storyboards, which are sequential drawings detailing the major scenes of the series, essentially a visual script. These storyboards include information about dialogue, music, camera work, and serve as a basis for the animators to create their layouts and key drawings.

Series Composition
The series organizer is the person who determines the overall plot of the series. They will typically acquaint themselves with the story material by reading the manga. Many meetings are held with the director, mangaka, and other relevant personnel of the source material to chart the direction and feel they would like the anime to take. Following this, they will draft an overview plot of the series, broken down into episodes. When the overall series plot is finalized, the series organizer tasks the scenario writers, which often includes themselves as well, with writing scripts for each episode. As the manga progresses, the series organizer oversees the creation of filler stories to ensure that the mangaka has plenty of time to develop more original material, which will later be incorporated into the anime.

Character Design
The character designer is responsible for creating detailed character, set, and item designs. The designs must be very specific and detailed, including facial expressions, colors, and clothing, to ensure that the animators know exactly how a certain character or item should be drawn. The chief designer will create or update "design packs" and distribute them to all of the animators. This also helps the animation supervisor, as the animation is more likely to be uniform, making their jobs a little easier.

Art Director
The art director creates "art boards" with illustrations of the major points and locations in the script, defining the setting, colors, and other various details on how a scene should look on screen. They also create detailed "model packs" for the background artists and key animators to work from. The background artists also receive "art boards" from the art director, which contain rough background sketches detailing how the backgrounds should look.

Episode Credits
Note: In cases where an episode has two people listed for one job, it means that each of them did one half of the episode - or in some rare cases, one third. However, if there is an (A) next to their name, it means they *assisted* the main person with the entire episode. For example: If you look at episode 119, Yasuhiko Kanezuka assisted Yukari Kobayashi as Animation Supervisor by fixing the bad art in the episode. Without Kanezuka assisting, the art in episode 119 would have looked much worse.

Animation Supervisor (作画監督)
Literally translated as "drawings supervisor". Animation Supervisors are responsible for leading and co-ordinating the animation team. They may also be involved in the recruitment of that team, to ensure that the selected artists have the appropriate animation and drawing skills for the production. They interpret the brief from the director, and from other relevant departments, and communicate information to the animators.

The animation supervisor is the person who oversees, checks, and corrects the key animators' drawings. The changes can be for many reasons but are most often to bring the characters "on model" so that they more accurately reflect the original character designs. They often work closely with the Chief Animator and Chief Designer, but overall, the final look of the episode hinges on the artistic abilities of the animation supervisor. Note: You'll most often see this credit translated as "Animation Director", but since they only oversee the key animation aspects I feel it is more appropriate to give them a title of supervisor which is also an accurate translation of kantoku.

Storyboard (絵コンテ)
Literally translated as "picture continuity". Storyboard Artists illustrate the narrative, plan shots, and draw panels to demonstrate action, and to maintain continuity between scenes. They may need to revise and update their work to reflect a changing script or comments from the Director. More often than not, the storyboards are drawn by the series director, but when they are too busy someone else must step in and complete the task. However, the series director still supervises them and has the ultimate say in what is on the storyboard. The staff member credited is simply the person drawing, and more or less makes no real decisions toward the progression of the series. Note: "Series Director" is not to be confused with "Episode Director". Naruto has always only had ONE series director, and that is Hayato Date (伊達勇登).

A 20 minute storyboard such as a Naruto episode usually takes 2 or 3 weeks to complete. As with the director, there is no clear qualification for being a storyboard artist or episode director. Everybody starts from different genre. Some start as an animator, some start as assistant production manager. Some come directly from the film industry.

Episode Director (演出)
Literally translated as "production (e.g. play) / direction". The director, often referred to as the episode director, is one of the most difficult and most important jobs in the production process of a single episode. They are the go-between for the series director and the rest of the staff. They are responsible for checking and supervising the show throughout the production, from initial story to the final released product, and in many cases, have almost total control over it. They typically check the animation drawings as they are being worked on, set up each scene before it goes to photography and supervises the sound, voice recordings, and all of the editing, amongst many other jobs.

Assistant Director: The assistant director is an extension of the episode director, attending to tasks that the director does not have time for. They will often run errands for the director and do whatever they can to make the director's stressful job easier. Many assistant directors are also episode directors and switch between the two roles as they are needed.

Screenplay (脚本)
Literally translated as "Script" or "Scenario". A scenario writer is responsible for the script of a specific episode or movie, most notably including the character and narration dialogue. These writers are supervised by the series organizer and director to ensure that the episodes scenario fits within the overall scope of the series plot. An episodes script is often revised numerous times before it is finalized and handed over to the episode director to begin work on the animation process.