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Animators, tied to their chairs, staying up night after night, staring at a head for hours and hours just to move a strand of hair, wink an eye, and open a mouth just by using a pencil through piles and piles of paper. This brave army of men and women sweats out the most physically and mentally daunting task of the whole industry, just to master the techniques impossible in real life. Interestingly in Japan's industry, if an Animator can develop a distinctive style to represent themselves, that Animator, by then, can also be "promoted" to serve as a Character Designer.
In General
- The Knights Who Say "Squee!": When Shigeru Sugie came into the center to lead their crucial Grand Finale cut scenes.
Ema Yasuhara
See the Main Characters section
Rinko Ogasawara
Position: Character Designer, General Animation Supervisor (Exodus!), Key Animator (Third Aerial Girls' Squad)
Voiced by: Ai Kayano (Japanese), Elissa Cuellar (English)
Voiced by: Ai Kayano (Japanese), Elissa Cuellar (English)
Musashino Animation's ace animator. For Exodus project, she was the lead character designer and a leader in the animation department, while for Third Aerial Girls' Squad she relegated herself to key animation in order to reacquaint herself with the basics.
- The Ace: She's flat out referred to as an animation genius, is superhumanly good at baseball, and is implied to also be a go master. People in-universe treat her with awe. Her work is admired by many, especially Ema.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: She's good enough at her job for Musashino to tolerate her habit of wearing Elegant Gothic Lolita fashion to work instead of standard business attire.
- Elegant Gothic Lolita: She stands out among the largely grounded, realistic cast for wearing gothic lolita clothing almost constantly, and she's even known as "Goth Loli-sama" by her colleagues for this trait. In episode 16, she explains that she dresses this way due to one of her first jobs being to design a goth loli character; after being discouraged about her designs constantly being sent back for revision, she started to wear goth loli clothing for inspiration.
- Emotionless Girl: Though not really — she only looks this, in fact being more of The Stoic.
- Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: She dresses in Elegant Gothic Lolita clothing and acts very refined and ladylike, but it's revealed that her favorite way to unwind is by going to the batting cage.
- Hidden Depths: Despite dressing and acting like a refined noblewoman, she reveals that her private passion is baseball, much to the surprise of her co-workers. She's also really good at it, able to pitch and bat like a pro even while wearing her dress (which causes Aoi to fantasize about an anime that stars an entire baseball team of goth-lolitas). When asked if she was on the baseball team in school, she replies that she was actually in the go club instead, implying that she's good at that game as well.
- In-Universe Nickname: She's known among Musashino Animation's staff as "Goth Loli-sama" for her habit of always wearing Elegant Gothic Lolita clothing, even at work.
- More Senior Subordinate: She is usually considered the ace animator of Musashino Animation, and she led the department during the Exodus! project. In the following project Third Aerial Girls' Squad, however, she relegated herself to a key animator in order to reacquaint herself with the basics.
- The Ojou: Has the looks and mannerisms of it.
- Older Than They Look: Despite her youthful appearance, Rinko seems to be one of the older employees of Musashino Animation. In Yumi's flashback to her earlier, Rinko was her Stern Teacher.
- Southpaw Advantage: This seems to be invoked by her when it comes to playing softball, as she pitches and bats with left, but is using her right hand in everything else. Yet for some reason, she's incredible good in softball.
- The Spock: An eternally calm and reasonable person.
- The Stoic: Somewhat intentional alongside her Elegant Gothic Lolita, so that her demeanor makes her peers not dismiss her work easily.
- What the Hell, Hero?: After Iguchi's character designs keep getting rejected, Ogasawara calmly lectures Kinoshita and Watanabe, saying that they aren't giving Iguchi enough support, and that their inability to get in touch with the author is no excuse.
Ryousuke Endou
Position: Key Animator, Animation Supervisor (Exodus!, Episodes 3 and 8)
Voiced by: Shinobu Matsumoto (Japanese), Kregg Dailey (English)
Voiced by: Shinobu Matsumoto (Japanese), Kregg Dailey (English)
Endou is an experienced animator who specializes in hand-drawn 2D special effects, including explosions, flying missiles, and various action expressions.
- Friendship Moment: Upon discovering that Shimoyanagi is an Idepon fan like him, Endou realizes that they both share the same passion for animation, even if the express it differently. At the end of Episode 6 he compliments the latter's work, and even asks Shimoyanagi to one day help him learn 3D animation.
- Good Old Ways: Endou is a diehard traditionalist and dyed-in-the-wool proponent of traditional animation, which explains his outburst in Episode 5: he has made his name drawing traditional pen-and-pencil effects animation and is extremely peeved by the 3D department snatching his coveted cut from him due to Tarou's bumbling "negotiations" and Kinoshita's enthusiasm, partly in fear of being made redundant.
- Happily Married: Has a kind, hard-working wife.
- Hot-Blooded: He may have a calm appearance, but no doubt about it, he's very passionate in what he does; and is the most opinionated within the animation department in terms of communication.
- Knight in Sour Armor: He's torn between adapting to the evolution of the animation industry and standing by his traditionalist ideals, leaving him constantly cranky and cynical towards his colleagues, and even become hostile towards the ones whom he thought poked his nerves.
- Sitcom Archnemesis: Towards Segawa. Because he couldn't understand why she's so persistent in working alone and still have an optimistic outlook on their shrinking cell animation industry. But then again, this seems to be a more deeper issue for them than it looks.
- Smoking Is Cool
- Unknown Rival: Towards Shimoyanagi, director for the the 3D Department. Endou wanted to hand-draw the special effect cuts, but Kinoshita was leaning towards 3D techniques, and he sure does feel the threat.
Yumi Iguchi
Position: Key Animator (Exodus!), Character Designer (Third Aerial Girls' Squad)
Voiced by: Manami Numakura (Japanese), Natalie Rial (English)
Voiced by: Manami Numakura (Japanese), Natalie Rial (English)
An animator who has more years in the company than most young-ins of the department. She served as Exodus!' assistant general animation supervisor, and afterwards got promoted to character designer for Third Aerial Girls' Squad.
- Big Sister Mentor: To Ema, as she's a more experienced animator who takes Ema under her wing and teaches her how to deal with problems like artist's block.
- Genki Girl: Among animators, she's more of this, especially compared to the stoic Ogasawara and the quiet Ema.
- Heroic BSoD: She suffers one due to the pressure of being the main character designer for Third Aerial Girls' Squad and having her work rejected by Nogame until Ogasawara manages to snap her out of it.
- The Nicknamer: She calls Ema "Yasuharacchi" (and later "Emacchi"), Ogasawara "Rinko-han" (though not to her face), Endou "Super Effect Animator" and Kunogi "Kunogin". She also follows Erika's example in calling Aoi "Myaamori".
- You Are in Command Now: After Ogasawara relegates herself to regular animator.
Akane Uchida
Position: Key Animator
Voiced by: Rie Takahashi (Japanese), Carolyn Medrano (English)
Voiced by: Rie Takahashi (Japanese), Carolyn Medrano (English)
A Key Animator who joined Musashino Animation roughly the same time as Ema, and appears to be as introverted just as Ema is.
- Stock Footage: Her mere existence is only vocal on that repeated headshot of her in that "first episode party night scene."
Hikaru Houta
Position: Key Animator
Voiced by: Riki Kitazawa (Japanese), Nathan Wilson (English)
Voiced by: Riki Kitazawa (Japanese), Nathan Wilson (English)
A Key Animator of Musashino Animation with quite some years of experience, but not as much compared to Endou, Iguchi, and Ogasawara. He seems to enjoy the special effects aspect of 2D animation just like Endou does, and is working hard to pursue that area of proficiency.
- Boss Subtitles: Thanks to him appearing in the early half of the show, he receives them despite only showing his face for that one scene.
Ai Kunogi
Position: In-Between Animator (Exodus!) / Key Animator (Third Aerial Girls' Squad)
Voiced by: Shiori Izawa (Japanese), Hilary Haag (English)
Voiced by: Shiori Izawa (Japanese), Hilary Haag (English)
A newbie of the animation department hired as key animator starting from Third Aerial Girls' Squad, whom Ema takes under for guidance.
- Prone to Tears: Looks always on the edge of bursting into tears.
- Remember the New Guy?: It turns out that she was already employed since Exodus! as in-between animator, and was a complete nonentity in the Exodus arc. Her name can be found in the credits of the official Exodus! OVA.
- Shrinking Violet: Even more than Ema, if that's at all possible. She's so shy that she can barely get any coherent words out when speaking to other people.
- Tareme Eyes: Characters in this series have eyes at some point at the Tsurime-Tareme continuum. Her eyes belongs to the extreme tareme end.
- Token Mini-Moe: Of the MusAni staff as of the Third Aerial Girls' Squad arc, on account of being pretty childlike both in appearance and personality.
Shigeru Sugie
Position: Key Animator
Voiced by: Motoi Koyanagi (Japanese), Carl Masterson (English)
Voiced by: Motoi Koyanagi (Japanese), Carl Masterson (English)
A veteran animator who realistically should've long been in retirement, but who is kept on board to mentor the New Meats of the animation department.
- Big Damn Heroes: He personally saves the production of the Exodus finale by providing the cues to an extremely complicated sequence involving horses.
- Call-Forward: Invoked. He is a specialist in animating animal locomotion and behavior because of his work in Andes Chucky, providing crucial animation cues for both the finales of Exodus and Third Aerial Girls' Squad.
- Cool Old Guy: He often gives useful advice to Ema, who sits next to her.
- Hidden Badass: At first he appears to still be working at the studio only out of respect for his seniority, but it turns out that he has decades of experience drawing realistic animals, a skill that many younger animators lack.
- I Got You Covered: For leading the animation cuts of the crucial horse galloping scenes in Exodus! Episode 13.
- I Was Quite a Looker: Back when Musashino Animation's predecessor, Musashino Pictures, was still in the cel age, he was the pretty boy of the staff. Even now in his sixties he's still quite pleasing to the eye.
- Kicked Upstairs: Subverted — he's not on the Exodus team and is actually in semi-retirement, but unlike the traditional "madogiwazoku," his position is not a sinecure one, as he's basically there to "play coach" towards the rookie animators. On the other hand, he isn't involved in MusaAni's newer projects because he was never used to the
moe style, so despite receiving MusaAni's salary, he is effectively a freelancer. - The Mentor: He's a veteran animator of the company who's not involved with the Exodus project. And is only there to mentor the youngsters.
- Not Quite the Right Thing: He advises Ema to focus on learning how to get her work done more quickly while she's young, saying that if she does, she'll naturally improve in other regards. Possibly as a result of this, Ema deviates from her usual style, which results in her having to redo some of her cuts, and Segawa's harsh criticism worsens Ema's fears that she doesn't have what it takes to be an animator. His goal was to help her do better and become more confident, but in the short term, his advice backfired, at least as a result of how Ema chose to follow it.
- Respected by the Respected: The show's stand-in for Hideaki Anno is a fan of his work and holds him in great esteem.
- Self-Deprecation: After managing to save the Exodus finale by drawing realistic horses he says he's glad he had a chance to do something useful rather than continue to be "a burden" to MusAni.
- Token Adult: Of the Animation Department.
Chiemi Doumoto
Musashino Animation's current head of the Animation Department. note All Key Frames and In-Between animation cuts have to go through her inspection and approval before they are handed down to the production staff to send off to other departments depending on each case.
- Absurdly Youthful Mother: She certainly does not look like a mom with a teenage son.
- Department of Redundancy Department: When Shinkawa warns her that Aoi might have slackers working beneath her, Doumoto says, "You mean like Tarou, and Tarou, and Tarou. And Hiraoka."
- I Need a Freaking Drink: She finally got her moment with the camera focusing on her happy hours unwinding with Color Designer, Nao Shinkawa.
- Stock Footage: Like Akane above, her existence is too, only vocal on that repeated headshot of her in that "first episode party night scene."
