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Creator / Nakamura Productions

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Nakamura Production (中村プロダクション; often shortened to simply Nakamura Pro), established in 1974 by former Mushi Productions animator Kazuo Nakamura (now Takigawa) and his brother Akira after brief stints at On Production, Danchi Douga and Toei Animation, is an animation support studio and frequent collaborator for both TMS Entertainment and Sunrise (and shortly after establishment, Toei). For a list of their Anime work, see the Anime News Network.

See also Wang Film Productions, another Asian studio with a similarly long list of animated projects (albeit for mostly Western productions, rather than Japanese), as well as Bridge and Studio Hercules, companies established by former animators of the studio.


Among Nakamura Pro's credits:

    open/close all folders 
    Western Animation/Foreign productions 
Walt Disney Animation Japan (animation cooperation unless otherwise noted)note 

For TMS

Other shows

    Anime/video games 
Main

Support; movies

Support; shows/OVAs

Support; games


Tropes Associated with the company:

  • Animated Adaptation: Kabuto and Dragon Slayer, as well as a hefty chunk of their subcontract credits.
  • Depending on the Artist: More like "Depending on the Animation Director", as the company's animation style during the 1990s differs depending on who was serving as its animation supervisor. With roughly three different eras of Signature Style on display:
    • From the 70s until the mid-1980s, the use of the Toei-styled crosshatched shading would be prevalent in many of their animation efforts (most notably their work on mecha anime like Mobile Suit Gundam and Armored Trooper VOTOMS). With the drawings themselves looking rounded, overly detailed and given a Thick-Line Animation look. This, minus the shading, would carry over to some of their cartoon work for TMS.
    • From the mid-80s until the late 1990s, the studio would see new animation directors step up, the most prominent being Hirokazu Hisayuki, who would lead the studio to animate in a far flatter style than before (owed in part due to their work with TMS at that time). This would also be adopted by Tetsuya Yanagisawa (who would be the first to use this), and later by Akira Nakamura himself.
    • From the early 1990s to the present, Takuro Shinbo would become another animation director, a role he continues to have to this day. While his style is as simple as Hisayuki's, he also incorporates shading to make the characters not look too flat. His style also renders most clothing wrinkles as simply additional bits of shading, something that has since become commonplace in most modern anime.
    • Ed normally goes noseless in the episodes of Cowboy Bebop they animated, which is prominent in side and front profile views.
  • Humongous Mecha: Aside from a sizable fraction of their support work coming from this genre, a silhouetted one adorns their website as the studio's mascot.
  • How the Mighty Have Fallen: While still highly active in the industry, even seeing a spike in credits after 2002. The prominence they had during the period between 1979 to the mid-late 2000s isn't as strong as it used to benote . Their foreign contracts have similarly slowed to a crawl.
  • Mushroom Samba: Animated the episode that became the Trope Namer.

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