Attention! The following lines could represent a source of spoilers for those who are not familiar with One Piece.
Today we bring you the direct testimony of Vincent Chansardan animator and storyboarder of French origin, who graduated a few years ago from Goblinsone of the most famous animation art academies in the world, based in France. Chansard he has lent his art to productions around the world, from Dedicated a Primal Of Genndy Tartakovsky. For Japan we remember his works for Boruto, RWBY: Ice Kingdom (alongside the wonderful work of Hiroto Nagata) and obviously One Piecein which he animated major parts of episodes such as 1071, with the Gear fifthor 1093, among others.
And his masterly work on One Piece it therefore continued. On Twitterin fact, the artist wanted to give his followers an in-depth insight into the work behind the episode 1109in which the swordsman Zoro clashes with S-Hawk.
First of all, the artist wanted to thank Michibata-san for the storyboard, and said he was very happy to have worked with her for her management skills action scenes and scenes in which characters express themselves through movement and dialogue. For his scene Michibata has made it a condition that Zoro could not react. The concept behind the fight was that it was a duel between a highly skilled fighter with years of experience behind him and a young boy with sharp weapons… more precisely, his own limbs. The storyboard of Michibata it has intrigued me a lot Chansard because it continually gave him the impression that at every step Zoro could make a fatal mistake; despite the obvious disparity in strength, the tension was palpable. Another thing he found interesting was the emphasis on the characters’ eyes; in fact, the scene is full of eye shots. The animator thought it was a great way to show their point of view on the battle, as well as show subjectively what is happening around, especially for Zoro who has to be extremely alert to be able to dodge every attack and protect Kaku.
If the storyboard is the work of Michibata, the latter gave the animator carte blanche and let him conceive the choreography of the fight. It was he who thought about how the characters should move during combat.
In the scene in question Zoro does not fight with swords as he usually does, so Chansard he went to look for references in the work to moments in which Zoro had similar experiences, and lists some of them, also analyzing how the swordsman usually tends more to parry than dodge, and is skilled both in ground combat and in “aerial” combat through jumps.
In this situation Zoro has much more experience than S-Hawk, who is practically a newborn from the battlefield point of view. Chansard wanted to emphasize the distance between the experience of the two fighters, opting for a Zoro who tries to control the battlefield and the distance from his challenger. This last thing makes sense precisely because Zoro, given his experience, knows the dangers of an enemy like S-Hawk and the control of the distance helps him to keep him at bay, both by blocking attacks and by grabbing the young man by the blunt parts of his body.
And then Zoro could have gotten rid of Kaku by temporarily throwing him into the air when the possibility of creating distance with S-Hawk arose during the battle. Having to carry a “burden” is also something he gave to think about Chansard who went to look for references directly in the manga. Chansard reports points where Zoro fought bringing a “third wheel”, which in his case was Sogeking. In fact, in that case he was using his crewmate directly as a weapon.
The real challenge of the scene, the animator admits, is S-Hawk’s fighting style. The Seraphim’s style usually seems to be based on the fighter they’re based on, but in S-Hawk’s case, he imagined a bare-handed style similar to Daz Bonez or Cipher Pol, because in his mind, S-Hawk would spend more time with them than with others.
This results in a declination of his style of very clean and formal fighting, with established poses; he therefore imagined that his movements, given the lack of experience, were extremely beautiful but full of unnecessary, formal gestureswith predictable attacks for a veteran like Zoro.
Per S-Hawk, Chansard he wanted to use a style that allowed him to use both arms and legs, based more on a kung fu style. Instead Zoro, from his experience, has a mixed style, fighting, and more difficult to read. The animator would generally prefer a mixture of several martial arts, from taekwondo, to muay thai, to brazilian jiu-jitsu, and takes advantage of this to wink at the next episodes which might contain some form of boxing.
Surely a fight like the one between S-Hawk and Zoro is not as important as others, but even in a secondary fight the thought that goes into the choreography and the choice of styles is profound, as well as fundamental for the excellent rendering of the scene. Chansard but he also had to to tone down the fight, precisely because it was not such an important clash for Luffy’s partner: it wasn’t supposed to feel like his final fight.
He also teases that the next scenes of One Piece he will have worked on will still be short, like the one in episode 1101, but he hopes to be able to deal with a fairly big fight as soon as possible.
We leave you with the original thread in which the artist explains the profound process and thought behind a “simple side fight”.
We sincerely thank Vincent Chansard for his wonderful “wall of text” of explanation, to underline how giving life to characters is not a simple juxtaposition of images in sequence but a process and a discussion that goes to the heart of the story and the narrative that they bring with them.
Source consulted:
Account Twitter di Vincent Chansard.
