Kazuya Shiotsuki

Kazuya Shiotsuki (Japanese: 潮月一也, Hepburn: Shiotsuki Kazuya) is a Japanese animator and character designer.

Kazuya Shiotsuki 潮月 一也
Nationality	Japanese
Occupation(s)	Animator, character designer
Years active	2001–present
Employer(s)	Hadashi Pro (2001~2002) Shaft (2003–present)
Known for	Gourmet Girl Graffiti Luminous Witches

Career

Shiotsuki joined Hadashi Pro in the early 2000s as a rookie in-between animator. Within a few years, he left the studio and joined Shaft around 2003. Initially, Shiotsuki continued with in-between work, but was promoted to key animator within a year; and by 2006, he was doing animation direction work. In 2008, Shiotsuki received his first job as a character designer for one of the Shina Dark music videos.^[1] Soon thereafter, he became more involved with Shaft's works as a main staff member taking on a variety of different roles from accessory designer, to chief animation director, and so forth. His first character design work for a televised anime came in 2015 when he designed the characters for Gourmet Girl Graffiti.^[2] Shaft president Mitsutoshi Kubota gave Shiotsuki the first three volumes of the manga and asked him to make some drawings from it, and then asked Shiotsuki to draw something like a character chart which he submitted and was adopted by the production.^[3]

In 2022, he designed the characters for the Strike Witches spin-off series Luminous Witches,^[4] and in 2024 designed the characters for Ninja to Koroshiya no Futarigurashi.^[5]

Shiotsuki named Shaft colleague Nobuhiro Sugiyama as a particular influence on his style. Nisekoi's first season, which Sugiyama drew the designs for and acted as chief animation director alongside Shiotsuki, garnered praise from the latter, who described the key visuals and character sheets as "godlike."^[6]

Works

This is an incomplete list.

Teleivison series

  Highlights character design or chief animation direction roles.
  Highlights other main animation staff member roles.

Year	Title	Director(s)	Studio	Roles	Ref(s)
2009	Natsu no Arashi!	Akiyuki Shinbo Shin Oonuma	Shaft	Accessory design (#1–3)
2012	Hidamari Sketch x Honeycomb	Akiyuki Shinbo Yuki Yase	Shaft	Chief animation direction assistance (#8)
2014	Nisekoi	Akiyuki Shinbo Naoyuki Tatsuwa	Shaft	Chief animation director	[7]
2015	Gourmet Girl Graffiti	Akiyuki Shinbo Naoyuki Tatsuwa	Shaft	Character designer Chief animation director	[2]
2016–2017	March Comes In like a Lion	Akiyuki Shinbo Kenjirou Okada	Shaft	Chief animation director Clothing designer (#1–11) Prop designer (#12–22)
2017–2018	March Comes In like a Lion 2nd Season			Chief animation director	[8]
2020	Assault Lily Bouquet	Shouji Saeki Hajime Ootani	Shaft	Chief animation director Sub-character designer	[9][10]
2022	Luminous Witches	Shouji Saeki	Shaft	Animation character designer Chief animation director	[4][11]
2023	The Café Terrace and Its Goddesses	Satoshi Kuwabara	Tezuka Productions (Shaft)	Chief animation director (#9)
2025	Ninja to Koroshiya no Futarigurashi	Yukihiro Miyamoto	Shaft	Animation character designer Chief animation director	[5]

OVAs

Year	Title	Director(s)	Studio	Roles	Ref(s)
2008	Shina Dark	Naoyuki Konno Shinpei Tomooka Shin Oonuma Toshimasa Suzuki	Shaft	Character designer	[1]
2013	Hidamari Sketch: Sae & Hiro's Graduation Arc	Akiyuki Shinbo Yuki Yase	Shaft	Clothing designer (#1)
2014	Nisekoi	Akiyuki Shinbo Naoyuki Tatsuwa	Shaft	Chief animation director (#1)
2015	Magical Suite Prism Nana	Yukihiro Miyamoto	Shaft	Character designer (#1)	[12]

Films

Year	Title	Director(s)	Studio	Roles	Ref(s)
2023	The Quintessential Quintuplets~	Yukihiro Miyamoto	Shaft	Character designer Chief animation director	[13]

Notes

Book citations

• Nakamoto, Muneo; Yamamoto, Yuuko, eds. (2015). 幸腹グラフィティTVアニメ公式ガイドブック Girls&Cooking! [Gourmet Girl Graffiti TV Anime Official Guidebook - Girls & Cooking]. Houbunsha. ISBN 978-4832245853.

References

1. "シャイナ・ダルク ～黒き月の王と蒼碧の月の姫君～". Highway Star (in Japanese). Archived from the original on September 17, 2021. Retrieved March 6, 2023.
2. 幸腹グラフィティ [Gourmet Girl Graffiti]. Shaft. Retrieved March 6, 2023.
3. Nakamoto & Yamamoto 2015, p. 68.
4. Loo, Egan (November 14, 2021). "Luminous Witches TV Anime Posts 2nd Promo Video's Short Version Online". Anime News Network. Retrieved March 6, 2023.
5. Hodgkins, Crystalyn (November 25, 2024). "Ninja to Koroshiya no Futarigurashi Anime Reveals April 2025 Debut, Teaser Video, Staff, More Cast". Anime News Network. Retrieved November 26, 2024.
6. Himmelheber, Eric; Sarca (July 29, 2023). "Discussing The Quintessential Quintuplets∽ Special With Junichiro Tanaka, Keiichiro Ohchi and Kazuya Shiotsuki". Anime Corner. Retrieved July 29, 2023.
7. ニセコイ [Nisekoi]. Shaft (in Japanese). Retrieved March 6, 2023.
8. ３月のライオン [March Comes In like a Lion]. Shaft (in Japanese). Retrieved March 6, 2023.
9. Loo, Egan (December 21, 2019). "Assault Lily Bouquet Anime Teased in Video". Anime News Network. Retrieved March 6, 2023.
10. アサルトリリィ　BOUQUET [Assault Lily Bouquet]. Shaft (in Japanese). Retrieved March 6, 2023.
11. @shaft_official (July 3, 2022). 【ルミナス】|『ルミナスウィッチーズ』第１話 | から、ジニー、いのり、ミラーシャの総作監修正です | 総作画監督：潮月一也 [Luminous Witches | From the first episode of "Luminous Witches" | Ginny, Inari, and Milasha; this is the chief animation director's correction | Chief animation director: Kazuya Shiotsuki] (Tweet) – via Twitter.
12. "Prism Nana Episode 1 Staff". Prism Nana (in Japanese). Retrieved March 6, 2023.
13. "STAFF / CAST". 5hanayome (in Japanese). TBS. Retrieved June 23, 2023.

External links

• Kazuya Shiotsuki at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• Kazuya Shiotsuki at IMDb