Most underappreciated talent in anime

[danth78]

One of my all time favorite character designers is Hirotoshi Sano. He's been staff in only about 25 shows, and only character designer on 3 shows: Bounty Dogs, Nazca, and Tekkaman Blade II. But this guy draws the most drop-dead beautiful characters I've ever seen. I'd say he's like Haruhiku Mikimoto, Yoshikazu Yazuhiko, and Toshihiro Kawamoto all rolled into one. Here are some links to his artwork if anyone wants to see it: Link 1 (http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/9571/tekkamanblade2102106wa3.jpg), link 2 (http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/967/teknomanju4.jpg), link 3 (http://the.animearchive.org/tekkamanblade/1/tekkaman-blade2_add.jpg), link 4 (http://www.ost-heavens.com/shop/o/ost-heaven/img-lib/spd_2006080710256_b.jpg), link 5 (http://www.ex.org/3.3/17-anime_nazca.html).

Does anybody else have a favorite underrated artist, director, or other anime contributor?

[EmperorBrandon]

She's only really been the character designer for a few series, but I really love Ikuko Itoh (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=85)'s cute style and wish we would see more of it - she's a big part of the reason Magic User's Club and Princess Tutu (both which she was the original character designer) are favorites of mine and I continue to enjoy the characters in them. With the episodes where she was animation director in Sailor Moon, I could always count on something good with the artwork (and a few were just plain beautiful), even though the series in general were inconsistent.

[Serial Experiments Nobue]

I agree with the Ikuko Itoh call. Those designs are very cute, and in Princess Tutu especially, it makes the darker aspects of the story that much more startling when such cute looking characters are involved.

Other favorites of mine that I don't see mentioned as much:

Kumichi Yoshizuki (http://www.tuchinoko.com). Her cover art for Someday's Dreamers is what made me investigate that series, and I soon became a fan of her art in general after that.

Yuriko Chiba (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=9). Figure 17 became one of my favorite series in part to the characters designed by Chiba. They are cute, yet retain an element of realism, which is brought to another level on Planetes. When I saw Planetes for the first time (another personal favorite), I knew that something seemed familiar about Ai, but I couldn't place it. Then, I saw the character designer in each case. Mystery solved!

I'm sure there are others, I just can't think of them right now. :sd: