How Sony's Japan Studio Created Gravity Rush | Animator Spotlight

Canipa reflects on the animation of the Gravity Rush series and how Sony's former Japan Studio gave it an environment to thrive.

Sources and Further Reading:

Intro:
Produced for The Canipa Effect

Games and Anime series featured in this video (chronologically):

Gravity Rush 2
The Last Guardian
Vib-Ribbon
Silent Hill
Siren
Siren: Blood Curse
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
Ape Escape
Toro to Kyuujitsu
Persona 5
The Case Study of Vanitas
Guilty Gear Strive
The Last of Us
Puppeteer
Patapon
Locoroco
Gravity Rush Remastered

Music:

00:00 - Resistance and Extermination - Kohei Tanaka
01:16 - Sponsored Message - Raid: Shadow Legends
02:38 - Pleajeune - Kohei Tanaka
03:57 - Lei Havina - Kohei Tanaka
06:04 - Combat III - Kohei Tanaka
08:11 - Gravity Engine - Kohei Tanaka

All footage is used for the purpose of review and is fair use.

[TheCanipaEffect]

Thanks to Raid: Shadow Legends for sponsoring this video. The Canipa Effect Patreons will be sponsoring a second video releasing next week!

[itsmamind]

Me seeing anything Gravity Rush related, I instantly click it. I just love that the two Gravity Rush games where so unique and legit beautiful.

[-Nada-]

Gravity Rush is always the no.1 game I’ll recommend anyone - it’s far too criminally underappreciated

[Lightspeeds]

This gets brought up as soon as I learned that Gravity Rush's creator is the original creator of Silent Hill.

[demonpirate]

Extremely creative, beautiful, and underrated franchise. The score is incredible, too (Kohei Tanaka never misses).
Unfortunate that we will probably never see another entry.

[imskiller]

Man, Gravity Rush 2 is such an impressive game.
As a sequel, it set out to improve upon all of its predecessor's shortcomings and succeeded in every field.
It's a technological showcase.
It has one of the best open worlds I've ever experienced, while managing to contain the entirety of the first game within it.
The music is fucking fantastic, even better than the original, I was so impressed I ordered both OSTs from Amazon JP.
Yet, it failed commercially

[alexworman]

I would spend hours just flying around collecting gems in Gravity Rush 2

[JerryFlowersIII]

That clip of Shawn Layden at the beginning REALLY made me realize how much I miss him.
Great video as always. I think your work is really important.

[KonataStar]

I love Gravity Rush so much, the team poured so much creativity and details into this game. I even translated most of the hidden alphabet because the lore is unlike any other story. I'm still so curious about the rest of the story that remains untold :c ❤️

[flycosis]

this is the first game to wow me in many years

[Noah-Lach]

This game has such wonderful animation. I still remember the feeling of booting it up for the first time and finally being blown away by my Vita after the rather underwhelming Uncharted Golden Abyss. It truly was the perfect game to show off what a next-gen handheld could be.

[AZmaybe]

Man, I love Gravity Rush! So much artistic expression went into it. Maybe a bit too much sometimes but I've been obsessed with the games and the way they feel for such a long time!

[charlyhv]

That and many other reasons are why Gravity rush 2 is my favourite piece of art.
Thanks for the video.

[brendondellinger]

I recently played both games back to back. Play them, they hold up really well on the ps4.

[godzilla]

This just makes Sony's Closure of Japan Studio all the more dickish.

[Raf]

this Makes Sony's closure of Japan Studio even more depressing man
Japan Studio wasn't perfect but even their worst games had heart put into them that makes them stand out from Sony's other exclusive titles, even if some of them are collabs with other devs like FromSoftware with Bloodborne

now it feels like that sparkle is dying slowly in favor of more "Cinematic" games...

[UdinDjaelani]

8:28
"Animated by Evangelion 3D team"
*shows Gainax pose

I see what you did there lol

[GrimmShane]

as someone who has the original Gravity Rush in physical format, I want to say, I absolutely love every single time this game gets attention, specially since I first got to know it when it was free to download on the monthly roll of playstation plus free games all the way back, barely a few months after its release, and I absolutely LOVED it, but couldn't beat it, so I got it in physical format for my birthday back in 2019, and I've been replaying it a lot since! trying to get 100% on it lately, it's being very fun ngl

[guicaldo]

As an aspiring animation director, I really want to make a Gravity Rush 3D anime one day. These movement mechanics could make for incredible action scenes if choreographed, and the visual style is a joy to look at.

[SilverRay]

Gravity Rush is one of my favorite franchises period, I love everything about the games so much! It really sucks that the sequel didn't sell very well; the online portions of the game were shut down only a year after release, so anyone who bought the game after the online shut down never got a chance to engage with those features (I personally really enjoyed the treasure hunts, it was a fun way to reward players for understanding the world they're playing in).