Munetaka Abe

Munetaka Abe (阿部 宗孝 Abe Munetaka) is a Japanese director and animator known for his Masami Ōbari inspired style of animation, and his collaborations with Obari on such series as Detonator Orgun, Super Robot Wars Original Generation: The Inspector, Gundam Build Fighters, and Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans. He's worked on every Brave series installment from Brave Express: Might Gaine onward, and was also part of Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z Hen's staff, alongside former Studio OX members Tsuyoshi Nonaka, Asao Takahashi, and Shin Matsuo. While drawing a lot from Obari in terms of art style, Abe's style tends to use less exaggerated musculature, and more expressive character acting animation, which includes Transformers blinking to emphasize their emotion, and extreme close ups which actually show their pupils. He is notable for animating the transformation sequences in Beast Wars II, Beast Wars Neo, Robots in Disguise, Armada, and the transformations used before episodes in the Japanese release of Transformers Animated. He also animated most if not all of the 2D Transformer animation in Transformers: Energon, so if you enjoyed seeing those characters emote for once you have him to thank.