Layout checks

After you send your cuts off to your PA, they'll prepare them for a round of checks by various staff at the studio you're working with. This happens to each cut several times, and each round of checks has different people focus on different things. For this first layout stage, there are two regular kinds pretty much any cut gets:

* Enshutsu/Kantoku Check (演出(えんしゅつ)/監督(かんとく)チェック)
* LO Sakkan/Sousakkan Check (作監(さっかん)/総作監(そうさっかん)チェック)

Action focused productions will sometimes include:

* Mecha Check
* Effects Check
* ...

When you're doing cleanup work you will be using these instructions as a guide. Unfortunately, they'll be in hand-written Japanese most of the time. For people who can't read handwritten Japanese, an **interpreter** or **honyakusha** (翻訳者(ほんやくしゃ)) is really helpful. Sometimes a PA will do this for you by typing out the notes so you can auto-translate them.

## Enshutsu/Kantoku Check (演出(えんしゅつ)/監督(かんとく)ェック)

The **enshutsu (演出)** Is the episode director. They handle continuity and story for an episode, while the **kantoku (監督)** is the series director. They handle continuity and story for everything in the series. Both do pretty much all of their corrections using a light pink paper which is very distinctive, though some studios use a different color. Ask a PA if you're not sure what color the corrections you're looking for are.

Most enshutsu want to make sure characters are acting true to their personality, that the style of animation feels solid, and that there are no errors in consistency that could confuse an audience. Most of the time these corrections aren't nicely drawn since a single enshutsu needs to get through dozens of corrections a day. That said, enshutsus can have a wide variety of backgrounds. Some are very experienced draftsmen in their own right, and they might take the time to draw cleaner, more solid drawings to help improve poses or fix errors in the background.

An enshutsu will also check your timesheet. Sometimes they'll change just a few small things. Other times they might redo the timing from scratch. If the enshutsu adds new keyframes or inbetween guides in their drawing corrections, those will be added into the timesheet... Extra notes and corrections are appended to the memo section. Sometimes, if there are enough change,s you will just get a completely new timesheet.

The kantoku won't check every cut, but they also use pink correction paper most of the time. In the majority of situations, their instructions will be similar to an enshutsu's, though their checks tend to carry a little more weight.

## LO Sakkan/Sou Sakkan Check (作監(さっかん)/総作監(そうさっかん)チェック)

Once an enshutsu finishes their checks, the cut moves to **sakkan (作監(さっかん))** or animation director. They usually draw on yellow paper. Sakkans are experts in draftsmanship and animation. They ensure that a layout maintains quality and stays on-model for a cut. Most will expand on some of the changes requested by the enshutsu and kantoku. Sakkan fixes are usually drawing-heavy. Their work is a major reason most anime looks fairly consistent from scene to scene. If the sakkan has enough time, they might correct mistakes for the majority of the drawings in a cut, but it's not uncommon for them to redraw only a single frame – or small set of frames – and write **他合(たあ)わせて** (Ta awasete) which roughly translates to "match the rest." This means that the corrections they've shown must be used as a guide for every frame in the animation. You're going to need to get very used to this phrase. It usually means you have a lot of hard work ahead of you!

After the sakkan comes the final check, the **sousakkan (総作監(そうさっかん))** or senior animation director. Most of the time they draw on green or darker yellow paper. They're in charge of all the drawing and animation corrections for an episode. Sometimes they don't change anything. Other times they fix just a few small things like eyes or jawline, and in some cases, they completely redraw everything to match their vision of the show. Whatever they end up doing, sousakkan gets the final say, since their check is last.

After passing through these checks the cels are sent on for cleanup, while the background is sent to paint (unless that has corrections, too). In most cases, you will be sent corrections on your drawings for the cleanup phase, but it has also become fairly common for studios to send out cuts done by one artist in layout to a different artist for cleanup.