▲ In the scene of Yusuke and Botan, the two main characters, going to a post-life world to meet Yama, a mysterious atmosphere is created with purple sky being reflected on a surface of dark water. Detailed expression of water wave and color clearly stands out.
Dexter Studios has produced one of the global hottest films with a Japanese famous real-life animation.
On December 15, Dexter Studios (206560), a company specializing in VFX and content production, revealed its VFX work that went into the new Netflix series “YuYu Hakusho.” YuYu Hakusho is based on an action and occult genre comics (anime) from Japan, and was produced by ROBOT, a leading Japanese video content company. The series was released worldwide via Netflix on December 14.
‘YuYu Hakusho’ tells the story in which an adolescent trouble boy Yusuke, who becomes dead and cannot live up to his lifespan by trying to save a child in a car accident, works as a ‘detective’ assigned with a special rule of the post-life world. The original comics are ‘YuYu Hakusho’ (published by Jump Comics), which is a blockbuster comic book by Yoshihiro Togashi, having serialized in weekly Shonen Jump (SHUEISHA) for four years since 1990. As Netflix officially announced its plan to create a real-life version of the comics in November 2021, it has gained higher expectations.
This project runs multiple VFX studios where not only Dexter Studios but also ▲ <Scanline VFX> which participated in countless Hollywood blockbuster films such as ‘Avengers’, ‘Aquaman’, ‘Black Panther’, ‘Transformer’, and ▲ <Digital Frontier> renowned for ‘Death Note’ and ‘Alice in Borderland’ in a Netflix series, participated together.
“Due to the genre characteristics, this film has a burst of colors and a high portion of VFX, therefore talented artists were dispatched from different countries. As a main studio from Korea, Dexter Studios showed a global standard video technology. With the ‘Along with the Gods’ series, it received favorable reviews by vividly presenting seven hells. Meanwhile, the ongoing drama series ‘Death’s Game’ already tells a story about a post-life world. With the understanding of three different concepts, we smoothly utilized the video technology for this project based on our understanding and the know-hows from other projects with similar concepts,” Dexter Studios said.
“This series required a magic-like effect under unusual concepts and presented a multi-dimensional space/time setting. Upon Director Sho Tsukikawa’s request, the show designed unique visual and movement, adding to its differentiated charm from other contents,” said VFX Supervisor Byunjoo Park.
“This series showed creativity in setting up and expressing symbolic venues such as the post-life world and Yama’s palace. We focused on expressing fantasy elements looking real throughout the film – a magic scroll naturally moves in the air, showing the entire life of the deceased in a panorama type,” he added.
Previously, Dexter Studios won new VFX orders worth KRW 5.5 billion for the Hollywood movie “Knights of the Zodiac,” a collaboration between studios in the United States, Hungary, and Japan.
