So, the bitter tea of the day is that...
Kunihiko Hamada, veteran animator at Madhouse for 35 years, announced that he left the animation company at the end of March.
Hamada is famous for giving life to several successful anime adaptations in combination with director Morio Asaka: among them, Nana, Chihayafuru, My Love Story with Yamada-kun at lv999, Ore Monogatari and yes, our beloved (and unlucky) Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card too.
Specifically, Hamada was the character designer for season 1 of Clear Card Arc, and also the Chief Animation Director (the one who's in charge of supervising the compliance with his settei and the eventual corrections). He worked also on the OG Cardcaptor Sakura anime in 1998-2000 as animation director of some episodes.
The story is sad and concerning for several reasons. First, going by Hamada-san's words, Madhouse didn't try to convince him to stay, and they didn't give him any severance pay either. After 35 years of (very good) service, it sounds absurd. Severance/retirement pay is a sum that Japanese companies pay when an employee leaves, whether it is for simple departure from the company or because of retirement. Apparently, as otrageous as it sounds, contracts that do not provide a severance/retirement pay are legit in Japan. Basically, in order to give a bit more money to the employee when they start a contract, they do not offer a severance pay but do pay the equivalent amount in the regular check every month. It's like they get that money "in advance" with their regular pay, and not later when they leave. It kind of makes sense like that, but still, after 35 years and such good results, it's grim to think they couldn't even give him a bonus, especially considering the infamous low pay in the animation industry.
He said "they didn't try to make me stay", and considering the bitter posts he made on Twitter lately about the working environment, I can imagine he went to ask for better conditions or he'd leave. Evidently the company just said "farewell". Thankfully, he said he already started anew in a new company.
And now comes the bitter pill for us CLAMP and Cardcaptor Sakura fans. After 3 years of silence since the first announcement (with sporadic mentions from insiders that stopped in 2024), losing the character designer throws an ever darker shadow on this production.
To a fan who mentioned Clear Card S2 in the quotes, and wondered "will the season 2 of Clear Card be okay if Hamada-san leaves, with the production announced 3 years ago?", Hamada himself replied "probably not 😂". I understand he's bitter right now, but this answer does not do anything good to sedate the fandom worries.
If they had already started to work on the sequel of the anime (which is meant to portray the story till the end), this will surely mess things up and cause more delays (and judging by his reply, it seems to be the case). Knowing the production of Clear Card S2 was on the way, it seems even more absurd they didn't try to make him stay to keep the animation team intact. Ironically, things might be easier if they never started to work on it till now.
But also, this brings in all kinds of new concerns about the quality of the work from now on. Director Asaka and Hamada were called a "golden duo", they worked really well together and gave life to several successful anime adaptations. Hamada knew Cardcaptor Sakura and its production well ever since the old anime, he understood fully the spirit of the series. He represented stability. With half of that duo gone, the equilibrium and reassurance that we'd get a good work becomes precarious. I don't want to say that whomever will fill his shoes won't do a good job, but it does leave me worried until we find out more reassuring news.
It is a sad story that's making the rounds on twitter. Probably the truth is in the middle. We don't know the other side of the argument and what else happened. All I know is I'm just really sad and *concerned*.
