Given the rarity of full animation in anime and Kou’s labored art, his cuts are sometimes confused for CG. His effects animation is sometimes compared to Mitsuo Iso’s.
His cuts often look hand-painted due to their solid shading and elaborate colored lineart, feasible only through digital techniques. A one-man production team, Kou’s scenes are wholly his, from the in-betweens to the coloring, and he almost always animates on the 1s. Working with Hiroyuki Kitakubo and Hisashi Ezura on the Ghost in the Shell video game intro and Blood: The Last Vampire probably inspired him to take control over the digital processing of his own cuts. A notoriously slow worker and a perfectionist 1. A talented if conservative animator during his early career, starting in the 00s Kou radically changed his approach. Older brother of You Yoshinari, nicknamed 'Aninari'.
