Forum - View topicThe Fall 2013 Anime Preview Guide
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Megiddo
Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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That author has some serious consistency issues, because although he penned the Scrapped Princess novels he also penned Polyphonica, Maccademia Washoi, and Strait Jacket.
Luckily Outbreak Company seems to be one of his good works (or rather, one of the good adaptations of his works) |
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Panon
Posts: 242 |
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He once claimed the Fullmetal Alchemist movie looked so bad it would be unacceptable quality for a tv series. So uh, yeah. Skip over the paragraphs when he talks about animation. |
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Rahxephon91
Posts: 1859 Location: Park Forest IL. |
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Galilei Donna's 1st episode was decent. Really good op.
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18354 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Direct quote from the review you're referring to (of FMA: Sacred Star of Milos)
And I gave the animation an A- rating. So if you're going to criticize me, get your facts straight about what I did and did not say was good. The animation was, the art otherwise was not. And I wasn't the only one who thought that, either. |
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uguu
Posts: 220 |
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You also didn't explain how the new Yozakura has 'blander' colors though, or how the old show's coloring was good (as your review of it stated).
The only weird part there is the hands, and, as jet_ pointed out, that frame is absolutely not noticeable at all in motion. And TV anime is generally FILLED with these things; I could easily look at some TV stuff you gave an A in art to and find a bajillion instances of 'bad inbetweens'. There's also the fact that the character in your screenshot was further from the camera than your screenshot implies. It's kind of like those 4chan trolls who zoom in on one tiny thing in the background and say 'lol bad art'. Something being 'wacky' doesn't mean it can't be very solidly drawn. And surely, there are quite a few "slip-ups" (by your standards, if 'one unnoticeable drawing in the middle of fluid motion in a TV anime' counts as a 'slip-up') in Kill la Kill too. http://i.imgur.com/o4hjMQs.jpg the "rendering and artistry" of Ryuuko's hand here looks weird for more frames than your example and is far more noticeable. It's also not a 'fast action' shot, it's actually a sort of slow-mo one. http://i.imgur.com/6fpxMf1.jpg Another example where it's once again more noticeable.
A pure 'opinion' would be something along the lines of, "I personally do not enjoy action scenes". There's nothing arguable there because there are no objective statements made. You also don't really have to explain anything; if someone isn't into action and prefers more subdued works, then that's that. In-depth artistic criticism, however, has a lot more room for objectiveness. There are a lot of logical observations to be made about drawing and animation. Like that, for instance, Key specifically picked out a single frame not remotely noticeable in motion and used that as an example of "poor character rendering and artistry". I could make a gif of that scene and prove this statement.
No such thing as good animation with bad art, especially in the kind of style that the FMA movie had. Maybe good animation with bad design, but good animation requires solid art. It does not work any other way and is one of the main principles of animation. Also: Note that in the FMA review thread, Theron also stated that he would give The Girl Who Leapt Through Time a low art score as it does indeed suffer from the same flaws as FMA: Milos. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18354 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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This shot was representative of a scene that played out over several seconds at the 5:10 mark, not an isolated shot, as you and the other person claim.
Believe I said something to that effect myself.
Ehhh, no. That was an unmagnified foreground shot. I only cropped it and downsized it a bit so it would fit in a forum post. (IOW, no different from what you did with the pics you posted.) Really, the extent which you guys are going to here to try to prove that I have no clue what I'm talking about on art quality - and the extent to which you're failing at it - is amusing. And again, I'm entirely fine if you subjectively think I'm wrong; it's when you try to objectively prove I am on something as subjective as art that you're going to get a push-back.
Did I ever say there weren't?
Heavily debatable. I know some people believe that the two are intrinsically linked, but I entirely disagree. I have seen many examples of animation over time (not just in anime) that I would say were well-animated in the sense of seeing characters/objects move fluidly but not aesthetically pleasing to look at.
And your point is? Of the two reviews we have on this site for that movie, one gives the artistry an A+ with no explanation, while the other gives the artistry a B (with an animation grade of B+) with "simplistic art" as a negative. Hence I'm not alone in that opinion even on this site. |
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uguu
Posts: 220 |
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I'm talking about technical quality here. And even the more subjective 'aesthetically pleasing/unpleasing' can be broken down into what elements you, personally find appealing (or unappealing). Kill la Kill's animation actually isn't all that fluid and it's not meant to; it's Kanada-style. It's "fluid" in that it "flows well", but it does not have a high amount of frames. A good sense of timing is far more important than traditional 'fluidity', along with solid drawing, because you won't be able to move objects around in space if you don't know how objects move around in space to begin with. Admittedly, things like color use don't really have anything to do with animation, so... yeah, there are 'art' elements that can be separated from motion. The FMA: Milos complaints, however, imply that the film lacks solid drawing - if it truly did, it wouldn't move well for the reasons I mentioned earlier.
Art is not entirely subjective, not by a mile. Neither is animation. Preference is subjective. One could prefer, say, the art and animation style of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha over the art and animation style of Akira, but the fact still remains that Akira is a far more impressive showcase of well-timed animation and solid drawing. There's a world of a difference between saying "I found this style unappealing" and "this is crudely drawn". Both have their place in a review, but a writer should take into account that there is a difference between them. You also didn't explain why you find the new Yozakura's colors 'blander'.
It wasn't super-polished but it was a far-away shot of a character that wasn't super-important to the story. It looked fine, especially if you are willing to forgive the more unpolished shots in Kill la Kill.
You mentioned that most anime has these shots but you still deemed Yozakura to be particularly bad about it. So I pointed out that KLK is very similar to it in this regard. It's not just the 'wacky style', a lot of shots are obviously something far more likely to pop up in a lower-budget TV series with 24 episodes and deadlines and less likely to appear in something like Imaishi's Dead Leaves or FLCL episode 5. http://i.imgur.com/fLn7zRP.jpg - pretty obvious http://i.imgur.com/02uUwuI.jpg - this would have probably been drawn from a more difficult, dramatic perspective and with more detail in an Imaishi work with no deadlines and a higher budget http://i.imgur.com/BfJpTB1.jpg this entire scene didn't look like it had as much work put into it as the closest 'wacky, scribbly' equivlaent scenes from FLCL ep 5 and the actual motion didn't look to be the most polished either. I feel really bad doing this because I absolutely love Kill la Kill and it feels like I'm just crapping on it. I'm not, and I actually think it's way better than Yozakura stylistically, I think even the budget/time-saving stuff is really great. But there is still obvious budget and time saving, just as much as there is in Yozakura, perhaps more. I might be wrong, but it seems to me like you simply found Yozakura less stylistically appealing than KLK but attempted to make your commentary more technical, to make the negative comments about Yozakura seem more objective than just "I don't like this style". Hence 'the drawing quality is cruder, the colors are blander' etc. I actually completely agree that KLK is more visually engaging than Yozakura, but I don't see how Yozakura has more "crudely drawn" scenes than KLK. Last edited by uguu on Tue Oct 15, 2013 5:55 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Echo_City
Posts: 1236 |
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Would it kill ANN to narrow the scope of the Feedback thread for the preview guide? I still believe that there should be a way to view all the previews for a given show on a single page. Trying to compare all the previews for a given show with the current system is tedious. Side note: Would ANN kindly put tags on the ANN accounts of its reviewers, so these reviewers' posts can be more easily identified? |
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Fencedude5609
Posts: 5088 |
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I'm guessing you've watched neither show, since that comparison literally makes zero sense. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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Wouldn't kill us, but would require a dramatic overhaul of the way the guide is published. It would be completely different from how it is now, in service of... I guess making it easier for you to compare scores? What you're complaining about seems like 'I have to read everyone's page to find out what they thought' which... maybe I'm wrong but that alone doesn't seem like a great reason to go through the headache of a total re-do of how we publish the guide.
Reviewers all have 'ANN Staff Critic' or something similar under their forums username, except Key, who has Moderator under his. You should note that Carlo and Carl Kimlinger basically never respond to forums feedback, ever. Generally it's me, Bamboo, Rebecca Silverman and Theron. All of whom are identified as staff. |
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penguintruth
Posts: 8488 Location: Penguinopolis |
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Kill la Kill is definitely a vibrant, energizing show with an unrestrained style, and the potential for some interesting characterization. It's very heavy concept, so hopefully it can chase that with a compelling plot for several episodes rather than the so far "Goku uniform opponent of the week" pattern. I'm really intrigued by the main character, Ryuko, who isn't the kind of female protagonist you usually get. She's not demure at all, and she doesn't skew towards "cute" or even much fetishistic, and actively dislikes the sexy costume she wears. She's attractive, but she doesn't wear it out. It's hard not to admire her nerve, but she also has a bit of a reckless temper which humanizes her. I'm enjoying the show thoroughly. Of all the shows I've seen this season, this is my favorite by far.
Nagi no Asukara is interesting, conceptually, but plotwise seems fairly predictable from beat to beat. I keep thinking, "Yeah, that next seen is going to be about X, and then Y is going to occur." It's pretty typical star-crossed lovers wheelhouse with a mystical element to spice it up, but it doesn't help that the romantic lead female is such a weak-willed crybaby, so you end up not especially caring who she hooks up with, especially when it seems to be the only thing the show cares about. Coppelion and Strike the Blood are both decent. The former is a bit too melodramatic at times and the latter is lacking decent production values, so they both are middling, but I'm going to see where they go. |
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uguu
Posts: 220 |
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They confirmed long ago that the pattern will not last. The story will take lots of different directions and every handful of episodes is supposed to be followed by something that feels like a climax. |
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grooven
Posts: 1426 Location: Canada |
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I think the preview guide is overall fine in the setup. I just had a couple suggestions.
My only suggestions would be perhaps breaking the shows down by weeks like this: Week One: Kill la Kill, Coppelion. Week Two: Little Busters! Refrain, Log Horizon (and so on) under the critic's name may help to break it down. I find this thread gets way too long and I lose my place. I can't remember if I was on page 29 or 36 lol. I know all threads are like this, but I find the preview guide threads especially the hardest to navigate. Maybe if they are split at a certain count? Not at all complaining (you guys do a great job) just a few things I thought might make things easier, on a user side. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18354 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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No "implying" there; I thought I was outright saying exactly that.
If I think I'm disliking something just because of a stylistic preference, I will usually say so. If you see me make comments like "this won't work for everyone" in a review, that is usually what I mean.
"Blander" = not as sharp-looking, eye-catching, and/or vibrant. (Do I really need to define that to get the point across?)
Not sure what you're looking at here. That's a foreground shot of main co-protagonist Hime. (Very obviously so, in fact.)
Believe what you want. I thought the artistry was crap, not just disagreeable. Now, if you want an example of art that I find disagreeable but not by any means crap, look at Vampire Knight. I despise that kind of stereotypically shojo manga-styled character designs, but despite that I have to acknowledge that it's well-drawn and well-colored series. |
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MCAL
Posts: 182 |
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What I mean is, that the art preference argument is moot, because art is subjective to begin with. I've seen this conversation before on Ryo-timo and it gets tiresome, because a) the argument eventually devolves into petty bickering on both sides and b) because I look at this argument and say "Wow! If art design is the only problem, then the anime is in good hands regardless." This is why I only took issue with Silverman's animation portion of the review, because unlike art, animation is not subjective and the animation here is fantastic, not to mention creative at times... |
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