Forum - View topicThe Cel-shading craze and Anime: What's the public stance?
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Craeyst Raygal
 Posts: 1383 Location: In the garage, beneath a 1970 MGB GT. |
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All right folks, here's the query. Those of us who also play video games or have been reading the general anime news have heard of a lot of the new cel-shaded video games coming out. At the completely original title forefront of this wave of games are three titles, Auto Modellista (a racer from Capcom that looks a lot like the chase scenes from Gunsmith Cats while in game play), Gungrave (an action game developed by Sega Red and designed by Naito of Trigun fame) and Dark Cloud 2 (action/RPG that can best be described as Playstation's Zelda)
Now, should we consider these games, whose visual style is going to be hellishly anime and, (in the case of the former two) will have linear storylines and deep characters, a part of anime? Or are they separate altogether. It's a blurry line. Even to me. |
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HothJedi
Posts: 44 |
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Don't forget that the new Zelda is also Cell-shaded
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Ramen
 Posts: 346 Location: San Jose |
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I don't know too much about animation techniques, so can someone give a laymans explanation of what cell shading is? All I know is that it makes video games look like cartoons.
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Craeyst Raygal
Posts: 1383 Location: In the garage, beneath a 1970 MGB GT. |
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Cel-shading is a new buzzword for an old shortcut that was used in the early days of 3D gaming where instead of realistically fading from one color to another for shading, two or three colors are used. Only now, the colors are brighter and more distinct, as to highten the effect, as opposed to using dark colors to mask it. The bonus that has been found is that if you use simpler character models with fluid movement, you can actually make a game look like anime or a cartoon. (see also Sly Cooper and the Thievius Racoonus)
The catch is, cel-shading can't be applied to just any old game (which is being done a lot now). The look is hard to pull off perfectly and often times things start to look choppy because each object is very distinct on screen. It's all very fascinating, and we can thank Sega for the term as they came up with it when Jet Grind Radio came out. |
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HothJedi
Posts: 44 |
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It is indeed a blurry category. I believe that the "is it anime?" topic might even include something about this, but I'm not sure. Its interesting to note that someone in the Anime Wordgame topic listed the Legend of Zelda, even though that isnt necessarily considered anime.
I don't think I can accurately answer the question, but the new games (and Zelda in particular) come from Japan, have a distinct style of animation, and usually have very deep plots. Sounds like anime to me
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Cassandra
 Posts: 1356 Location: Birdsboro, PA |
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I consider video games a whole different area in and of itself. There can be "cross-overs" between anime and video games....but video games are not anime and anime is not video games
(NOTE: "Cross-overs" are things like the Street Fighter anime series or the Lupin III video game.....) |
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Craeyst Raygal
Posts: 1383 Location: In the garage, beneath a 1970 MGB GT. |
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Well, we've already seen cel-shading taking hold in anime. The fight scenes in Zoids, to name a popular example. To me, though, I somewhat agree with Cassandra. They are two separate categories that occasionally cross-over. But what I'm seeing, as HothJedi states, is with cel-shading the line is getting blurry. I mean, what if Final Fantasy VII had been cel-shaded and all of the interaction were taken out? Would we be left with an anime?
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Case
Posts: 1016 |
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Here's an even better question: If all of the interaction were taken out of Final Fantasy VII, would we be left with a video game? As far as I'm concerned, the answer to this question is crystal clear. Video games require interaction to tell a story, whereas anime (or any other type of television or film) does not. Anime you sit and watch, video games you do. You couldn't very well call them "games" if they weren't interactive. Video games and film are definitely more similar today than ever before, but that one fundamental still stands firmly between them. |
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cookie
Former ANN Editor in Chief
 Posts: 2460 Location: Do not contact me for support. |
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Video games, at some level, require interaction between the player(s) and the computer. That may be walking around and fighting in every single battle.. or maybe just controlling generals from high overhead while letting the computer decide who's fighting whom.. or it might be chosing which date to go on, and which shirt to wear and which socks to wear and which necktie to wear and... or it could just be going on the date itself. At any rate, regardless of _HOW_ or _WHY_, there is still some Player<->Computer interaction. However minor, the player's interaction allows for a different result to emerge. The differences allow for different ways of playing through the game. The players decisions might not make a difference in the end, but that doesn't mean the interaction isn't present. Anime lacks this (at least inherently) -- you can't decide how the characters call each other. You can't decide if Utena wins the Rose Bride duel or not. You can't decide if Shinji spends 15 episodes wallowing in self-doubt or not. You can _imagine_ that the series is different and better... but you can't IMPLEMENT that directly into the anime. The best you can do is settle for implementations of imagination: Fanfic, fanart, doujin, etc. The only time a video game becomes something other than a video game is when _NO_ interaction takes place, and the player sits back and watches a movie. FF8 came close at times, but you still had interaction, and some people really enjoyed that style of game. The graphics-style (or even inclusion of graphics at all!) is just an interface choice. The underlying story/competition/whatever is what needs to be solid. A bad interface on a good story can be equally as cumbersome as a good interface on a terrible story. |
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BC Anime
 Posts: 49 |
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i think they are two different categories also...i'm kinda tired right now, first day of school, and i was assigned a lotta homework
also, what about skygunner? it's animeish (o i like that word =D) and it is done by the guy who did princess mononoke |
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Emerje
 Posts: 7427 Location: Maine |
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You see, it gets kinda tricky when you start talking about style. We often refer to it as "anime style", but why not "manga style"? Maybe it's motion that makes us say that. But nearly everything designed in Japan, be it a dating sim, a fighter, or even a first person shooter is going to have the same style to it (when I say style I mean the japanese look and nature, not that everything will look the same since obviously most of the popular japanese artists have their own style). But just because they have the style doesn't make them an anime. I do believe that you can have anime cut scenes as FMVs in games, but that doesn't make the entire game an anime, just the clip.
Basicly I'm agreeing with Cookie and Cassandra. Emerje |
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Ataru
 Posts: 2329 Location: Missouri (Strikeman) |
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Hmmm, the first time I see cell shading was in Sonic Square (The DC Sonic Party Game.) and I didn't like it a whole lot. But after seeing shots of the upcoming Robotech game and movies upcoming Zelda, it starting to look pretty good.
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Craeyst Raygal
Posts: 1383 Location: In the garage, beneath a 1970 MGB GT. |
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Whoops.....
I was looking at my original post, and I just realized that I didn't explain exactly what I was trying to say. What I meant was "should we consider cel-shaded games with an anime appearance an adjunct to anime." Sorry about that. Also, what about using cel-shading in anime itself (ie. Zoids)? What's the public opinion on that? |
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