Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - Can an Anime be "Carried by its Animation"?
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Aura Ichadora
 Posts: 2302 Location: In front of my computer |
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When I think "carried by its animation", my first thought goes towards Fena: Pirate Princess. Despite all of my feelings towards Fena's storyline (especially towards the end), the one thing I can't criticize too harshly is the animation. From start to finish, I felt that it was a gorgeous series. From the characters to the backgrounds, I was definitely struck by how beautiful everything was presented. It's just a shame that the story did not live up to the animation. Well, and a shame that the show was woefully written off, as I would've loved the opportunity (slim as it could've been) to have owned it on physical media.
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malvarez1
Posts: 2089 |
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To this day, I have no patience for people who disregard good animation just because it looks “different” or off model. The Naruto vs Pain fight is amazing, and it kills me that so many people think it looks ugly.
One of the reasons I prefer anime to most Western cartoons is that anime isn’t afraid to switch up artstyles during a fight sequence - or indeed, go off-model. For the record, I agree about Fate/Apocrypha - those last few episodes were a generational run, the kind we rarely get. |
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tintor2
 Posts: 2106 |
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Honestly, I sometimes have that impression with One Punch Man's second season. Everybody complains about the animation but nobody about the cliffhanger. I haven't read the manga so I feel I am the only one who wants to know about Garou's arc.
The two Dragon Ball Super movies use different animation but with a better flow with more moving body than the tv series that had overly built fighters. Broly primarily focuses on a single taken for quite sometime while Super Hero is instead more divided into several acts Piccolo organizes. I found myself enjoying Super Hero far more than Broly at least when it came to story. When I was a kid I loved watching the Seiya movie titled Scarlet Youth focused on a god named Abel (or Apollo) who takes over the Sanctuary and we see Seiya from his lowest to the most inspiring thing ever as he shoots the Sagittarius arrow towards a God. The Tenkaihen Overture movie did a similar scenario but despite the better animation I think the Abel movie is more addicting. |
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bassgs435
 Posts: 360 |
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The part about Apocrypha and off-model characters is something I truly agree with. Those episodes were something else
Similarly, but not reaching nearly those levels: this season we have the Suicide Squad vs Dragon episode. Many people complained about the animation like it was terrible but I thought it was quite good. Sure some shots looked goofy but I feel people were exaggerating due to characters being off-model from how the look most of the show. It was different, but not necessarily bad. I'll also agree that the way people can only think in terms of "peak" "mid" or "trash", is quite limiting to nuanced discussion. |
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Eilavel
Posts: 134 |
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I'd say there are films that are carried by the animation- but they tend to be older. Memories and Macross Plus would be good examples; they aren't bad otherwise but its the high quality art that makes them stand out. This is easier to do, I think, in the older hand drawn material as (at peaks) it tends to be more hyper-detailed. Makoto Shinkais material perhaps in a similar space for the modern day?
Series? Hmm, not really. A series is too long to be carried by the animation (meaning pure spectacle, really), though of course it can elevate it and be a major positive. As to CG vs 2D, well look, I've watched MS IGLOO so its not like I refuse to watch CG material. But if you asked me to list the best looking anime I've seen, we would be way, way down the list before we hit a CG anime. Is that because I was attracted to the medium in the 2D era and its just my pre-existing preference of my own, or because its better? Thats very hard to say but nonetheless its where I sit. |
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Yune Amagiri
 Posts: 1073 Location: France |
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Art and good/bad can be subjective, but let's be real, non-standardized and disproportionate animations where you have scenes featuring giant characters in a very narrow building and then in the next scene the same setting looks like hobbits in a gigantic mansion like Dynamic Chord, Märchen Mädchen and the like cannot be called impressive, nor can the cutting-edge technology that was previously unknown or rarely used in animation and thus lacking in experience like Aku no Hana's full rotoscoped animation be wowing most watchers. Conversely, an IG, Kyoani, Ufotable and other typical high production values will hardly be called ugly even by detractors, so yes, anime are definitely carried or wasted by their animations, as someone who watches every new seasonal anime, undeserved high production values and undue low ones has been my most frustrating pet peeve in this hobby for a long time now.
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gsilver
Posts: 649 |
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Bocchi the Rock was a show that really lived by its animation for me. While I definitely have my own social issues, being on the autistic spectrum, it's a very different beast than the exaggerated form of social anxiety portrayed that I feel the show really needs the viewers to understand in order to fully enjoy, even if there's a degree of overlap.
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NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2509 |
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Makeine's the first example that popped into my head for effective animation this season! Though, I think it's harder to isolate a brief clip from a show like that to illustrate its quality in the same way you might take make a 5-second GIF of the climactic clash in a particularly well-animated shounen battle. Rather than it just being that many fans prefer action, maybe it is more that they're more influenced by isolated peaks in animation quality, rather than median animation quality, and notable 'peaks' are more common in action than slice-of-life etc?
I don't think I'm embedded enough in the anime community to know how "carried by the animation" is being used by most people, but I don't think claiming the animation quality is significantly elevating otherwise middle-of-the-road material has to be used this way? More generally, I've genuinely adored shows I also would freely describe as terrible trash. Liking/enjoying and ... uhhh, respecting, I guess? ... a work seem like very different dimensions to me. EDIT: Stray side thought -- I wonder if it is easier for people to agree on what bad animation is than on what good animation is (taking into account that artistic intent is obviously a part of the equation). |
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FishLion
 Posts: 209 |
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That's so funny to me, that fight is one of my reasons to watch Shippuden. There are some worthwhile things in it for sure, but to me that was basically when the series was at it's best. To be fair I neve fully finished Shippuden, I got to the part where identities were being revealed and there was a lot of dramatic tension and realized I would never have time to finish it. I also agree with Land of the Lustrous deserving special mention, the way the shattered gem bodies appear and move is absolutely stunning, not to mention the shine coming off of characters like Diamond. I am up to Vol. 12 of the manga and the illustrated gem pieces are still well done, but the way studio rendered them is absolutely incredible. I really wish the animation could have dug into the plot more, I feel like the fact that things finally pick up plot-wise after the animation ends really hurt it's chances of renewal and there is so much I would love to see animated. At least Studio Orange went on to make Beastars and Trigun: Stampede with their time, I really feel like they are pushing the envelope on what can be done with 3D animation by playing to it's strengths. I am also mixed on "good animation." I love the big tent pole series like Demon Slayer and Chainsaw Man, but I tend to appreciate comparatively experimental stuff like Mob Psycho 100 and Trigun: Stampede way more. Cool animation can make up for other more lackluster elements, but it is all sort of a push and pull. Good animation deserves other good elements to enhance it, so while I will weigh animation high on the list of factors I take into consideration, it still needs to make a cohesive whole or it's much less satisfying. |
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Terraziel
Posts: 78 |
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I think the line as to what counts as being carried is a bit too vague, does it have to have nothing else going for it? or is the animation just what pushes it from a 7 up to a 9?
Because i think there are a lot more of the latter, where it is better framed as "not being handicapped by mediocre animation" The article tended to focus on action series, but the show that came to my mind was Monogatari, because there is no doubt in my mind that it wouldn't have been as successful without being done by Shaft. There exists a universe where it was handled by someone else and it got one season before being forgotten about. I think the line between "Bad" and "Different" is also a bit vague, the Fate action sequences are down to whether you can distinguish between "We did it on purpose" and "We couldn't do any better" I count Kemonozume and Gankutsuou among my favourite shows, but if you want to say they look bad, i can't really say much in their defense other than "it was on purpose" Strangely, Dahlia in Bloom links in to that, to make one of the characters look covered in blood they use the same technique as Gankutsuou does for clothes... except they weren't doing it on purpose. |
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NeverConvex
Subscriber Posts: 2509 |
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Oh, forgot to comment on this; agree 100%. Shippuden (and Naruto in generally) had a few incredible highs (in narrative/character arcs as well as animation and execution), and I think the Naruto v Pain fight was the highest of those, with the Jiraiya v Pain fight probably second most satisfying. I don't spend a ton of time in the anime fandom outside of these forums; wild to hear that it may be common to complain about it.
+1. Terrific example. The animation style feels like part of the narrative! Can't even imagine it with a more standard approach. |
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John the Dark Lord
Posts: 263 |
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I finished reading Land of the Lustrous literally yesterday. I was actually kind of freaked when I saw that image here today. And yes, the way the anime used CG is a wonder. It's a real shame we never got season 2 because I really wanted to see how the anime team would handle later events from the manga.
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Sasuke149
Posts: 88 |
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I am one of those people who can watch an anime solely for its beautiful animation. Sure, the story, characters, etc. are important, but watching fluid and beautiful animation gives me so much satisfaction
 I guess I'm a sakuga nerd. My favorite type of animation is the rough, 2D style, like in Mob Psycho. But as long as it's fluid, I don't really care much
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camseyeview140
Posts: 236 |
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Sometimes anime fans and YouTubers get caught up in animation quality like Mother's Basement will constantly throw Tokyo Revengers under the bus despite being a pretty rock-solid story. He was also lenient on Jobless Reincarnation because it had some of the best animation of any anime seasonal drop. Also, good animation is more than just being fluid. Having a comedy anime like Taoteba Last Dungeon look like a Richard Williams' animated experience would kill the comedy. I don't want a smooth-as-silk visual style from Studios 4C for something like a gag comedy.
Shows like Horimiya and other dramatic shows are defined by more fluid subtle animation and expressions. Action is helped by being smooth and snappy, but it's also all dependent on who is directing the action. |
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5498 |
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Though good animation is different in Japan than in most western(I don't know much about South East Asian animation) animation. Anime is famous for Sakuga(money shots) and everythig else being passable, where in the West animation mostly seems to have a consistent flow of quality, at least no huge spikes in quality. |
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