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Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - What's Going On With BLUE LOCK'S Animation?
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SinisterOracle
Posts: 418 |
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This is what’s wrong with the world today. Too many streaming services. |
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yeehaw
 Posts: 595 |
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Is there evidence for what MartinKiings is saying is true? I'm sure he's not because I mean, look at the show, but I also don't trust a tiktok
That's not the problem here, the problem is we get like more than 200 new shows every year and frankly, we don't need all those shows because more than half of them is yet another isekai about some boring noncharacter going to another world to be boring and buy slave girls. And Kadokawa is a big part of this problem since they decided to publish every mediocre isekai LN and also make an anime adaption of it. Last edited by yeehaw on Thu Nov 14, 2024 3:21 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 3052 Location: Email for assistance only |
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We only have his immediate statements and what another animator has also said (this is why the portion about his claims specifically state that they are claims). But he is really credited on episode 2 for his work, so we could verify that much.
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Shay Guy
 Posts: 2338 |
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Arguably 60, if we go back to the production practices Tezuka developed for the Astro Boy anime that most of the industry has been built on since. |
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KrisPNatz
Posts: 48 |
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Production rumors aside (I always wish the best conditions for animators) I feel like I'm the only person who thinks the way this season has been animated fits what has been going on and that despite the lack of dynamic animation it still looks better than most things airing this Fall PLUS has some of the most consistent, detailed and good-looking character art maybe out of anything that has come out this year (outside its cg models but the 2D is consistent). Every episode up until now has been about highlighting new characters and what they're good at. Its several character trailers back to back with exposition and when you're adding close to 10 new notable characters for the first few "games" and then expanding on characterization of existing characters like with Reo and the Pokemon Puzzle League Champion Isagi I don't know where in the plot there is even time for a coherent soccer game to be played. From jump Blue Lock frames itself as the NLOG of soccer anime and as someone who's seen plenty others (Offside, Shoot, Days, Ao Ashi) I'd say the animation being slow mo "cool moves" back to back with copious talk no jutsu just makes sense for what its trying to do. Not to mention there's a whole swath of Blue Lock fans who are watching it for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with soccer
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Overall Blue Lock is less about soccer games actually being played and more "lets monologue every time the ball is passed and frame every move like its this earth shattering thing that has never been done before" and no production is going to give the audience sensory overload with extended dialogue and hyper fast animation at the same time. Aren't these early games like 5 minutes long? Yet they take two 23 minute episodes to cover the one with Isagi alone. If you had actual soccer play and cut the dialogue and slow mo's we'd be at the U-20 match in the first episode but we also would not know who literally half of the cast is so again TO ME the way things have been executed just make sense for the narrative. Do people want to have the characters moving and doing 50000 things a second while having to read endless dialogue at the same time? Maybe they do or maybe its dub watchers moreso complaining in which case I'd be out of the loop. Either way since the first season I've been under the impression the loudest group of Blue Lock fans have not been happy with literally anything the anime has done from the animation to the official english translation of "hetakuso"  so again aside from complaints lobbed at anime productions for effectively harming their animators which I always agree with, I expect something new being whined about with every episode to be the norm for this franchise.
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2316 Location: Online Terminal |
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I think unless someone super important to the industry is willing to risk their status to take up this cause, there isn't going to be any change.
The above scenario would probably be the case anywhere, but Japan is especially not going to want to fix things without a push because 1) that's how it's always been done and 2) making a fuss about it is culturally inappropriate. |
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Flash33
 Posts: 78 Location: Florida |
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My thoughts exactly. There's the old saying "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down", and this is true in many places, but in Japan especially, which makes you wonder sometimes how they even got anywhere in the first place if their culture hates sticking out so much from the status quo (side note: it reminds me of the One Ok Rock song Stand Out Fit In which sorta discusses this topic). I also think that there needs to be actual legit punishments for those higher ups who intentionally and repeatedly push staff too far to the point that it results in these shoddy products, as if people see actual legit consequences for these kinds of actions aside from just a smaller paycheck then they'd be more encouraged to do their jobs properly rather than constantly contribute to the rushing crunch culture that plagues the industry. Will that actually happen? Probably not but I'd be open to be proven wrong there though honestly. |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4830 |
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I've felt for a long time that the only way the anime industry will be forced to address its underlying issues is by experiencing a significant contraction, if not an outright crash. It'll take something that drastic for the higher-ups to understand that the current version of it isn't sustainable. Maybe then what comes out the other side will treat the incredibly talented people who make the shows we all love with some basic respect.
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Philmister978
Posts: 336 |
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Look, I get money is the root of all sins, but come on, Kadokawa. you of all companies should know that Isekai bubble's going to burst sooner or later. Well that or it'll become like what Disney's doing with Star Wars and the Simpsons and be put on life support as worse and worse efforts are put out. It also begs the question why we need 200 anime titles a season when animated productions in North America breaks that number in a whole year (this including both new shows and new seasons of returning titles). No one wants it but the companies producing them, and it doesn't seem like they'll ever get the hint that audiences don't want "Isekai series #2050 with terribad animation and generic characters" unless they're willing to do something different enough with it. That's why shows like Konosuba and Re:Zero thrive while a show with a long title no one will bother reading only lasts one. And again, why even do a fantasy series when the animation's going to go in the toilet anyway? At that point, stick to either doing slice-of-life titles (also a heavily over-saturated market with equally forgettable titles containing equally bad animation), or just don't bother.
And that is why this problem is emblematic of a larger problem. Japan's culture as a whole is stuck in the past. I don't know why it feels the need to be when so many other places have (at least for the moment) moved on from those tired standards. The anime industry and how terrible it is is pretty much a symptom of Japan's "work-until-you-die-at-your-desk" Philosophy, and I'm honestly shocked no one's called them out on how this isn't right. The system is broke and it needs fixing. Or an outright dismantlement and rebuild from the ground up. I feel like that's probably the only solution to it next to a (major) animation studio or production company like Kadokawa going belly up. Because as it stands, neither the industry, or Japan's general workaholic mentality won't change. Then again, when the same stuff is happening in the VFX industry, and how companies like Technicolor and Disney are overworking their artists like MAPPA or 8bit are. Something tells me the "anime animator culture" of Japan is something other countries are more than willing to adopt and adapt towards, rather than taking a look at it and themselves and wondering if that should be the route they take. |
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5958 Location: Virginia, United States |
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I like how we are blaming the Isekai phase for the over abundance of anime. The Isekai phase was just like the Moe phase, and probably every other phase that came before it.
The over abundance of anime is caused by the mainstreaming of anime, which has created a greater demand. Where there are fields of money to harvest, they will come. There is nothing that can be done for it. In time, the novelty and cachet of anime will fade with the mainstream and so will the money. Even that is not the main problem, bad productions are usually caused by poor budgets and bad management. Even in the United States, a lot of movie associated games suffer from being cheap throwaways. So some anime productions are just that, cheap throwaways. All to cash in. |
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yeehaw
Posts: 595 |
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I don't think anyone's blaming the isekai genre? All the isekais could easily be replaced with other trends, I think it's just that the isekai trend is wayyyyyy more formulaic than other trends and it's outstayed it's welcome. Other trends have been stuff like cute girls doing cute things or a specific type of girl, like maid or catgirl or little sister. You can do lots of different premises with that while most isekais these days are either "bullied guy buys slaves" or "Dating sim player becomes villainess" I also wonder how much money there is even to be made because I have a hard time anyone is buying blurays and merch or constantly rewatching isekai #6730 Especially since the girls aren't even cute most of the time. I still think the problem is that there's too much. Like your example of hollywood game movies being cheap throwaways is outdated because hollywood has the opposite problem, less movies are being made for way more money. |
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yeehaw
Posts: 595 |
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I just completely glossed over the word claim when first reading, my bad |
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FilthyCasual
Posts: 2417 |
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Sekaro
Posts: 395 |
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I'll be completely real here. BLUE LOCK S2 might be the Best "Worst Animated" show I'm watching this season. Its crazy just how much every other aspect is carrying the show except for the animation. The over-reliance on CGI seems to be getting worse with every episode as compared to S1 - Any close-up shots of the players' feet is instantly treated with CGI & not to mention, the goofy CGI models running in the background. Yet despite all this, the presentation has been consistently getting solid As in my book. The U20 match is still very intense with a lot of back and forth. The character designs are on point & the OST elevates the whole experience.
Instead of BLUE LOCK S2, I believe the real eye opener here is Tower of God S2. The show looks like ass on almost every frame. Not one scene in the recent episodes is treated with any sort of emphasis or anything. It just seems to be going through the motions. The animation may not be as bad as BLUE LOCK S2 but it sure isnt doing anything special anywhere else either. To give a recent example, there was pretty much no build up or any sort of emotional payoff in the latest episode in what should have been a touching reunion. It just starts the scene then it ends as soon as it began. They really expect people to be bawling their eyes out over that? Seriously? |
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Suxinn
 Posts: 251 |
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Speaking of poor animator working conditions, the manga Animeta! also goes into a lot of detail about the plights of modern animation production. The mangaka Hanamura Yaso used to work at Production IG, and one of the volumes even had an interview with Kamiyama Kenji (GiS: SAC) about the current state of the animation industry. (Kamiyama even said that it feels as if "we're teetering on the edge of the anime industry collapsing".)
From the sounds of it, one of the big issues plaguing the industry right now is that older, more experienced animators are retiring while younger newcomers are burning out of the industry faster than the previous animators could be replaced, because working conditions haven't improved in decades. These issues have only been exacerbated by the sheer amount of anime being made nowadays, to the point that the animator shortage has become openly visible to even passive audiences. It really does feel like the anime industry might have to legitimately collapse before actual change will happen, though, especially at the rate it's going... |
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