@guga2artes I _think_ they use Celsys Retas + Adobe After Effects, which is kinda weird because they're both raster-based. This is why a lot of early/mid-2000s digital anime will never be seen in "high definition".
@te2rx Thanks for answering,I've been researching and studying these programs, it is somewhat difficult because most tutorials and forums on Celsys Retas are in Japanese. But is a good program.
I make anime-esque animatons myself. On flipnote studio on my Dsi. I am espescially good at the Itano Circus, and I enjoy animating that sort of style Tomoyuki Niho has going.
@te2rx What do you think about the animation styles of Makoto Shinkai, with his new work looking extremely similar to Hayao Miyazaki's later work, and Takeshi Koike with his new work, Redline, 7 years in the making? Takeshi Koike seems to be a rising force in animation, and his work seems to be calling back the animation styles of Kanada and Imaishi. Anyways, some of the newer animes seem to be going back in time in style, but going in the future in production techniques.
Very nice presentation. Would love to hear/see more. I'd be interested in hearing more about Ghibli (whose animation style seems to have always been distant from anime and disney/western norms) and stuff on studio 4C and Tatsunoko and stuff. Very well done, guys!
A big round of applause to the gentlemen who gave this lecture on animation.And a bug bug applause ti all the dans in the comments pages giving their insights.Ive really learned a lot from the fans. Id love to be able to sit and talk to these guys on the panal and the fans.
How long does it take for a regular, 20-30 minute episode to be planned out and then animated? I've always wondered. Especially the shows that have really smooth animation.
@Blooberry95 Anipages' Ben says 1-3 months, or sometimes even 6 for a particularly lavish episode. Yoshiki Sakurai (GitS: Stand Alone Complex scriptwriter) said in an interview "Usually in TV Anime, we only have 3 months from the time the project starts till it first shows up on TV." GitS:SAC had an unusual two-year lead time, but it's obvious mid-way through that the broadcast schedule catches up w/ them & they start outsourcing production in order to keep up... Off-model character drawings :p
@te2rx I really do appreciate their effort into producing such an amazing show. It's understandable why they had such a long lead time. Thanks for the information!
That was really awesome. Very informative. I feel like there's a ton of anime that I completely missed out on, but now I'm going to start checking them out. I'm a bit surprised you didn't mention Takeshi Koike, however.
@Elim777 haha, we were thinking we'd show the trailer for Redline if we had time left, but one hour is just not enough time to cover all the things we wanted to
How does anime get colored (and with what)? Is it by hand or computer, and also, who does that? The animators as well? Also, when you are talking about frame manipulation (in one of the earlier videos) do you mean the way the camera pans the frame? Also (so sorry for all these questions), how does the anime get filmed? I mean, are the pictures scanned into a computer and then manipulated using a movie software, or is it actually filmed? Sorry if these questions are elementary...Thanks so much :D
@remindmename There's usually a colorist & compositing team making those decisions. In the past, animation cels were inked & painted, layered on top of backgrounds, & shot with an animation (film) camera. The painting basically took forever and required lots of (often outsourced) labor. A decade ago, studios transitioned to software like Retas, Animo & After Effects to automate that. Tobira wo Akete, My Neighbor The Yamadas, FLCL and Love Hina were some of the first digitally produced anime.
Do you guys have any idea how much reference Japanese animators use? I know Disney would sometimes shoot long sequences with a bunch of actors for guys like Milt Kahl to study and help draw a scene. I doubt Japanese studios have the budget for that, but do they film themselves doing movement or have they just trained themselves past that?
@Ccs1989 Can't say for sure, but probably more for feature films than TV series, for collecting and shooting reference videos. The meticulous production of Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise used extensive reference footage of course... Original reference action footage was filmed for Millenium Actress... I think Ghibli regularly takes its production people on trips to study the things that would appear in their movies. I don't know much about the practice though in everyday production
This panel was so beautiful, it made me want to fall to my knees and cry tears of manliness!!! (and I'm a woman!!)
Whenever a fan of western animation starts bashing anime, I'll just link them to this Sakuga thing. Not sure if it'd do any good, but it's definitely enlightening! (I like western animation too, but most of its fans bash anime for bigotry reasons XD)
@wilzusuki Bleach and Naruto have great animation. Every episode isn't Redline quality (no series is like that) but it was really misrepresented in the panel. The same arc they pulled that bad quality Bleach clip from is filled with great work by animators.
I think for the running cut from the girl who leapt through time the animator shot a video reference for it. (I think they said so on the commentary?) So he's not just putting his energy into the drawings but also into.. running as fast as the camera and dolly
"Animator-drive productions..." Like Birth? Oh god, that was my soul falling out. I'm sorry.
You plugged TTGL episode four though, and I was curious what your thoughts were on it. Since I first saw it, I've held that within the context of the story it was a visual representation of the malaise and dissonance between the characters. And from that standpoint, it was amazingly appropriate; who was involved with that particular creature and made that call? I think it was an excellently bold move.
@WyattEpp Birth fits the mold anyway. Gurren-Lagann episode 4 was Osamu Kobayashi's, and he's kind of an auteur when it comes to his shorts and episodes. I'm honestly not that familiar with him, but he's invaded other shows like Kemonozume (ep.7, the weakest episode I felt) and Panty & Stocking ep10 (or 5 part 2) which I thought was pretty hilarious. P&S provides a necessary lack of definition for radical style changes. TTGL is a more defined work, so ep4 clashed too much with the rest, IMO.
Osamu Kobayashi has some experience in commercials before he joined animation. I believe his acquaintance with Studio 4°C creators and his brother's influenced have developed his vision.
@te2rx honestly while it's not really a good movie, I think the overall loathsome reaction to Birth is pretty unwarranted. I noticed that when I show it to younger fans with zero knowledge about its western fandom reputation as a "legendarily bad" anime (not like hardcore... animation fans, just normal ones) their reaction is usually "yeah, this story is pretty stupid but it's still pretty fun thanks to the animation", while it's usually the older fans disregarding it as completely irredeemable.
@te2rx it's like... yeah I wouldn't call it a 'good movie' because there's a certain certain art to delivering mindless animation showcase really well (see Animal Treasure Island) including things like pacing, music and whatnot and Birth generally lacked that. but when presenting it solely a showcase of fun, unique animation I actually got a surprising amount of people to enjoy it, because I think younger fans are more likely to watch something soley for creative animation every once in a while.
@te2rx to better explain my position using the shallow kung-fu movie analogy again: imagine a Jackie Chan movie that's not very well put together, even by mindless Jackie Chan movie standards. nonetheless it still contains really great action choreography and still shines in that particular category. now imagine if a reviewer failed to mention that Jackie Chan is in it and that the action is great and reviewed it solely based on its story. that's the attitude I dislike among anime reviewers.
@WyattEpp Kobayashi is good when Kobayashi is doing Kobayashi - "hipsters chatting in a record store while crazy weird monsters attack outside"-that's Kobayashi. When he tries other works, it kind of breaks the flow, his ep of Kemonozume was pretty bad, and Gurren Lagaan really was out of place. I do however love his shorts and TV shows :)
@WyattEpp Having finally finished Panty and Stocking, I take back what I said. His ep of P&S was awesome, like almost Paranoia Agent level awesome, and they actually integrated it into the show very well too :-)
@neofreed0m For Colin & I, this was our first panel. Neil has done various panels on topics like Satoshi Kon, Ghibli, Osamu Tezuka, and alternative manga at Anime Central and other nearby cons, I think.
Just want to give my thanks to you guys for uploading this informative panel. I love animation. It doesn't matter where its from as long as its well executed (and brings something fresh to the table) then I will show admiration. I'm glad there's a country like Japan that produces and cultivates uniquely talented animators and supports those animator's artistic license within a commercial product. I'm not saying you won't find it in other parts of the worlds, its just more...common...in Japan.
@martinmacintosh "and supports those animator's artistic license within a commercial product. " Japanese animators make like $10k a year. That's not much support.
@sickVisionz it is true that a lot (not all) japanese animators are criminally underpaid, not to mention the other working conditions they deal with are far from ideal. So yes in that sense japanese animators are generally not well supported. But I still stand by my statement. Although maybe I should've restated it to "supporting artistic license to a 'talented, well paid key animator'".There's truth to the $10k a year salary; but that can easily be a skewed number from reports and surveys.
Wow, very fucking enlightening, I needed this for my work. I appreciate the Flash mention too (my favorite program) I didn't know that Flash animators were getting picked up by major studios like that.
After reading all these comments, I have to say one thing. it's best to balance story and visuals.
Let animation medium do its thing, which is bring things to life. Just like the presentation says, animation is a part of the vehicle that carries story to audience.
There are tons of stories out there, but only a handful gets the animation treatment.
Man, Berserk would have been amazing with a better budget. Of course now they're actually redoing it so we might finally see it as it should have been. Anyway this was a great panel, thanks for putting it on youtube!
One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island is an excellent film. The designs are definitely very different from One Piece's norm, but I have to say that the amount of emotion, force and power put into the animation in that movie really helped make it an excellent picture.
actually I thought of a perhaps more accurate explanation of why people refuse to considering animation quality as adding to a movie's overall quality - the idea that you absolutely need a huge budget for good animation. they feel that by caring too much about how something moves they're keeping down the "little guys" who don't have enough money to animate well, which is still flawed.
(sorry for hogging the comments section with multiple comments, I'll try to keep things shorter in the future)
@RaymondoPerson or yeah, there might be a tendency to view production value as "phony" and as something that distances you from the artistic expression. It's not necessarily true, but it does happen pretty often where you get spectacles of production value with very little "expression" in the integrated sense. I can sort-of see why people like to over-emphasize story in reaction to all that, or as another example, over-emphasize virtuosity in today's hyper-artificial studio music.
Thanks for uploading this, it was a great presentation! I definitely learned some useful stuff, that I know in fact I will get to apply (in Flash animation) ^_^
Though I do agree with @RaymondoPerson in that animation for the sake of animation isn't too bad. The degree of truth in that I suppose comes to personal preference. I am one who is a big fan of Transformers 2 (the recent movie), but I can definitely admit that accusations against it are true, that story was thoroughly sacrificed.
@TerraGamerX many people's problem with movies like Transformers 2 is that its story is actively insulting to many people and at some points gets in the way of the robot action, which is also criticized as being incoherent and not very good due to poor choreography and awful samey design work for the robots
to be honest I really don't think it's that bad to just have an "animation porn" ova once in a while
it's like, in live action, people don't watch cheesy kung fu films for the story and they're just a way to string together a bunch of well made action, but the really well made ones are still critically acclaimed. AS LONG AS they acknowledge that nobody will take them seriously and embrace that fact even professional critics like Roger Ebert will consider them good.
@RaymondoPerson basically one thing that bothers people the most is when a work reaches for the stars and fails horribly. if you present an OVA that only has creative visuals going for it as some life changing epic and actually try to get the viewer very emotionally involved in a half-assed story people are going to dislike it (see Steamboy) but with something like Dead Leaves it's far easier to judge it based on visuals alone
@RaymondoPerson yeah, there's nothing wrong with a well-made, entertaining actioneer, but if it places too much emphasis on a niche interest (e.g. battle choreography) over sheer entertainment value, it might get boring for general audiences. For kung-fu movies, a friend of mine tried to show me Drunken Master and its novelty wore off after half an hour. The contemporary kung-fu movie that really broke into the international mainstream was the heavily story-driven Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.
@te2rx I'm just saying there's nothing inherently wrong with it. unless they have some pretense of being a dead serious epic, mainstream reviewers don't really go "ugh this is pure garbage -9999/5 do NOT watch!". anime fans seem more likely to feel personally offended by the existence of a 'style over substance' anime because they're still seeking acceptance and they want to keep a safe distance from 'mindless fun' works
@te2rx this is particularly obvious in the common "caring about animation is like watching a movie about explosions" argument that older anime fans use. I might be wrong but I personally think a lot of those people realize that something like The Girl Who Leapt Through Time wouldn't have the same emotional impact if not for the expressive visual acting but they think it's "shallow" to care for it so they don't admit it
(also ong bak is a bajillion times more enjoyable than drunken master)
Great job on introducing this stuff to a new audience. A correction: the scene from One Piece movie 6 was done by Hisashi Mori. I'm not sure who's responsible for the fight in the Digimon movie, though. Mitsuo Iso worked under his pen name Mikio Odagawa, so maybe he had a hand in it.
@juice41braves I made the correction in an embarassing on-screen overlay just now. :)
And wow, there are parts that look very very Iso-like now that you mention it. I read that Mori worked on this Digimon movie, and I think I just assumed it's him (or "the same guy who did the One Piece bit") in my mind, since the dinosaur (Koromon) charging forward in that chaotic wobbly fashion looked a lot like Mori's bit from that Doraemon movie with the dinosaurs. But yeah, I really don't know either.
Nice Video
Wolfaren07 1 week ago
So awesome!
U know what programs for animate the japanese studios are working recently?
guga2artes 1 week ago
@guga2artes I _think_ they use Celsys Retas + Adobe After Effects, which is kinda weird because they're both raster-based. This is why a lot of early/mid-2000s digital anime will never be seen in "high definition".
te2rx 1 week ago
@te2rx Thanks for answering,I've been researching and studying these programs, it is somewhat difficult because most tutorials and forums on Celsys Retas are in Japanese. But is a good program.
guga2artes 6 days ago
awesome lecture guys, really informative
YakoffShmirnoff 2 weeks ago
I make anime-esque animatons myself. On flipnote studio on my Dsi. I am espescially good at the Itano Circus, and I enjoy animating that sort of style Tomoyuki Niho has going.
TheRealScaithe 3 weeks ago
the beginning part of digimon movie was epic,
deadly1010P 1 month ago
@te2rx What do you think about the animation styles of Makoto Shinkai, with his new work looking extremely similar to Hayao Miyazaki's later work, and Takeshi Koike with his new work, Redline, 7 years in the making? Takeshi Koike seems to be a rising force in animation, and his work seems to be calling back the animation styles of Kanada and Imaishi. Anyways, some of the newer animes seem to be going back in time in style, but going in the future in production techniques.
Fachiri1808 1 month ago
That was pretty interesting.I've learned a few things.
blackhorror12 1 month ago
I appreciate the notes under the anime. Now I can go back and watch some of them :D
Aldridge517 2 months ago
Very nice presentation. Would love to hear/see more. I'd be interested in hearing more about Ghibli (whose animation style seems to have always been distant from anime and disney/western norms) and stuff on studio 4C and Tatsunoko and stuff. Very well done, guys!
GojiGuy 2 months ago
what would you say would be the best way to learn how to draw and become an artist yourself?
Toumakamijo 3 months ago
Oh i wrote" bug bug" .Thats supposed to say "big big"
valleus 3 months ago
A big round of applause to the gentlemen who gave this lecture on animation.And a bug bug applause ti all the dans in the comments pages giving their insights.Ive really learned a lot from the fans. Id love to be able to sit and talk to these guys on the panal and the fans.
valleus 3 months ago
im surprised u dont use great teacher onizuka at all!!!
xWintersunxX 3 months ago
How long does it take for a regular, 20-30 minute episode to be planned out and then animated? I've always wondered. Especially the shows that have really smooth animation.
Blooberry95 3 months ago
@Blooberry95 Anipages' Ben says 1-3 months, or sometimes even 6 for a particularly lavish episode. Yoshiki Sakurai (GitS: Stand Alone Complex scriptwriter) said in an interview "Usually in TV Anime, we only have 3 months from the time the project starts till it first shows up on TV." GitS:SAC had an unusual two-year lead time, but it's obvious mid-way through that the broadcast schedule catches up w/ them & they start outsourcing production in order to keep up... Off-model character drawings :p
te2rx 3 months ago
@te2rx I really do appreciate their effort into producing such an amazing show. It's understandable why they had such a long lead time. Thanks for the information!
Blooberry95 3 months ago
Thank you so much for the effort you put in uploading this, it was a brilliant overview the subject and I learnt a lot
Thank you!☆
Stoise 3 months ago
Anyone know what anime is @5:45 ?
KidManga69 3 months ago
@KidManga69 Bakemonogatari (episode 15)
te2rx 3 months ago
That was really awesome. Very informative. I feel like there's a ton of anime that I completely missed out on, but now I'm going to start checking them out. I'm a bit surprised you didn't mention Takeshi Koike, however.
Elim777 3 months ago
@Elim777 haha, we were thinking we'd show the trailer for Redline if we had time left, but one hour is just not enough time to cover all the things we wanted to
te2rx 3 months ago
@te2rx
Shame I would of loved to of heard your thoughts on redline
CornishCreamtea07 2 weeks ago
AWESOMEE
chickenugget69 5 months ago
How does anime get colored (and with what)? Is it by hand or computer, and also, who does that? The animators as well? Also, when you are talking about frame manipulation (in one of the earlier videos) do you mean the way the camera pans the frame? Also (so sorry for all these questions), how does the anime get filmed? I mean, are the pictures scanned into a computer and then manipulated using a movie software, or is it actually filmed? Sorry if these questions are elementary...Thanks so much :D
remindmename 5 months ago
@remindmename There's usually a colorist & compositing team making those decisions. In the past, animation cels were inked & painted, layered on top of backgrounds, & shot with an animation (film) camera. The painting basically took forever and required lots of (often outsourced) labor. A decade ago, studios transitioned to software like Retas, Animo & After Effects to automate that. Tobira wo Akete, My Neighbor The Yamadas, FLCL and Love Hina were some of the first digitally produced anime.
te2rx 5 months ago
Do you guys have any idea how much reference Japanese animators use? I know Disney would sometimes shoot long sequences with a bunch of actors for guys like Milt Kahl to study and help draw a scene. I doubt Japanese studios have the budget for that, but do they film themselves doing movement or have they just trained themselves past that?
Ccs1989 6 months ago
@Ccs1989 Can't say for sure, but probably more for feature films than TV series, for collecting and shooting reference videos. The meticulous production of Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise used extensive reference footage of course... Original reference action footage was filmed for Millenium Actress... I think Ghibli regularly takes its production people on trips to study the things that would appear in their movies. I don't know much about the practice though in everyday production
te2rx 6 months ago
Is there like a book or a website which has a compilation of the animators you guys showed and their work?
tatsuo13 6 months ago
@tatsuo13 The best source right now is Anipages daily. Do a google search and check out Karisuma Animators on the blog.
neilworms1 6 months ago
@neilworms1 Awesome, Thank you very much!
tatsuo13 6 months ago
This was really helpful, thanks to everyone who took part in making it.
CornishCreamtea07 6 months ago
This was awesome. Informative, interesting and precise. I learn alot as well as seeing stuff that's always worth watching.
NDenizen 6 months ago
>Anime
>Good Story
Choose one
AzteKpr1de 6 months ago
This panel was so beautiful, it made me want to fall to my knees and cry tears of manliness!!! (and I'm a woman!!)
Whenever a fan of western animation starts bashing anime, I'll just link them to this Sakuga thing. Not sure if it'd do any good, but it's definitely enlightening! (I like western animation too, but most of its fans bash anime for bigotry reasons XD)
MizuTakishima3 7 months ago
this was awesome really needed some inspiration to go work on something. i just am having trouble cleaning crap up. my pencils are so rough!
Larz021 7 months ago
@Larz021
Don't worry. I posted Japanese clean-up method on Anipage Daily forum.
Reanimator999 3 months ago
Thank you so much for having this up.
azngathrawn 7 months ago
I like how you used bleach in that section because i'm glad i'm not the only one who thinks the bleach animation is bland most of the time.
Pivotman1 8 months ago
@Pivotman1 I like how in an arc filled with some great animation they skipped over all of it to find the shittiest looking thing possible.
sickVisionz 1 month ago
Thank you for uploading. I've never seen such an informative panel like this.Great job!
Daviysoh 8 months ago
Fantastic panel guys! :)
ShinRanka 8 months ago
I'm glad I took the time out of my day to watch your guys' panel~
It gives me more inspiration and hope to what I do.
b4k4nofish 8 months ago
bleach naruto need those animators
wilzusuki 8 months ago
@wilzusuki some of naruto's scenes already had some of those key animators as shown throughout the panel clips.
minchihchao 8 months ago
@wilzusuki Bleach and Naruto have great animation. Every episode isn't Redline quality (no series is like that) but it was really misrepresented in the panel. The same arc they pulled that bad quality Bleach clip from is filled with great work by animators.
sickVisionz 1 month ago
I think for the running cut from the girl who leapt through time the animator shot a video reference for it. (I think they said so on the commentary?) So he's not just putting his energy into the drawings but also into.. running as fast as the camera and dolly
centimetre 9 months ago
FALCON GUM GUM PUUUUUUUUNCH!!
GabinRevolution 9 months ago
"Animator-drive productions..." Like Birth? Oh god, that was my soul falling out. I'm sorry.
You plugged TTGL episode four though, and I was curious what your thoughts were on it. Since I first saw it, I've held that within the context of the story it was a visual representation of the malaise and dissonance between the characters. And from that standpoint, it was amazingly appropriate; who was involved with that particular creature and made that call? I think it was an excellently bold move.
WyattEpp 9 months ago
@WyattEpp Birth fits the mold anyway. Gurren-Lagann episode 4 was Osamu Kobayashi's, and he's kind of an auteur when it comes to his shorts and episodes. I'm honestly not that familiar with him, but he's invaded other shows like Kemonozume (ep.7, the weakest episode I felt) and Panty & Stocking ep10 (or 5 part 2) which I thought was pretty hilarious. P&S provides a necessary lack of definition for radical style changes. TTGL is a more defined work, so ep4 clashed too much with the rest, IMO.
te2rx 9 months ago
@te2rx
Osamu Kobayashi has some experience in commercials before he joined animation. I believe his acquaintance with Studio 4°C creators and his brother's influenced have developed his vision.
Reanimator999 9 months ago
@te2rx honestly while it's not really a good movie, I think the overall loathsome reaction to Birth is pretty unwarranted. I noticed that when I show it to younger fans with zero knowledge about its western fandom reputation as a "legendarily bad" anime (not like hardcore... animation fans, just normal ones) their reaction is usually "yeah, this story is pretty stupid but it's still pretty fun thanks to the animation", while it's usually the older fans disregarding it as completely irredeemable.
RaymondoPerson 7 months ago
@te2rx it's like... yeah I wouldn't call it a 'good movie' because there's a certain certain art to delivering mindless animation showcase really well (see Animal Treasure Island) including things like pacing, music and whatnot and Birth generally lacked that. but when presenting it solely a showcase of fun, unique animation I actually got a surprising amount of people to enjoy it, because I think younger fans are more likely to watch something soley for creative animation every once in a while.
RaymondoPerson 7 months ago
@te2rx to better explain my position using the shallow kung-fu movie analogy again: imagine a Jackie Chan movie that's not very well put together, even by mindless Jackie Chan movie standards. nonetheless it still contains really great action choreography and still shines in that particular category. now imagine if a reviewer failed to mention that Jackie Chan is in it and that the action is great and reviewed it solely based on its story. that's the attitude I dislike among anime reviewers.
RaymondoPerson 7 months ago
@WyattEpp Kobayashi is good when Kobayashi is doing Kobayashi - "hipsters chatting in a record store while crazy weird monsters attack outside"-that's Kobayashi. When he tries other works, it kind of breaks the flow, his ep of Kemonozume was pretty bad, and Gurren Lagaan really was out of place. I do however love his shorts and TV shows :)
neilworms1 9 months ago
@WyattEpp Having finally finished Panty and Stocking, I take back what I said. His ep of P&S was awesome, like almost Paranoia Agent level awesome, and they actually integrated it into the show very well too :-)
neilworms1 9 months ago
Very informative, I'll try to look out for uses of sakuga from now on.
WiriamuN 9 months ago
Wow, very impressive panel.
Very informative, you guys did some great research as well as the analysis.
You guys sound very familiar, did you do any other panels like this in the past?
Also, looks like Hosoda used that same punch in that one piece movie as well in summer wars.
neofreed0m 9 months ago
@neofreed0m For Colin & I, this was our first panel. Neil has done various panels on topics like Satoshi Kon, Ghibli, Osamu Tezuka, and alternative manga at Anime Central and other nearby cons, I think.
te2rx 9 months ago
Just want to give my thanks to you guys for uploading this informative panel. I love animation. It doesn't matter where its from as long as its well executed (and brings something fresh to the table) then I will show admiration. I'm glad there's a country like Japan that produces and cultivates uniquely talented animators and supports those animator's artistic license within a commercial product. I'm not saying you won't find it in other parts of the worlds, its just more...common...in Japan.
martinmacintosh 9 months ago
@martinmacintosh "and supports those animator's artistic license within a commercial product. " Japanese animators make like $10k a year. That's not much support.
sickVisionz 1 month ago
@sickVisionz it is true that a lot (not all) japanese animators are criminally underpaid, not to mention the other working conditions they deal with are far from ideal. So yes in that sense japanese animators are generally not well supported. But I still stand by my statement. Although maybe I should've restated it to "supporting artistic license to a 'talented, well paid key animator'".There's truth to the $10k a year salary; but that can easily be a skewed number from reports and surveys.
martinmacintosh 1 month ago
I think that Gurren Lagann screen shot is done by Osamu Kobayashi the young.
Reanimator999 9 months ago
Wow, very fucking enlightening, I needed this for my work. I appreciate the Flash mention too (my favorite program) I didn't know that Flash animators were getting picked up by major studios like that.
NecroTOONZ 9 months ago
Awesome videos! I haven't watched it all yet, but I plan on doing so!
TerminalMontage 9 months ago
Thank you so much for this. There needs to be more vids like this out there. Hopefully you can do some more stuff on animation in the future.
SkyGuardian73 9 months ago
After reading all these comments, I have to say one thing. it's best to balance story and visuals.
Let animation medium do its thing, which is bring things to life. Just like the presentation says, animation is a part of the vehicle that carries story to audience.
There are tons of stories out there, but only a handful gets the animation treatment.
Reanimator999 9 months ago
Man, Berserk would have been amazing with a better budget. Of course now they're actually redoing it so we might finally see it as it should have been. Anyway this was a great panel, thanks for putting it on youtube!
Ccs1989 9 months ago
One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island is an excellent film. The designs are definitely very different from One Piece's norm, but I have to say that the amount of emotion, force and power put into the animation in that movie really helped make it an excellent picture.
CCharmanderK 9 months ago
actually I thought of a perhaps more accurate explanation of why people refuse to considering animation quality as adding to a movie's overall quality - the idea that you absolutely need a huge budget for good animation. they feel that by caring too much about how something moves they're keeping down the "little guys" who don't have enough money to animate well, which is still flawed.
(sorry for hogging the comments section with multiple comments, I'll try to keep things shorter in the future)
RaymondoPerson 9 months ago
@RaymondoPerson or yeah, there might be a tendency to view production value as "phony" and as something that distances you from the artistic expression. It's not necessarily true, but it does happen pretty often where you get spectacles of production value with very little "expression" in the integrated sense. I can sort-of see why people like to over-emphasize story in reaction to all that, or as another example, over-emphasize virtuosity in today's hyper-artificial studio music.
te2rx 9 months ago
Thanks for uploading this, it was a great presentation! I definitely learned some useful stuff, that I know in fact I will get to apply (in Flash animation) ^_^
Though I do agree with @RaymondoPerson in that animation for the sake of animation isn't too bad. The degree of truth in that I suppose comes to personal preference. I am one who is a big fan of Transformers 2 (the recent movie), but I can definitely admit that accusations against it are true, that story was thoroughly sacrificed.
TerraGamerX 9 months ago
@TerraGamerX many people's problem with movies like Transformers 2 is that its story is actively insulting to many people and at some points gets in the way of the robot action, which is also criticized as being incoherent and not very good due to poor choreography and awful samey design work for the robots
RaymondoPerson 9 months ago
to be honest I really don't think it's that bad to just have an "animation porn" ova once in a while
it's like, in live action, people don't watch cheesy kung fu films for the story and they're just a way to string together a bunch of well made action, but the really well made ones are still critically acclaimed. AS LONG AS they acknowledge that nobody will take them seriously and embrace that fact even professional critics like Roger Ebert will consider them good.
RaymondoPerson 9 months ago
@RaymondoPerson basically one thing that bothers people the most is when a work reaches for the stars and fails horribly. if you present an OVA that only has creative visuals going for it as some life changing epic and actually try to get the viewer very emotionally involved in a half-assed story people are going to dislike it (see Steamboy) but with something like Dead Leaves it's far easier to judge it based on visuals alone
RaymondoPerson 9 months ago
@RaymondoPerson yeah, there's nothing wrong with a well-made, entertaining actioneer, but if it places too much emphasis on a niche interest (e.g. battle choreography) over sheer entertainment value, it might get boring for general audiences. For kung-fu movies, a friend of mine tried to show me Drunken Master and its novelty wore off after half an hour. The contemporary kung-fu movie that really broke into the international mainstream was the heavily story-driven Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.
te2rx 9 months ago
@te2rx I'm just saying there's nothing inherently wrong with it. unless they have some pretense of being a dead serious epic, mainstream reviewers don't really go "ugh this is pure garbage -9999/5 do NOT watch!". anime fans seem more likely to feel personally offended by the existence of a 'style over substance' anime because they're still seeking acceptance and they want to keep a safe distance from 'mindless fun' works
RaymondoPerson 9 months ago
@te2rx this is particularly obvious in the common "caring about animation is like watching a movie about explosions" argument that older anime fans use. I might be wrong but I personally think a lot of those people realize that something like The Girl Who Leapt Through Time wouldn't have the same emotional impact if not for the expressive visual acting but they think it's "shallow" to care for it so they don't admit it
(also ong bak is a bajillion times more enjoyable than drunken master)
RaymondoPerson 9 months ago
thanks for the presentation ;)
Pagatcha 9 months ago
Great job on introducing this stuff to a new audience. A correction: the scene from One Piece movie 6 was done by Hisashi Mori. I'm not sure who's responsible for the fight in the Digimon movie, though. Mitsuo Iso worked under his pen name Mikio Odagawa, so maybe he had a hand in it.
juice41braves 9 months ago
@juice41braves I made the correction in an embarassing on-screen overlay just now. :)
And wow, there are parts that look very very Iso-like now that you mention it. I read that Mori worked on this Digimon movie, and I think I just assumed it's him (or "the same guy who did the One Piece bit") in my mind, since the dinosaur (Koromon) charging forward in that chaotic wobbly fashion looked a lot like Mori's bit from that Doraemon movie with the dinosaurs. But yeah, I really don't know either.
te2rx 9 months ago