Comments on: Cheap anime can be impressive

By: Tomoyo

Tomoyo — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 05:23:24 +0000

Also, there’s all kinds of stuff being done now in anime with eye details and color palettes and colored lines and airbrushing and textures and so on that would have been way too time-consuming to do in 80’s cel animation. Like I said, the focus has changed.

By: Tomoyo

Tomoyo — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 05:20:42 +0000

As one of the fans that lived through all of anime’s 80’s evolutions, I have to say that I don’t really miss the old style that much. The empahasis has changed, and the overall quality control is scads better–one problem with using so many tones is that often the tweened cels would get one or two shadows wrong and cause bad flicker and strobing effects that looked cheap and ugly. The level of line detail was often a lot lower, but usually that was hard to tell on crappy broadcast and VHS copies–most anime was shot on 16mm, which didn’t exactly help either, and the cels used ugly photocopied line art and were on small fields (less than a sheet of binder paper for the whole camera field), so detail was easy to screw up.

That said, it did have a very bold look and those shadows were one thing that helped distinguish it from US animation (or US sub-contracted-to-other-countries animation) which valed higher framerates and exaggeration/caricature over detail and subtle, underplayed animation (To-y is my favorite example of a great 80’s anime that is wonderfully expressive yet has almost no actual animation in it–notably, Toy actually DOESN’T use heavy layers of shadows at all). I empathize with his lament that anime has lost something that made it stand out from western animation, something us fans in the 80’s were proud of, but it is hardly the ONLY thing that makes it so, and I think a lot of the current look is inherited from the clean lines and impressionistic stylings of shoujo manga. ^_^ Clearly the medium has evolved, as it had before in his time, and has left him in the dust, clinging to the “good old days” and unable to keep up. Sadly, a lot of my old otaku friends did the same.

By: wildarmsheero

wildarmsheero — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 06:08:51 +0000

he’s also stealing it from toshio okada

By: moonspeaker

moonspeaker — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 05:41:25 +0000

Jeez…why does everyone have to be one side or another…. I agree with wildarmsheero’s opinion. Some of it’s just cheaping out, but some of it is really good regardless. All anime is really about is ingenuity and using your imagination to create something that very few do. I also think alot of the old shows looked great, but that doesn’t mean everything should be done a certain way.

Besides that, this farce otaking guy is a big-time extremist who’s even made videos saying how fansubs are falling apart due to not translating honorifics and leaving it as “onii-chan”. The fact that he’s using a name like that and stealing it from a dead guy just goes to show how arrogant he is. (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-11-13/american-otaking-steve-pearl-passes-away)

By: Sheentaku

Sheentaku — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 10:32:49 +0000

I agree, i still love the oldies but your really missing out if you dont accept animation does change.

By: digitalboy

digitalboy — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:45:52 +0000

I solute your opinion, good man.

By: wildarmsheero

wildarmsheero — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 17:53:34 +0000

>>nahrub
I watch and enjoy tons of 80s anime for its insane production values too (mostly movies and OVAs)

By: Coaxen

Coaxen — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:26:32 +0000

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei has lots of different kinds of animation. But indeed, it’s a perfect show to watch :)
The same goes for e.g. Mushishi. I hope the future will bring some gems like those. If it won’t, then we’re screwed ;/

Still, it’s a bit depressing that while our technology allows us to do awesome animation, studios just settle with gradients, boobs, and make lots of low-quality series instead of few high quality ones… Sad though it is, the majority of fans are responsible for this ‘crappening’.

By: nahrub

nahrub — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:57:30 +0000

i too hate the over-shaded-80s-style. that aside, i dont think it’s cheaping out. it’s more like prioritizing. ever watched seirei no moribito? everything moves… everything; shop keepers, pedestrian, u name it. shading is not that hot nowadays anyway. the shading era is in the past. ppl care about it no more, just like bell-bottoms n tight leathers. old man (n picky art students) should deal with it

By: Denizen

Denizen — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:07:40 +0000

You have an interesting perspective. Frankly, I never felt any sort of difference between old and new apart from art trends and picture quality.

By: Raht

Raht — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 11:10:40 +0000

For me personally, those faces from 80s with all tones of mild orange are just plain ugly :>

By: Sasa

Sasa — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 08:45:21 +0000

Maybe those are just oyajis you can’t really take for serious. I’m not a big fan of the 80s style and if you compare the new NGE movie with the old footage, or the new Ghost in the Shell stuff with the old, I would actually say that technology has helped improving animation quality.

I think Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and Voices of a Distant Star are indeed good examples of how good “cheap” anime can be and that it’s about style and not the detail in shading. It’s like comparing Andy Warhol with Rubens.

By: Billy Bob

Billy Bob — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 07:32:16 +0000

Hmmmmmm, interesting perspective BUT I don’t quite subscribe to it. I see it a bit more as cheaping out. But then again, I never thought overall that most anime had good design asthetic anyways (more so character designs then COSTUME design), not like the stuff they teach you in good animation schools anyways. But I’m an elitist snob coming from a western cartoon school of thought so….