The Greatest Battle In History: Cel Animation VS Digital Animation
One of the many things that divides old fans from the new is a preference towards either older cel animation or newer digital animation. Older fans will argue that digital animation is dull and bland, while newer fans will argue that cel animation is dirty and clumsy. Me being someone who isn’t a close-minded motherfucker can enjoy both of them, and can see the advantages and disadvantages between the two media.
Considering it’s the older medium, a majority of the anime that exists in this world has been painted onto cels. If I had to pick any one aspect of cel animation that I think makes it stand out, it would be its texture. What defines the look of cel animation is the obvious marks of traditional instruments, an element of noise that comes through in the filming process, and striking fully painted colour palettes. All of these factors (and more) come together to create a look that’s very rich and bold. When it has money behind it, anything cel animated just looks impressive, simply because it’s obvious a lot of work went into it. Cel animation isn’t easy. Just the process of photocopying the lineart to the cels, then laying down the various layers of paint for the base colours and shadows is an extremely painstaking process, especially when you’re going all out with five layers of shading. But, when all that’s done well, it simply looks amazing.
That said, considering the budget and time constraints placed on most outfits that make Japanese animation, a decent number of cel-animated productions with TV budgets behind them don’t look spectacular. Sure, the not-quite-perfect look to older shows from the 70s, 80s and 90s can be charming, but it’s really difficult to make something that looks good cheaply. That doesn’t stop a lot of cel-animated TV series from looking fantastic, but bad cel animated shows simply look really bad. Also, cels are just really expensive.
At the turn of the century, most anime production companies switched over to digital means to produce anime. I think now every anime–even Sazae-san–is produced digitally. The best part about digital animation is that you can make things look good a lot easier and for a lot cheaper than you can with cel animation. A lot of the time consuming work of cel animation–the photocopying, the painting, the filming–is all streamlined with the use of animation programs. It’s also much easier to pull off special effects and complex lighting situations. You can apply all manner of effects to your cartoon and make it look nicer all with the push of a button. Things that once took hours of work now take no longer than a few minutes, and can be executed at a fraction of the cost. As a result, I think a lot of beautiful looking shows have come about due the convenient nature of digital animation.
This ease and cheapness of production can however be quite negative. If you look at a lot of early digital productions (and heck, a lot of current ones) a lot of them look cheap. I think this mostly has to do with the digital colour palette. You can doll up your cut of animation with as many layers of shading as you want (perhaps even all five) but it’ll still going to look like crap if your colours suck. What it comes down to is that the base colours on your computer’s colour picker simply don’t have the depth of a Gouache painted cel that is later photographed to film. As such animators have to put a bit more thought into the colours they use to create something more natural looking and less sterile. This issue of cheapness also shines through in simple digital shortcuts used to cut down on production costs even further. Of course, some studios can do this with style, but most can’t.
While I didn’t go as in-depth as I thought I would (words for this post were coming to me a lot easier two weeks ago than they are now), this more or less outlines what I think about both digital and cel animation. They’re both wonderful media, and a lot of beautiful productions have come about from both of them. At the same time there’s been a lot of duds, too. If I had to choose one I liked better, I’d have to side with cel animation due to its tactile nature, and simple nostalgia value. That said, I love what a lot of the more talented studios out there do with the digital medium, and think a lot of digitally produced shows are great looking, too.
You know what? You raise good points. Usually the only context of this discussion is flames and rage, locking both “sides” even more into their own previous opinions, but here you avoid that… You don’t say much, but what you do say is more or less true.
Personally, I’m more of a modern viewer, if only by habit alone. My anime career is certainly short in scope compared to many lifelong viewers, but as such I find myself simply more comfortable with animations of the modern style (Most of the shows I actually like are 2006 or later).
Reading this, though, and being reminded of that whole other world of great anime, rather makes me want to go back and experience some of the greatest representatives of classic anime. So yeah, I think I’m gonna go watch something… _old_… now.
Both are great. I could say that Space Adventure Cobra looked better on cels, but I could also say Bakemonogatari would look godawful on them. It’s all about the show itslf~
I love both cel and digital. I think cel was great for the darker violent edger stuff of the 80’s/90’s and today’s digital is great for the happy brightly colored world of moe slice of life.
I do miss that the fact that cel painting was great for meticulous detail that when done with care looks stunning. However I’ve excepted the change and enjoy the minimalistic design work of shows now (ala SHAFT).
Having tried cel painting a few years ago, I can now appreciate how much work was put into pre digital anime. However, I’ve opted to do the scan my line work and then color it in photoshop way of doing my art as I can get the same look I want without the mistake and waiting for the paint to dry.
And yeah, I agree about how the color palates of some digital anime can be harsh on the eyes. Once Sunrise went digital, their shows looked like shit. Having really brightly colored mecha in a gritty war story doesn’t work.
@ D-boy
If Bakemonogatari got the cel treatment, something like Yamamoto Yohko would probably come out. I can’t say I disapprove about that one!
@schneider: Yeah, but we have YY already. WE don’t need it again. Bakemonogatari is somethign totally different, and I want that as well.
Low budget: digital
High budget: cel
Something that always staggers me in terms of the differences between cel and digital works is that of each types’ background art. Cel animated shows have those characteristic, very detailed background shots that are basically individual paintings in their own right – more often than not this gives them a rich kind of fantasy vibe (in my opinion – think the artwork you see on the covers of old sci-fi novels). However, as noted, this can extremely limit the movement and flow of the characters – they simply can’t move around as much within these rich worlds because of the cost. Also, since the characters there tend to be shaded more simply, the contrast to the detailed backgrounds can sometimes be jarring. I think this is probably something that holds back newer viewers from embracing older shows, since nowadays we’re pretty well used to a quicker flow.
On entirely different note, something I find equally jarring is the unatural use of CGI rendered 3D models in many new anime today (see the first episode of Letter Bee for an example) – man is this an area which needs a heap more polish
People are saying ‘cels have amazing background art’ like this is always the case. Maybe on the shows that are actually remembered, but try watching your ‘average’ 90s show. In fact, go watch Master Mosquiton. That shit has some really bland-ass backgrounds.
Definitely newer viewers get the benefit of having only the good shows filtered out of the mass of older material, so I guess its all about the potential of the different techniques – some of the shows today also manage to pull off some horrendous image photoshopping.
On a side note, cel animation tends to look horrible in any sort of low-res format, which doesnt help it win points with newer fans.
I think you guys are way off track talking about backgrounds anyway.
Backgrounds are still hand painted. I was surprised to see that those near photorealistic background of Haruhi are hand painted. SHAFT’s backgrounds are digital but work well for the shows they produce.
I certainly miss the analog “warmth” of cels, but I don’t miss having to deal the unavoidable blurring whenever stacking more than a few cels in a shot.
You’re right about how terrible early digital productions looked. They’re the reason why it took me so long to finally warm up to digital animation. And the terrible color palette wasn’t even the worst thing about them: it was those goddamn digital zooms and pans, which look really unnatural in almost any animated show. I’ve been rewatching Initial D: Second Stage lately, and it’s hard not to get distracted by the huge pixels and how the characters sometimes look like they’re skating on the floor instead of walking on it. And don’t even get me started on the Saber Marionette J Again OVA, which looks like ass if compared to the cel-animated SMJ TV series.
On the other hand, when the second season of Mahoromatic came along, I didn’t even notice the switch from cel to digital animation because Gainax and SHAFT did such a great job on the colors. Then, some great-looking shows by Madhouse, Bones and Sunrise finally convinced me that digital coloring, when done right, can look as good as cel painting. However, I won’t deny that I died a little inside when Inuyasha, the last bastion of rich, great-looking cel animation on television, made the switch to digital.
Damn it, even after writing so much, I forgot to mention the main reason why I warmed up to digital animation: Production I.G and their gorgeous work on Blood: The Last Vampire and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.
Haha, that Saber Marionette Again stuff was my first encounter with that ‘early adopter syndrome’ that digitally animated shows had back then! The character motions looked so bad, I couldn’t even finish the first episode!
Seriously, I recommend to everybody:
If you haven’t thougt about digital versus cels as much yet, do yourself a favor and watch an episode of Saber Marionette J and one of J Again! Just to see how HUGE the difference can be.
Interesting post
I am engaged in 3d animation a little. Even I have a site about 3d animation and modelling (ask to forgive my bad English:)
Thank you!