Animation Appreciation Refuge Thread #1

Now in /carcom/ due to spam

The Sakuga Wiki [JP] - http://www18.atwiki.jp/sakuga/
Good Animation Blog - http://www.pelleas.net/aniTOP/
Other websites: http://pastebin.com/r2Vcy4b2

Animation on Twitter, Tumblr and Youtube:
http://pastebin.com/CQa8wU3q

Older Threads: #1-#10-2 http://pastebin.com/474RAqxr

Another well done Tamako Market episode, looks like there was some background animation very briefly at the start of the episode.

>>560
From Hyouka 7, most of the onsen scene and the ending, those I know for sure since he commented on them. I'm fairly sure he did some of the best cuts in Hyouka 21 like Chitanda freaking out but don't quote me on that, since it's not confirmed. You know KyoAni is a rare beast in that it's usually easier to tell apart an animation director than particular KA. Not having many idiosyncratic animators and not naming animators on their genga books sure doesn't help.

>>562
Nice, thanks. Yeah, recognizing a sakkan's style in Kyoani is not hard, but for animators besides Kigami and the more flamboyant cuts by Ishidate or Kitanohara, I'm totally lost.

Case in point, for this Tamako episode I have no idea of what could've been Ishidate's cut. I'd guess that underwater part of one of the scenes where she was berating Dera, but I'm pretty much throwing it in the air more than anything else.

Back during Clannad S2 and K-On S1 Ishidate's cuts were easier to spot weren't they?

>>564

They have some schedule problem back then so they probably didn't have time to correct the KA much.

Shinkai's new anime
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udDIkl6z8X0

>>566
Pretty visuals, as expected of Shinkai

>>566
It sure is pretty, but that blur and bloom is fucking ridiculous and it irks me. I don't reaaaally care about his CGi usage but holy crap, that's annoying me a great deal.

>>566
It's, uh, very Shinkai for sure. Not really a good thing in my opinion.

So Tamako#7 is Ishihara/Ishidate's episode with Hiroko Utsumi's storyboard?

This is weird.

What? 2 EDs?

Scheduling problem?

Wouldn't a scheduling issue normally mean multiple ADs?

>>572
The episode had an assistant AD as well.

The new Shinkai film looks damn good. Like it or not, you have to admit his films have very good art and colour direction, and most impressively pretty much the best CG in the anime industry. He just knows how to use it better than anyone else, even if he pioneered little, so to say.  You can see from this interview (http://www.tested.com/news/442545-2d-animation-digital-era-interview-japanese-director-makoto-shinkai/) that he really understands the difference between good and bad CG and is not using it simply as a cost cutting method, like so many other directors and studios are doing. The rain in particular was very, very good, which I guess was to be expected since the film apparently has a lot to do with rain and rain scenes.

There were also a few good animation cuts in that trailer (like the drawing scenes, or the shoe making one, or the scene where the girl is throwing/swinging her shoe away). Might not end up being a sakuga fest, but it's nothing to scoff at.

>>568

I beg to differ. Here, the use of filters and postprocessing is not working against the content, unlike say, in ufotable or gohands' cases (especially gohands, with stuff like K and Mardo Scramble).

>>574

The scene where the girl throws herself on the bed is also good.

>>574
I thought ufo's usage of post processing in their TM works was really nice. Having said that, I wonder why not many studios use digital effects like Iso or Yoshinari.

>>567
It sure is pretty, but that blur and bloom is fucking ridiculous and it irks me

Eh..there's not much bloom in the trailer.
There's only one scene that the glow effect is noticeable (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=udDIkl6z8X0#t=38s)

And it's still pretty clean comparing to most anime today.

Shinkai's movie
http://i.imgur.com/PX2pjd9.jpg

How it would look like if the digital compositing is done by Ufotable or KyoAni
http://i.imgur.com/FpG3cVu.jpg

>>569

How do you mean?

>>578

Ufotable, maybe, but I don't think KyoAni goes that overboard with the aftereffects.  Only some of their CMs and those mech Chuunibyou specials go overboard with the filtering in some shots. But generally it's done well. In Hyouka it was alright for the most part, and then there's stuff like Nichijou which is very "raw" so to say. Blah blah.

I'd say Go-Hands is the worst culprit when it comes to filling the screen with rainbow colored puke.

>>580

But yes, I agree. Shinkai's film is pretty light on the bloom and stuff compared to a lot of anime these days.

GoHands
http://i.imgur.com/xeZrnu9.jpg

>>582

Looks more like chuuni

>>566
beauty!

Who do you think has the best timing/like the best? I'd say Hidetsugu Ito.

>>585

Or hideki kakita.

>>585
Jun Arai

>>587

Speaking of Arai, I think I've just figured out why I don't like his and other such "Kanada" style animation - purposefully, intentionally poor, or non-existent timing and overdone use of stills between movement. I much prefer Yoh Yoshinari's style of whacky animation that actually features movement, even if it's super-stylized, to a glorified presentation of stylistic non-movement.

Sue me...

Looks like Psycho-Pass 18 will be a QUALITY fest, according to Shiotani himself. And to think last week was bad enough...

>>588
That's understandable, Kanada-style animation is basically making the most out of few frames after all isn't it? It's bound to not "flow" as well as "fuller" animation. I myself prefer more realist animation.

http://ca-tsuka.tumblr.com/post/43487366396/paperman-cg-progression

Paperman

>>590
Well I'd say that Kanada made limited movement such that it was still exciting to look at and you didn't spend too much time noticing the limited animation.　Where as with Arai's timing, a bit more emphasis is made to look at key poses and make you notice them.

To >>588 watch some stuff that's actually by the really good Kanada-style animators, look up some of Kanada's own best works, Yamashita, Shinsaku Kozuma, Keisuke Watabe, Itsuki Imazaki, Hiroyuki Imaishi, Obari Masami and so on. When you realise how they can instil movement to drawings I think you'll take back calling "stylistic non-movement" about Kanada style and it's variations.

>>588
Not even Imaishi's?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jvxnW4iPZc

What do you guys think of the action animation here?

I'm

>>588

As far as the works of Kanada himself are concerned, since as I've said the style just doesn't click with me I wasn't too concerned to look up more stuff of his or like his. I liked Birth a lot however,  but I think (and I may be very wrong) that the cuts in it I like the best are the ones that are the least "Kanada-style" in nature (yes, I know what "Birth" supposedly represents for Kanada-style animation and how stupid I'm probably going to sound for just having said that, but I'll take my chances).

I wonder though, if, like some of you mentioned, the absurdly limited animation in some cases isn't just a budget issue some people (like Arai) somehow took a liking to (all to my personal - and I'm sure others' too - displeasure). I mean you mentioned Imaishi, and some others (I didn't know Hiroyuki Yamashita was a kanada animator, doesn't seem like one to me at least - or are you talking about another Yamashita? I'm suffering from a mind lapse at the moment)  and that (the still shot inserts and posing) doesn't always feature that much - from what I've seen- (although it's there to scrub my eyeballs occasionally) so there's that to concede as well I guess.

But, I notice that in a lot of the, imo, good Kanada-style cuts (let me think of an example - take the dragon, since it's perfect and perfectly cliche to bring up, and I mean the original one in Genma Taisen) it's just a matter of creating choppy, straight movements (but movements) and using a blocky, simplified style in the drawings. Or in short, it's more a matter of ignoring and abstracting detail in every frame, than ignoring and subtracting frames and movement in the animation. When this removal and simplification spills over into the frame-to-frame, movement side, I think _this_ is when Kanada-style animation is doing something... wrong. Wrong may be the wrong word here, I'm not trying to convince anyone that "Kanada style a shit" or anything, I'm just regurgitating my thoughts on this. Sorry...

So...You know, if I wanted to see a series of still shots on my TV/computer/whatever, I'd just read a manga/comic .zip or something, right? That stuff should stay on paper and magazines. It's called animation for a reason (of course, I'm crossing a line and I'm leaning in the wrong a bit - but only to get my point across).

Excuse my meanderings, by the way.

>>595
Yamashita as in Masahito Yamashita. Jun Arai's animation is kinda similar to his.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3D__DQNdpU

>>594

The character movement/fight acting is alright for the most part. The cuts kinda lack impact in certain areas.

For example, there's little "play" with the "camera". I mean, there's these guys punching at each other and generally the whole cut is drawn from a standing perspective (there were a couple or so exceptions, so not always). Animation is not live action - you have completely free (well, not completely, but certainly the degrees of freedom are higher than with live action footage) reign with the movement of every element that visually creates the scene, right? Why not use that? This is as much an issue of storyboarding and choreography as it is an issue of the animation, admittedly.

And there's also the effects and impact animations. Like the dust on the floor, or chops of wood from the boxes falling appart and so. It's like everyone and everything is made from the same material. The blond chick throws the guy over the box and the box just gets squashed under. Is that really how wood "behaves"? I'm inclined to say not. In general, the impacts are very inelastic and stiff, even when they shouldn't be. There's a push but no bounce - think of the classic falling ball example. It's not just landing on the floor flat. It bounces, stretches etc. By comparison, in (too) many of the cuts in that clip (but not all, and those where this doesn't happen look significantly better) the bodies for example, just fall flat or slide over the floor when hit. That's not only improper movement (even if they were dead and couldn't react to the fall by jerking and stuff) but it also looks boring. what are these people? Ragdolls made of sticky plaster that hugs the floor as soon as they touch?

Compare with this cut 40 seconds in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jvxnW4iPZc&t=40s when the guy rolls around and bounces after being hit. This looks good. The movement has momentum  You can "see" it. The landing has weight. In many of the other cuts things are not like this, especially with some of the punch throwing in that scene with the blonde chick in the hangar and whatnot (this fight in the cage as .a whole was better than that, precisely for these two reasons - more camera play, and proper portrayal of movement and impact).

>>594
>>597

And another part here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jvxnW4iPZc&t=28s until 30s, as contrast. The guy just falls flat like a straight plank and gets glued to the floor. That looks like crap honestly.

>>596

Kinda sorta better than Arai but honestly, I don't like it. Some deal to less degrees (too much "pausing") and also a lot of short (few frames) cycles with the flame effects and the like. Looks like strobe-lighted action, something like that. It won't give anyone any seizures but  I guess this is an acquired taste.

If you want some cheap laughs, this P-P episode is legendary. All the characters are off-model for no good reason in about every scene, no wonder Shiotani had to say sorry for this.