Anime With The Best Animation Quality

[psycho bolt]

Oh yeah I forgot about 5cm/sec and Voices of a Distant Star.

I also need to mention Paprika.

Cowboy Bebop Movie had good designs and details.

[Jiji]

Just in case, for the people here who might be new to the anime world, OVAs and movies almost always have better animation than TV series. Because they are not as big a commitment of resources, they are usually able to put more time (and money) into the backgrounding and animation.

Just as an example, look at FLCL (six episodes) versus Mahoromatic from the same studio (12 + 14 episodes). Mahoromatic was pretty good for a TV series, but there's an obvious jump up in quality with FLCL, produced the year before.

[Snait3]

Short series (13 eps.): Suzumiya Haruhi.

Medium (26 - 40 eps): Death Note, Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann (stunning @_@).

Almost everything from Madhouse and KyoAni xD (Kanon 2006, Claymore, etc).

[wao]

Dude, just drop everything and watch Mononoke, I think it's what you're looking for. Plus it's not licensed yet. While the animation movement is not the best in every single episode, in general it is quite above average (especially for a Toei show) and some of the episodes are, IMO, movie quality (see episode 5).

It's not just the movement, but the backgrounds and directing too. It may not be realistic ala Byousoku 5cm or Seirei no Moribito or even Death Note, but it's really showy and kinda artsy-like... I'd also suggest Dennou Coil although the movement doesn't seem to be so obvious, but if you like Madhouse then this is one of their top works. I also recommend Paranoia Agent (licensed) because some eps are, again, like a mini-movie of their own.

Oh yeah. And Gurenn-Lagann is a must-watch if you like energetic animation. It has some really gobsmacking awesome animators there.

[Atheuz]

Originally Posted by psycho bolt

Oh yeah I forgot about 5cm/sec and Voices of a Distant Star.

Disagree. They focused too much on the background and artwork that they completely left out the characters as being in that process - They mainly look like they were thrown together in 3 minutes by a drunk handicapped rat with a pencil strapped to it's behind.

It should be judged as a whole and to be honest 5cm/sec and voices of a distant star character design and animation really drags them down even though the rest of the anime is beautiful.

[KholdStare]

Originally Posted by Atheuz

Disagree. They focused too much on the background and artwork that they completely left out the characters as being in that process - They mainly look like they were thrown together in 3 minutes by a drunk handicapped rat with a pencil strapped to it's behind.

It should be judged as a whole and to be honest 5cm/sec and voices of a distant star character design and animation really drags them down even though the rest of the anime is beautiful.

Disagree. I see nothing wrong with character design and animation quality from 5 Centimeters per Second at least. Just because they don't look moe and have blue/red hairs with cute sparkling eyes doesn't mean something's wrong with character design. Its point was to be unique so of course it's not going to be cliche.

[Atheuz]

Originally Posted by KholdStare

Disagree. I see nothing wrong with character design and animation quality from 5 Centimeters per Second at least. Just because they don't look moe and have blue/red hairs with cute sparkling eyes doesn't mean something's wrong with character design. Its point was to be unique so of course it's not going to be cliche.

It felt like for the majority of the time the animators wanted to leave out the characters of the scene, atleast their faces. They showed their hair, their back, their stomach and their face with shade over it for a large portion of the anime.