Anime Animation Laziness

[Arabesque]

I'm tempted to say Gintama ... but I'm not sure which episodes were really just the actors messing around or if they were reading from the director's notes. (It's just that kind of show)

[Lenneth4]

Originally Posted by Kudryavka

That's why usually scripts are finalized before, or at the latest in the storyboard stage. Are Japanese companies that manhandled by executives? I didn't know American and Japanese animation was so different (the way it's made, I mean).

what do you mean ?

american cartoon are manufactured in america ?

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by Arabesque

I also remember Red Garden, the 2006 anime that had used the same technique with great success as well.

Same director as Kurenai, Matsuo Kou.

[Tempester]

I don't have an issue with the lip thing, really. Other Japanese animation techniques can feel really cheap if not executed/paced well enough, though.

Just look at Little Busters recently. Whatever animation there is is usually decent or above average, but I see a great overuse of slow camera panning, lazy stills, and cheap tricks to simulate movement with minimal frames. None of those I particularly mind, but Little Busters just used them too much and at inappropriate moments.

Originally Posted by Theo

Any comedy anime with this kind of direction?

gdgd Fairies, if I'm not mistaken.

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by Kudryavka

Why do most Japanese cartoons have lip flapping instead of actual lip animation? Like, why do they animate the scenes before recording voices??? I never understood this, and it's especially jarring to see next to otherwise gorgeous fight and hair animation.

Why so lazy?

A lot of it comes down to the limitations of early-day anime production where you'd have just a handful of people working on an entire show. This led to all sorts of labor-saving shortcuts and give anime a lot of its distinctive style (most notably the jankiness and structure of body animation).

That these same techniques are still being used are a factor of inertia, cost-cutting and style. And that most of the target audience doesn't really mind.

Personally, I sort of like the idea of recording voices after the animation. In the other kind of recording will often record each voice actor individually and just mix them together. In anime, all the voice actors of a particular scene will record their lines in the recording studio at the same time, so there's a bit of playing off of other people's performances.

Originally Posted by Tempester

Just look at Little Busters recently. Whatever animation there is is usually decent or above average, but I see a great overuse of slow camera panning, lazy stills, and cheap tricks to simulate movement with minimal frames. None of those I particularly mind, but Little Busters just used them too much and at inappropriate moments.

Can any discussion of lazy animation be complete without mentioning SHAFT? They actually released an episode of Tsukuyomi Moonphase so incomplete that half the episode wasn't animated. It was one of the most awful viewing experiences ever. And then there's all of the notorious cost-cutting shortcuts they use. The only Sasami-san I've watched is the OP - did they ever fix it, or was that the actual finished product?

[totoum]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

The only Sasami-san I've watched is the OP - did they ever fix it, or was that the actual finished product?

That's the finished version (at least it was the same in ep2) any time and effort they had went into the animation of the first episode itself (especially the 2nd half) rather than the OP

[Arabesque]

Speaking of SHAFT (and lip animation), the long awaited Fate/Extra CCC had been posted for the world to see. (be warned, it is NSFW)

SHAFT (and to an extent, Akiyuki Shinbou) style had always been interesting to watch. When he has enough time (more than often than not, accidentally since no one in SHAFT seems to be able to manage a time table to save their life), he is able to produce something amazing visually, and really worth watching.

Unfortunately, they never seem to have much time, and a s a result ...

Originally Posted by 4Tran

They actually released an episode of Tsukuyomi Moonphase so incomplete that half the episode wasn't animated.

And that episode of Hidamari Sketch where they didn't even draw Mt.Fuji and instead just wrote it on the background.

And that episode of Bakemonogatari where it was made out of stills (that you could actually see the grain staying still j/k (or am I?))

And then there was that one time with the Negima movie where they didn't include 20 minutes of the film when it first premiered due to them failing to finish it in time.

And there are many examples.

Then they would go an ''blog'' about the reactions on some episode of Sayonara Zetsubo Sense top it all off.

I've always wondered how could a studio that managed to produce two of the biggest financial hits (anime-wise) in modern time and still not seem to be able to find people to match their work load.

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by totoum

That's the finished version (at least it was the same in ep2) any time and effort they had went into the animation of the first episode itself (especially the 2nd half) rather than the OP

That's disappointing. The Sasami-san character designs are pretty good, and I'd have liked to see them in action without having to watch the show itself. The OP looks like it was slapped together in a half-hour with Photoshop though. I find the Chuunibyou OP unwatchable, but at least you could tell the creators put a lot of effort into it.

Originally Posted by Arabesque

I've always wondered how could a studio that managed to produce two of the biggest financial hits (anime-wise) in modern time and still not seem to be able to find people to match their work load.

It probably boils down to really bad production planning, and it seems to be a systematic problem. Their OPs tended to be free of this problem so they were somewhat worth watching.

The Fate/Extra CCC OP looks pretty awful, but at least it looks better than the Sasami-san one.

[Warm Mist]

The thing is, there are only 2 animators worth a damn in SHAFT: Gen'Ichirou Abe and Ryo Imamura. After that, everything else is up to freelancers' availability to work for them. A lot of good animation from SHAFT recently comes from Nozomu Abe and Hironori Tanaka, but they aren't inhouse animators and this means that if they're busy on something else, or can't match the schedules, or simply don't want to animate for them, they won't.

I don't like that Fate OP too much, but it's more of a problem with the storyboard and Shinbo's characteristic style than true bad animation. There are some good bits in there, even if misplaced.

As for recording the voice based on the animation, I guess it boils down to the approach you're taking to the presentation. Animating based on the vocal performance means the storyboard and animation will go more towards the character acting and delivery of the lines, and in the long term animators are going to be more specialized in characters and expressions than anything else. (we see this in most western animated productions where the process is like this).
The japanese method gives a bit more freedom for the storyboard, and it tends to focus a lot of the times on the backgrounds, whatever quirky symbolism the director wants to fit in and things like that, so the character acting is not as emphasized (that's not to say there aren't good character pieces in animation, just look at the latest Okiura movie, Ghibli productions or, for TV, any Kyoani production). A lot of japanese animation tends to strive to make movements interesting because that's what the storyboard will focus on a lot of the times. Honestly, western animation was never good at making action sequences exciting, whereas japanese animation has a whole philosophy dedicated to making the best action with the least frames. This may have arisen out of monetary concerns at first, but it became a style of its own, with unique characteristics and benefits, and it gives results that are as good as more "classical" ways of approaching the subject.

Well... this post seems like a mindless rant now that I look at it, but whatever.

[Kudryavka]

Originally Posted by Lenneth4

what do you mean ?

american cartoon are manufactured in america ?

Well, except for the outsourcing of the actual animation, yes... TV stuff, at least.

I was wondering about how to the minute Japan animation is, b/c in America if voices aren't done by when final animation starts or the script changes when final animation is done, a whole lot of money and time has to be wasted to fix it, and the sponsors start thinking about stop paying. Moreso since final animation is done halfway across the world now, there's no room for changes.

Originally Posted by Tempester

I don't have an issue with the lip thing, really. Other Japanese animation techniques can feel really cheap if not executed/paced well enough, though.

I dont either. I was just wondering why Japan still use stuff like that when animation has so much more money and talent nowadays then back with Tezuka.

From what I'm reading in this thread, it seems to be mainly style and tradition more than anything else (excepting when studios do it to be way cheap or not finish stuff on time).

[ahelo]

Along with Kurenai and Red Garden, if I'm not mistaken Natsuyuki Rendezvous also does voice acting first before animation. In any case, I'm fairly sure the reason behind the lack of lip animation is budget restraints. There isn't that big a reason for it.

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by Kudryavka

I dont either. I was just wondering why Japan still use stuff like that when animation has so much more money and talent nowadays then back with Tezuka.

Having more money doesn't necessarily mean more money for every portion of production. A bigger budget will usually be spent on more noticeable parts of the show, like multiple OPs or better action animation, rather than on less important elements like lip flaps.

Originally Posted by Kudryavka

From what I'm reading in this thread, it seems to be mainly style and tradition more than anything else (excepting when studios do it to be way cheap or not finish stuff on time).

I think that Warm Mist gave us a pretty good explanation: the workflow of animation production has always been to put the voice acting in at the very end. This workflow can be changed, but it will only be done for exceptionally good reasons, and not all directors are interested in changing the way they plan productions.

[Warm Mist]

Lip flaps are usually avoided when the scene is important enough. (That's only for high production value works, though.) But the truth is that you need more frames and more talent to achieve a good result, so it's normally high-profile productions that manage to avoid the problem for key scenes.

Anyway, just watch Akira.

[Tempester]

Originally Posted by Kudryavka

I dont either. I was just wondering why Japan still use stuff like that when animation has so much more money and talent nowadays then back with Tezuka.

Style and tradition is a way of looking at it, but you could also say that innovation in business isn't encouraged so much in Japan as in the west. The strategy is that if some technique is profitable, you should just keep rehashing it until it . Thus, we have things like Sazae-san and the Pokemon anime. Of course, the west does this too, but not to the same degree as Japan.

Originally Posted by ahelo

Along with Kurenai and Red Garden, if I'm not mistaken Natsuyuki Rendezvous also does voice acting first before animation. In any case, I'm fairly sure the reason behind the lack of lip animation is budget restraints. There isn't that big a reason for it.

There's also Kamichu. That series really surprised me with how everything (including lip movement) was so animated compared to what I was used to from anime.

[Shyni]

Originally Posted by Tempester

The strategy is that if some technique is profitable, you should just keep rehashing it until it . Thus, we have things like Sazae-san and the Pokemon anime. Of course, the west does this too, but not to the same degree as Japan.

You sure about that? I mean, they've been making Spider-man shows for decades now, and that's a loooot of rehashing. Although that's more about story and characters rather than technical or stylistic stuff.