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Old 2013-01-20, 01:08   Link #1
Kudryavka
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Anime Animation Laziness

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?
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Old 2013-01-20, 01:14   Link #2
Westlo
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Because it would cost a shitload of money to lip animation.

And gorgeous hair and fight animation is certainly not common place at all.
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Old 2013-01-20, 01:15   Link #3
Midonin
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It's not a matter of laziness as much as it is cost-cutting (since comparatively, anime has a smaller budget) and an artistic choice. Lip flapping can still be immersive, because anime is already erring on the side of unrealistic.
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Old 2013-01-20, 01:17   Link #4
Kudryavka
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Originally Posted by Westlo View Post
Because it would cost a shitload of money to lip animation.

And gorgeous hair and fight animation is certainly not common place at all.
I know it's not common, Sturgeon's Law. I'm just saying that I scratch my head when I see an animation company go to all the trouble of making good everything else animation, then leaving the mouths flapping like fishes.
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It's not a matter of laziness as much as it is cost-cutting (since comparatively, anime has a smaller budget) and an artistic choice. Lip flapping can still be immersive, because anime is already erring on the side of unrealistic.
For the most part it is cost-cutting, but then I think for the 10% it is artistic choice. Maybe b/c of modern Japanese animation's roots in being done by comic artists (I heard)? I heard the early modern stuff was done by people who had no knowledge of how to animate, like gravity or the animation laws.
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Old 2013-01-20, 01:20   Link #5
Marcus H.
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Because the script may undergo unexpected changes that may nor may not affect the scene entirely. They production team cannot afford to rework an entire snippet of an animated scene to compensate on that.
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Old 2013-01-20, 01:26   Link #6
Kudryavka
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Originally Posted by Marcus H. View Post
Because the script may undergo unexpected changes that may nor may not affect the scene entirely. They production team cannot afford to rework an entire snippet of an animated scene to compensate on that.
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).
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Old 2013-01-20, 02:09   Link #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kudryavka View Post
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?
LOls... tears in my eyes... reminds me of adult animes... They're the best example.

Probable reason? Not actually lazy but the budget and the time.
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Old 2013-01-20, 02:12   Link #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kudryavka View Post
That's why usually scripts are finalized before, or at the latest in the storyboard stage. Are Japanese companies that manhandled by executives?
It's not routine for scripts to be finalized before storyboard stage,it's expected of episode directors to finalize the script as they're working on the episode.
You even have cases of ad libs, voice actress Aoi Yuuki said the director of ben-to asked her to improvise some of her character's lines.
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Old 2013-01-20, 02:26   Link #9
Kudryavka
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Originally Posted by totoum View Post
It's not routine for scripts to be finalized before storyboard stage,it's expected of episode directors to finalize the script as they're working on the episode.
You even have cases of ad libs, voice actress Aoi Yuuki said the director of ben-to asked her to improvise some of her character's lines.
Oh, that would explain it. But can they really afford that now that they (most) export animation to Korea?
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Old 2013-01-20, 02:53   Link #10
Marcus H.
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^ It's not really "affordability", but rather "avoiding wasting money".
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Old 2013-01-20, 02:55   Link #11
Kudryavka
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Originally Posted by Marcus H. View Post
^ It's not really "affordability", but rather "avoiding wasting money".
The Korean export thing is only to save money. They didn't waste a cent when they hired all Japanese workers (and then paid many animators poorly).
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Old 2013-01-20, 04:29   Link #12
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Originally Posted by totoum View Post
It's not routine for scripts to be finalized before storyboard stage,it's expected of episode directors to finalize the script as they're working on the episode.
You even have cases of ad libs, voice actress Aoi Yuuki said the director of ben-to asked her to improvise some of her character's lines.
And then you also have cases like Tomokazu Sugita who is almost always guaranteed to slip in an ad lib here and there.
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Old 2013-01-20, 04:31   Link #13
Kudryavka
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And then you also have cases like Tomokazu Sugita who is almost always guaranteed to slip in an ad lib here and there.
Wow, I didm't kno about these differences. thanks
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Old 2013-01-20, 12:26   Link #14
Kudryavka
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Even Ghibli does fish lips. Damn.
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Old 2013-01-20, 12:50   Link #15
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It's a good thing-makes dubbing a WHOLE lot easier.
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Old 2013-01-20, 13:11   Link #16
Kudryavka
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It's a good thing-makes dubbing a WHOLE lot easier.
Yes, that's true. Japan cartoon dubs tend to be better this way. I watch Disney dubs and laugh at how bad they are.
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Old 2013-01-20, 13:12   Link #17
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The last show I watched where the actors' performances were recorded before the animation was done was Kurenai. You can see how effective this is in episode three where there is a frantic three-way conversation. It adds a lot of realism since we know that, in real life, people do not patiently wait for someone to finish speaking before speaking themselves. In that Kurenai episode, the director encouraged the actors to talk over each other and left the animators to work out how to translate that to the screen. I suspect there was some ad-libbing as well.
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Old 2013-01-21, 04:35   Link #18
Kudryavka
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Originally Posted by SeijiSensei View Post
The last show I watched where the actors' performances were recorded before the animation was done was Kurenai. You can see how effective this is in episode three where there is a frantic three-way conversation. It adds a lot of realism since we know that, in real life, people do not patiently wait for someone to finish speaking before speaking themselves. In that Kurenai episode, the director encouraged the actors to talk over each other and left the animators to work out how to translate that to the screen. I suspect there was some ad-libbing as well.
Wow thats cool. I never heard of that in TV stuff, thats great.
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Old 2013-01-23, 15:05   Link #19
Arabesque
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SeijiSensei View Post
The last show I watched where the actors' performances were recorded before the animation was done was Kurenai. You can see how effective this is in episode three where there is a frantic three-way conversation. It adds a lot of realism since we know that, in real life, people do not patiently wait for someone to finish speaking before speaking themselves. In that Kurenai episode, the director encouraged the actors to talk over each other and left the animators to work out how to translate that to the screen. I suspect there was some ad-libbing as well.
I also remember Red Garden, the 2006 anime that had used the same technique with great success as well. Like you mentioned, it is a good method to add realism to a scene, especially if it is of an urgent nature and the characters (or rather, the actors) frantic speech and tone could really sell you on a scene in a way that a more carefully calculated script wouldn't have done.

Of course, I could imagine why such methods are normally not used, since they depend greatly on how talented the Seiyuu involved are and how good the chemistry between the cast is, otherwise it could end up with a very mixed result. That and ironically, since anime dialogue is scripted, having natural sounding dialogue might come across as being odd.

Regarding lip animation, as mentioned, it would cost a lot of money for something that mundane, not usually very noticeable and can go by so quick, so it wouldn't make much sense to spend that much effort into that area when they could manage their creative force on other more noticeable areas.

That said, the fact that there is little focus on animating lips can actually give scenes where they do focus on a character mouth even greater impact. I remember Pandora Hearts trying to pull that off once when an important character made his debut, where once he said his name the camera shifted focus to his lips and we seen a very quick but fluid animation that managed to give the scene importance and ended the episode on an exciting cliffhanger. Recently, Shin Sekai Yori had done something to that effect as well but rather for a more ominous effect, with a character silently mouthing a word.

It could be argued that the camera work is more important in such cases, but in a way, I don't think that those scenes could be as potent if the entire show had the same level of animation when it came to that particular area. There is also cases where lips animation can be used effectively in an anime opening and endings, where a character might sing the same verse as the singer of the theme, and that could give off a very strong impression as well if done correctly (Off the top of my head, Bleach had used this twice at least, and Fullmetal Alchemist had done it in it's first opening).

And that is only on that area, if someone gets really creative with it and could manage to make the lack of animation into a strength by juxtapositioning it with a few moments of importance in the show where the animation quality is upped, and that emphasis the importance of the scene.
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Old 2013-01-23, 15:24   Link #20
Theo
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SeijiSensei View Post
The last show I watched where the actors' performances were recorded before the animation was done was Kurenai. You can see how effective this is in episode three where there is a frantic three-way conversation. It adds a lot of realism since we know that, in real life, people do not patiently wait for someone to finish speaking before speaking themselves. In that Kurenai episode, the director encouraged the actors to talk over each other and left the animators to work out how to translate that to the screen. I suspect there was some ad-libbing as well.
Any comedy anime with this kind of direction?

It's a shame this isn't a trend; yes I'm aware it might produce results that are either bad or just downright horrific but I'm willing to take that risk just for the good parts.
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