View Single Post
Old 2012-12-03, 23:39   Link #50
duckroll
綺羅星★!
 
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Age: 42
I don't think CG animation is going to be a "mainstream" thing in the anime industry anytime soon honestly. To make good CG, it is still expensive, and there isn't a ton of top-tier talent domestically just yet. It is also incorrect to say that "traditional hand-drawn animation is getting more expensive for it to be cost-effective", because that isn't the case. Instead, the reason for CG being a new direction for anime is because there is only now starting to be better and more talent in the industry who are interested in this particular field.

Digital art is a relatively new skill set, and previously one which only the videogame industry in Japan was willing to really invest into developing and improving. So most of the talented CG animators who graduate and look for a job would be working on games instead of anime. What we're seeing these days is simply an expansion of the demand for that skill set, with more CG studios or anime studios investing into that talent base to produce stuff for the anime industry.

The studio which worked on Re:Cyborg is Sanzigen. They made a name for themselves in recent years by working on the CG for Panty and Stocking, as well as Black Rock Shooter TV. This is their highest profile project yet. In the past, a studio like this wouldn't even exist. So it would be incorrect to look at it from a perspective of CG replacing traditional animation directly. Instead there are simply more Japanese CG animators and artists who are able to get a domestic job working on anime these days, and that should be seen as a good thing.

More diversity is good for the industry. CG is just a different form of animation than 2D animation. It still requires skill, talent, and passion. It would be unfair to think of Japanese CG animators as inferior or less hard-working, or less passionate. They simply apply a different skill set to create a different type of art.
duckroll is offline   Reply With Quote