Why do the japanese animation industry only use limited animation?

[anhlavodoi]

that's something I've been wondering for a long time. I know that this type of animation defines the japanese animation industry. But I feel often when I watch anime that the animation is kind of numb in conparison to western animation. What I mean by that is that the animation dosen't have any movement in the envoriment, the characters don't express any gestures and also that voice don't have any lipsyncs (it just mouth flaps). The only time I've seen lipsynchs to the characters voices in anime are some scenes in Naruto Shippuden and when anime characters are simning.

I'm not complaning about it, but I'm curious to know why the only use limited animation. Is it because of the budget to keep it at a minimal cost ät possible? Is it to keep a lie budget for the studios in order to be able to produce more series? Or is it a trademark which defines the subgenre in which the audience is accustomed to?

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by anhlavodoi

Is it because of the budget to keep it at a minimal cost ät possible? Is it to keep a lie budget for the studios in order to be able to produce more series? Or is it a trademark which defines the subgenre in which the audience is accustomed to?

All of the above, I believe. Budget remains the most crucial item, of course, but I also think it is a style born of necessity that has become a trademark of anime.

If you want to see why budget matters, take a look at either season of Shingeki no Bahamut Genesis. It's based on a very successful online game and was financed by the gaming company, cygames, and NBCUniversalEntertainment, the Japanese subsidiary of Comcast's NBCUniversal division. MAPPA had a lot of resources to use on this show, and it showed.

[IceHism]

Anime is in like 12fps which is then interpolated into 24fps right. Like yea, of course it's limited. That's just the way things are done.

[SeijiSensei]

I've stepped through a number of shows frame-by-frame to make animated avatars. A lot of them are animated "on-the-threes" or at eight frames-per-second. Each frame is repeated three times to get to the overall 24 fps rate. When necessary, they'll animate "on-the-ones." For instance, each frame of Sentarou's drumming in episode one of Sakamichi no Apollon is unique.

[Cosmic Eagle]

Anime is 24fps? Wow, and to think most people these days cringe at anything less than 60...

[SeijiSensei]

Most movies are shot at 24 fps, too. When was the last time you "cringed" in a movie theater?

"Most people" don't care about any of this. A small segment of gamers and video aficionados might be concerned with 60 fps material, but they hardly constitute "most people."

[Cosmic Eagle]

Looking at the number of people who flat out boycott games not at 60fps....yeah I think "concerned" is an understatement for those people

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle

Looking at the number of people who flat out boycott games not at 60fps....yeah I think "concerned" is an understatement for those people

Any framerate north of 8fps is perfectly acceptable for consumption as long as its stable and you aren't depending on it for input. That's why Anime stays with it: its cheap to produce and its good enough for the people who watch it. It's not a very elaborate artform but it works to convey the stories they want to tell so it keeps on being used.

However, like SeijiSensei mentioned, we do get some exceptions to the rule like those wonderfully animated scenes in Sakamichi no Apollon which add some variety.

As for games that's a different medium and 60fps there are much more important. The crux of the matter is input. If you're depending on what you see for input having smoother motion allows our mammalian brains to better anticipate movements and react accordingly. And even then if you can get a 144Hz monitor and corresponding 144fps framerate it'll be even better (from then onward its mostly diminishing returns, kind of like pushing for 4K resolution).

But even in games having a constant framerate is much better for the experience. 30fps stable is much more enjoyable than a wildly variable rate going from 40 to 70 for example. Those with a PS4 Pro (like me) who saw the recent updates that Square Enix made to Final Fantasy XV managed to experience that first hand when they unlocked the framerate and it went from stable 30 to a 45-ish experience with wildly variable results. It made the game much more jerky to play.

But I went too far off-topic already. Bottom line Japan sticks to the traditional way of animation since people haven't exactly been clamouring for better framerares which allowed studios to go ahead and improve other areas of the medium (like colouring, background art and the like).

I would also like to point out the work Polygon has made to mimic the anime feel with their full CGI productions. For me it works rather well beeing different while also feeling anime-ish. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I think much of their success is due to them actually limiting the effective framerate to give a closer approximation to the normal 8fps shows.

[kj1980]

For this question and for bit of anime/manga history, I suggest anyone capable of understanding Japanese (and or any group interested in translation) read the manga ブラック・ジャック創作秘話～手塚治虫の仕事場から～ (Blackjack Behind The Scenes~Tezuka Osamu's Workplace~) which if you read through this, you'll understand the history of why Japanese anime production is the way it is. It's also interesting to see the borderline madman/genius this guy is as there's an episode where a publisher recalls him following Tezuka to San Diego Comic-Con and Tezuka "wrote" a chapter of Blackjack just using a phone and his photographic memory.

The answer to this question of this topic is: because that's the way the god of manga/anime Tezuka Osamu made it.

Basically he's the godfather of anime, his Mushi Pro was the one that started it all, and pretty much all the major anime studios today all trace their roots one way or the other to Mushi Pro.

So Tezuka started his own anime company, the first in Japan, with his popularity of Astro Boy. At this point he was an experienced manga-ka so he knows that industry, but has no experience at all on how to run an animation company, and clearly at this time in Japan of animation, it's not on the level of Disney or anyone in Japan willing to invest in a "cartoon" company.

He had to come up with unique and ingenious ways to animate AstroBoy on the confounded restriction of a time schedule of airing on TV, to fill a story length on a time slot of 30 minutes, on a very limited budget, with ZERO skill on how to run an anime company.

One of the ways he came up and is still used today by lots of Japanese anime companies is limited animation sequences. By using stop animation sequences but devising ingenious ways to see the action is still going. If you don't understand what I mean, go watch the first episode of AstroBoy, conveniently on Youtube with English subs

Tweaks were done here and there to "refine" the process, and pretty much Tezuka not only became the father of Japanese anime industry, but basically re-invented how anime can be done on a limited budget.

And as you know, Tezuka was a master and godfather of manga of multiple genres from science fiction to shoujo manga that his Mushi Pro studio pretty much came up with ways on how to animate on all sorts of genres. Consider that for a second. You know that say a magical girl anime is gonna have different anime techniques than Gundam. But you trace both of their roots, Tezuka was the one that came up how to animate them as what we know as "anime" today despite being totally different genres. If you come to that knowledge, you'll see why Tezuka is revered as the guy who started it all.

Now, obviously he didn't do all on his own. His disciples who worked with Tezuka at Mushi Pro gained tremendous knowledge of his technique. One of Tezuka's disciples was Matsumoto Leiji, who jokingly said he worked at Mushi Pro for a week and never saw Tezuka. And Matsumoto Leiji would of course, go onto to make Spaceship Yamato. But Spaceship Yamato would not have existed if Matsumoto Leiji had not worked at Mushi Pro where he learned of Tezuka's techniques. See, what I mean about everything traces back to Tezuka?

It was a master-disciple relationship but with that usually comes with quarrels. Tezuka is also know to have a hot temper, a bit on the lazy side, yet a super-genius, kinda like Steve Jobs. Such disagreements made many in Mushi Pro to go independent, start their own animation companies, further refining Tezuka's technique all of which make anime unique today.

So if you look back on why Japanese anime doesn't use a lot of motion compared to say Disney or Pixar, well it's pretty much because that's how Japanese anime industry was founded upon by Tezuka. It was founded upon how to make an anime with a limited time, resources, and budget, yet not trying to sacrifice the quality, fit the time slot of 30 minutes, all from scratch with ZERO experience in the field. And further refinements to that method has been done over the ages and you have anime today.

Hope that explanation helps.