this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2024
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[News] Anime Is Going Digital. Fans Are Wary - New York Times (www.nytimes.com)
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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NYT is about as mainstream Western media as you can get, so I thought it was interesting to see their take on the use of CG within anime (and that they even thought it worth their time to write about). I think it is a fair take. From the article:

“Fans often balk at any announcement that a show will be produced in 3-D, especially when it’s from an established franchise,” May said in an interview. “The gap between good and bad C.G. anime is wide, and fans can spot mediocre 3-D animation easily thanks to having seen decades of top-range American 3-D films.”

This lines up with my experience. Often, if the CG is done well and integrated into a consistent visual style, there aren't ~~any~~ as many complaints. However, bad CG that sticks out is what annoys fans the most and garners the negative connotation.

The article also goes into some of the reasons that we should expect CG to stay and expand in usage going forward:

“I feel like the large insurgence of 3-D anime comes from the dream of an easier production,” said Austin Hardwicke, a 3-D animator who specializes in anime that is heavy on digital effects. In part, that’s because it’s easier to maintain consistent quality. “Thanks to the enormous video game industry, there are hands available across the globe, making it easy to scale a team up or down at will. And it’s famously difficult for veteran 2-D animators to teach junior animators up to their level, but 3-D animation is infinitely easier to teach.”

This lines up with what industry veterans within Japan have been saying; that there is a lack of junior talent being developed to be able to fill senior roles.

Combine this lack of traditional 2D talent with an ever-growing number of productions in any given season and more CG is what we should expect.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Are we?

Cel Anime has been digital (or at least finished digitally) for a long time, and CG Anime can be bad or good the same way hand-drawn Anime can be bad or good. The more 3D Anime that is made, the better it gets overall.

The hardest thing to do is use both styles at the same time without it being distracting. When it's planned ahead and used for very specific things, it tends to work. When it's a fallback because the animators are behind schedule, it ends up being terrible.

Right now, I think the worst running example of 3D Anime is the platform Netflix has been using in-house for the last ten or so years without seeing any real visual improvements. The latest example of it being Gamera Rebirth - excellent story, distractingly poor character designs against all the other visuals which do look modern and appealing. But other studios working with Netflix have done really nice 3D Anime, so even with them it depends on a combination of things.

I'm fine with the transition as long as the animators and producers care about the quality of the work they release. That what it always comes down to.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I agree with you that, in general, anime fans have more or less accepted that CG and other computer aided animation tools are unavoidable and will account for an increasingly large portion of any given production. However, I didn't want to editorialize the title, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also, a hard agree on Netflix 3D shows looking really bad. I think I could deal with bland, generic CG character models, but the actual animation on those models is usually just really poor. The characters are just not very, well, animated in their movements or expressions. Compare that with a show like Arcane and the difference is night and day.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I've been watching this old anime from the 90s called "you're under arrest." It's not exactly smart, but the elaborate, indulgent animation suprises me constantly. It's shockingly beautiful at times. It trandsends almost anything I've watched produced recently in terms of detail.

From what I understand, it's money. Back in the bubble economy in Japan, you could throw cash at this kind of thing. Now, it's just so much more cost effective to utilize 3d animation whenever possible.

People point at films like, "The boy and the heron" as some sort of model to follow, as if it's a choice. But, by the producer's admission it's "probably the most expensive anime ever made." 7 years of production by the oldest, most seasoned veterans in the space. How could even substantial studios take on such risk and expense?

I really wish we lived in a world where low tier stuff like "you're under arrest" could afford such high quality animation.

However, there are always new tools being developed. I'm confident that new digital techniques will eventually compensate for high cost if nothing else.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

old anime from the 90s

sighs in ~~old~~ middle-aged man

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Haha, okay it's not that old, but wow does it feel dated in terms of theming. I mean, it's about three things: cool cop babes, fast subcompact cars, and cool cop babes driving miniature motorcycles which fit inside of subcompact cars.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Haha, okay it's not that old

🫠

Part of the dated theming is the manga going back to the mid-80s, where suitcase scooters fitting into fast subcompacts were definitely a thing for a hot minute.

This is really veering off topic, but a few years ago a third-party transforming toys company made an unlicensed YUA homage out of a repaint of their unlicensed Skids figure, and it is glorious (if not particularly fun to transform).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

suitcase scooters fitting into fast subcompacts were definitely a thing

You weren't kidding! I have seen both of these vehicles separately before, but didn't realize that it was (at least partially) intended to fit in the hatch like that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I think the money point is a huge part of it. In an unrelated thread, I had mentioned Cowboy Bebop and @[email protected] said the same thing. The early 90's were the peak of Japan's economic power before the effects of the Lost Decades settled in for good.

I agree that Ghibli's model really only works for Ghibli. A smaller, unproven studio would never be able to attract enough investment on a huge gamble of a project like that. The movie has been a huge success with virtually no marketing campaign based solely on the studio/Miyazaki's reputation. That is something that no other studio could even hope to replicate.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

IMO, CG's great in backgrounds^[pokemon xyz: https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/179755], and in helping compose a shot by applying to non-human set-pieces^[izetta: the last witch: https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/246362]. It can also be good for living things like kaiju and mechs^[ssss gridman: https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/239676].

It's generally bad form to apply to humans though unless heavily stylized for it^[high score girl: https://invidious.protokolla.fi/watch?v=3EVn5xpw6qo].

An exception to this is a show like Land of the Lustrous in which the people are made of minerals, and thus it makes sense for their bodies to appear more rigid and uncanny. It's also the only reasonable way they could have gotten their hair to be consistently iradescent throughout the entire runtime of the series.^[land of the lustrous: https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/40496]

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I think CG animation has basically saved the mecha genre of anime. Trying to traditionally animate complex machinery would just be too expensive and there are too few animators with experience/skills to be able to do it.

We are definitely going to be seeing more and more CG used for the reasons the article goes into, but I think the important thing is that the CG be incorporated into the show in a way that meshes well with the rest of the artistic style. A great, very recent example of this was episode 1 of Metallic Rouge. There are action scenes featuring mechanized battle suits that are clearly animated with CG, but the shaders they use as well as heavy use of 2D effects composited make it feel cohesive with the rest of the artistic style of the show.

As an aside, is that a traditionally animated dance scene in a pokemon show? I would not have expected such nice animation coming from pokemon. Also, I love the footnotes in markdown thing that is possible in lemmy, but it never displays right on any mobile client. I just tried it on Jerboa and Boost and they just display inline text with the syntax. Beautiful in the browser though :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

As an aside, is that a traditionally animated dance scene in a pokemon show? I would not have expected such nice animation coming from pokemon.

Ya, Pokemon XY/XYZ had a whole bunch of really great animation, making great use of both traditional and CG animation. One particular change is that, while in Best Wishes, they used generic backdrops to indicate motion during attacks, like so:

Come XY/XYZ they used fully rendered 3D backdrops during attacks, with complex battle choreography and a consistent, full field of view as the Pokemon navigate the entire arena during attacks,. They also make a lot of use of depth and motion in the action sequences, and even 360 degree shots.

After XYZ, Pokemon Sun and Moon completely changed the art direction to be a much less modeled, restricted one. XY/XYZ was one last big hurrah for the traditional style of Ash Ketchum and Pokemon anime that we all grew up with, and the animators delivered quality in spades. It's by far the best animated of that traditional style.

Also thanks for the note about the footnotes thing. I never use the apps, so didn't know that they don't handle the markdown properly.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Yeah, I hadn't really watched past the original series (see my rant in another post about the difficulty of watching Pokemon legally). So, my expectations for Pokemon animation quality is ~~perhaps~~ most definitely a bit dated. The CG in your examples are pretty good uses of it. It is still easy to spot things like characters sliding across the ground a bit, but it isn't intrusive, especially for a show aimed at children. It is way better than the children's tv shows I see Netflix try to recommend me occasionally (Cocomelon, etc.)

As for markdown on Lemmy, I have a rant about that too! Specifically when it comes to spoiler tag support. Definitely some teething issues for an immature platform.