Anime/Manga - Discuss Japanese cartoons and comics here; NO CULTURE WAR DOOMPOSTING!

  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
11-o.jpg
No, I'm not giving you context.
 
wtfNeedSignUp said:
People just like overly flashy animation so it's easier just put shit ton of particle effects rather than make weighty combat. The Fate Heaven's Feel was fucking unwatchable for me, but I saw people claiming it had the best fights in anime.
Click to expand...
Heaven's feel definitely had a good degree of this issue, but it's far from the worst in the franchise. I remember watching Fate Apocrypha, which aside from Jack the Ripper I enjoyed significantly more than the popular consensus. However, I also remember seeing the final fight scene turning into pure chaos with the participants being reduced to glorified stick figures and moving around so fast it was difficult to even keep track of what was going on. It was abundantly clear that they needlessly pushed up the speed at the expense of any actual detail.
Come to think of it, while I haven't seen much of the Demon Slayer anime, from what I did see(chiefly the fight against the guy with the drums) it's significantly better at balancing the tempo of the fight scenes and making them feel more impactful for it. If the rest of the series is like that, I can see why it's so wildly successful. I do think there's a market for better paced action scenes, but the way scenes are done simply represents studios forgoing the potential to make a great product in favor of safe way to produce a reliably mediocre product. It makes no sense to me; a mediocre product can just as easily get ignored for all its interchangeable equivalents by an indifferent audience. Either way you're undertaking an expensive endeavor with significant potential of your investment going bust, why not go all in and aim to make something special?
Kari Kamiya said:
I won't be surprised if the animators are using Hollywood films as reference for a lot of action scenes. Modern Hollywood (and animators) can't grasp timing and weight in choreography, even if the actors are LARPing the fight scenes on set.
Anime seemingly gets a pass for this just because it's flashy enough to distract the average viewer from the technical imperfections that only a trained (re: autistic) eye can spot.
Click to expand...
It's the MCU mindset. Make an otherwise insubstantial fight scene feel punchy with modern sound effects and CGI, then tack on some wacky quips at the end to make the audience laugh before they can think about it too hard. Hollywood themselves got a pass for this for the better part of two decades before people started noticing how tired the Joss Whedon method was starting to feel.
 
HexFag said:
You could also see this with how End of Evangelion did its fights versus the rebuilds. The Evas had legitimate weight behind them when they attacked or carried objects and in the rebuilds, they feel almost weightless.
Click to expand...
The lack of weight in modern animation is, in my opinion, because cel animation isn't being used anymore. Digital colours and assets have no weight because they aren't actual objects, while the paint and the cels all objects that actually have weight. Most digitally animated "sakuga" feel soulless and junky to me. It feels like they're trying to cram in as much as possible to excite the viewer, but none of it is particularly good or original. Even digitally-animated fights that I do like, such as the Pop Team Epic Obari segments and Gaiking 2005/Jeeg 2007, rely heavily on references, music, mechanical designs, and scale, which is another method of overwhelming the viewer with lots of things rather than perfecting a few good things.
 
Sailor Troon said:
The lack of weight in modern animation is, in my opinion, because cel animation isn't being used anymore. Digital colours and assets have no weight because they aren't actual objects, while the paint and the cels all objects that actually have weight. Most digitally animated "sakuga" feel soulless and junky to me. It feels like they're trying to cram in as much as possible to excite the viewer, but none of it is particularly good or original.
Click to expand...
I think you're right, the same applies to truly bold colors that seem to "pop" off the screen. The simple fact that cels were tangible and quite literally laid on top of one another really helped with the depth. Old episodes of Popeye the Sailor are amazing demonstrations of this in motion. Making a shot look big and heights look significant all with relatively simple backgrounds. What really matters is true (or rather proper) artistic scale.

How suspender-wearing depression-era chain-smoking men animated this frame by frame in the 1930s just floors me. This smooth kinetic energy looks so damn good.
 
I remember the days when people considered sword of the stranger to have the best fights in anime, now for better or worse I hardly see anyone bring it up in conversation

Also it's not anime, but I found this little fan animation that honestly makes me miss the ippo anime a little
 
Sailor Troon said:
The lack of weight in modern animation is, in my opinion, because cel animation isn't being used anymore. Digital colours and assets have no weight because they aren't actual objects, while the paint and the cels all objects that actually have weight. Most digitally animated "sakuga" feel soulless and junky to me.
Click to expand...
I will cite one notable example of a series making the modern style of animation work. 86 had obvious CGI for most of their fight scenes, but it's used in such a way that makes the most of the technology. The action scenes are made to feel like an actual battlefield, with bullets flying around chaotically and the manned machines scurrying around as fast at they possibly can. Despite this, the action tends to space out its fast moving shaky cam moments with long shots that help establish what is actually going on. The janky nature of the CGI makes sense given that it is depicting heavy walking machines that can only move so quickly, but can inflict devastating harm as soon as they get you in their line of sights.

The action as a whole does a good job of selling the increasingly desperate fight against an unflinching mechanical opponent. It's a creative use of relatively inexpensive visual assets in a way that makes its shortcomings into strengths. As much as I prefer the 80's aesthetic, I do think modern digital animation and even CGI are capable of holding their own against traditional animation, it's just a matter of using them appropriately.
 
Last edited:
Was lurking over/catching up with the thread and saw Gintama being mentioned.
This isn't attacking anyone here but I've seen this whole "Should I skip parts of Gintama" thing brought up a lot.
I'm just going to sperg out for a moment.
What the fuck is up with people debating what episodes to skip for Gintama? Why is that even a thing? I don't know any other series anyone would even remotely think of doing that for?
No. You don't skip Gintama. It's the greatest thing ever made. Every episode has actual character development. The "recap" episodes are some of the funniest in the show. The filler has some of the best episodes. You'll have a joke or small line of dialogue that will come back 67 episodes later out of norwhere that will somehow pay off even better. Every episode references a past episode. Skipping the first 50 episodes means you won't give a shit about the characters or know what's going on. Only watching the "serious arcs" (which there's only about 10 of) makes no fucking sense considering the entire literal philosophy of the show is how the small unimportant moments in life are the most important. There's so many running gags and callbacks. The show doesn't actually "escalate" the plot until the last 70 episodes.
What the fuck is wrong with people.
Don't skip Gintama. If you're a weeb posting on Kiwi Farms, you don't have a life to begin with. Don't pretend you can't bingewatch a long shonen.

I might be MATI right now but it makes no sense to me. It'd be like if someone asked "Hey, is it okay if I skip the parts of Naruto when they're kids, watch every third episode of Shippuden and then watch the last half of each episode in the War Arc? How does that sound?"
No.
"Yeah I want to watch this comedy anime that's entirely based off character interaction, but I don't know if I should watch the funny episodes that explore the characters."
That's fucking retarded.
Just watch a fucking show. Don't rules-lawyer your way out of watching something if you really don't have the time for it (which you do).

Seriously, this shits' worse than the faggots who unironically talk about watching One Piece at x5 speed.
Why the fuck are you even here?

Okay, rant over.
Sorry, it's just my favorite work of fiction and I just really don't get people who can't will themselves to watch things the way they're meant to be presented.
 
vern said:
I remember the days when people considered sword of the stranger to have the best fights in anime, now for better or worse I hardly see anyone bring it up in conversation
Click to expand...
People these days think good sakuga is that Demon Slayer type of shit where everything on the screen is moving at once with 50 different particle and beam effects with distorted angles that don't even make sense. I think it's supposed to be dynamic in a missile circus kind of way but even that's become inbred and removed from reality.
 
vern said:
I remember the days when people considered sword of the stranger to have the best fights in anime, now for better or worse I hardly see anyone bring it up in conversation
Click to expand...
if there's anything i miss from anime fights, it's practicality
enough with the pointless empty punches that do literally fucking nothing and flashing lights: give me an honest to god fight, not a worthless, soulless cookie-cutter spectacle
 
vern said:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=xT66YPk0Q5w
Also it's not anime, but I found this little fan animation that honestly makes me miss the ippo anime a little
https://youtube.com/watch?v=LkB-sREr9Yk
Click to expand...
Bones is the best when it comes to fight scenes. Especially in the 2000s.
But honestly? The thing that I miss more in anime is the old art direction and 90s were the best at it. I don't mean it as a ''anime was a mistake'' or ''they stopped making good anime'' type of person. Huge chunk of my favourite shows were made between 2006 and 2015. It may sound kinda boomerish, but anime now are too bright and seem kinda plastic. Compare HxH from 1999 to 2011 or Sailor Moon to Sailor Moon Crystal. 90s anime also have this pleasing aura and even the tone of the shows back then seems slower and less hyperactive.
 
DDBCAE CBAADCBE said:
So like, do any of you actually watch any good anime? No?
Click to expand...
I haven't been really keeping up with the seasons as the years have gone by. If you want us to list favorites or what we think are the best:
Berserk (1997 obviously)
Full Metal Alchemist (I weirdly prefer the direction the original anime went)
Baccano (Light Novel adaptions are valid too, right?)
Black Lagoon (Hiroe Rei's bondage-loving dumbass needs to stop making series he has no intention or drive to finish)
Death Note (Even if it doesn't hold up as much as the rest)
Dragonball (Fuck Z and Super)
Darker Than Black (Season 2 was a downgrade but only really bad because it didn't match the tone of the first)
Ranma 1/2 (My favorite of Rumiko's work from what I've read of her. Inuyasha was just meh, though it was entertaining)
Mob Psycho 100 (I originally read the manga and can't be assed to watch the actual anime)

There are things I'm iffy about because of their actual quality and incomplete state but greatly enjoyed.
 
To anyone who saw Tunnel To Summer Exit To Goodbyes, the theme song
By the by, when I see this on youtube, the ad I get is another music video, is this video sponsoring something?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom