High Guardian Spice - Tumblr: The CalArt Anime

[Lurk Jurk]

Reminded how Matt Groening stressed that a lot about how he designed his characters for The Simpsons.

That’s just basics of character design. You want the audience to be instantly able to recognize a character at a glance. To the point that they’re still recognizable as a silhouette. That’s what the phrase “a strong silhouette” refers to.

Overwatch example. No matter what you think of the game the character design is on point.

 

[One Man Bland]

That’s just basics of character design. You want the audience to be instantly able to recognize a character at a glance. To the point that they’re still recognizable as a silhouette. That’s what the phrase “a strong silhouette” refers to.

View attachment 2913139
Overwatch example. No matter what you think of the game the character design is on point.

Well, yes and no.

The Silhouette Test has been kinda been butchered to hell and back, mainly because silhouettes in animation and vidya have two different purposes that are often conflated.

Silhouettes in animation are important less for the actual character design and more fore clarity of motion. There’s only so many ways you can vary your characters body types and style choices before it all becomes annoying bells and whistles to keep track of after all - especially when working with art styles and/or settings that limit that variety further - so it’s not the biggest priority in traditional animation when there’s a bunch of other aspects that are far more pressing like narrative relevance, personality, and symbolism to worry about. What the silhouette test actually refers to these cases is making sure your key poses are legible so that people can tell what a character is doing with the minimal amount of information like so:

Silhouettes in video games however do require being able to tell who a character is at a glance because 1) players are usually moving around rather than there being a static camera which adds motion on top of motion, and 2) they need to be able to instantly recognize key information in dealing with any given targets like threat level, damage output, damage absorption, speed, etc. at a glance because you can’t play a game effectively if you don’t. On top of that, you don’t have to worry about the aspects of character design needed for a linear narrative in games like Overwatch (or any game with character customization for that matter) because each character is an individual product rather than being used to tell a story.

HGS isn’t bad because of their silhouettes, they’re bad because HGS never had a story or main idea to build itself around to begin with, so instead of having its own identity it tried to get by on stealing from other sources and calling itself an homage.

 

[melcarba99]

Adventure Time: Amazing
Steven Universe: cool
setting and fights, but steven sucks.
High Guardian Spice: complete and utter trash.

 

[starborn427614]

Adventure Time: Amazing
Steven Universe: cool
setting and fights, but steven sucks.
High Guardian Spice: complete and utter trash.

I'll be more objective

Adventure Time: Iconic setting and fun characters
Steven Universe: Relatable characters and good music
High Guardian Spice: None of the above

 

[Lurk Jurk]

High Guardian Spice is literally everything Steven Universe haters think that show is

 

[damian]

Adventure Time: Amazing
Steven Universe: cool
setting and fights, but steven sucks.
High Guardian Spice: complete and utter trash.

I'll be more objective

Adventure Time: Iconic setting and fun characters
Steven Universe: Relatable characters and good music
High Guardian Spice: None of the above

>Steven Universe

I can't believe HGS is so bad people are resorting to complementing SU on anything

High Guardian Spice is literally everything Steven Universe haters think that show is

They're both unfunny, badly animated, retarded stories that copies off of much better products and all their original ideas/concepts are awful.


SU earned it's hatred by being awful, HGS kinda skipped a few steps into earning it's with that trailer with all the gender freaks. Raye and Rebecca are so similar they look like they grew up in the same pod.

 

[Life is Hell...]

I'll be more objective

Adventure Time: Iconic setting and fun characters
Steven Universe: Relatable characters and good music
High Guardian Spice: None of the above

Here's a better one

Adventure Time: Iconic setting and Fun characters
Amphibia: A Well Written plot and Beautifully animated Fight Scenes
The Ghost and Molly McGee: Genuinely Funny Jokes and Fluid Animation
High Guardian Spice: None of the Above

 

[El Jagre]

all of the shows mentioned are just trying to be Revolutionary Girl Utena but none of the people involved have the talent to write something so good.

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

I never understood the extreme hate SU gets save for those PSAs(I like the show, but it definitely had flaws), but it’s very clear almost no one is claiming to like HGS.

 

[starborn427614]

>Steven Universe

I can't believe HGS is so bad people are resorting to complementing SU on anything

Opinions, assholes etc.

Here's a better one

Adventure Time: Iconic setting and Fun characters
Amphibia: A Well Written plot and Beautifully animated Fight Scenes
The Ghost and Molly McGee: Genuinely Funny Jokes and Fluid Animation
High Guardian Spice: None of the Above

I wonder what the viewing figures are like for Molly McGee. I agree that it looks beautiful, but I've not seen a single peep out of it on the usual places. I also remember seeing an infographic about the most streamed Disney+ shows and Amphibia was dead last, but even if it was legit (which I didn't manage to track down) it's probably getting most of its viewership via stream rips and such.

I never understood the extreme hate SU gets save for those PSAs(I like the show, but it definitely had flaws), but it’s very clear almost no one is claiming to like HGS.

It's very easy to dunk on, just conceptually. The fact it's very flawed just makes it that much easier. And fun, in a lot of cases lol

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

It's very easy to dunk on, just conceptually. The fact it's very flawed just makes it that much easier. And fun, in a lot of cases lol

Fair enough.

 

[One Man Bland]

I never understood the extreme hate SU gets save for those PSAs(I like the show, but it definitely had flaws), but it’s very clear almost no one is claiming to like HGS.

I didn’t hate SU the way other people did, but I did find it endlessly frustrating. What SU had going for it in terms of individual high points and songs were quickly overshadowed and bogged down by the series dragging its feet for ages on boring bullshit (or extended plot points far beyond reason - seriously the “Connie is pissy at Steven” arc could’ve been summed up in a Full Disclosure reprise), rushed the major plot points when they did finally reach them, and then had the nerve to complain that five 26 episode seasons wasn’t enough time. It’s hard to feel charitable towards a series when most of its flaws stem from squandered opportunities and potential.

HGS however had no potential; can’t lament over what could’ve been if there was nothing there to begin with.

 

[LiquidKid]

So Raye went on the rant about how budget was the biggest issue with HGS, and I still can’t see how budget hurt the writing itself.

I know how Animation writing works first hand, and even non-union a writing team that large should have been able to put out a mediocre script at best. raye is implying that they were so lazy they didn’t feel like they were paid enough to do a script rewrite. And further “we were boarding episode 1 before the script was even done” is ignoring the fact that many many MANY shows and movies do that.
The only thing about writing the budget would effect was who they hired, but we already know they hired for virtue instead of talent.

She also bitched that it was non-union, except for none of these people would have had a job on a union show. I fucking hate animation unions for a lot of reasons, but the gatekeeping is something that would have actually been a benefit to HGS.

Idk, just some Monday rants after talking with a friend of mine who has contact with Raye and can’t stand her.

I also asked some trans animation people what they thought of the show. They hate it. The trans community fucking despises this show like you wouldn’t believe. Both for the magic HRT, the grooming, and apparently because “Terfs wrote it!”
So I can only assume this show’s only audience is Raye herself

 

[starborn427614]

I didn’t hate SU the way other people did, but I did find it endlessly frustrating. What SU had going for it in terms of individual high points and songs were quickly overshadowed and bogged down by the series dragging its feet for ages on boring bullshit (or extended plot points far beyond reason - seriously the “Connie is pissy at Steven” arc could’ve been summed up in a Full Disclosure reprise), rushed the major plot points when they did finally reach them, and then had the nerve to complain that five 26 episode seasons wasn’t enough time. It’s hard to feel charitable towards a series when most of its flaws stem from squandered opportunities and potential.

HGS however had no potential; can’t lament over what could’ve been if there was nothing there to begin with.

I feel like the hiatuses made every little flaw feel bigger too. That Connie stuff you mentioned probably would just be one shit episode any other day of the week, but that came after six months of radio silence. Not a good look lol. As for the plodding nature of the show at times, I put that down to CN most likely demanding some form of content that can be easily rerun (townie episodes for example) and while I can't exactly prove that and it doesn't really excuse some of those episodes being pretty poor, it would explain a lot about the pacing. In any case I understand the frustration about the show not reaching its full potential and in some areas I agree, I just don't allow the low points to take away from the high.

 

[Rezza]

So Raye went on the rant about how budget was the biggest issue with HGS, and I still can’t see how budget hurt the writing itself.

I know how Animation writing works first hand, and even non-union a writing team that large should have been able to put out a mediocre script at best. raye is implying that they were so lazy they didn’t feel like they were paid enough to do a script rewrite. And further “we were boarding episode 1 before the script was even done” is ignoring the fact that many many MANY shows and movies do that.
The only thing about writing the budget would effect was who they hired, but we already know they hired for virtue instead of talent.

She also bitched that it was non-union, except for none of these people would have had a job on a union show. I fucking hate animation unions for a lot of reasons, but the gatekeeping is something that would have actually been a benefit to HGS.

Idk, just some Monday rants after talking with a friend of mine who has contact with Raye and can’t stand her.

I also asked some trans animation people what they thought of the show. They hate it. The trans community fucking despises this show like you wouldn’t believe. Both for the magic HRT, the grooming, and apparently because “Terfs wrote it!”
So I can only assume this show’s only audience is Raye herself

Huh, so that's why I haven't seen anyone trying to defend or even talked about the show (outside of some woketard), even the animation people hated it. Really makes me much more interested about the BTS stories

This also led me to think that Raye's show on production for Legendary TV might be her Hail Mary attempt on making a career at animation

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

I feel like the hiatuses made every little flaw feel bigger too. That Connie stuff you mentioned probably would just be one shit episode any other day of the week, but that came after six months of radio silence. Not a good look lol. As for the plodding nature of the show at times, I put that down to CN most likely demanding some form of content that can be easily rerun (townie episodes for example) and while I can't exactly prove that and it doesn't really excuse some of those episodes being pretty poor, it would explain a lot about the pacing. In any case I understand the frustration about the show not reaching its full potential and in some areas I agree, I just don't allow the low points to take away from the high.

Yeah, CN’s way of airing the show and wanting to do all those “Steven Bombs” definitely contributed. Not saying it was solely that though.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Idk, just some Monday rants after talking with a friend of mine who has contact with Raye and can’t stand her.

Too bad the powerlevel prevents more stories of this contact from coming out, though it'd probably be nothing we don't already know about Raye. Rebecca Sugar is probably the only Tumblr-raised animator (I don't know if Vizzie was Tumblr-raised) out there who sounds the most pleasant to work with.

So I can only assume this show’s only audience is Raye herself

It's the same mindset fanfiction writers have. I don't think there's anything wrong with making something that you wanted to see for a long time, and you should be able to tell a story the way you envision it, but once you release it to the public, you need to let go of your personal feelings and accept both positive and negative criticisms that will come. Going back to the drawing board is to be expected, I don't think there was ever a project that made it out without such growing pains, not successful projects, anyway.

I'm getting the impression Raye might not have actually stepped foot inside Crunchyroll to see this for herself except for entering the sound booth wherever they were recording it (unless she had the recording equipment on hand). All the animation was outsourced to South Korea, and most of the production might've been done during the pandemic, no other way to explain why Crunchyroll was so dead silent about the series after 2019.

 

[Ponderous Pillock]

I know how Animation writing works first hand, and even non-union a writing team that large should have been able to put out a mediocre script at best. raye is implying that they were so lazy they didn’t feel like they were paid enough to do a script rewrite. And further “we were boarding episode 1 before the script was even done” is ignoring the fact that many many MANY shows and movies do that.
The only thing about writing the budget would effect was who they hired, but we already know they hired for virtue instead of talent.

First Time Studio
First Time Team
First Time Director.

There was no industry veteran herding cats. And I doubt any vet would've gone near that trainwreck.

Bitching about scripting and storyboarding happening at the same time means Raye or whoever wrote that episode didn't understand time crunch and that you needed to multiple-pass the script to make it not suck.

Oh ya, and remember we know all these virtue/genderspecials/etc are all lazy as fuck and will fall apart the second you give them an actual challenge that isn't picking which takeout to eat at.

So them being told they had like a couple of days to write a 20 minute script would be literally impossible, while for even some prat like me who takes his time considering how a plot should play out will then promptly crap out said script in a couple of hours of intensive writing. It's possible to do in a day or less.

Knowing these speds, its why the A/B/C(!) plots in so many episodes are not linked together at all and you get three very confused 6/7 minute episodes in one instead of something far smoother. They panicked, and demanded everyone take a chunk and hope for the best.

Because actually putting some true and honest effort into something might mean they finally realise they're shit at this.

EDIT: also, just to hammer this home... who the fuck takes a show to a company who greenlights it and you don't already have at least one episode script ready to show everyone how the characters should interact? Or a general idea of how your goddamn story starts?

Like, I'm not in this industry, but even I know you probably want your house vaguely in order so the ground can be hit at a full fucking sprint.

 

[LiquidKid]

: also, just to hammer this home... who the fuck takes a show to a company who greenlights it and you don't already have at least one episode script ready to show everyone how the characters should interact? Or a general idea of how your goddamn story starts?

Like, I'm not in this industry, but even I know you probably want your house vaguely in order so the ground can be hit at a full fucking sprint.

That’s the weirdest part. The industry standard for being greenlit is having a script and a pitch bible, and the pitch bible has a summary of other episodes as well.
This whole production makes no logical sense

 

[Doctor of Autism]

That’s the weirdest part. The industry standard for being greenlit is having a script and a pitch bible, and the pitch bible has a summary of other episodes as well.
This whole production makes no logical sense

Only theory I have is that Crunchyroll greenlit this because they were desperate for “original content” because other streaming services have gotten rights to a lot of anime. So they probably accepted this show out of desperation.