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The Mike Toole Show - Anime Gets Sloppy

So you didn't like it when FLCL did that?

It's actually a good thing to be able to see the hand of the animator even if it's not as 'immersive'. Anime is rarely about creating the 'illusion of life' and it's usually not deemed 'wrong' to be able to tell that you're looking at drawings in Japanese animation production.

Let me put it this way. Let's say you were three hundred pages into reading a novel. And then for no in-story reason the font suddenly changes to MS Mincho and the text size doubles and the kerning gets dicked around with, and the changes only last one chapter before switching back to what they were. Would you not find that irritating as hell? I know I would.

I utterly disagree. Anime is a medium to tell interesting and entertaining stories. I shouldn't even notice the animation style, because that's not the important part. Animators are only there to facilitate the experience, not to show-boat and ruin suspension of disbelief by shoving the fact that this is a fictional piece of work in our faces.

I utterly disagree. Anime is a medium to tell interesting and entertaining stories. I shouldn't even notice the animation style, because that's not the important part. Animators are only there to facilitate the experience, not to show-boat and ruin suspension of disbelief by shoving the fact that this is a fictional piece of work in our faces.

Let me put it this way. Let's say you were three hundred pages into reading a novel. And then for no in-story reason the font suddenly changes to MS Mincho and the text size doubles and the kerning gets dicked around with, and the changes only last one chapter before switching back to what they were. Would you not find that irritating as hell? I know I would.

I love this stuff.

Sometimes the errors are painfully obvious, running through entire scenes (I don't even know how you color in only half a face). Sometimes, not so much. Sometimes the characters are drawn oddly so frequently that you start to wonder if it's the actual character design.

But you can't beat the classics like rolling head Sausuke. And whatever is trying to happen here. No matter how many times I see it, it's always good for a laugh.

Gina Szanboti wrote:

I love this stuff. Sometimes the errors are painfully obvious, running through entire scenes (I don't even know how you color in only half a face). Sometimes, not so much. Sometimes the characters are drawn oddly so frequently that you start to wonder if it's the actual character design. But you can't beat the classics like rolling head Sausuke. And whatever is trying to happen here. No matter how many times I see it, it's always good for a laugh.

>those last Sasuke examples
Oh my god did you even READ the freaking article? It was blatantly defending that type of stuff and those come from scenes even more well drawn and animated than the Pain episode.

uguu wrote:

Gina Szanboti wrote: I love this stuff. Sometimes the errors are painfully obvious, running through entire scenes (I don't even know how you color in only half a face). Sometimes, not so much. Sometimes the characters are drawn oddly so frequently that you start to wonder if it's the actual character design. But you can't beat the classics like rolling head Sausuke. And whatever is trying to happen here. No matter how many times I see it, it's always good for a laugh. >those last Sasuke examples Oh my god did you even READ the freaking article? It was blatantly defending that type of stuff and those come from scenes even more well drawn and animated than the Pain episode.

Yeah I think I remember that fight. It was Sasuke vs creepy guy (sorry, I forget his name). That fight was great. Way better than most fight in Naruto.

School City Valanoir is so obscure and awful that I couldn't actually locate it in ANN's encyclopedia. I'm sure it's in there somewhere, but a listing error or something has left this 2002 OVA, a video game tie-in from Idea Factory, in near-complete obscurity. That's a shame, really—Valanoir has flat faces, it's got recycled stock footage, and it's so full of dirty little animation-saving tricks, especially concealed mouths, that it reminds me of that ridiculously bad 1950s Dick Tracy cartoon where he's almost always shown from behind, so they don't have to animate his mouth moving. (The Valanoir version of this trick is the grandpa, who talks through the cheeseburger he's perpetually eating.) Best of all, Valanoir uses the exact same gag—heroine Miu bending over to pick up a coin and accidentally dodging a sword attack – multiple times in its sprawling two-episode arc. The actress who played Miu, Ai Nonaka, was at Otakon a couple of years ago. I briefly entertained the notion of asking her about this project, but that would have been rude, of me, don't you think?

Because you WERE meant to notice the animation and art style in FLCL ALL THE TIME and it shifts around all over the place to no end.

I understand that in some cases it can be bothersome to fans but you're taking that to an extreme that doesn't even begin to make sense.

That's a completely incoherent comparison. Books are not a visual medium and unless the author intended it, fonts shouldn't really play a part in the experience. Fonts are not a big part of what carries a book at all.

Do you really value visuals in anime so little that you compare them to FONTS in literature?

Also anime isn't a medium. ANIMATION is a medium.

Then why even animate it.

I could not disagree more with this. I almost can't believe someone would say animation is not the important part of anime.

By that logic, why even write a book if the prose doesn't mean anything? Because we want to be told a story, and - just like you yourself said - animation is a medium.

Like I said, visuals are there to tell a story. Don't get me wrong, I like amazing backgrounds, I like high-quality animation, and I like interesting camera angles and storyboarding. But all of those things are subservient to the writing.

I would take shows that are plainly drawn but beautifully written - for example Trigun, Genshiken's first season, Bunny Drop or Wandering Son - over shows like Guilty Crown or BLOOD-C, which are both beautifully drawn but have atrocious writing.

I love a lot of works by Production I.G., especially their work on the Tsubasa OVAs and all of the anime for xxxHolic. However, in the first series of xxxHolic and in the movie, there's a lot of animation flaws that just made me laugh.

I remember it being covered on here before, although I can't find the article that reviewed it, and there were screenshots of the different errors. Tiny heads on huge square bodies, super long spaghetti arms and legs, loopy arms... it wasn't too bad in the first half of the series, but by the time you get to the second half the animation quality went down. I think a lot of the problem came because they were trying to do a 24-episode series because I never really noticed problems in animation in the second series, xxxHolic Kei, or in any of the Tsubasa or xxxHolic OVAs. I haven't seen the Tsubasa movie, however, so I don't know what animation errors might be in that.

However, I have found a few clips from the movie, Midsummer's Night Dream, that explains what I'm talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkMpp9ycSuc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Y4i2wUYUY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZgOrJ-R_Pk

>those last Sasuke examples
Oh my god did you even READ the freaking article? It was blatantly defending that type of stuff and those come from scenes even more well drawn and animated than the Pain episode.

Revel in the fluidity of his animation and the beauty of his off-model artwork:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmaR2zuwvck