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Answerman - Why Did Anime Use 16mm Instead Of 35mm Film?

Lord Starfish wrote:

The FUNi season sets are so heavily overfiltered (and based off multigenerational prints that were presumably 16mm even for those few episodes) that there's no real difference at all there, actually. But on the Dragon Boxes, and especially the Blu-rays of Kai, there's just a portion of several episodes that looks way sharper than the rest of it. The episodes in question are on Part 3, or Season 2 in their later 26-episode sets, and I feel like even with compressed, downscaled-to-720p jpeg screenshots, the difference is quite noticable. (Compare the various closeups of the Ginyus with the shot of Goku in the healing tank or Piccolo.)

They definitely look very sharp, although I heard Kai was also digitally recolored, so I'm not sure how accurate they would be to the original source, probably not much more than FUNi's DBZ Season sets. I looked at screenshots from other Kai sets, and there's definitely a mix of softer and sharper focus throughout. I would love to see the Dragon Box comparisons.

All the movies were shot on 35mm, and I think they would be a good reference to compare.

maximilianjenus wrote:

that screenshot is full HD

1032 is a smaller number than 1080.

Late to the response, but as someone who collects 16mm films (even own a couple of anime on the format), I loved this article and wanted to respond.

For what its worth, a lot of early TV anime were shot on 35mm film. I know shows made by Tokyo Movie, Toei, Tatsunoko, TCJ (now Eiken), and I think Mushi Production in the era were shot on that format.

"Speed Racer" (Tatsunoko), for example, was shot on 35mm, something Jerry Beck was glad to know when he was editing together episodes for "Speed Racer: The Movie". When the 1968 "Kaibutsu Kun" (Tokyo Movie/Studio Zero) anime was released on DVD, the press release stated that they were remastered from 35mm materials, although evidently not every episode survived in that format because they had to use 16mm broadcast prints for one or two episodes.

When TCJ's "Super Jetter" was released on DVD and Blu-Ray, they offered cut strips of 35mm film for fans who purchased early (don't worry, that was a copy of the film, not from the original master).

It was the early-to-mid 1970s when it became the norm to shoot everything on 16mm. I think Tatsunoko was the first to switch, when they decided to shoot "Casshan" on 16mm (everything else prior was 35mm). By the 1980s, most shows were 16mm, with few big budget exceptions.