Forum - View topicWhy is anime choppy/jerky?
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lachesis
Posts: 25 |
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I'm still fairly new to anime so it would be unfair for me to label 'all' anime having this peculiar quality, but it's intriguing that every anime I've watched up until now seems to have a shakiness/jerkiness to the animation.
It's most notable in walking, and more so in different animes. I'm wondering if this is a 'distinguished animation feature' of anime or studios cheaping out. It looks like every three frames a cell is drawn and then the interpolated movement 'tweened' or rather 'smoothed over'. Just curious - as I say I think I'm used to it now, but it doesn't have the same smoothness as say a 'Di$ney' cartoon or animation feature. In things like Chrno Crusade it's less noticeable but is it a case of budgets? Thanks |
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Cloe
Moderator
 Posts: 2728 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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Yes, you've pretty much hit the nail on the head. Anime is produced using the method of "limited animation" as opposeed to "full animation," most often saved for animated feature films (such as Disney, as you mentioned). The UPA studio ushered in the era of limited animation in America in the 1940s, and their style has since been adapted the world over for creation of television animation. The realistic movement and fluidity of full animation is very beautiful, but time-consuming and expensive to produce. When Osamu Tezuka began airing Tetsuwan Atomu on Japanese television in the 1960s (the first TV anime that followed an ongoing plot) he adapted the use of limited animation, and this style has since stuck in most TV anime productions. For more information about limited animation, you can visit Wikipedia for a much more thorough explaination than I could provide: Limited animation |
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shadow_guyver
 Posts: 307 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
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I'm not sure what the reason is (probably be money), but I think anime uses less frames per second than western animation. I forget the exact numbers, though.
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lachesis
Posts: 25 |
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Thanks.
Do you know if there are any American funded studios that have fully animated anime; or is the demand not big enough to warrant studios splashing out? For instance, I don't know the origins of 'Spirited Away'; but that did seem to be a fully animated anime, although I could be wrong. I feel it's a shame that some of the best anime will 90% of the time be limited in the visual appearance it can attain....  , whereas Western animations seem to be all glitz and flash with little substance the opposite can be said of our Eastern productions. All substance just missing the finishing bells and whistles.
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Cloe
Moderator
Posts: 2728 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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American-funded studios in Japan? I don't know anything about that, but Spirited Away (yes, it is indeed full animation; you have a good eye!
 ) was produced by the fantastic Studio Ghibli, renowned worldwide for their quality, meticulously detailed animation. Ghibli is indeed a Japanese animation studio. If a film comes out of Studio Ghibli, it's pretty much guaranteed it will visually look as good as any Disney film. You should check out Princess Mononoke, Porco Rosso, and the soon-to-be-released in the States My Nieghbor Totoro for other quality Ghibli fare.
Another studio that produces consistently high-quality work is Studio 4°C. I like them better than Studio Ghibli, because of the experimentive nature of many of their works. Check out Memories to see some of the most beautiful animation ever produced. My absolute favorite anime of all time, Mindgame, was also produced by Studio 4°C, but it's currently unavailable outside Japan...
Even though almost all TV anime doesn't have the production values of these studios, I don't think it hinders their visual look too much. A lot of anime makes up for the lacking frame rate with bold art direction and camera angles. And every so often, a TV anime shows up that has above-par animation (Air, Saikano, and so on). And remember, also, that American TV animation doesn't look too much better than most anime. It's mostly the feature films that get the big budgets. |
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Digital Dreamer
 Posts: 287 Location: Sydney, Australia |
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As the end of the day with anime, it really comes down to who is animating and how much money they can afford to put into the series. If you are going to compair disney, then you might want to give some exmples of disney shows that you looking at. There is no scene in compairing Disney Mulan (a movie) with Chrono Crusade (with is a TV series). Keep in mind that Disney is a very big company, therefore they have some rather deep pockets. Some time, some of these anime studios are working out of their own appartment, and only hiring a sound studio when it's needed. Eg. Orginal Macross Series was one of them. And there is some times where budgets are changed or chopped. Some time you might notice some series (TV or OVA) where the later episodes where not as well animated. Shadow Skill TV was a classic example where it was very clear that they were hiring other animators from one episodes to the next. Like I heard that EVA when grossly over budget, hence the reason why some of the episodes where animated differently. Especailly the last 2 episodes. It really comes down to how much money they have to spend per episode. And in the case of TV series, they can some times be stretching the budject rather thinly.
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Cloe
Moderator
Posts: 2728 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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I don't think I'd consider "funding" and "outsourcing" the same thing. 95% of TV animation is outsourced these days, including both American and Japanese. The closest thing (that I can think of) to an example of what lachesis was inquiring would be The Animatrix, in which the Wachowski Brothers provided funding for Japanese animation studios to produce feature-quality short films. (Incidentally, Studio 4°C animated many of the shorts! <3 <3)
It's true that the movement from traditional, hand-painted cels to digital scanning and coloring has cut costs immensly (and vastly improved the visual quality of anime, IMHO), but every extra drawing is extra time and money that has to be spent. The fewer the drawings, the farther you can stretch a budget. |
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hrtrunks
 Posts: 65 |
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It's nice that people notice that about anime. I personaly can't belive people who just don't notice bad animation. it drives me crazy. Like when people are reviewing anime and they usualy give GITS:SAC 10/10 in animation... I mean, SAC has such a low animation in some episodes on characters that its just awful. Oh, and btw, can someone tell me does 2nd gig have a more constant animation that the first season? Thanks.
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Kiyomaro
 Posts: 213 Location: Chicago,Illinois |
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Back in the '60s,Tezuka used only 8 frames per second in order for his animation staff to produce a new episode every week.
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Kruszer
 Posts: 8016 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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Looking at anything produced in the latter half of the 90's or later, I don't really notice any differences, personally. It's mostly the older titles that don't use computers for a little ajustment that I notice are shakey.
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Isaaru
 Posts: 375 Location: the oppressed colonies in outer space |
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I always thought anime was a little overrated when compared to the superior Disney quality.
Years ago, I always noticed excessive panning shots, up close shots of the same scenes, speed lines replacing backgrounds ( and I thought Hanna Barbara was lazy..sheesh), repeat shots, dramatic yelling scenes where only the mouth moves and the face remains frozen (but the zooming draws us from taking note...hehe). But heh, it's cutting corners like this that developed anime what it is today (because lack of $$$ makes it hard to duplicate the Total Disney Experience). Such genius and creativity to aid great writing (especially in the past) makes watching anime worthwhile. |
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Evasiege
Posts: 34 Location: Colorado Springs, CO |
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Usually it depends on how much CG is involved with the animation. Most of the newer animes use half CG half drawing where as older shows like Berserk are completely hand drawn frame by frame. However, I don't consider Berserks animation bad as I can enjoy and appreciate a completely hand drawn series if its done right. IMO its much harder to go frame by frame rather than CG which is why some people consider older animes having more talented artists.
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Digital Dreamer
Posts: 287 Location: Sydney, Australia |
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One thing that i don't like is poor quality cgi. Unlike part quality drawning or cell animation, poor quality cgi really stands out as looking $#!+. The Shadow Skill: Secret of the Kurudan Style is a classic example of this. |
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Cloe
Moderator
Posts: 2728 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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Oh, I am in complete agreeance with you. One reason I'm less a fan of Studio GONZO than most people is the often poor integration with the 2D art and the CGI. Sometimes it works well (a la Blue Submarine No.6) but sometimes it just looks AWFUL (such as in Final Fantasy: Unlimited or certain episodes of Last Exile). Also, Shadow Skill: Secret of the Kurudan Style is possibly the worst 3D animation I've seen in my life. *shudder* |
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lachesis
Posts: 25 |
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Thanks for all the wonderful replies
Looking back I have to hold my hand up and say that the comparison between most anime and Disney wasn't fair. But in retrospect, if we take a look at TV animation from the late 80's onwards - things like SuperTed, Bananaman, Spiderman etc, were smoothly animated (at least in the UK). I realise that some of these were funded by obviously Granada and the BBC, but I thought they were great quality - when comparing to Chrno Crusade etc. which is about 2001-ish?). As people have mentioned as well the costs are falling of animation, so I thought maybe the producers like to keep it as a 'unique' aspect of Japanese produced animation. I'm learning a lot from this thread and it's great information that I'm desparate for
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