Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - OVAs on the Cob
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mdo7
 Posts: 8233 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Man, these old-school anime OVA really takes me back to the era when OVA introduced a certain audience to sample of of anime and adult animation way before anime become mainstream in the US. Also, I missed those cel animation, they're full of art (not to insult digital ink and pen, they're good artwork too. But there's something about cel animation that I missed a lot as an artform) and cel animation just feel more organic to me. That's all I'm going to say.
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5734 |
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Was there a particular reason why the look and theme of OVAs changed so much after the early 90s? There were still the odd title that had that late 80s early 90s dark grimy style and plot, but most pivoted almost overnight. Was it just a case of new artists and writers entering the industry?
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mdo7
Posts: 8233 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Well, you could say that. That and every generation, the artwork and character design goes through changes. That's what happened when animation goes from cel animation to digital ink and pen. |
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staab99
 Posts: 137 |
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You mentioned Elf Princess Rane but you didn't mentioned the greatest part in that ova
https://youtu.be/2wbJeA-4cOY?si=FqRcA96foZdt77pq I'm so cool, I'm so smart! |
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LadyUranus
Posts: 34 |
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I’m going to guess that some of this has to do with the changes in coloring that came with computer animation. If you look at early 00s anime the shading is rough. While the character design often remains pointy and over the top, the color palettes get simplified and saturated. Not a great option if you’re trying to be dark and edgy. |
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mdo7
Posts: 8233 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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As I said, when the animation switched from cel animation to digital ink and pen, it causes the big change on how animation looked. That's why I have fond nostalgia of cel animation, because of how organic they looked. Again, this is not a stab or a bash toward digital ink and pen, I just think there's something beautiful and artistic when it comes to cel animation. |
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Gina Szanboti
 Posts: 12751 |
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I recognized the artwork and the story description of I'm Not Going Back Now but when I saw it years ago it was called I Shall Never Return (it wasn't very good then, probably still isn't). Why do they keep changing the titles when they re-release stuff? I was shocked when I ran across the idiotic title in the Encyclopedia of Hot Space Cowboys.
 Turned out to be the 1993 classic hentai The Legend of the Blue Wolves. I'm also wondering if My Sexual Harrassment got a new sub translation for OceanVeil. I don't remember any of that "corporate warrior" bullshit in it.
I was actually fairly new to anime and certainly to hentai when I ran across MSH. It honestly kinda blew my as-yet-unjaded mind, since it had an actual story going on, and the whole melancholy vibe seemed counterproductive to what hentai is ostensibly for. Hadn't encountered anything like that in the limited porn I'd seen. And that story is pretty interesting, in a creepy sort of way, with a lot of unexpected symbolism. It's too bad it's all been reduced to the silly corn meme. I'm still kind of amazed by the stellar seiyuu it features: Tsutomu Kashiwakura (Harry in Outlaw Star); Jūrōta Kosugi (Asuma in Naruto, Arlong in One Piece, Jotaro Kujo in the JoJo OVA); Toshiyuki Morikawa (Griffith in Berserk, Naraku in Inuyasha); Houchu Ohtsuka (Satou in Ajin, Jiraiya in Naruto, dozens more); Akira Ishida (Gaara in Naruto, almost everything in the last 35 years); Kikuko Inoue (Belldandy in Ah! My Goddess, Acrobatic Silky in DanDaDan, et al); Minoru Inaba (Dr. Kyudai Garaki in My Hero Academia); Katsuji Mori (Polnareff in JoJo OVA, Mittermeyer in LOGH); Takehito Koyasu (too many to list), etc. I'm also still haunted by the end theme, "City of Glass" (lyrics in the description) by someone credited as "Sammy." Cannot find anything about this person anywhere, but I'd love to hear more of their work. You hear that song and it feels like you're in some darkened jazz lounge sipping bourbon or brandy and just mellowing the hell out. |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 15210 |
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With cel animation, the paint colors darken, and muted a bit, the more cel layers that are put on top of it
When they first switched to digital coloring, they kinda forgot that they didn't have to deal with that anymore - ergo, saturated colors They had to learn a new way to deal with colors |
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Kicksville
 Posts: 1415 |
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Comparing the look of Iczer 3 (the previous OVA in the series) to Iczelion is pretty striking - coloring and shading techniques changed a lot in what seemed like just a few short years.
I have to give Masako Nozawa credit for voicing all of the Iczel robots and managing to make them all sound distinct, to the point I didn't quite realize it was the same actress at first. It would be no surprise had I known ahead of time, seeing as how she's most famous for voicing Goku and his various offspring, and makes them all sound unique even at different ages. |
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mdo7
Posts: 8233 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Whatever enurtsol has written above is correct about why animation looked different back then compared to today. |
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FishLion
 Crazy Fangirl Posts: 861 |
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I wonder if the layered look of cel animation is why so many people find that era to be visually superior to the digital age.
Even if you can technically recreate the exact same colors as cel animation with digital mixing layers of color can often create a more vibrant and textured look than just having a single layer with the final color. That is even how they made Renaissance paintings look as incredible as they did, by mixing a lot of clear medium with the colored pigments to create thin, translucent layers of color that react with the lighting in a more interesting way than result of trying to copy the colors of their painting with a single mixed pigment layer. I always knew something about cel animation produced beautiful restults, but it's neat to learn about the artistic processes and why those might produce different results. |
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MarshalBanana
Posts: 5734 |
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Best way to put it is, why did within a very short span of time, OVAs go from titles like Spirit Warriors, Maryuu Senki, AD Police, Angel Cop and Cyber City Oedo. To Detatoko Princess, Hyper Speed Grandoll, Photon, Saber Marionette and titles shown in this article like Little Bunny Cue and Elf Princess Rane. I'm not complaining about these changes, I just find it rather jarring. |
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Crimson_Dragoon
Posts: 7 |
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I tried to do a little research into this, and while there's probably a number of reasons, the big one seems to be Japan's economic bubble bursting in the early 90s. This affected every aspect of the country, including the anime industry, as animation studios pivoted away from more niche adult content into shows that would be more commercially viable. There's also probably some bias of what we saw coming over to the west. The 90s marks a time when anime starting really gaining traction among kids outside of Japan, and the OVAs that were released here may have been indicative of that trend. |
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