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Otaku that watch only anime that "looks" good

While I'd agree that there's not a causal relationship between animation quality and script strength, you'd probably have a hard case to say that they're not correlated.

The other reason is a much less optimistic opinion, anime generally aren't well written.

For me at least, I've watched a good deal of anime, and my patience with the mediocre ones has shortened noticeably. I can sit through a show with a mediocre script if the art and/or animation is pretty, or occasionally I'll sit through a poorly animated show with a good script. Realistically though? The latter is nigh impossible to find for two reasons. If a show has a good script it'll almost certainly be awarded a budget large enough to allow the animation to keep up with the story.

sanosuke32 wrote:

Nope, not true. Advent Children was not meant to be a movie, but merely an epilogue since the game never really ended. If you thought of it as a movie, you probably didn't enjoy it, and if you expected a brand new story, then that explains why you thought it had no story.

Grow up. I didn't want to dignify you with a response, but to dismiss an extremely valid view point because it doesn't fall in line with the preconceived notions you have just exposes how immature your position is. I suggest you wait a few more years before so you can recognize the difference between fact and opinion.

I'm not one of those diehard fanboys, EVERYTHING is meant to draw in money, no matter how you look at it. There was no rehash, they didn't talk about jenova cells inside cloud, they didn't talk about hojo or sephiroth's real parents, or didn't talk about Zack Fair. It was a completely new story with the different feelings and emotions of sephiroth. They didn't tie it up as well as I would've liked it to be, but it will do. I agree with you completely it was to milk out money from the fans but it wasn't as bad as say, the first appleseed.

I personally find art/design to be more important than animation. For me, no amount of frames or animation techniques would matter as long as I have to keep staring at the character designs in spoiler[One Piece].

It's still a movie, any way you look at it. I'm well aware of the fact it's meant as an epilogue, it's quite clear from the start of it that knowledge of the game is all but required. It's an epilogue told in a movie format though, like it or not.

Even as an epilogue it still failed completely. It didn't really continue the story, but rather it undid the story and then rehashed it in a quicker, flashier fashion. I don't even think it was meant to be an epilogue either. I'm pretty sure Square meant it as a cash-in to feed off the die-hard fanbase who were so in love with the idea of more FF7 that they would just stand in line.

Unfortunately for them we weren't all fooled. FF7 is still one of my all time favorite RPG's, but frankly, that movie just didn't pull it off. Even the fancy animation didn't hold up to well when it came to movement, and Bahamut looked like one of the plastic looking monsters we remember so fondly from Power Rangers. I wanted to love it, and given the amount of time it was delayed I was incredibly excited when it was released. It would have taken a lot to disappoint me with an FF7 movie, and sadly Square found a way to pull it off.

Assume that the correlation coefficient is zero, then there is little point in considering anime titles outside of those which are good graphically--there is already a large pool of good titles in the other areas from which to choose.

Assume that the correlation coefficient is positive, then there is good reason to only consider anime titles with good graphics, since they are more likely to be better. It is only in the case where the correlation coefficient is negative that there is a good argument against those who only look for titles that have good graphics.

The exception is when the person in question is struggling to find the next title, but that must be established on an individual basis.

The second is a possibility of the straw man argument. Everyone else in the topic is talking about looks in general. Specifically, I, the one who first mentioned correlation between graphics and overall quality, used the term graphics. You can certainly use animation quality to mean any graphical quality which is not essentially arbitrary--such as character design--, but I would like to remind you here that this topic is not restricted to the number of distinct frames that comprise a motion, the number of reused frames, and consistency. The distinction between animation quality and graphical quality leads to the next point.

Quote:

The other reason is a much less optimistic opinion, anime generally aren't well written.

This is irrelevant. The correlation between two variables measures the ratio of change between the two. Thus, it is the relative quality of the graphics and the relative overall quality that we must consider. Whether you consider anime well-written or not in general has no bearing upon this problem, even if we consider the script equivalent to the overall quality.

Now we return to the problem of graphical quality. It is extremely simple for me to find good anime titles with bad graphics. This is because graphical quality--and specifically, the measurement system used by those who are the subject of complaint in this topic--makes no allowance for the age of the anime.

The progression from cel to CG is an excellent recent example of this phenomenon. Cel techniques will inherently distort the colors of the background due to the layers of cell that are overlaid, whereas most CG titles do not suffer from this problem. Incidentally, this explains why so many anime fans refuse to watch titles made before 2000--that was about the time the industry switched from traditional cel techniques to CG. Thus, we have a system of measuring graphics that is inherently biased against age, and essentially any "classic" title is an example of an anime with bad graphics and good script--Macross, Zeta Gundam, Space Battleship Yamato, Galaxy Express 999, Bubblegum Crisis, etc. The list continues indefinitely.

But really, what did you expect them to do with the story? In the space of a 2 hour movie it was hardly possible for them to create some brand new story to rival that of the original game. The best you could likely do is come up with might not be bad but in all likelihood would probably end up feeling like a weak compared to the original, sequel/spinoff. Look at Dirge of Cerberus for example. I think I'd rather a slight rehashing of the game than that.

For that matter as well, I think you're overstating how much it rehashed. The main focus was Cloud coming to terms with Aerith's death and learning to move on. That never was really covered in the game. Aerith's death was a significant event in the game as it ensured Cloud and the player's hatred of Sephiroth. However, Cloud's subsequent character development really had very little to do with dealing with that loss or blaming himself for it. It was primarily about his coming to terms with who he was. Being that as the case, I think it was a very valid follow up to look at how Cloud deals with the aftermath of the events of the game and thats what AC provided. A nice conclusion and look at what happens next to a game sorely lacking in that department.

As for the animation, I can't say I had the same complaint. Maybe it wasn't perfect but was it really all that bad relative to the norm? I'll give you that Bahamut looked lame though.

Boomerang Flash wrote:

Quote: The other reason is a much less optimistic opinion, anime generally aren't well written. This is irrelevant. The correlation between two variables measures the ratio of change between the two. Thus, it is the relative quality of the graphics and the relative overall quality that we must consider. Whether you consider anime well-written or not in general has no bearing upon this problem, even if we consider the script equivalent to the overall quality.

No, it is not irrelevant. It is in fact quite relevant to my point. I say that anime budgets are influenced heavily by the quality of their scripts.

Is it really that ambiguous? I don't think it is, you just measure the visual quality of the show compared to everything else released in the same time period.

I already told you my position, if you want to try to determine the worth of a show in terms of its probable budget, script quality, and graphical quality, you have to compare it with other shows that came out in a similar time period. The fact that people tend to frown upon older styles changes absolutely nothing with respect to the budgets required to create them, the quality of the script, or how good the show looks when you compare it to the other shows that came out in a similar time period.

You also seem to be making the assertion that it is all subjective.

The progression from cel to CG is an excellent recent example of this phenomenon. Cel techniques will inherently distort the colors of the background due to the layers of cell that are overlaid, whereas most CG titles do not suffer from this problem. Incidentally, this explains why so many anime fans refuse to watch titles made before 2000--that was about the time the industry switched from traditional cel techniques to CG.