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GATSU wrote:

What I'm wondering is why everyone's complaining about the CG, and not going through what's essentially the same story. Is there any way it was expanded or improved somehow?

For one thing, there are plenty of people that will be watching this that did not watch the series or read the manga. Given the age of the tv series, it's not at all surprising that they felt the need to revisit the early parts of the story in order to lay the ground work for what is to come. It would be a pretty big risk to just jump straight into the Black Swordsman arc without any sort of setup since it would likely deter new people.

If this movie had been made closer to around 2000, I'd probably agree that it was a needless rehash, but it's been 15 years since the series so it seems reasonable to revisit the beginning material.

Does anyone know whether the gore/sex etc, is toned down?

There was a Berserk special on last week's MAGnet TV where they did show that some of the battle scenes were motion captured. The guy was a Caucasian who runs a European sword fighting dojo in Tokyo.

Anime_Connoisseur wrote:

I'm not convinced yet that the animation is that bad. It actually looked decent in the clip of the first 10 minutes of the film, which can be found posted online. First 10 minutes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH9mPrbzz-k

The 2D animation that I've seen looks pretty good. I'm happy with the style of character design and the crisp art direction.

The 3D animation does look a bit awkward at times, but I kind of liked it at the same time. Unfortunately, it would have been too expensive to use entirely full animation techniques in 2D. The use of 3D CGI avoids budget, time, and animator staff constraints while still allowing for the depiction of epic battles and detailed sword fights (i.e. sword fights are not just a series of simple close ups of each character swinging a sword; you actually see swordplay captured in a long shot). Ultimately, I prefer the use of 3D animation over LAZY LIMITED 2D animation techniques (I hate seeing a cell dragged across a screen). Had I been part of this project I probably would have made the same call.

The reviewer saw the entire film, you didn't. Also it does look bad several times, especially the animation, it looks janky.

vashfanatic wrote:

That said, if this comes to where I live, I am watching it. With much embarrassment at the ticket booth, but I will watch it.

What would be embarrassing about it? It's a pretty badass series... it's not like buying a ticket for Queen's Blade or something.

ZODDGUTS wrote:

Anime_Connoisseur wrote:

I'm not convinced yet that the animation is that bad. It actually looked decent in the clip of the first 10 minutes of the film, which can be found posted online. First 10 minutes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH9mPrbzz-k

The 2D animation that I've seen looks pretty good. I'm happy with the style of character design and the crisp art direction.

The 3D animation does look a bit awkward at times, but I kind of liked it at the same time. Unfortunately, it would have been too expensive to use entirely full animation techniques in 2D. The use of 3D CGI avoids budget, time, and animator staff constraints while still allowing for the depiction of epic battles and detailed sword fights (i.e. sword fights are not just a series of simple close ups of each character swinging a sword; you actually see swordplay captured in a long shot). Ultimately, I prefer the use of 3D animation over LAZY LIMITED 2D animation techniques (I hate seeing a cell dragged across a screen). Had I been part of this project I probably would have made the same call.

The reviewer saw the entire film, you didn't. Also it does look bad several times, especially the animation, it looks janky.

Just to add to Zoddguts's post, I'm offended by Anime_Connoisseur's remark on lazy limited 2D animation. Limited animation has its own merits and strengths. When a limited animation is done right, it is also a powerful visual presentation just as full animation with every moving parts.

I think that some people who never drew a decent picture from observation, let alone doing a traditional 2D animation, say ignorant remark like this. I do admit that budget, time, and labor are main factors for the studio to use 3D for complicated shots like crowd animation. However, the Studio's careless approach for cel shaded CG made the scenes look bad. Critical parts like faces, hair, folds of cloth at close camera angle are something that audience pay most attention to. Subtle movements and gestures of motion capture sticks out like a sore thumb if it's not done right.

Rather than controlling the every aspect of CG, Japanese creators let CG to run its own course. Such approach ruined the visual of great potential.

Here's an example of having CG to go wild without good supervision:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=87aSFzJqn74

See how bad Guts and Casca CG models look?

However, I don't totally dismiss the 2D/3D hybrid when it's done right.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&list=FLtkNxlcdXIrtQzaDObnkDXQ&v=_9AScgKEY9E

This is similar to the film in terms of quality, but made by indie animators
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=C2oXhYrLvvQ

So let's hope that sequels have improvement and I hope that Japanese fans raise stink about the CG quality used in the film.

They didn't have enough budget, end of story. For them to release all that content in one year was too much with traditional drawings. Hopefully this makes them enough profit to continue as OVAs.

Greed:

Quote:

Given the age of the tv series, it's not at all surprising that they felt the need to revisit the early parts of the story in order to lay the ground work for what is to come.

How do you know there is more to come, and they're not just using it to sell more manga?

Quote:

It would be a pretty big risk to just jump straight into the Black Swordsman arc without any sort of setup since it would likely deter new people.

But it would've been cheaper for them to make one movie and just pay for a 'flashback' sequence. And more respectful to the fans who've been waiting for a new Berserk anime to be an actual sequel.

Quote:

but it's been 15 years since the series so it seems reasonable to revisit the beginning material.

Why? Everyone knows what the hell went on by now. At least the new Hunter x Hunter will please people who hated the old show's music and low-rent animation. But Berserk TV was fine the way it was, and was considered the gold standard for anime adaptations. I know anime reboots aren't new, but at least they actually did something with the look or tone in different editions. The only thing new about, say, the new Eva, so far is Mari.

Raikuro wrote:

vashfanatic wrote:

That said, if this comes to where I live, I am watching it. With much embarrassment at the ticket booth, but I will watch it.

What would be embarrassing about it? It's a pretty badass series... it's not like buying a ticket for Queen's Blade or something.

I'm a white female living in a small city Japan. I am very noticeable and not exactly in the usually-conceived demographic for this series (i.e. men).

Last edited by Sven Viking on Wed Feb 08, 2012 7:02 am; edited 2 times in total

myousefi wrote:

They didn't have enough budget, end of story. For them to release all that content in one year was too much with traditional drawings. Hopefully this makes them enough profit to continue as OVAs.

This :/. Unfortunately they also didn't have enough budget for really high-quality CG.

I'm really looking forward to it anyway, though. A larger budget was probably never a possibility, and I'm much happier with this than nothing. Limited 2D animation probably would have been less distracting, but fully-animated fights are a big plus for something like Berserk.

Does anyone have any idea what the timescale for a european/american/subtitled release is ?

Count Saint-Germain wrote:

Does anyone have any idea what the timescale for a european/american/subtitled release is ?

While I have no real idea, I'd guess the Japanese blu-ray releases should at least be relatively prompt, since you'd expect them to try to get the previous film's blu-ray out at about the same time as each new film.

They've also said in interviews that they're really targeting an international market with these films, since Berserk has more global popularity than a lot of manga. Hopefully that might translate into a faster English release(?)

generalkorn12 wrote:

Does anyone know whether the gore/sex etc, is toned down?

I saw it in theaters this week. It is, but only a little bit. I think it's because the CG animation makes the film less "gritty" than it's TV counterpart. But have no fear, there's still plenty of people being cleaved in half, with all the requisite gore.

GATSU wrote:

The only thing new about, say, the new Eva, so far is Mari.

Which is, of course, patently false.

GATSU wrote:

stuff

How can your username be Gatsu and have absolutely no idea what the scope and intentions of this project are?

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