Agreed. Whenever I watch old classic anime with my wife (I don't ever rewatch alone), I am shocked how ugly it was and how most of my memories of beautiful art is just nostalgia.
Agreed. Whenever I watch old classic anime with my wife (I don't ever rewatch alone), I am shocked how ugly it was and how most of my memories of beautiful art is just nostalgia.
Peace.
Or it WAS beautiful...for the time.Originally Posted by shinta|hikari
Yes, just think about old games. An early 2000's AAA game in its own time would have looked amazing, but if you get it to launch today, it will look like a pile of pixel trash. The difference is not as huge in anime, but the psychological viewpoint effect is the same.
I mean, depends on what old anime you rewatch. I usually have the opposite in that I realize "damn, anime looked so great". Just recently rewatched "Now and Then, Here and There", and it's still a beautiful anime.
Regarding that anime posted on the previous page, I don't know that one, BUT: I still think this looks better than similar school gag-anime of today. The animation isn't better per se, but it's more cleverly applied. I watched the entire video and there's never a boring moment, the animation really keeps things moving. Compared to today's anime where the camera would just pan forever along a still image and nobody would move in that scene.
Comparing individual anime isn't useful anyway. I'd stay with the claim: The number of standouts was greater back then and has been decreasing. That something like Sousou no Frieren is being praised is proof of that. Outside of the battle animation in the past 2-3 episodes, there really wasn't anything special animation-wise in that anime. But compared to all the rest that's airing? Yeah, it's kinda nice.
"She's the only non-loli girl in the show, your honor!" will be my defense in court
This is your nostalgia bias. That's why I also mentioned Trigun (1998) and Galaxy Angel (2001, 2002, 2003, 2004) that were both made by Madhouse. The first hailed as one of their true masterpieces. The second is in a similar genre to Rizelmine (slapstick comedy) and with a similar visual aesthetic but is substantially better animated. Rizelmine looks like trash to anyone being fair about it. It uses shortcuts that fans tear series apart over today for being shit or lazy animation. Pan, mouth flaps, pan back, mouth flaps while staying on the same key frame for long stretches. It certainly does not look better than gag anime today.
You know what else aired in Spring 2002? .hack/sign, Chobits (also by Madhouse), Azumanga Diaoh, Tenshi na Konamaiki, and the original Tokyo Mew Mew. All highly acclaimed, well remembered (maybe not Tenshi na Konamaiki, but I still like that one), and continuing to come up in conversation or memes. Not for being visual powerhouses. They're plain, their line art is blurry, and backgrounds are full of soft focus.
The overall floor for visual quality has been raised whether you want to admit it or not.
Then, how many people remember Baby Baa-chan, Bakutou Sengen Daigander, Bakutou Sengen Daigander, Full Moon o Sagashite (I do), Happy Lesson, The Twelve Kingdoms (more people should), King of Bandit Jing, Tenchi Muyou! GXP, Tokyo Underground? Not a lot.
You can argue that this somehow translates to "less standouts" but that's also not true. There's just fewer series you're interested in today. I have the same problem. I dropped hack/sign back then. I watched maybe 5 episodes of Tokyo Mew Mew back then because I've never been into Precure-style shows. People gushed over a few shows the last three seasons that I couldn't stand more than a single episode.
You try to make this argument every season, and it simply isn't true because you're either moving the goalposts, viewing everything through nostalgia bias, or simply unaware of the absolute trash the industry used to put out. I watched 10 series in a single season just a few seasons ago, which is more than I used to ever consider in the mid-2000s.
Last edited by Ryllharu; Sat, 03-16-2024 at 04:41 AM.
I will take the time at some other time to search a couple of animation standouts, because I really think the peak of anime was better 20 years ago or so.
What I'll concede for now is that you're probably partly right when you say "I liked these anime better, therefore you mistake it for better animation". That might be true: anime had better stories back then and knew how to present them better with the level of animation available. I mean, just look at a show like Chiyuu, the healer isekai. It looks like trash animation-wise. But MAL has it at a shockingly high 7.46-score and there are actual fans of this anime. Or what's this other hyped series, about elite classes fighting each other, hero name being Ayanokouchi, the animation is absolutely generic. You'd think action-anime would be different, but honestly, even something like Ishura is only slightly better than the rest. So where I can't agree with you is when you say "the overall floor has been raised".
"She's the only non-loli girl in the show, your honor!" will be my defense in court
You're mistaking "character design" for "animation". They're different and the former has very little important compared to the latter.
Character design trends come and go. The 80s and 90s were generally normally proportioned compared to the late 90s and early 2000s dinner plate eyes before drifting back to something more normal. Female characters went from ultra skinny to ultra top-heavy and now have leveled off again like the 80s but with less hips. Male characters went from top-heavy to rectangular and stayed there. You call it generic, I call it balanced.
But the animation has fundamentally improved on the average despite the quantity of series per season doubling or quadrupling (if you count Winter/Summer no longer being the "off seasons"). The lines are sharper, the backgrounds are more detailed when the stylistic choice isn't watercolor-esque. Think visible forests versus green smears with some lines in them to give the impression of trees.
There's cuts in all the sequences today. They don't pan and scan. They don't frame it so they can reuse the backgrounds. They'll frame dialogues in Reverse Angle shots now.
Most of all, characters move during dialogue. They didn't used to nearly as much, just mouth flaps and jerking abrupt movements.
A good example of all these newer techniques is in Kanojo mo Kanojo. Very simple character designs. Very simple "animation" at first glance. But the cuts are constant and rapid, there's always something moving in frame beside the character mouths, and there's simply rapid motion constantly, which reinforced the frenetic pace of the series. That didn't happen before. Many series were methodically slow (e.g. Chobits), and there are still some like that today, but the art is still crisper, even within CLAMP series.
That's why I picked Rizelmine as an example. A then and currently still prominent studio, using techniques to cut costs widely spread by JC Staff and Gainax's 2nd rate offerings. Stuff Madhouse didn't do before or after that particular series. There's more motion reference key frames nowadays, characters were always stiff and still before. The majority of the rapid "animation" movement in Rizelmine is zooms and pans on a wider frame to simulate what animators are doing now natively within frame.
Or look at the fluidity of Urusei Yatsura's remake compared to the original. Same scenes, huge differences in the techniques employed. Both very well-funded series for their respective times.
Classroom of the Elite is trash though, I'll concede that. It's had progressive downgrades since 2017, and it was of average character design then. LN fans are displeased at the direction and adaptation. I wouldn't say the series is hyped after Season 2 lost the majority of its previous fans, including me.
The healer iseaki is novel in concept and execution. The protagonist isn't whiny, has to actually work and train at his rare talent, and while it is simple in plot, it is well executed. The rare talent doesn't make him invincible; the mentor is clear to point that out. The character design is average and certainly a bit nostalgic to me. You're just butthurt it isn't more of Redo of Healer.
And 7.5 is at best "average-good" for the notoriously skewed MAL ratings. MAL is just like video game review scores. 'Anything less than a 7.0 is dogshit.' MAL's entire range is 5.5 to 9.2 (whatever FMA:B is at or needs to be pushed to over a series that temporarily dethrones it). You have to go to 4200 to get below 7.0
I'd be surprised if anyone knew of the series that are below 6.4, a quick glance seemed to be mostly very old minor shows and single episode specials that have their own entry for some stupid reason. It is highly amusing that FBA:B has 1.2 million more reviewers than any series near it in the rankings, all sockpuppet accounts of the cult.
Last edited by Ryllharu; Sat, 03-16-2024 at 06:11 AM.
Yeah, I don't know what's with the FMA-hype. It was fun to watch and I probably liked it better than One Piece or Bleach, but it shouldn't be the best anime in any ranking other than maybe a "best shounen"-ranking (which I'd give to HXH).
"She's the only non-loli girl in the show, your honor!" will be my defense in court
HxH's cult isn't as strong on MAL as FMAB's. It was one of the series I was referencing when I said, "1.2 million more reviewers than any series near it in the rankings"
But in HXH' case it's not a cult, the anime is just legitimately that good :P:P:P
"She's the only non-loli girl in the show, your honor!" will be my defense in court
I know you're joking, but every top 10 anime list has the same shows in it, and it isn't solely because they're legitimately good.
FMAB, Gintama, Steins;Gate, and Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Those are the four active anime list management cults. Rurouni Kenshin Reminiscence used to be the fifth.
MAL thankfully provides easy views on the number of votes. Twice as many votes as any other series that "threatens" their dominance of the ranks. Very prolonged pointless battle when Kaguya-sama unseated FMAB through its smaller but avid fanbase at a number of sites. There will be another with Frieren soon.
Man...I pine for the days when I still thought Yugioh was the bottom of the character design barrel...
It's a personal favorite of mine.
It has everything that's good about anime. Avoids most of what's sketchy about anime. Has great characters. A great story. Is a manageable length. And has a satisfying ending.
It's my go-to choice when asked what someone's first anime should be.
I mean, "Legend of the Galactic Heroes" deserves any high top spot, too, it is THAT good. Added benefit: It filters out casuals who have the attention span of a Tiktok-user.
@Darth: I'm not saying FMA is bad, but I think anyone who puts ANY shounen-anime as the #1 should probably watch more anime. Shounen is the absolute beginner genre of anime, the real good stories are from other genre, any other genre.
"She's the only non-loli girl in the show, your honor!" will be my defense in court
To be fair, FMA proper (which FMAB is an adaptation of), is really good. It has pretty flawless planning from the very start through to the epilogue, good character development for both main and supporting cast, and consistently paced with very little if any padding because it almost always gets a callback. It's certainly Arakawa's best work.
But it isn't better than any anime ever, for all time. I still give it a hit for not starting over and making you go back to the original anime for the first several arcs.
I'd still put ARIA above it by a hair. A slice of life show and the only series to truly shock me with a plot twist. If Dungeon Meshi gets a full adaptation of the entire story, it will top FMA:B for me too.
Wait, so you're saying the first anime adaptation is better than Brotherhood? Despite everyone else saying the opposite?
"She's the only non-loli girl in the show, your honor!" will be my defense in court
FMA Proper = The manga and the only complete version of the story as intended by Arakawa.
I did make an edit to clarify, but was too slow. I'm not a fan that FMAB still makes you go back to the original series to get the complete story.
The original is better...up until the point it diverges from the manga. Mainly because, Brotherhood kind of...rushes it's way through the parts the original already covered, even skipping a few(which then have to be shown in flashback later in BH, when they become relevant to the plot again).
The original has a more satisfying pacing for those parts of the story. Things like Nina and Hughs hit harder in the original because you spend more time with them first.
The optimal viewing experience for FMA would be something like:
Watch the original up to episode 25.
Switch to Brotherhood and start at episode 11.
That was some hentai level animation lol.
Anyway, I agree that animation quality these days are way better than before. Gundam 0079 or something (the original) was hard to watch. As for MFauli's "generic", there's generic stuff from all eras. Generic stuff from this era is way better animated than previous. The generic artstyle is more consistent though since it's so heavily computer aided.
FMA:B deserves top spot in my opinion. As a complete package it's great. I think anime should have a shortlist of top ones since it's hard to discern the very top one, but it's up there with HxH etc, assuming HxH finishes.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
But Buff, would you really say that there's the same number of standouts nowadays as in the past? This is probably the core of my contention to today's anime' quality. Maybe the base level is higher, but it's never been about the base layer, it's always about the truly great shows. Like, how many anime this season would you say have truly great animation? If you say Frieren, then we already disagree. Even an action-anime like Ishura only has glimpses of better than average-animation.
"She's the only non-loli girl in the show, your honor!" will be my defense in court
I don't really notice amazing animation per se (with exception - like One Punch Man S1 had clearly amazing fight). I tend to notice when a scene should be animated well but doesn't.
I'd notice that I like a show, and then work backwards to figure out why - atmosphere, artstyle, story/plot/pacing, humor or animation (or anything else I missed. VA I guess). I'm not really able to comment on how many this season have great animation because I"m only watching 4 shows (Solo Levelling, Frieren, Dungeon Meshi, Apocathary). None of those shows have animation issues except for a brief part in Frieren E26, 0200 where some orbiting rocks looked slow, as if not enough frames were used to make that layer look smooth (despite Frieren's hair in the foreground animated well and moving at a different pace).
You mention "better than average-animation". Again I'll just highlight that the average is much higher these days, so on an absolute scale I don't know how you're trying to rate it.
Without going back and actually counting shows, I'd say that the standouts across time are probably relatively stable. I don't think they've dropped. There's just a lot more shows to sift through in order to find them so it feels like they're proportionally less common.
I watch less anime and seem less keen to follow new shows as they come out, but I'm not sure that anime quality is to blame there. Sequels aside, I get interested in a show if I see an interesting artwork or title. A promising studio or word-of-mouth also lends it weight. Sometimes the premise helps too. Sometimes this doesn't work out.
This season I branched out from the above 4 and I checked out Kekkon Yubi Monogatari because I liked the title (Ep1 didn't engage me), and I checked out Witch and the Beast because the setting and title sounded cool, but again Ep1 fell short of expectations.
I might like the subject matter and individualised styles of some begone decades because I like adventure/fantasy/robot anime with pointy chins etc, but that's not an animation issue. I do think Pre-timeskip Naruto's art looked better than Shippuuden though. I like a gritty look. Shippuuden looks really clean and I didn't like that.
Last edited by Buffalobiian; Mon, 03-18-2024 at 04:44 AM.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
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